Customer Reviews

Special Edition Using Microsoft Expression Web 2

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

 

 

By trade I develop ASP.NET applications. However, we do a lot of our design work using tools like Dreamweaver. Recently we started working with Expression Web because we're a Microsoft shop. Naturally, we decided we needed to get a good book to get up to speed, so we chose Jim Cheshire's book on Expression Web based on the reviews. It was a great choice for us!

When we decided to move to Expression Web 2 (we're big AJAX fans!), we obviously went with Cheshire's book, and it was a great decision. (Actually, one of my co-workers chose a different book on Expression Web 2 that had a similar review score, but he's often in my cube borrowing my copy of Cheshire's book. :-)) Not only does this book contain really great coverage of the new ASP.NET features, but it also has great information on all of the other features in Expression Web 2, including PHP. I really wasn't expecting that since Cheshire is an ASP.NET expert and apparently works on the ASP.NET team at Microsoft!

If you are at all interested in Expression Web 2, you really owe it to yourself to get this book. Don't mess around with the imitations! Cheshire produced the highest rated book on the first version of Expression Web, and this book is certainly not a disappointment. I love it!

Sarah

Beware if you are trying to learn Expression Web (EW). This book is not for you. This is for someone who has been doing web designing (or developing) for a long time using other tools. It is not for those who are just learning. He deals with all kinds of technical stuff right at the beginning and doesn't explain. He refuses to tell you WHY you might want to perform such and such a function he's only interested in telling you HOW. His examples will include making code changes to CSS sheets before he even discusses CSS sheets. He doesn't even discuss creating text on a web page until well after page 100.

If you are looking to switch tools and use Expression Web, so you're already familiar with setting up a web page, or a web site, and using CSS, then this book might be good for you. But if you are looking to learn from the ground up, go somewhere else. He mentions himself in the book that this is a book to be used as a reference manual and not to be read sequentially. But to use it as a reference manual, you need to know enough to ask the right questions and then look up the answers. This book will do nothing to help you to ask the right questions.

This book is very well written and composed. The beginning of the book sums up the basics, letting you know what will be covered. From then on, each chapter is full of nearly all of the information you need in order to complete each individual task. The chapters are neat, organized, and very precise. Each chapter tells you what it is about, then tells you how to do it.

I bought this book (Special Edition Using Microsoft Expression Web 2 (Special Edition Using)) the same day that I bought Microsoft Expression Web 2, and it helped me tremendously. (I bought the program -and- the book on Tuesday)

If you are reading this and contemplating buying this book over any other, my vote is that you buy this book. Like I said, it is clear and direct, and explains everything you need to know. What little bit of information that isn't covered is some of the extremely basic concepts that a quick google search will resolve.

Hopefully this review has been helpful...

Again, 2 thumbs up to this book!

-Randal

I bought this book to get a handle on the new features in the product. I found it to be an excellent guide. The instructions were very clear and didn't talk down to me. They also didn't flood me with "techie talk" that I don't understand. It was just a nice balance of both. Best of all, all of the examples work exactly as they are presented. I purchased the On Demand book too, and it didn't succeed in that regard.

They say that this book is the only book you need on Expression Web 2. I agree. After reading this, I wish I had bought the first book by this author instead of the one I got a year ago. I highly recommend this book.

but it's one of my first and it's my biggest undertaking. My business is interior design and with the economy in the tank I decided to build the website myself. In the past I'd either hand written the HTML myself or used FrontPage. I didn't even have FrontPage installed on my current computer and knew the version I had was so outdated it would be useless so I was going to upgrade. That wasn't possible.

After looking around I found Expression Web and downloaded the trial version. After a few tutorials it seemed like something I could teach myself so I bought another book, bought the program and began. It didn't take me long to discover the other book just wasn't thorough enough and didn't cover much more than the basics.

I read some of the reviews here and decided to buy this one. I love it! I read the first 15 or so chapters in a weekend, worked along with the text so I would absorb it and now I'm almost done with my site--the first of 3 so far!

The two programs the author includes on the CD have been a big help as well. The dropdown menus are wonderful.

I will definitely look for future books by this author.

I am a pretty savvy computer user. I have self taught many aspects of computer usage and taken many computer classes so have used many step by step how to computer books. This book is hard to follow if you do not already have some web design knowledge. It has been little help as I have plugged away trying to learn how to use Expression Web 2. You cannot just open to a chapter about CSS and learn everything you need to know. There are big holes in what is presented because the writer expects knowledge a beginner just does not have.

I've had this book for several months now and just had to comment that it is the ONE resource with all the information I need. Mr. Cheshire certainly knows what he's talking about. The step by step examples really helped me get through some difficult tasks.

I bought the book, to get a feel for this new tool. It shows a lot of things but in many aspect being new to this field I find it scrapes the surfaces in many areas.

If you look for a step by step introduction to all the program features do not look for it in this book.

I am a web designer beginner, but this book send me many steps higher up.

This is a well-organized and well written book on EW 2. There aren't many on the new version and the versions differ enough to need a new book.

I've purchased two others and I've found all I really needed was this one. The included CD is also very useful - nice to not have to go and download the files the book references. Plus some decent software.

In short - it's the only book I needed on the subject. Thanks.