Customer Reviews

Html for Dummies, Second Edition

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This was the first web design-related book I ever bought. I now own a fairly successful web design company and my collection has expanded to about 30 books. My very first exposure to HTML was through a bunch of online tutorials from all over the place where I learned very basic HTML. I needed to buy a book for two reasons: 1) I wanted to learn more advanced features like tables, frames and forms and 2) I was sick of running all over the web to find everything I wanted, I needed one single resource. Well, this book certainly did the trick.

Tittle and James do a great job at first bringing the reader up to speed on the internet which, as we all know, is the environment of HTML pages. Then they went into an introduction of HTML basics which is the part I skipped because, as I said before, I had already learned that stuff online. Then it was on to the most valuable section of the book: a complete list of the "HTML tag team" and a complete listing of the entire ISO-Latin-1 character set. You have no idea how many times I refer back to these sections every day. They are worth the $20 alone. Then they covered the advanced topics such as tables, frames and forms and grouped them all together in the same general area of the book which was convenient because those were the main topics I set out looking for. Towards the end, they give some very useful tips on coding and design that will help in any project you do.

The only 2 other books on HTML that are worth your money are HTML Goodies by Joe Burns and HTML 4: A Visual Quickstart Guide by Elizabeth Castro. I would reccomend any and all of these three as they all have their own strong and weak points. I would say that between the two aforementioned, HTML Goodies would compliment this Dummies book the best because it discusses topics that I missed in the Dummies book. For example, Goodies does an excellent job at explaining how CGI works in HTML while Dummies briefly touches on it and then refers you to their CD. This, along with other relevant issues, were either missing from the Dummies book or only on the CD. There were many other topics as well that I looked up in the index only to find out that they were on the CD which is much more of a hassle than flipping the pages of a book. Other than that, HTML for Dummies was a great tutorial and as I said before, the HTML tag listing and character set listings are indispensable and the best I have ever seen. For a well-rounded easy-to-read basic tutorial that also serves as a helpful reference, look no further.

I am a seasoned web developer and I cut my teeth on this book years ago. It is a perfect way to go from knowing nothing to knowing enough to get a basic site up and running. The title says for DUMMIES, thus it assumes you know virtually NOTHING about HTML. Most people who didn't like this book already knew about HTML.

I have been reading tech/web books for years now and its safe to say that this is a great place to begin and to use as a reference until you are ready to get into more complex designing and development.

I started reading this book and within eight hours I had my first web page up for the world to see. There is no greater feeling than publishing for the first time! Enjoy the journey!

I was given this book as a gift and promptly returned it. To but it bluntly, this book is subpar with respect to its competition. In its place I purchased Elizabeth Castro's "HTML For The World Wide Web 4". Castro's book is an excellent reference and a great value. Then I came across Joe Burns' "HTML Goodies" and my search ended for a SUPERIOR beginner's book on HTML. Burn's book is a peerless product in terms of content, presentation, value and his uncanny ability to clearly communicate. Don't be fooled by that slick yellow/black cover. Seek out Burns' and Castro's books and at $35.00 for the PAIR you'll be happy, hapy, happy.

I can do just about anything on a computer but program, so I was worried about learning the HTML language. Thanks to this book, I learned HTML quickly. The disk included with the book also was a big help, since it gave me lots of references to help me with tough coding. I now have several Web pages up and running, but I make sure to keep the book handy for a quick reference. Highly recommended!

This book took me from screwing around on adobe pagemill to creating my church webpage even before it was finished!Thank you. Also, don't consider yourself a dummy for buying this book!

Despite detractors, this book is structured well to skim for an overview, and dip into sections required to do specific tasks.

I used the 2nd edition over a 10 day period to learn HTML, and design a website with scanned content, bespoke images (using Corel Photo), more than 500 hyperlinks (laboriously found through lots of search engine use), and create a well structured site that 5 years later still works well (with content additions by present webmasters). This book also proved useful in teaching masters engineering students about html & cgi basics, for use in developing intranet demonstrators in industry.

The key strength is that you understand the basics without relying on packages like Frontpage or Office2000 to "bloat" up webpages unnecessarily. Overall a good basic text and web building block, to be read with something like "Futurize Your Enterprize" by David Siegel to inspire passion in web-pure-play businesses.

This was my first "Dummies" book, so perhaps I did not know what to expect. I was expecting a "how-to" book with lots of worked examples. This was not it. (BTW: My 12-yr old daughter put this down even faster than I did! She wanted to know how to create webpages. This did not do it for her.)

The first 4-5 chapters were boring essays on the history of the web and html. At 90 pages in length, Chapter 6 is apparently the heart of the book. This chapter is basically a HTML manual. It describes all HTML commands using a variant of BNF. Very few examples are given. There is a CD that comes with the book that supposedly contains worked examples. The few that I looked up were not detailed enough for me to infer the patterns.

Chapters 7-22 were short overly general sections discussing various issues. I did like chapter 15 on navigation aids. The end material on evaluating the usability of your website was even more vague (and a lot less entertaining) than a Jakob Nielsen lecture.

The book is concise and full of basic info for the uninitiated. It's a soft and easy read. The only problem with the book is when your on the last few pages, it recommends that you purchase a software package i.e. "FRONT PAGE" or similar package which negates learning HTML in the first place. I could have first purchased the software and saved $23.00 plus tax.

I ordered this book along with Web Design for Dummies expecting to get started writing simple web pages. These books are not for dummies. It offers very little explanation of html tags; it doesn't offer pros or cons of the tag usage vs. another tag; examples are not near the explanation-you need to open the cd to view the eample in question. It spent too much time promoting tools and services outside of the "Dummy" concept.

I was very disappointed with this book...I bought another book which out-performed the Dummy series.

This book is great if you need to know the basics of HTML. I refer over to it if there is something I am looking to do for my webpage. It is easy to understand, especially if you aren't a technical person. If you want to learn basic HTML, this is a great book to get you started building webpages.