VRML Books

If you know HTML, you already know everything in this book. If you don't know HTML, you won't learn it from this book. It's much too simplistic. It also encourages copying pictures and code from other websites.
It's really something I'd expect to see posted for free on the internet--that's the level of writing & information. And at least the links would be updated online.
As a beginner's book for a child, it might be okay, but for an adult or anyone with experience, it's not worth reading.

I bought this book for my 12 year old son and he actually enjoyed reading it. He has been creating web pages ever since. He is now the Web Master at his middle school and is responsible for their web page. I hope Dave writes some more computer related books for kids/teenagers to keep their interests up.

I recently came across this book while trying to find information about designing my own website. Most of the books I found were written in a manner that made me want to forget the whole idea of being a webmaster. But that all changed when I came across THIS book. I could not believe how simple reading it was and encourageable! My hope was re-ignited. The best part of the book was being able to actually go online and pull up David's website which the book used as example. The book is full of helpful information and resources that it saves the reader time in the long run once they are ready to publish their own page. It even saves money. I was to the point of going out and buying expensive programs until reading this book. I didn't have to! I even had a few questions regarding my page and emailed David. He personally replied within 24 hours and graciously offered me my answers.

The next amazing thing about this book is the author's age! For a teenager, he is brilliant. He is the next Bill Gates!

I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone wanting to tackle the feat of webpage design and have been frightened off by other books. I am in my early 30s and don't mind being taught by a teenager.

This book is a great book for beginners programming their first webpage, or, for that matter, programming a webpage at all. It skips most of the technical mumbo-jumbo that would confuse most people and cuts it down to what it needs to make a great webpage. This is one of the best books out there for beginners and pros alike.

Hi, my name is Arthur Wegelin and I am taking this moment to tell you about what I say is the greatest book that anyone can ever read about web design. Since I go to the same school as Dave I was able to ask him right away if I could have a copy of his book. When I received the book, I started studying it page by page to get all the information for my website. After thoroughly studying the book I was amazed at the possibilities. Dave's book does not only talk about designing the webpage itself but it also tells you where you can get: great software tools, free server space, free web gadgets, free e-mail and lots of other stuff. I'll admit I haven't really taken the time to read any other books about HTML, but if I'm asked by someone which book I would recommend for web design it would be Dave's book and only Dave's book.

I'm almost done with "How to Do Everything with HTML..." and its very good for beginners like me. Its all about building blocks for your Web page. Realistically, there can be no book that will explain any single thing about web design (at least without being 1000+ pages long), but this book does its job - after you read it, you will have a solid foundation for any of your Web projects. It won't make you a web guru (again, I doubt that any single book can do that), but its very good for what it is.
Few minor points - JavaScripts described in the book didn't work for me and i'm not sure what's the reason behind this. I checked and re-checked code again, but still, it didn't show up in any browsers. Another issue is that since its about building blocks, things like layout, color and graphics are mostly skipped over in favor of pure HTML coding. So what you would next, I assume, after reading this one, is a type of book that would show you how to actually put those blocks together in order to make an actual page.
All in all, very useful for beginners.

Very nicely written. Had no problem following the material. Very easy to understand.

For a first book on this topic I found the depth of coverage and pace to be perfect. Very easy painless coverage of topic.
Not too slow, and not too fast where you feel like you're lost.
Nothing is taken for granted(Author assumes you know nothing), yet you are not treated like a "dummy" or "complete idiot".

I thought I knew everything there was to know about HTML but was very shaky with style sheets and XML. This book takes you step by step through the learning process making XML and style sheets easy to understand by explaining why and how they are used. Recommend the book to anyone who is creating web sites! Every other HTML book pales in comparison.

i think this book is not detailed enough, as compared with its titile"how to do everything with html&xhtml".After i finished reading this book, i started to build my web site. But, the problem is i don't know what attributes and values i can use within style sheets. and the effort to understand all that stuff is really frustrating.And i am confused about whether the attribute is from html or xhtml, can i use them? the book don't provide a list of all the stuff with its usage and possible values, attributes as a reference, and the pdf file i downloaded from the author's web site is useless because most of them is listed in the book and they are just not detailed enough, it is just a book for beginners and it should be marked as level 1.

