Customer Reviews

Head First WordPress: A Brain-Friendly Guide to Creating Your Own Custom WordPress Blog

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I absolutely love the Head First Series of books and, while they are not the most in depth and complex books on a subject, I consider them the most user friendly way to quickly and easily learn a challenging and difficult topic. So when I learned they were coming out with a book on Wordpress I quickly preordered it and then waited, and waited, and waited until...now. At last the book arrived and I'm not disappointed. For the average user (and let's face it, even the above average user) this is everything you need to know about how to install and use Wordpress for all but the most advanced website tasks.

While most people will choose to install Wordpress using the "one click" installation service offered by their hosting provider, the Headfirst book starts with a detailed description of how to download and install it the old fashioned way...manually. Even if you were to choose not to use the "one click" method (which I would advise against), reviewing this section gives you a good idea of the nuts and bolts of your Wordpress installation.

Next they cover the basics of posting and using images in your posts, including basic problems, troubleshooting and even covering file permissions. When it comes to changing your blogs appearance they do a very good job of describing templates, including third party templates, and also provide a solid overviews of HTML, PHP and CSS and how you can use it to modify your sight. Widgets are covered in depth as well.

The aspect of Wordpress I was most interested in learning more about was how to use it as a Content Management System (CMS) and the book covers the subject well, including a very good discussion on how to structure your website, how to modify your permalinks, set up the navigation bar and to use the visual editor.

There is an entire chapter devoted to embedding and handling video on the site which I felt was very important. Again, they covered not just how to embed video, but how to keep the video on your site organized and well structured, as well as various plugins that can be used to add extra functionality to the site. One part I didn't expect was the information on how to podcast, which I thought was interesting. This was covered in conjunction with advice on setting up syndication and using Feedburner. I personally have never done any podcasting, but it's nice to know that the information is there if I need it. I did appreciate the discussion on syndication however and thought it made getting set up on Feedburner easier and less confusing I remember it being.

There is a chapter devoted to Wordpress security which, having suffered from malware and virus attacks on my Wordpress blogs in the past, I thought was a good idea. One can never be too secure when it comes to the Internet and the advice in this chapter is solid.

If your new to Wordpress this is a excellent book to get you started. I highly recommend it. I found this more user friendly and readable than any other Wordpress book I have read or reviewed. If you use Wordpress but want to understand it and get more out of it I highly recommend this book as well, especially if you want to learn how to go into the code to modify the appearance of your site. IF you want to use Wordpress to it's full functionality get this book.

I can only assume that the two glowing reviews were written by people that skimmed the contents and didn't actually work through it. Why? Because you can't!

There's quite a few important errors and no errata online. The web links to get the work files (I miss CDs) are wrong and when you're redirected to the correct page the files may or may not be there. Example, page 71, "Download 'Acmestyle.css' from..." I downloaded the chapter two file, unZipped it and the two Zip files that were in the resulting folder. There is no "Acmestyle.css" or mention of it in the files nor on the book's web page. This book was published a few months ago, surely they've noticed the problems and fixed them. Nope.

Out of frustration, as I couldn't continue without the file, I did a web search for "Acmestyle.css" and that lead to a link to a O'Reilly forum message where others reported the problem almost two months ago(!) and one poster said that it appears to be the same as the "screen.css" file inside one of the folders downloaded. I looked and it is very close to what I saw on the screen, not exact but darn close and would get me unstuck. I looked at some other messages on this book and saw there's more unanswered problems with the book's contents I have to look forward to. Swell.

In places this book is pretty nice like some other Head First books (I have several) that I have learned from, but in others it's as clear as mud!

I don't mind some errors in books as they happen and that's what errata pages are for. Problem is that there aren't any. There's no help from the author or O'Reilly in the forum either. I saw that the author commented to a review here, I think he (and we, the buyers of the book) would be better served if he spent some time making an errata for the book and maybe helping out in the forum -- anonymously would be fine. Note: The version of the TwentyTen template this book is using in WP 3.0 is a little different from the current one in WP 3.0.1 so that can be a bit confusing (errata idea?) but not major.

