Customer Reviews

Look Mom! I Built My Own Web Site

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Look Mom! I Built My Own Web Site" by Zohar Amihud is a book arguably written for young teenagers. It consists of two parts: Building a Web Site and Web Site Hosting.

By all means Part I results tailored for the 11-17 demographic (and I'd even argue it's appropriate for children under 10, considering how advanced kids are these days). It covers most of the basics of HTML: basic tags, images, color, tables and it even gets your feet wet with iFrames (embedding HTML found in one file into another file, for display of things such as menus in multiple places in a web site). This chapter is written in a language that caters better to children (I can imagine some teenagers feeling like they're been talked to as kids, as they read this part).

Part II, however, I found to be more elevated in its language, and begins to depart from the level of Part I. There are a large number of technical matters covered in it that deal with making the right decision for the hosting of your web site. However, I can't avoid but feeling as if it's part of a completely different book.

As a whole, it's a nice book to get for children who want to build their first web site in plain HTML (not using commercial tools or wizards). If you take away the "Look what I did, Mom!" factor, it may also work as a very basic reference for HTML newbies in general (young and old).

***** This is an EXCELLENT guide for beginners! I had my niece come over for a weekend to try it out. Following the step-by-step directions, we created a simple, free web site. Nothing fancy, but plain either. This book begins the creating of a site OFF the internet. In simple words and terms the first few chapters get the "newbie" (for lack of a better term) used to the computer, its files/folders, and inner workings. My niece is around ten-years-old and had only a few problems. I believe that kids around third grade could successfully use this guide. But if you are an adult who is new to computers, this book is perfect for you as well.

The newbie will learn to create a folder on the hard drive at first. Do not worry, there are clear illustrations throughout the book to show you EXACTLY what should be on your monitor. (Added tip for newbies: Put a Notepad short cut on your desk top for easy access.)

Next you will learn about open and closed "tabs". You must understand this part. One error and the page will not work or look correctly. Again, the book CLEARLY shows what you should see. From here on, things get easier. If you do not understand something, go back. If everything is clear to you, then the rest will be a cinch. By now you are in chapter three or four. You will learn about formatting, viewing sources, adding images, links, color and different font types. Next comes cells, tables, how to embed an HTML page within another HTML page. Illustrations show you the way through it all.

From here the book will explain things that you should NOT publish on your web site for all the world to view. This is followed by how to register with free web hosting sites. (Added tip for newbies: Consider using Geocities for your first site. It is easy, free, and gives a good amount of space.) All-in-all, we found this book to be very easy to understand and follow. I highly recommend it for all beginners. *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

I must admit that before reading this book I did not view building a web site as a early teenager activity. Never having done this type of activity, I incorrectly assumed that this was a process that was as difficult as say building a microwave oven from scratch. After reading the book I have revised my view of the process and understand that I was not giving kids enough credit. The book is geared toward kids with some help from parents, creating a basic web site. It gives the read a nice step by step process that is not intimidating. The authors did a good job of helping the reader not get lost in a blizzard of tech heavy terminology.

I think the biggest advantage of the book is that fact that it makes it easy for the parent to understand. Lets face it, kids are far more quick to pick up on this computer stuff and the book also helps the adults understand what they are doing. Overall I enjoyed the book. It is easy to read, it has a nice format and layout. It is easy to follow and I found that there were enough pictures which made for a clearer understanding. The authors even put the book out in a format that makes it easy to have it lay open on a desk so that you are not constantly having to open the book and locate your page after it accidentally closed.

***** This is an EXCELLENT guide for beginners! I had my niece come over for a weekend to try it out. Following the step-by-step directions, we created a simple, free web site. Nothing fancy, but plain either. This book begins the creating of a site OFF the internet. In simple words and terms the first few chapters get the "newbie" (for lack of a better term) used to the computer, its files/folders, and inner workings. My niece is around ten-years-old and had only a few problems. I believe that kids around third grade could successfully use this guide. But if you are an adult who is new to computers, this book is perfect for you as well.

