VRML Books

There has been much new scholarship on the Soviet 'Empire' in Central Asia in recent years. This book builds on others such as 'State of Nations', 'Vieled Empire' and 'Affirmitive Action Empire' to explain how Soviet ethnographers tried to shape the new Russian state. Several themes were common. The Soviets were devout anti-imperialists, and the Russian people as a distinctive state ceased to exist after they attained power, in place of the U.S.S.R became a state of 'nations' whereby different ethnic minorities not only were preferred in the state but new nations were created.

The second theme is that of Russia as an 'Empire'. Recent scholarship shows how Russia used 'colonial methods' to extrapolate and study and compile census's of the peoples that inhabited russia. The problem with this line of reasoning is two fold. First it is unequivacally a fact that Russia raised the awareness of the peoples they encountered, bringing them alphabets and encoruaging native literature. At the same time it is not neccesarily 'colonial' to want to census the people that live in your country. However the theory is that all this understanding ethnicity work had colonial overtones.

Leaving this behind this is a fascinating, illuminating and wonderful work that opens a door unto the multitude of peoples that inhabited soviet Russia. In many places where a people existed that had no boundaries, no written language and no schalarly culture the Soviets created local elites, education systems and drew boundaries where the minority would be a majority.

Russia became an 'empire of nations' in this manner. Mostly the book looks at the first 20 years of Soviet rule, from 1917 when Soviet forces enlisted minorities in the fight against the Whites through to Stalins encouragement of diversity. In the end the programs were abandoned to some degree in the late 1930s as the build up to WWII began, in the aftermath corrupt elites built on this system, creating nationalism, discriminating against ethnic russians and in many cases creating national awareness where non existed before. A good book.

Seth J. Frantzman

This was my classroom text book the semester I took HTML. It's great. HOWEVER: make sure you get the reference manual. And if you don't, don't settle for a $2 refund. The reference manual is worth $20 at least.

I have been in the web design arena for over five years and I am always looking for new book to enhance my knowledge base. I am also an instructor and also I am looking for book to make my classes better. This book covers both objectives and makes learning easier in the process.

Starting off the 440 page book is the basics of both HTML and XHTML with using and working with body text, headings and images. Working with links and URLs through relative and absolute references is next on the list of topics covered.

There is a very good section for the use of and creation of CSS both internal and external sheets. Tables, lists, forms and Frames take up the next several chapters with techniques to make the work easier and save time.

Then comes client side scripting, adding sights and sounds through different multimedia techniques. I was very impressed with the meta tag and search engine use sections. The book goes in a step-by-step instruction method with screen shots, notes and tips to help along the way.

The book comes with four projects that when completed will give you a much greater understanding of the world of web design. Also included is a cd-rom with practice files and with everything together you have a very complete package to work with.

I recently took over making updates to a non-profit website. While I'm fairly competent at computer-related tasks like networking and software set up and troubleshooting, I knew nothing about HTML. With this book, I was quickly off and running changing colors and text fonts and attributes, and adding graphics, photos and links. HTML QuickSteps is easy to understand and comprehensive.

What I like about this book is the building approach used. I teach html and web design. Rob's layout allows me to quickly find information needed for classroom work and show the students how and why it works. I will have this book with me in the classroom from now on as an easy to use reference, not only for me but students to.
Mel Rose

All you need do to see how usefull this book is is to vist ,
WWW.booboys.com
i have never made a web site from scratch before. using only This book, notepad, MS photo editor and google. it looks like it was done by a pro.

Learn to design and create VRML and stunning 3D graphics for Web pages. Written in a straight, conversational style, the book includes complete coverage of the new VRML 2.0 specification and the wide array of VRML and 3D graphics tools A greate book for enyone how are interested in VRML

This book brought to the reader a great style of learning a computer language. Easy enough for a beginner, however, it was challenging enough for a previous html writier. I really enjoyed this book due to the graphic natures and the simplicity to understand the contents. Wonderful explainations followed by very understandable examples of what should have been done. The glossary in this book gives great definitions that are very comprihendable. Also, this book is not a must read the whole thing to understand kind of writing. You can go through whatever chapter you would like. Each chapter contains its original context. It specfies one objective. Overall i would rate this the best HTML learning book I have ever purchased.

A fantastic little book, written with style and humour, that introduces PHP and mySQL with enough detail to get a good grounding. Recommended.

Real women use notepad.exe to do HTML. Unfortunately, because remembering all of the tags and special characters, even real women need help every now and then. This quick reference guide is my constant companion when I am hacking away on my web page. It's well laid out and packs a lot of information in four pages. I frequently refer to the special characters section, but have also picked up a few tricks from the examples that are crammed into this guide. It even covers cascading style sheets, making this a wonderful accessory for a geekette. I also highly recommend "Web Design Color Reference Card" also by Bob Stein and available from Amazon as a companion to this guide. If you've ever struggled with getting the right color using hexidecimal codes, you'll appreciate the color reference. Together this HTML reference and the color reference card will make you a genuine MLCMF when it comes to HTML coding. Five stars and my strongest recommendation.