I bought this book to learn from, not struggle with. Luckily, I have other options. It goes back!

I have some experience with CSS and content management - through Windows and Expression Web. Since WordPress is a "canned" program and best hosted on Linux I purchased Head First WordPress to get a fundamental understanding of the program and a structured step by step in "how to" but was greatly disappointed. This book was supposedly designed for beginners. As such, one would expect a cohesive series of lessons. Instead I found it to be a rambling work, not suitable to get a real understanding and feel for the WordPress parts and how they fit together. I would not recommend this book. While the price of the book was attractive I remember what someone told me a long time ago - "cheap is dear". As my next step I will move on to a more comprehensive tome.

Recently, I seem to be receiving quite a few WordPress books for review. For anyone investigating building your blog initiative, Head First WordPress is the best I have read yet. The Head First books always present the information numerous ways to catch your attention, highlight key areas and make you contemplate new topics before moving along.

Head First Wordpress starts the reader with a basic understanding of the platform, quick install, dashboard and a quick walk through making your first posting. While I run many blogs (including this one) on Wordpress, I appreciated the way anyone could have read this first chapter and felt comfortable in posting via WordPress.

Chapter 2 moves into simple and advanced design changes with a ground floor introduction to the anatomy of WordPress, PHP usage, templates, themes, stylesheets, widgets and more. With these 40 pages you should be able to make simple changes, add widgets, change a few PHP files and create a custom homepage.

Chapters 3 and 4 work together in organization and showing how WordPress can be a content management system using categories and the strength of using tags in conjunction. Simplifying navigation and changing colors is a focus in the CSS section. Roles of users and commenting ability rounds out the 70+ pages in these two chapters.

Podcasting and video embedding are a major focus in social media right now and Chapter 5 covers all aspects. Even a sample breakdown of xml usage and possible plug-ins are listed so anyone could begin sharing media quickly. I appreciated how they showed numerous examples of hosting your own, embedding and pulling content from remote sites in Chapter 5. They carried this into Chpater 6 with the explanation of RSS and how this shares your content further than anyone just reading your blog on the web.

Now even I learned some tricks in Chapter 7 for locking down your WordPress servers. From security in accounts, directory security, backups and the power of plug-ins was covered in a middle level with plenty of diagrams, pictures and step-by-step tutorials.

Chapter 8 dove into external versus self hosting, WordPress speed improvements, tracking (such as Google Analytics) and caching of your files. I knew of some of the plug-ins they explained and suggested, but the breakdown of how they functioned was incredibly helpful.

Just when you felt they were done they toss another 10 pages of 10 tips that didn't quite fit anywhere else in the book. The book is based on recent WordPress versions as they used the beta of 3.0 for examples and screenshots making it a must have for anyone upgrading and new to Wordpress.

This will make it into TheSocialNetworker book selections. I place the top technical books I have reviewed there.

When I wanted to learn WordPress I chose Headfirst Wordpress because I had heard good things about the Headfirst series of books. Unfortunately Headfirst Wordpress did not live up to this reputation.

The first problem is that the exercises are confusing because of some erroneous or missing information. For example the book will give you a file name and tell you to download it from the Headfirst Labs website, but when you go to get it there's no such file. An example of this is in chapter 2 when it tells you to look for a file called 'Acmestyle.css' and what they really mean is 'style.css'. Might seem obvious to some but when this is all new to you, that's confusing! It also takes extra time to figure out; time that I would rather spend learning the tool.