The newbie will learn to create a folder on the hard drive at first. Do not worry, there are clear illustrations throughout the book to show you EXACTLY what should be on your monitor. (Added tip for newbies: Put a Notepad short cut on your desk top for easy access.)

Next you will learn about open and closed "tabs". You must understand this part. One error and the page will not work or look correctly. Again, the book CLEARLY shows what you should see. From here on, things get easier. If you do not understand something, go back. If everything is clear to you, then the rest will be a cinch. By now you are in chapter three or four. You will learn about formatting, viewing sources, adding images, links, color and different font types. Next comes cells, tables, how to embed an HTML page within another HTML page. Illustrations show you the way through it all.

From here the book will explain things that you should NOT publish on your web site for all the world to view. This is followed by how to register with free web hosting sites. (Added tip for newbies: Consider using Geocities for your first site. It is easy, free, and gives a good amount of space.) All-in-all, we found this book to be very easy to understand and follow. I highly recommend it for all beginners. *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

The first thing I noticed upon opening the book, 'Look Mom! I built my own website', is the colour. Pages are presented in visually interesting format, which is important for the age group particularly targeted, but also useful for adults who are following along as children are doing things (and, of course, sometimes a how-to book for children can be right at the level that a technologically-challenge adult might need).

Zohar Amihud encourages the younger website builders by offering them a review of their websites, too. On the very first page, the reader is invited to submit websites to be reviewed and linked to the book's own website.

One of the primary pieces of information offered here is that there are ways of building websites free of charge - this is particularly important for younger people who want a presence on the web but cannot afford to pay for space, or who most likely don't have credit card accounts and paypal access.

Another great advantage of the book is that it is practical - it doesn't spend a lot of time on theory, but rather gives short, easy to understand instructions for how to do basic things - working with text and fonts, placing graphics and images, dealing with colours, menus, tables, and more.

The information on finding webhosting for free and getting domain names and other services (which sometimes do have a cost attached, but are not required for a website) is fairly generic, but useful in that internet sites and offerings change at a rapid pace, but the ways to find out about them are generally fairly stable.

There is also a chapter on promoting and advertising your website. You'll certainly want people to visit - that is the point of the website. One thing that this chapter is lacking is more of a concern for internet presence of minors in a world that can sometimes be unsafe - a bit more discussion about safety and privacy concerns on the internet would be a useful improvement.

This is a very useful book, one that middle school and high school students should have no problem following, and even the advanced elementary student might find some of the basic lessons instructive.

As a professional web designer, and author of books on web design for adults like Build Your Own Web Site, I appreciated the kid-focused approach of this book. The author's enthusiasm for turning kids onto HTML coding and web design is contagious. The companion web site (www.bookchamp.net) is well maintained, and provides extensive support material for the book.

Explanations are clear, complete (in the context of a book for young children), and accurate. The tone of the book, and content of the model projects doesn't quite match my perception of what kids today are into. Don't they want to produce their on online videos and stuff like that? The sample projects' examples of pages about the family dog and doing homework seemed a bit anachronistic. On a more substantial level, the approach to web design itself seems a bit too much like a data processor trying to connect with kids. "Tables play an important role in formatting data" is a strange framework for introducing and teaching tables. It would seem more appropriate to treat tables as a page design technique. But what do I know about teaching kids web design? And, again, the book's purpose is to turn kids onto very basic page design techniques, not to explore the aesthetics of page design.

The self-published, home-made feel of the book is mainly a plus, but I found myself a bit distracted by typos like "thanks to the childrens."

Overall, I'd recommend this book to elementary and middle school teachers, supplemented perhaps by some more cutting edge material on the design aspect of building web pages.

Do you have a 9 to 12 year old that wants to understand how to build their own web page? A good choice to get them started would be Look Mom! I Built My Own Web Site! by Zohar Amihud. It's pretty age-appropriate to that level...

