HTML 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.

The authors take you step-by-step, virtually by the hand and explain all the tags needed in html. I've been designing web pages for a year, and am thrilled to own this book. I have already learned more than I expected. Whether a novice or advanced designer, this book is a plus in your library. At least in mine, it is.

This book is a great intro to learning html and other web concepts. The book is comprehensive of the basic aspects of html, and the examples are easy to learn, leading you towards learning more complicated uses. In particular, the section on forms is more complete, yet understandable than many other sources I've read, including the "Dreamweaver Bible."

One concept the author stresses--that's been indispensible to me--is the importance of learning proper html syntax. This has reduced my depency on web-authoring software, which I view as essential to mastering web design. I'll only design as well as I understand the technology, and for me to visualize the possibilities of html, I must first understand it's capabilities and limitiations. This book has given me a boost towards that goal. I'd also recommend Ann Navarro's class in html at hwg.org. That class was a great way to get started.

Ann covers the "how-tos" as well as the "whys". I found this book very helpful in learning how to write clean code. Ann's style provides clear and easy to understand instruction. I highly recommend this one!

One of the most technically accurage Web design books on my shelf -- the authors take the W3C specifications to heart, teaching you how you're *supposed* to do things, then letting you vary from that in an educated fashion. Hurrah!

I had the pleasure of hearing Ms. Navarro speak recently on HTML, XHTML and new trends for the Web. She's definitely an author to watch!

Ann runs an online class using this book at the HTML Writer's Guild site. I found the book to be highly informative and I especially appreciate the cross-browser compatibility info. Buy the book and take the class!

Great book suported by some On-line examples, specially good for begginers.
Little more examples or exercises will give this book the 5th star but as it is now it is also great.
My recomendation..

BR

Excellent book, after reading and experimenting with css I have been able to convert a site to use css. Did not know anything about css until this book. Gives great insite to web design using css. Worth every penny.

A bit complicated for a newbe to web design but I am getting there. Its well laid out and seems up todate.

This book is a good guide. It is comprehensive while not being overly technical. I got the book to use as a desk reference. The book starts out with the basics and does a good job building on that knowledge and bringing things together in later chapters.

The short review: I downloaded this off a torrent; I was so impressed with it, that I'm buying it hard copy. It's definately one of those books that works well for a quick reference.

The long review: This book probably isn't for absolute gurus, simply because there's too much explanation. I'd probably recommend "The Ultimate CSS Reference" if you've already got a firm foundation and just need a quick reference that you can flip through faster than you can load a pdf from your flash drive.

In fairness, though, this book covers more than CSS; it takes the absolute beginner from the basics to a point where they presumably can google for what they need. I picked this up to get up to date on doing web design, after taking over a decade long haitus from it. I was sold by page 6, where the author explained why he wasn't going to go into using WYSIWYG tools. I was further sold by the _lack_ of an IE centric approach, which I've seen other books use. (One of which went so far as to say that Firefox and Opera weren't worth wasting time designing for, because they comprise such a small percentage of user's browsers.) Craig takes the opposite approach and stresses compatibility heavily.

If you're an absolute beginner, I'm not sure this book will be a good fit for you: it tends to present tags only once, and then flesh out actual usage, without covering every possible attribute of them.

However, if you're somewhat familiar with doing web sites, and especially if you did it in the bad old days, this book is an absolute godsend. The writing style is pleasing, and the book is organized such that it's easy to read it cover to cover and not get bored. The examples tend to be well illustrated, and the graphics save having to actually load the code to see the end result.

Frankly, I was impressed enough with this book to make it the first technical book I've actually _bought_ in years. While it's readable in digital form (which tends to be my preferred method), it almost demands being had in hardcopy. Or, to put it another way, it allowed me to close the 20+ tabs I had open to [...]CSS pages, as well as the multiple Google searches. :-)

The only people who might not benefit from this book are the true experts; if you're so familiar with CSS that you can calculate margin offsets in under 2 seconds, for a four column page with 20+ divs, then it's likely you need something like The Ultimate CSS Reference. Even so, the real world site examples at the end might still give you some food for thought.