Where the book really takes a nosedive is in chapter 4. In the first 3 chapters you have been building a site/blog called Acme Bit Blog. On the first page of chapter 4 you are suddenly working with a new site called 'Thanks for Mutton'. The remaining exercises in the book are based editing the 'Thanks for Mutton' site. The book provides you with a web address for 'Thanks for Mutton' however there is no way for you to log in to the dashboard with full administrative rights. This is extremely confusing and I spent at least 40 minutes reading and re-reading the chapter to see if I was missing something. I finally checked Headfirst forums and found many other people complaining about the same thing. The Headfirst Editor's response to these complaints was unsatisfactory to say the least. The response was that you should create another instance of Wordpress and build the 'Thanks for Mutton' site from scratch in order to do the exercises. WHAT??? The book expected me to just assume that? Secondly, why would I want to do that when I just spent the previous three chapters building the Acme Bit site.

To sum up, I would strongly recommend against this book simply because I spent too much time trying to sort through the errors and confusion and not enough time learning WordPress.

I have really enjoyed the Head First series, but this book does not live up to what I have come to expect. I have purchased and gone cover-to-cover through Head First HTML & CSS, Head First Javascript, Head Rush Ajax, Head First PHP & MySQL, and Head First Web Design. Loved them all. In comparison, Head First WordPress is a mess. The numerous typos are one thing. Making matters worse is the disjointed presentation of the material. The book jumps around between topics, and so far has never stopped to give you a check-point (something like, here is what your completed code/page should look like now.... snippets everywhere, but no completed picture) Also, the download files do not match up with the code snippets in the book. I quickly lost confidence that the text was correct. I got to the point that when something didn't work as described, I couldn't tell if I did something wrong, or if the text was just messed up again.

Some instructions as are missing and others are wrong. Particularly irritating was the section on permalinks ... it basically says, if this explanation doesn't work, here's a forum link, go figure it out for yourself.

The more I study, the less tolerance I have for books that waste my time. I set this book aside before finishing chapter 2.

The first chapter is excellent but don't expect to get through Chapter 2. Much of the information in the chapter is wrong and you will not successfully be able to navigate through it. The author has created a new subsection for chapter 2 in the forums and it works but the chapter is still basically a bunch of css thrown at the user and I would be amazed that a relative beginner would understand it. I have strong css, php, html skills and I found it very time consuming, frustrating to work through the example.

Avoid! They go on and on about how they use current learning techniques, but then the content is very confusing. It's hard to tell the difference between what you're supposed to be doing and what you're supposed to be reading. I'm on page 71 and hating the experience and now, the first time I visit the HeadFirst site to download some code as requested, THE FILE ISN'T THERE! Sheesh I give up - gonna find a better book.

Having sailed through and been very satisfied with the head first book on HTML & CSS, I assumed this book would be of similar quality and thoroughness.

It is not.

It offers detailed directions on installing wordpress, configuring your installation and database (many steps which were unnecessary on 1and1 and goDaddy's hosting services) and how to configure a myriad of plugins and widgets.

It offers no insight whatsoever on altering the php to fully customize and alter your WP installation.

Perhaps I was truly looking for a book on PHP.
Perhaps you are too.

In short, you can find everything this book offers for free on the web.

I'll preface my remarks by saying that I'm a big fan of Head First's books. I recently purchased their book "HTML with CSS & XHTML" and it is truly fantastic. I sat down with a stack of books at my local bookstore (books I had researched on Amazon) and looked through their first two chapters in an effort to determine which book assumed the least of its readers right out of the gate. I've designed websites but always handed the projects off to developers to be built. As I'm trying to do my own development now, I needed a book that explains everything and assumes I know nothing. Head First's "HTML with CSS & XHTML" does just that. I highly recommend it for beginners on these topics.

Unfortunately Head First's "WordPress" is nothing like "HTML with CSS & XHTML." It assumes a lot of the reader, in addition to being written and edited poorly. It's not an exaggeration to say that there is a typo on every other page. This book is a mess. I was very disappointed with it - mostly for how much coding it assumed I already knew. I have to wonder what the editors at Head First were thinking when they published it, as it does their brand no favors. I also have "WordPress for Dummies" and, while it's not what I was hoping the Head First book would be, it is definitely better.