I bought this book recomended by some site. I quickly found out although it does go into some detail of Netscape browser it highly discourages people to use them and goes further by asking them to skip the netscape sections. This book encourages people to support Microsoft and encourages people to use code that is not compatible with other browsers in a since.

A lot of helpfull info in it but because of its bias strategy I give it a 2. Book is somewhat old now but decided to learn the older stuff so what I learned to code would be compatible with almost any browsers. Im gonna have to say I would discourage making this book a choice for your studies.

This is a terrific book for beginners; it has clear, easy-to-understand examples and gives you info other books assume you already know; like how to actually PUBLISH your site; but it has a couple of shortcomings that prevent me from giving it five stars. First, the section on VRML is a complete waste. Secondly, the scripting sections leave a bit to be desired, but they at least give you an introduction to basic scripting and DHTML. This is a good reference book for amateur web designers and a fabulous starter course for HTML newbies; however, more advanced web developers won't benefit at all from it; and even newbies will quickly outgrow it. That's a testament to how well it conveys the information!

For the intermediate level HTML programmer, this book covers a wide variety of topics such as style sheets, dynamic HTML, scripting, table and frame design, etc. I refer to it constantly.

This book is a great for anyone wishing to learn HTML. It's clear and very informative. Beginner and intermediate HTML users will find it a great buy.

It's only short-coming is the absence of a list of tags and their uses. "HTML 4" by Elizabeth Castro has this, and it is very useful for a quick reference. However the Castro Text is less suited for a beginner.

The 6 in 1 guide covers HTML, CSS, and DHTML as well or better than many texts that cover only one of these subjects. The book really explains why things are done, instead of showing you how to do something but not telling you why you'd want to do it.

You'll be very happy with the book if you're just starting out.

Excellent reference book for the beginner in web publishing. HTML is the only way to go and this book will give you a firm understanding of "how to do it". There are a lot of books on this subject, but this is the one of choice.

I bought this book after reading Dave's articles on UML modelling for XML schemas hoping to learn more about the technique. So I was really interested in a quarter of the book but I still read the whole book.

Overall, its a good book as an overview to the whole XML modelling approach and it is great for a beginner or novice in the area. It explains the concepts quite clearly and provides some VERY SIMPLE examples.

But if you are looking for a book that guides you along on the "how to" aspect and application of knowledge, then this book doesn't quite have enough "meat" to be of much use.

In summary, for beginners only.

David Carlson's book on "Modeling XML Applications with UML" is an excellent contribution to the business of building distributed e-Business applications. My only complaint with the book is the title which emphasizes the subject of UML over the subtitle of "Practical e-Business Applications." Mr. Carlson painstakingly builds up the requisite knowledge one must possess around XML, DTD, XML Schema, other XML schemas, XSL, XSLT, XPath, XPointer, XLink, XMI, and UML in a lucid, cogent manner; both defining each piece of the puzzle and providing an excellent overview of how they all fit together. What has emerged is an excellent overview of the W3C and OMG efforts to recommend standards that serve the building of eBusiness applications. The examples that he provides are particularly useful as he draws from industry and open source efforts to define XML vocabularly such as Rich Site Summary and Jetspeed's Portal Site Markup Language (and he practices what he preaches, one look at his XMLModeling.com web site will testify to this). Of particulary value is the soup-to-nuts example that Dave cooked up, called Catalog Markup Language (CatML), in order to take the reader to just the right and intended level of understanding. These examples and the corresponding discussion is a non-gratuitous, yet complete, resource for anyone trying to get bootstrapped into all of the moving parts around building applications that cross organizational/corporate boundaries.

Dave leaves no stone unturned in pulling the whole story together in his description of portals, vortals and related technology that sets these valuable BtoB capabilities in motion; his prescience in describing the roles of various channels such as wireless devices is much appreciated, and for including a discussion on Web Services, which will be the next big architectural holy grail, makes for an excellent resource that paints a broad picture with just the right amount of depth on each subject.

The title tells us the main objective, which is the role of UML modeling in working with XML, but I would suggest that the story built up in an effort to reach this objective is much more valuable than the objective itself. Thanks professor, nice job.