I can't think of any gripe about this book, so, I'll just nitpick: the sheep images used for the img tag demonstrations were too Euro-centric. I'd of much rather preferred llamas.

I found the cd to be most helpful in seeing the overall technologies used in areas of web design. I am a "newbie" and the cd helped me get off on a good start.

What made this book a good one was the templates and tutorials. It has everything to help you get on your way to designing your own web pages.

The HTML is a well-rounded Web design starter for anyone who wants to learn HTML and about other Web design issues the easy way. cool templates.

I found the cd to be most helpful in seeing the overall technologies used in areas of web design. I am a "newbie" and the cd helped me get off on a good start.

Creating web pages used to require a great deal of time to create images, and scan in photos, hand coding the HTML and so forth. Charles River Media has put together a software package that make cut you web design time in half and Template Master will have creating great web pages like the masters.

The single cd was easy to install in both windows 98 and windows 2000. No major complications and install time was less than 30 minutes. The software is made for the HTML 4.0 specifications and if you are new to the web design game there is a step-by-step tutorial to help you out.

Making customizable web pages is easy with the tutorial and also because you learn as you go. Included with the cd is clip art and web page templates, banner ads and icons, everything you will need to get started. I think there could have been more bullets, buttons and other items, but you should have enough to begin.

Software like Home Site, Hot Dog Express, and Map Edit, for both Mac and Windows is some of the demo software also included on the cd. I was able to use the templates with Front Page 2000 without any trouble at all.

About the only thing not included was a user manual, but as for overall value you'll be hard pressed to find something better for your money.

I have written several custom JSP tags and I wish this book had been available when I started, it would have saved lots of time. All of the issues I ran into during my development efforts have been clearly outlined in this book. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in JSP custom tags. This book would be a great resource for those with some experience with custom tags. But it also provides a great introduction for those that are new to the topic.

Contrary to the previous review, the Java classes in the book do compile. I highly recommend the book.

Most other books I have read on this topic include merely one or two chapters for custom JSP tags. This book gives you chapter after chapter of custom tags and holds your hand throughout the learning process. The authors are clearly developers themselves, which shows in the quality of the work. The beginning chapters are particularly useful for those who are completely new to the topic. In all, a fine book, I hold back giving it 5 stars due to the lack of discussion of Struts. Please add that to the next print, otherwise this is a valuable book that has no competitor in the market.

This is a review I did for AustonJUG group. Since it is a long review (more than 1000 words), I only post the overview here....Working with other server side Java components, such as JavaBeans, EJBs and JDBC, properly designed custom tag libraries allow developers to encapsulate and reuse code. Custom tags create a tag-based content authoring environment and allow web authors to write highly dynamic web applications in HTML style without learning the Java programming language. So, architects, developers and content authors can all benefit from studying JSP custom tags.

Manning's book "JSP Tag Libraries" by Gal Shachor, Adam Chace and Magnus Rydin (ISBN 1-930110-09-X) is an excellent JSP custom tag text suited for both new and seasoned developers. This book covers JSP specifications 1.1 and 1.2.

One of the main strengths of this book is that it does not merely repeat API documentations. The authors put a lot of effort to show the readers the big picture, the philosophy behind JSP custom tags and how to apply them in real world applications. This book talks about "why" as well as "how".

After studying this book, the reader should be able to understand:

* What JSP custom tags are and why we need them;
* How custom tags work;
* How to use tags to perform common and advanced tasks;
* Steps to develop and deploy tag applications;
* Basic design patterns for tag applications;

The book is very well organized and well written. It is full of excellent code examples. Those examples put the techniques into context. The readers can learn effectively by playing with the examples. As added bonuses, the code examples can be easily adopted for real world applications. In section "Case Studies", the authors discuss two complete multi-tier E-commerce and M-commerce applications. They offer not only code examples on applying practical techniques but also insights and templates on how to design good JSP applications.

All the code examples in the book are annotated with in-depth explaining text. That truly helps readers to understand not only what the code is doing but also what the authors intended to do.

However, there are still things I wish the authors could improve in the next version:

1. The authors had excellent discussions on how to implement conditional tags, iteration tags and database access tags. But they did not mention similar tag libraries under development by the Jakarta Taglib project. I would really like to hear about their insights on the designs of Jakarta tag libraries and many similar libraries developed by commercial companies.

