Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Expression Web 3 in 24 Hours

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I bought Expression Web 2 a year ago along with several books of instructions and bogged down completely. (Don't worry, I'm coming to Expression Web 3 in a minute.) One book told what to do, but not why it was being done (basic theory behind the clicks). Another spent so much time on the why, it never seemed to get to the what, and my eyes glazed over. I'd start working my way through a book, then stop and put it off for awhile, then start again. But by then I'd forgotten what I'd done before. Then I found something by Morten online that made so much sense that when I discovered his book on Expression Web 2, I ordered it immediately. It was so great, that after working through a couple of chapters, I e-mailed Morten to tell him how much I liked it and how helpful it was. That's when I learned that he had a new book coming out on Expression Web 3.

Since I hadn't gone very far in EW2, I ordered an update to Expression Web 3 along with this book. Here's what I love about the book. In chapter 1, Morten shows you the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow -- the completed web site that you will build over the next 24 chapters. Then he goes back and shows you how to make a rainbow. The instruction is clear, friendly, and easy to understand. Even though I'm a novice at web site design and just want to be able to improve my own web sites, I'm confident I can do a project that at a minimum will be decent and professional looking and with a little effort can be quite nice. Thanks Morten

I have been a fan of Sam's for quite awhile. I found this book to be a good step by step of how to use expression web, especially with CSS. My only complaint, is that for the most part, you must do all the lessons in order for future lessons to work. I wish that the folder for each hour could have been updated with the files that were supposed to have been modified in the previous hour. If they were, then you could skip the sections you know, instead of having to complete the whole book. That being said, I have bought two other books, and this book by far is much easier to understand as it's linear progression takes you from start to finish, instead of jumping all over the place.

I was a little nervous about Expression Web 3. It's been 7 years since I worked with MS FrontPage and Dreamweaver. I knew just enough to see what Expression Web was offering but not enough to use it without lots of frustration. Thank goodness for Sam's Teach Yourself. It is straightforward and well-organized. I can move to chapters (or "hours") for step-by-step directions, along with screen shots that make the whole process simple. Expression Web 3 has so many great features. Now, thanks to Sam's Teach Yourself Microsoft Expression Web 3 in 24 Hours, I can actually use them.

I just got this book in the mail recently and found it to be an immediately useful reference for someone who is familiar with coding websites but aims to improve their workflow. I am familiar with Expression Web as well so I was able to jump to the chapters that interested me most and dive right in. I liked that he spent the time to go through CSS very thoroughly for more novice readers.

Morten seems to have found the sweet spot between a good instructional manual and reference guide. I would definetly give this book a high recomendation.

The thing I liked most about Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Expression Web 3 in 24 Hours is that it starts at the beginning and leads the reader through the various steps of creating the web site illustrated in the book. As a beginner in Expression Web 3 I really appreciated this approach to learning the program. So many computer books (and the other books on Expression Web 3 that I have seen) explain the various features of the program but do not present them in what I would consider to be a logical sequence. Such books might be great for experienced users, and I will probably be using them myself now, but if you are a beginner in Expression Web 3, Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Expression Web 3 in 24 Hours is a very good starting point.

But that said, learning was a struggle. A month and many, many hours later I have to admit I am disappointed. Some of my difficulty may have been my status as a beginner or my failure to understand the lessons , but there are many errors in the text as well, many examples do not work as shown or explained, and many explanations are confusing or incomplete. I was constantly getting stuck. And I guess that describes my biggest complaint about this book: If you get stuck, you stay stuck. There are not enough illustrations in the book to show what the reader is expected to do, and there was no place to go to see what the code should have been, what I should have done differently, or why my page did not work. A companion DVD or a place on the author's web site with such illustrations and help would have been greatly appreciated. It is also a shame the author or publisher didn't ask a target reader to work his way through the book and point these problems out. While struggling through such problems does result in some learning, I would have had a much more pleasant and successful learning experience with more accurate material.

You can also give up any hope of learning Expression Web 3 in 24 hours. Even if most of the chapters could be read in 1 hour, each has an Exercise at the end that really should be completed if you are to learn the material. Most of these exercises will take an additional hour or more. And I had to read every chapter several times.

Often the reader is expected to use a skill learned previously to complete the current lesson. This is hard enough to do under any conditions, but if you can only get to the lessons once every few days, it is really hard to remember everything you have done before. Reminders that a previously learned skill is required (and a page reference to it) would have been greatly appreciated. Also, It is also important to note that this is a book on learning Expression Web 3, it is not a book on learning CSS, and you will need to know CSS in order to make the best use of Expression Web 3. You are looking at many, many more hours of study after you finish this book.