It is quite a strange book: very interesting, depicting a complete, sometimes accurate, path between UML and XML languages, and trying to show the whole and complex environment that required the development of a language like XML. The fact that both UML and XML syntaxes are not explained in detail should not induce to consider this issue as an introductory one: a thorough comprehension of all quoted subjects presumes a good knowledge of a structured (possibly object oriented) programming language and some reference to an XML syntax textbook and a UML guide. You do not learn by this book either designing UML or writing XML code, but it represents a survey about the subject that can be interesting both for skilled people and beginners.

Like many web-related technologies XML and its many derivatives have evolved much more quickly than the support from traditional modelling and development tools. As a result many developers creating XML-based applications are doing so with the crudest of tools, and find it very difficult to either exchange ideas with more traditional developers, or to benefit from the strengths of more powerful tools and modelling approaches. This book sets out to address that issue, and it does an excellent job.

At the same time, the book provides a valuable introduction to a range of XML and e-Business technologies for those more familiar with traditional approaches. I found it answered a lot of questions I had about XML which had not been addressed by reading more typical "how to" books, so this book bridges the divide both ways.

The book starts out by setting out its aim - to bridge the XML and UML communities, and provides a high-level overview of both areas. It then focuses in on the key issue of e-Business integration, both as a common challenge and an area which will naturally affect both communities.

In subsequent chapters the author discusses defining a business vocabulary, and shows how an XML vocabulary can be modelled in UML, or generated from it. Having established this basis the author then discusses a number of XML-related standards, including XMI, XPath, XPointer, XLink, XML DTDs and Schemas, and XSLT, in each case using UML models to explain how the pieces fit together.

Finally, the last few chapters present an overall e-Business architecture based around the examples in the rest of the book, bringing all the pieces together in the context of Web Services.

It's the curse of all technical writers and publishers that whatever you write is rapidly out of date, and this book suffers a little from that. Published in 2001 it views several key standards (such as XSD and core Web Service protocols) as "proposals", and frequently omits details from examples because of this uncertainty. A reader would be well advised to supplement it with more up to date reading around the technical details.

That said, this book is well written, easy to read, and covers a niche which is still almost unoccupied. The companion web site backs the book up with some valuable material, including a free downloadable tool for XML modelling, generation and reverse-engineering.

I'd love David to do a second edition, moderately refreshed to present a 2004 view of the various standards and how they fit together. The core of the book wouldn't have to change. Until that book turns up, I'm happy to recommend this one.

David Carlson has produced a book that discusses how to integrate two important technologies: UML and XML. More than that, the book serves as a primer to both. Even if you already know UML or XML, you'll probably learn something new about each. References are supplied for those who want to learn more. For me, I also found that the book planted seeds for new ideas.

The material is presented in a practical way, around a simple business application. This makes the technologies more concrete and easier to understand. Fortunately, the reader is not overwhelmed by endless code listings - though there are enough nuts and bolts to make the concepts understandable.

Key concepts such as vocabularies, schemas, and portals are explained well. The book also touches on related technologies, such as RSS, XSLT, SOAP and UUDI. All in the context of a practical use case. I found the examples useful even if I design community based portals and not e-Business applications.

Hopefully the book will lay down the foundation for standards in schema development.

After reading this book cover to cover, I felt the following: The book is clearly written. It provides an absolutely excellent introduction to VRML. It follows a logical step by step progression. "sams net" should be proud of this one. This is the best introduction to VRML I have seen on the market.

This was my first book for VRML2. Although I do lots of graphics programming in C/C++ and Open GL, I am sure that this book will be equally easy for those who want to start web 3D programming. If you know java script then this can be a good guide for VRML scripting. I would like to thank the author for his work. I did my entire project on VRML with the help of this book only ...

I have read alot of the web3d/vrml books over the years, and this book is the best one I have read so far. The book starts with easy to understand concept and example to show you what VRML can do, and what VRML is possible. It is suitable for both beginner and advance users. The complimentary CD-ROM is very helpful and is a great time saver for anyone who wants to use the example and script in the book. This is the best VRML book I have read so far.