2. In the "Case Studies" part, it is quite easy to add a parallel WAP store front to the JDBC-driven WebStore through another set of custom tags. That would really drive home the power of separating business logic from presentation logic and highlight the flexibility of a JSP custom tag based solution. I wish the authors had done that.

Overall, I think this is an excellent book and would like to HIGHLY RECOMMEND it to anyone working with JavaServer Pages technology.

There are now quite a few JSP books around and some of them mention JSP Tag libraries. In a typical n-tier web application, JSP tag libraries enable the presentation layer to be cleanly separated from the business layer. This allows simple scripted pages to call complex Java code without confusing the HTML web page Developer. By using JSP tag libraries, the developers have reusable code that can provide easy access to different J2EE services.

This book starts of with a quick introduction to dynamic web servers, Java servlets and Java Server Pages (JSP). We recommend that readers new to JSP should read a book dedicated to JSP before reading this one. Chapter 3 begins with an explaination of JSP custom tags, setting up the environment (Tomcat) and creating a simple Hello World tag. The authors provide enough information to explain the example without confusing the reader. They also suggest solutions to why the example might not work, providing a useful insight into what to check if something goes wrong.

Chapter 4 gives an overview of the tag API (interface and methods) and Chapter 4 explains how to create a tag lib descriptor (TLD) and how the JSP runtime uses this information to produce a servlet. Chapter 6 and 7 present some coding techniques to build a tag library and use an example of building a tag library for sending email. This is a simple and effective example that describes the process of developing and using JSP tab libraries.

Chapter 8 is important because it describes in detail how to use JavaBeans with tags. Starting off with information about the Reflection API, the authors show how to create a JavaBean and use Tags to present the information. This technique allows the developer to remove a lot of Java code from the JSP, making the page easier to understand and maintain. Chapter 9 and 10 show how to develop condition and interating tags.

Chapter 11 focuses on designing a database presentation tag library. This chapter answers many useful questions such as, Why not just wrap everything in a JavaBean? Again the authors give an exellent explaination of a very important topic. Realistically many readers would not be accessing a database directly from a tag library so the next chapters present J2EE and how to access Enterprise JavaBeans using tag libraries.

Chapters 13 and 14 are very interesting because they explain two case studies; a JDBC-driven web store and an EJB driven WAP store. The authors go over the design and development in quite a bit of detail and it is useful to all readers wanting to use JSP tag libraries in their projects. The last chapter covers tips and tricks, showing how to generalize tags using the Command design pattern and discussing maintainence, performance and debugging.

Suprisingly, the Apache Struts project is not mentioned in this book, however many of the concepts found in Struts are explained here. The authors have done an excellent job in explaining how to develop and use JSP tag libraries. We found the authors' insight very useful and on the whole the book is easy to read.
visualbuilder.com

A GREAT read! It has specific movies and historical realizations I had never thought of!

This is a very interesting and useful book but I don't exactly like the overall point of view that it takes on motion pictures. It takes many historically based films and critiques them by comparing what is on the screen to actual historical events. Each chapter is devoted to one film (in most instances) and is critiqued by a different authority. The one constant that I see running throughout this book is that history does not make for good motion pictures if you are gazing through the eyes of the historian. That disturbs me. Motion pictures are a business as well a legitimate art form. If a historically based movie gets your interest as well as entertains you then perhaps that movie has fulfilled its purpose. The movie is the catalyst. It is up to you to dig up the history book and see what was recorded. And if you dig up a second history book it is very possible that those same events may be recorded slightly different. I liked the critique by Sean Wilentz on "THE BUCCANEER: Two Films" where he states that they stand somewhere in between fact and fiction. Akira Iriye is too critical of TORA! TORA! TORA! When you recall that particular motion picture, that's the one that stands out as a film that tried to get all the facts correct. Americans and Japanese respective of their home countries directed it. Iriye's criticism is almost ludicrous trying to state that inflections in the voices of some of the actors actually distorted the true meaning of their words. In light of PEARL HARBOR (2001) Akira Iriye is way off mark. Marshall De Bruhl's words about THE ALAMO are redundant and superficial. THE ALAMO was John Wayne's screen fulfillment of the legend. THE ALAMO is a great American film and it perpetuates that legend till this day. I liked what Stephen E. Ambrose had to say about THE LONGEST DAY. Ambrose recognizes that half the duality of filmmaking is a business. His approach and comments are very insightful and well written. As seen by James H. McPerson GLORY comes off best. It deserves it. "PAST IMPERFECT" is a good book but I just wish there were more input from the filmmakers.