All of that being said, overall this was the best of the three books I bought to learn Expression Web 3. I will now have to read other books to help me with some of the things this book does not cover or does not explain well. Hopefully future editions will present the material more clearly and more accurately.

Sorry, but I am NOT a fan of this book. I struggled with it, and found learning the book to be difficult (and thus frustrating). As I moved from chapter to chapter, I would often forget how to do a task I learned in an earlier chapter. And then I found it hard to refer back to an earlier lesson as there was no simple reference framework to rely on.

I just purchased Microsoft Expression Web 3 On Demand. It is organized in a logical way. Each page is a simple explanation of how to do a task with helpful visuals and graphics. The book's cover says "what you need, when you need it." It's a good description of what this book offers. For me, Sam's book made it difficult for me to find what I needed when I wanted it. So I didn't like it, and can't recommend it.

I bought Expression Web 3 to replace MS FrontPage 2002. I was specifically looking for help in two areas: dynamic web templates and expandable css menus. This book was very helpful and taught me more than I expected - including they way I thought about web design was completely wrong! I had never used style sheets, but this book made me realize their value and now I'm convinced they are the way to go in designing.

I only maintain a personal site and am not a professional. I designed my page with Frontpage and have been wanting to update it for a long time, but knew it would be major overhaul if I didn't get another program. This book has taught me that it's not going to be as big of a job as I had thought, but I am going to take the time to change to cascading style sheets because of this book.

The book starts out very simply and gets complex toward the end. Take it a chapter at a time and you'll make it through just fine. Great for a beginner, but best for someone like me - someone who has tinkered around an knows just a little bit, but is looking to expand the knowledge.

The book is written in an easygoing manner and it explains difficult concepts easily. The only reason I did not give it 5 Stars is because it did not address a specific issues I was looking for. It does show how to make CSS based horizontal and vertical menus. It shows how to make drop-down horizontal menus. The one thing I really wanted was an expandable vertical menu - when the mouse hovers over a menu (list) item, the sublist items appear to the right. The book does not specifically show how to do this. But, I was able to take my old javascript menu and convert it using techniques I found in this book. So, the book did help me achieve my goal, but a step-by-step would have been awesome! But, I guess the book can't address every question everyone has or it would never end.

Definitely worth the price and if you're switching to Expression Web 3 from an older program, I'd highly recommend this book.

This book is an excellent tool to work on your knowledge of how to use MS Expression Web 4. Each "Hour" does take about an hour to work through. The author does a great job of being easy to read, and mostly easy to follow his directions as he teaches you how to use the program. I'm an advanced amateur web designer, and I was looking to upgrade my web design software from Frontpage 2000. I was reading reviews of MS Exp. Web 4 and earlier versions, and I was concerned with some reports that made it sound like Web 4 was more difficult to use, less user friendly. That's why I bought this book, and now I feel real comfortable with the new program as I work through the lessons. It will take some work to use this book, and learn the program, but the payoffs will be huge in the end.

The most important thing I look for in an instructional book is the step by step process - how do the lessons flow and fit together? Are they written in a way that a novice could find value and an expert would not be insulted? I was not disappointed with this book. Expression Web 3 is a very complicated program with so many parts that at first glance it can seem overwhelming and beyond a practical reach. But when you have an author that can simplify the complexity in a coherent manner then you have hit the jackpot. I highly recommend this book. But let me be clear about one thing. To become adept and competent in any comprehensive program requires effort. But with this book you already will have a solid head-start.

I felt I really understood FrontPage, but was a bit floored with Expression 2. And when I got Expression Web 3, I was even more confused. Then I got this book. It took me through what I knew and I learned some new things along the way.

About midway through, going got slower, but I plugged along and came out the other side with a much better understanding of what the program can do ... and why. He really goes step by step. I didn't worry too much about the last couple chapters (PHP, ASP) as they were beyond what I wanted to do ... and needed more details if I were to learn them.

I have a stack of books for this and previous programs and I've learned more from this one than all the others put together.

The illustrations are very helpful, so I'd question whether a Kindle edition would be as useful. Also, I had no luck getting the Flash or Silverlight files to work. (Yes, I do have both installed on my computer)

A beginner may have to take it slowly, but the information is there. Wish I'd had the previous book when I got Expression 2.
Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Expression Web 3 in 24 Hours