This book is a great introduction to VRML2. Clear concise and will take you through the basic building blocks for programming VRML worlds. However it dosen't cover Java integration, which I believe is needed if you want to make an advanced world. If only all computing guides were this logical and clear! great introduction

Although I have some previous programming experience (2 C++ classes in college), I'm usually able to grasp the basic concepts pretty easily. This book is no exception, but it certainly isn't related to C++ or anything like that, so it really is like starting from the beginning to me. But it was still easy to grasp the concepts (so far anyway, I'm only about 1/3 through the book) and apply them following the author's exercises. CosmoPlayer (the VRML plugin for your browser) is in version 2.1 now (the book's CD includes version 1.0) so a visit to cosmo software would be good. Also, they make WYSIWYG editors for VRML, so don't think that you won't be able to write VRML just because you can't remember all the code - I assume it's like a 3D Studio Max interface.

The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is because the author seems to assume you completely understand everything the very first time he explains it to you. I've had to go back and re-read several sections so that I could understand something later in the book, but I suppose if he kept explaining concepts over and over again then the book would be twice as long. Great book if you're interested in the VRML world.

Any computer collection catering to programmers and covering CSS will find "The Ultimate CSS Refrence" to be the definitive work for mastering CSS, the building block of nearly every web site today. Written by two of the world's most renowned CSS experts, "The Ultimate CSS Reference" features extensive tips, facts, and detail. A perfect for college-level or advanced computer libraries.

§

In the ancient days of early 1999 I had to put together my own CSS reference. I had to figure out by trial and error what parts of CSS were implemented and which were most useful and least buggy. Back then it seemed most Web experts / lecturers were very wary of CSS because the leading browser company, Netscape, did not see the transformative potential of HTML stylesheets.

I uploaded my "Cascading Style Cheatsheet" (http://home.tampabay.rr.com/bmerkey/cheatsheet.htm) and over the years it has become a popular link. We really don't need attempts of that sort anymore when we have books like this one.

Like its companion volume (The Ultimate HTML Reference) this book is simply but elegantly laid out in a way that makes it easy to use. The language is clear and the examples are directed to the most useful aspects of serious Web page and Web application implementations.

Because I make my living designing Web applications based upon the Internet Explorer browser, I was pleased to see excellent coverage of the proprietary (but very useful) CSS properties and values. Many books do not mention these because they are not part of the W3C specification. For good measure, a sprinkling of the -moz extensions of Firefox are also covered.

This book, sitting alongside its HTML companion, should be a solid (hard-backed!) addition to your technical library.

§

Every part of CSS is covered. The browser support and compatibility is given for every property. The layout is extremely well thought out and makes finding information incredibly easy. And to top it all off, Sitepoint makes the book available on-line as well, for free. It is fully searchable. This is just a great tool for anyone working on site design.

As others have mentioned, if one is looking for lots of tutorials or help in learning how to do CSS, they may want to supplement this with something else. This is mostly just reference with brief introductory information. But that is what makes it great. A person who already knows what they are doing does not have to wade through a bunch of explanation and teaching. This is just the facts.

I highly recommend this to any serious web developer or designer.

I'm not familiar with Mr. O'Brien's work, but I've been a fan of Mr. Olssen's blog and website for about a year. I dare to say that he is the most articulate writer on the subject of CSS that I have experienced so far. His explanation, on his blog archives, of CSS positioning and page layout is one of the best, and most succinct, on the subject that I have found.

So, when I saw the pre-announcement of this book I immediately ordered a copy. Since recieving and using the book I am not dissappointed. The book is a thorough "reference" treatment of all aspects of CSS. I keep it close by while working on websites (along with a copy of "The Ultimate HTML Reference").

'The Ultimate CSS Reference' is exactly as the title says. A comprehensive REFERENCE for CSS styling. This book is not (NOT) a learning book or an example full book, rather a reference to using CSS. If you use CSS on a daily basis and need such a tool this is a good resource to have. My only gripe is that I don't know why the publishers decided to put this out as a hardcover. The costs could have been kept down and likely more sales would have been made if this had been released as a softcover like most of the other sitepoint books.

sitepoint has long been my favorite web publisher of books and nothing has changed with this release. A solid release albeit a different one from what has been released in the past.