When you're both a student of history and a movie buff, as I am, it can be difficult to sit and watch a film that presumes to have an accurate historical context without fighting the urge to evaluate it and pick holes in it. And I'm not the only one. This is a collection of analytical essays, most of high quality, by experts (not all of them historians) analyzing and critiquing individual films: Stephen Jay Gould on _Jurassic Park,_ Antonia Fraser on _Anne of the Thousand Days,_ Thomas Fleming on _1776,_ Dee Brown on _Fort Apache,_ William Manchester on _Young Winston,_ and numerous others. Sticking to those films about which I have some knowledge of the historical events they claim to portray, most are right on the money. James McPherson, commenting on _Glory,_ points out that while the context and general atmosphere are very well done, and the costuming and so on are exact, there are still deliberate historical errors for the sake of drama; none of the soldiers in Col. Shaw's 54th Massachusetts were ex-slaves, for instance, all of them having been recruited from among the state's free black population. And Catherine Clinton does an excellent job taking the wind out of _Gone with the Wind_'s mythical sails. There's a great deal of good information and criticism here and it's a compliment to say that nearly any of these essays will start an argument.

This book is just too damn interesting not to go into a revised edition that would, welcomingly, include a few more recent examples of the movies portending to convey history. It is cleverly organized, with an actual historical "timeline" that is matched with a selected movie that attempted to portray events for that period or year. It starts all the way back in the Jurrasic period, with "Jurrasic Park," of course. Each movie critique is written by a different film expert or historian, so you get a lot of diversity of perspective as well as writing style. There is a very intelligent interview of director John Sayles ("Eight Men Out" "Metowan") in the preface, which may be reason enough for film buffs to purchase this book.

One can either browse through the book and focus on "favorite" or "hated" films of the past, or read it straight through. Each essay offers at least one very good insight on the nature of history and how elusive the "accurate" accounting of an era or event can be.

The overall impression this book leaves is that movies, for all their ostensible efforts to "recreate" historical realities, will NEVER get it quite right. That's because they are products of their own times, and cannot ever fully escape the sensibilities of their own historical eras. Given this approach, the reader cannot help but gain a deeper appreciation for the exacting work of historians -- even if he or she is first attracted to the book out of interest in film. Films (and histories) explored here include "Spartacus," "Aguirre, Wrath of God," "Houdini" "Anne of a Thousand Days," "Henry V" (both Oliver and Branagh)"They Died With their Boots On", as well as many more. Since this book's publication, there have been more films that have either come close to, or completely mangled historical reality, so a revised edition would be most welomed. So to Mark Carnes, et al. -- PLEASE???

This book is commendable for its conception but is flawed in its premise and execution. The problem is there are too many fingers in the pie. I would have liked to read about one historian's perspective on all the films reviewed. Instead, each film was addressed and compared to historical recollections by a different author. There is no uniformity of thought or perspective. For instance, I am sure that if Stephen Ambrose had reviewed TORA! TORA! TORA! he may have seen that film in a much more favorable light than did Akira Iriye. One can speculate to infinitum. It is possible to find and read countless books on a given historical topic. The point I am making is that each author has the ability to bring different perspectives or interpretations of historical record that may result in different conclusions of events or more importantly ideas. If you were to ask an auditorium full of historians what was the most important factor contributing to the start of the Civil War I am sure you may get at least five good answers. Perhaps the idea that a film conveys is more important than the accuracy of each step that led to that idea. I think that SPARTACUS is an important film not as a representation of a historical record but for the idea that the inherent rights of human beings to live free is a notion worth dying for. Kirk Douglas as SPARTACUS stated something to the effect that he would never stand by and see two men battle and die just for the amusement of other men. There is something very noble about that statement and to the visuals on the screen that precipitated that assertion. To touch a chord of emotion from the audience is really the magic of the cinema. I never once ever thought that the purpose of the cinema was to teach history. For the audience the main purpose of the cinema is to be entertained and if you take it a few more steps perhaps come away with an idea or spark of imagination. That's the beauty of the cinema.