Chapter List: How To Begin Building A Personal Web Site; Writing Your First Web Page; Playing With Text; Add A Link; Add An Image; Playing With Color; Using A Table; Using A Table For Page Layout; Creating A Menu And Finish Building Your Web Site; What Next?; Stages Of Building Your Own Web Site; Making Your Site Live!; Choosing A Web Hosting Server For Your Web Pages; Promote Your Web Site; Index

First off, true confessions... My kids are past the 9 - 12 age frame. The youngest (who happens to be the more computer-savvy of the two) is pushing 17. But it wasn't that long ago that he wanted to start building his own home page on the web, and I had to look hard to find a book that was easy enough for him to read and learn from, while still covering all the necessary information. Amihud does a good job striking that balance for his target audience. The chapters up to the point of making the site live are well-detailed with plenty of pictures and age-appropriate instruction and language. I'd guess that most pre-teens would be able to take this book and follow along with little difficulty. I was also impressed that the teaching was for properly formatted and strict HTML... He uses META tags, target parameters in the Anchor tags, and even uses the proper XHTML format for the BR tag. Nicely done...

The book gets a little iffy when you get to the parts about choosing a web hosting server. There is a lot of talk about hosting options, domain names, service and support levels, etc. Basically, it starts to get a little more difficult to follow the flow of information, and the style moves from more of a "follow this step" to "here's the information you'll need to know". Much more abstract, and it will probably confuse a number of readers. I would have liked to have seen two or three examples of hosting services listed, as well as instructions on how to upload your site to them. I think that would have bridged the gap between theory and practical for the younger readers.

Overall, a nice book to give your kid if he's looking to establish an on-line site... He might even learn a useful skill or two in the process...

This book may be well written for younger folk entering the world of web design, but that's still no excuse for teaching the bad old ways of building web pages. There should be no place for font tags and table-layout in any modern webdesign book. And no mention of CSS defies belief. It is vitally important that new entrants in the world of web design - regardless of how young or old they are - are taught the correct way to build websites, ie. the application and philosophy of semantic HTML and Web Standards.

I would definitely recommend all people learning to build websites for the first time to buy Ian Lloyd's Build Your Own Website The Right Way Using HTML & CSS instead.

This book is excellent for kids or anyone wanting to build simple Web sites first time!
I am over 50 first-timer on building Web sites with HTML.
First, I was working with Hebrew version of the book and got bogged down with its too technical style and poor quality illustrations. I checked on the author's name and remembered that I bought the English copy last year.

Volia! I found the English copy. The book cheered me up with its colorful, clean and clear style with so many excellent illustrations and examples. So easy, I was able to finish building a simple Web site in 3 nights in Part I. Part II on Web hosting is a great and clear help for beginners.

It would be nice if a brief glossary on HTML tags and safe Web colors chart to be added as appendixes. A brief explaination on XHTML rules in beginning would be helpful. Also, colors of link tag should be explained too.

My 6 year old son, Shai is starting to build his personal Web site with the help of this book and his Dad.

Yes, I do heartly recommend this book to any kids or anyone wanting to build simple Web sites first time in short time. Many thanks to Zohar (the author)!

I should know...I am not computer savvy. I find it amazing that without spending money on expensive software that requires its own expertise, I am able to build my very own webpage! This book takes you step by step to designing a fully functioning personal web site in a very short period of time using the resources you already have on your computer. Spending just an hour or two a day, it took me less than a week to go through all the steps in the book and I now have a fully functioning model from which I can begin building my own web page. I never thought it would be so simple.

The book also has a web site to assist you. The web site allows you to copy and paste text and images to more quickly develop the sample site. PERHAPS THE GREATEST FEATURE for me was the ability to ask a question on-line when I ran into a glitch in my sample program. After checking and re-checking my work and not discovering my error, I would have quit in frustration, but for the ability to get assistance on-line. That more than anything else sets the book apart from other resources.

This book is ideal for anyone wanting to learn basic html and/or to design a personal web site. You can do it with this books assistance. Best wishes.