***** RECOMMENDED

At last! A book that addresses a key instructional and informational need in the localization (l10n) and internationalization (i18n) industries. To date, there is no single authoritative source on the subject of XML l10n and i18n, despite the fact that XML is a key driver behind the growth of the Internet, B2B, content management and large-scale data exchange and will be increasingly important in the future, and central to e-commerce and globalization in general.

Up to now, most writings on XML, that I have seen, are generally non-l10n and i18n specific, and only make reference to these areas in passing, as part of a wider technological discussion. There is development information available on the Internet about XML standards, which includes sections on i18n, but this is divorced from any business logic or discussion on practical deployments within the localization industry. The best discussions I have seen on the possible applications of XML tend to be piecemeal, such as white papers or magazine articles in publications. This book changes all that.

The structure is very good - comprehensive without being overwhelming and it is well thought out and illustrated with code samples and screen shots. Content ranges from a practical and clear education on XML technology, through to where XML i18n and l10n fits into the product development cycle, content authoring and localization processes. Central to the book's appeal is it's practicality and relevance to modern day industry developments such as XLIFF, ITS, online translation, translation memory use and even WML and Flash too! The book is aimed at doing, not at theorizing, and it fills a key gap in the market.

Potential for this book’s influence is huge given the trends in business models and product/service deployment globally over the Internet. I think this book could become more important than Nadine Kano’s "Developing International Software for Windows 95 and NT". It should be on the bookshelf of every serious content development house NOW, nestling up to "The Lexus and The Olive Tree" (Thomas Friedman) and "Translating Into Success" (Robert C. Sprung, Eds.) as a well-thumbed, coffee-stained source of reference for anyone seriously interested in developing and maintaining a globalization presence.

I would certainly recommend the book to all content developers, and translation tools development teams. I would envisage the book could be useful for content authors and developers of all types - DB architects, content managers, documentation writers, ML website developers, etc. Anyone who needs to develop, manage and maintain global content, which has to be localized and deployed in multiple languages.

Yves Savourel has a firm grasp of the technical aspects of XML development - completed by a wealt of experience in the product globalization arena. The writing style in XML internationalizaion and Localization is clear and unambiguous - easily understood by the novice and guru alike, and using terms that are familiar to anyone working in the internationalization and localization industries. The book's content is comprehensive with useful and practical examples, directly applicable to the real world. Thorough, interesting examination of one of critical development formats for entrprise, database and internet computing, the book is much needed! I hope there is more to come.

This is a great book for the 'doers' in the product globalization technology fields. Well worth the money. Extremely credible combination of industry guru Yves Savourel's content with some additional flavoring of content from globalization expert Ultan O'Broin of Oracle Corporation provide a wide-ranging discourse on how to design, develop and build XML content that is multilingual and fully globalized and easily translated. For the first time we see the words "pseudo-translation" mentioned in a book at this level (please take note Nancy Kano et al) as well as the treatment of the localization process as a business activity (and not some kind of warm armpit partnership between developers and translators). Brilliant. I hope the book heralds a new departure in content creation and also attitudes in the internationalization and localization industry - it's badly needed. My only quibble is the lack of CD-ROM with example XML files that we might have used to evaluate our own XML tools and processes with to compare with the books findings.

This book was truly a pleasure to read. A good writing style, a lot of information, and a tight editing job that really makes both the messenger and the message look better. What more could a person ask for?

XML is definitely out there, and it seems to be a lot more than just a buzzword. Finally there is a book that makes it seem more accessible to international markets.

Well, not everything was perfect. But it was so much better than some of the other books out there, that it definitely deserves 4/5 stars.

Yves Savourel's book on XML Internationalization and Localization is an excellent resource and definitely worth reading for anyone working with XML in an international environment.

I found the first part of the book especially helpful, the second part is very focussed on translation processes, assuming that web content internationalization and localization occurs in a similar fashion to software product development, which is not necessarily the case. "XML Tools for Internationalization and Localization" might have been a more appropriate title.

The comparison of translation tools is very long and difficult to read, with unnecessary screenshots showing all samples. A tabular overview on standards compliance and supported features, together with one set of testcases, would be sufficient. The XML database chapter, on the other hand, could be expanded with more information on native XML databases.

Typographical conventions leave room for improvement, including the choice of fonts, indentation in structured example and the overuse of line continuation characters in places where line breaks are not significant.