If you look at some other HTML books, there are parts that are lacking. This book should not be the only HTML guide in your library if you're serious about building a site, but it is definitely great for filling up those potholes from other books. It was especially helpful with the "back end" of forms and the frames section was very concise. I started my web site with books like HTML 4 For Dummies by Ed Tittel, et. al., I finished it with SAMS Teach Yourself HTML 4 by Deidre Hayes.

Awesome, to say the least. This book covers the information quickly & precisely. Though you will most likely need another book for more reference, this book will get your feet wet and get you ready to "mark-up" HTML. Touches on some important topics and is an ASSET to anyone who is in a rush. I read the book in 3 days in my spare time.

Although I like the writing style of the author, this book has just too many errors (especially when you consider its audience--beginners). I'm a beginner too, and found the mistakes while working through the book. Granted, a lot of these mistakes are minor, but as there are so many, I found myself not trusting the rest of the book. So what are the mistakes? Here is a sampling (and again they're minor but to a beginner they may just be enough to make one quit altogether from frustration):

--Page 25 and 87/The closing "/head" tag is in the wrong place(should be after the style ending tag) --Page 43/The word "line" probably is supposed to be "link." --Page 75/Table 9.1 the plus/minus symbol is incorrect as well as the special character code to display it. The book has "&plusmin;" (without the quotes of course)when it should be "±" (again without the quotes).

I quit reading the book at that point so there are probably many more errors.

Few technical books go to print without some errors being found later but most reputable publishers have a web site listing the errors. If there's a page ... for this book's errors I missed it.

Too bad because this book has a lot of potential.

This was the first teach-yourself tech book I had ever read, and it really gave me a desire to learn other skills; this coming from a recent highschool grad thats just about burnt out on dry-as-whole-wheat-toast text books. This book gave me the foundation to attack javascript and other web design elements. Heck, in a couple a days reading time you can learn the cornerstone langauge of the web. Convienently laid out and organized, promotes learning while doing, and makes a quick reference while not diving too deep into the intricacies of HTML.

if you need to create a website and you need to do it NOW - no time to plow through the bigger books that you bought and planned to read one day - then this is the book for you! Great self-contained primer but also great intro for other books such as Sams teach yourself web publishing with HTML 4 in 21 days. But use this one first and do that website!

Overall I give this book four stars. This is a REFERENCE book; not really intended for beginners. However, I read about some properties I did not know existed previously, so I learned a lot in addition to having one place to look up everything. I do like that it's hardcover--though I wish one of these days Sitepoint could make books that are able to lay flat!

I also like the fact that after every property, there is a little box that explains which browsers are compatible with it. The book even explains if the property is buggy (looking at you, IE), and then delves into why and if there is a fix. Unfortunately, this list will soon need additions to them, with the coming of IE8, Chrome, etc, etc. Still, very useful.

It doesn't receive a perfect five because I wish more example pictures could be displayed. I don't mean for the very basic things (like the height property). In some of the explanations, I was only 80 to 90% sure of what the paragraph was talking about, and with web I am very visual. I know this would have taken up more space, but I felt it was needed (but only for certain sections). I also didn't like how the "index" is set up. I think there should have been another index (keywords) in addition to the current, property-only one. For instance, div isn't even mentioned there. I know that's an HTML tag but it would have been nice to see all the keywords throughout the book regarding it, considering its interaction with CSS. I guess I'm not used to that sort of index, which is basically the Table of Contents but at the end of the book.

So yes, I would say if you want one book to look up all the different properties of CSS, this is it. Again, this is a reference, not a book with tutorials and explanations on how to create something specific (recommend the anthology book for that).