If you have already used HTML to make some web pages, then this book might be of value. That is, if you plan on adding more pages or perhaps you want to maintain the website hosting these pages? The book talks about how to handle this next level of complexity. The author does not bog you down in the fine details of HTML syntax. Instead, she gives many suggestions ["secrets"] on making a logical arrangement of content. Like giving simple, intuitive names to the directory hierarchy and files. So that users can traverse your website easily.

Typically, most of the suggestions are of this style. The payoff is often easier long term maintenance. Like her ideas on effectively using CSS and XHTML. Again, like with HTML itself, you need some minimal prior acquaintance with these packages, to take advantage of this book.

I'm always hungry for new knowledge as a web designer, looking for that one trick to make my site either faster, easier to understand, accessible, and better. Sure, you could scour the web for weeks, looking for all the little tips and tricks that makes a good website great, or you can get this book and discover it all easily. All from a person who has, for many years, made the web a better place.

Molly's attention to detail, her teaching methods, and approach to giving these secrets and tips makes is utterly easy to digest and remember. By all means, this book is a treasure trove of knowledge that belongs in every web designer's personal collection.

Great book!
Very complete overview and many snippets of experience.
I only called it "in the Rough" because of the paper & binding... it isn't shiney, and no color prints, but the info is the Diamond, and worth much more. As they say, "Don't judge a book by its cover"!
Molly's books are always worth keeping. She delivers. =)

Cal

This is one of the few web books that has great breadth and gives sufficient depth to help not only the novice, but a seasoned web developer. This book has been quite helpful for the web team I am on to understand what current best practices are and how we get to this level.

There are so many poorly developed sites on the web it is great to have a book at hand to point to when needing to explain how to do it right. Molly's book is one of the quickest ways to start building web sites right

To be certain there are some invaluable hints in this book. But since the items covered are just spots of information from here and there around the landscape of web and design standards you need to check this book out in person to make sure you are getting your moneys worth. In particular I liked the material on CSS layout, but I was disappointed with coverage of basic topics like web safe colors, which requires a more in-depth discussion than the few paragraphs presented. Worth the look, but be sure to look before you buy.

When I picked up a copy of the ASP.NET Cookbook, I was expecting to find a couple of very simple "recipes" and a couple of more complex ones. What I found was a book that goes through everything you need to know to go from a beginning ASP.NET developer to a really advanced developer. I was very surprised with how complete and thorough this book is in helping developers become advanced ASP.NET developers.

This book assumes that you have some knowledge of ASP.NET. The first chapter takes off immediately with a discussion on datagrids. If you pick up this book without a basic knowledge of how to even create an ASPX page, you'll be lost. If that is the case, go for one of O'Reilly's other ASP.NET books like Programming ASP.NET or ASP.NET In A Nutshell. If you already have that groundwork, then you'll find this book to be a natural picking-up point.

After a very thorough discussion on tabular data (nearly 180 pages), the authors take the reader through data validation (with server validation controls), forms (which include tasks like getting the Enter key to work like the submit button), and user controls. At this point, the book really starts to shine. The authors begin a discussion of custom controls, which is both very interesting and very useful for the growing ASP.NET programmer. The remainder of the book (which is still quite a bit of content), goes over such useful (and slightly more advanced) concepts like maintaining state, how and why to modify web.config, error handling, performance tuning, web services, and caching.

Like I mentioned, I was surprised at both the depth and breath of content covered in this book. O'Reilly does list this book in their "cookbook" series and can certainly be used in that way. However, I think many readers will find it quite easy and useful to read this book from cover to cover. I would highly recommend this book for all levels of ASP.NET developers. The authors have done a very good job of including content that all levels of developer will benefit from.

ASP.NET Cookbook
Authors: Michael A Kittel and Geoffrey T. Leblond
Published by O'Reilly Books ISBN 0596003781
Reviewed by Steven Mullins, HuNTUG member

This was a hot book for me, I really get the feeling after reading this book that I can comfortably start to write my own code and see some success instead of just errors and copying open source.

If you want to see some of the basics of what the book is actually doing you can go to the website and see a host of examples. www.dominiondigital.com/aspnetcookbook/errata.aspx and you can find the controls and how they work and what the end result looks like by chapter and example. This book is well laid out in its basic approach to teaching going from the first look to the more custom data controls. The highlight for me that I had not seen anywhere else was the section on displaying user friendly-error messages. The one thing I disagree with is instead of including the information in the book there are a lot of references to other O'Reilly books. I am aware that is the livelihood of some but not all of us want to buy twelve books for reference.

I enjoyed the common sense way the book flowed, the Problem, Solution, and Discussion format added to the ease of explanation of the coding and why things are done in a certain manner. There are huge amounts of code and examples in both VB and C#. The chapters are well covered from user controls through tracing and debugging. The chapter on configuration was well covered and even covered adding personal tweaks to the web.config. The book then leads into the area of real time for all users and that's getting the info out on the web, to include the aspects of imaging and caching information. I really appreciate the way the hints and tips were covered as well as the cautions. Overall there were many areas of the book that were just what the coder ordered and serve's the average beginner to intermediate user. Those in the community that have the skill set already down may not be as impressed with the information. As a beginner myself I thought the book was well worth the read and I plan on using the information on my first web based application I am starting to write.

I haven't read all of the recepies. However, at the moment I am very happy with this book.

The chapter on input validation is really well done. It is easy to start with what the book offers and extend it to something else.

The chapters on error handling and tracing are also very good.

This book has clear examples and good code. I am happy with it.

Had the book only a day before it paid for itself. The code examples are excellent, and the authors are well aware of best practices. This is not a bunch of hack recipes, but recipes to build durable, production code.

Another in O'Reilly's ongoing series of cookbooks and hacks. Here, we are looking at ASP.NET. Probably still relatively new to a lot of you, which may explain why you are considering this book. Undoubtedly, you've heard of, and maybe tried using, the official texts put out by Microsoft Press. By definition, those are authoritative. But the sheer verbosity, while probably necessary in order to teach you the subject, can be offputting.

Suppose, though, you know the rudiments. Maybe via those books. You are now working on a problem and face well defined smaller problems within it. The remit of this book. It does not try to teach you ASP.NET as a pedagogic whole. Rather, each chapter is offered largely independent of its predecessors. And within a chapter, the various hacks are logically related but can often be understood by themselves.

Care has gone into the descriptions of hacks in the Contents pages. So, for example, we have "Creating a Web Service" and "Caching Pages". Concise but detailed enough to direct you to the material.

The bulk of the book is also in its favour. Due in large part to extensive code listings that often accompany the hacks. Remember, you can easily get to and read only what you need. The code may turn out to be a huge timesaver.

It is the most colorful and most cutest book to own!!! Everything's fully explained.. Makes you want to explore further and eager to learn. I have gone through repeatedly. Simply LOVE this book !!! GRAB YOUR COPY NOW!!!

Two weeks ago I decided to re-work my company web sit. I ordered this book
and "Creating Web Pages with HTML". Creating came first and with it I was able to create a seven page site with pictures in under twelve hours.

Then came this book. There are three or four things in it that were not covered in "Creating" but "Creating" was much easier and simpler to follow and excecute. Creating did a much better job of taking it one step at a time, from the basic to the more complex in a more logical order.

I am far from an expert and this will probably get the job done for you even with out any previous html experience, but I would recommend "Creating" for its simplicity.

I bought this book back in 2002 to learn HTML and it was exactly what I was looking for. Easy to follow VISUAL instruction. After years of webpaging I STILL referance this book for quick easy to find reminders and brushing up. I recommend it to anyone, but especially those who know absolutely nothing about HTML nor where to begin.

When I am asked the question, "I want to learn programming, were should I begin?" my response is always, "learn HTML." While some people will legitimately argue that HTML is not true programming, it is easy to learn and the results are visual and immediate. The skills learned in the study of HTML are fundamental to more advanced programming and the ease of learning gives the beginner immediate and clear success.
This book is the easiest way to learn HTML that I have ever seen. With the illustrations all in full color, it is the epitome of What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG). Every step is set out in clear detail and all of the most commonly used features of HTML are covered. From this point on I will recommend it as my preferred first book in HTML.

The book is very helpful. The instructions are very clear and easy to follow.