The ultimate CSS reference by Tommy Olsson and Paul O'Brien is exactly what it says, a reference guide. As with all books however I've read this one cover to cover. The book covers every single CSS keyword, selector, pseudo-class and corresponding attribute known (including some that aren't even in the official ratified W3C standard but are supported by certain browsers and some that are currently in the standard but aren't supported by any of the major browsers) from CSS version 1 right through to the latest CSS 3.

The book is very well laid out and easy to look up as a reference with chapters on layout, list styles, box properties etc. Next to this is a quick reference stating whether or not the attribute is inherited, it's initial value, which version of the official W3C specification it comes from and a quick browser support reference stating whether it's fully supported by the browser, partially supported, not supported at all or whether the implementation is buggy for a particular browser. This is followed by a description of what the attribute does, any values that it takes followed by a more complete browser compatibility list. The list covers the major browsers that are currently out from IE5.5 through IE7, Firefox 1.0 through 2.0, Safari 1.3 through 3.0 and Opera 9.2. Following this is a brief description of any compatibility issues as listed .

As with any book of this nature, basically it is out of date virtually as it's printed. With Firefox 3.0 and Opera 9.5 just being released and Internet Explorer 8.0 just around the corner. However this and it's companion Ultimate HTML reference are definitely two books that I'd love to see updated once the new set of browsers are out.

Scattered throughout the book are numerous references to W3C RFCs, web sites showing compatibility issues and differences between the way various browsers handle the CSS etc. that are very useful.

This book is a must for any web developer no matter which programming language you use to build your web sites. Combine it's sister book with this one and you really do have the ultimate web reference sitting at your fingertips. No more looking through obscure RFC's. When you're designing a web site and come across a quirk in how you thought something should have been laid out, or a CSS selector then simply reach for this book and it will tell you if indeed it is a bug or whether you are just implementing incorrectly.
Tommy and Paul should be proud of what they have produced and this book should grace every web developers desk and be within fingertip reach.

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.

This is a real good book. The site is down so there are no examples to download. and the book has no cd.
It took longer to read and type all the work from scratch.

I purchased this Stauffer book in 1996 having absolutely no HTML knowledge whatsoever; the next night, I had a fairly nice webpage up-and-running on one of these free servers that are available. HTML By Example is incredibly easy to read and follow along, and though the book ends quite abruptly with an overview on more advanced web design, it contains enough information to make one fully comfortable with intermediate HTML.

-l-

The back cover says that this book is for the intermediate/advanced user. From what I've seen that's absolutely correct, because the author obviously feels that a majority of HTML tags and attributes are too trivial for this particular audience. There are a few chapters on Form design, JavaScript and data gathering from forms, but Ann fails to deliver on how to gather data from forms! The JavaScript chapter is useless, it might be novel to enter a number in a text field press a button and that number multiplied by 2 is displayed in another field. Very impressive Ann, but how about something useful like changing the image of a hyperlink as the mouse goes over the region?

The first quarter of the book discusses what HTML is, where its going, the history etc. Interesting reading, but nothing to do with writing a webpage. This book doesn't even provide an appendix for the HTML tags or attributes, making it very difficult to use as a reference later on.

This book looked promising, even when I was reading through it, however towards the end and when you start writing a webpage you'll soon realise just how much material was missed out. I'm now looking for another book, this time one with an appendix for the HTML tags and attributes.

I create web sites for a living. While this is a beginner/intermediate book, it has a number of very useful tips in it and it's much easier to scan for information than many other books I own. I also like the fact that Ann stresses browser compatibility in her HTML code. I often use this book when I need to find code that works in both Netscape and IE.

Despite the fact this book was printed in 1996, it teaches you everything you need to know about HTML with very good examples, and a well laid out, easy to read format. It does not discuss javascript (save that for another book). If you wish to hand code HTML, which is the professional way, then here is a good book to start you out and finish off your education.

THE INFO IS VALUABLE, BUT HALF AS MUCH WOULD HAVE BEEN TWICE AS VALUABLE

Clark Kent Ervin was a member of the Texas entourage that President George W Bush brought to Washington D.C. with him in 2001. As a Bush loyalist, he obtained a political appointment as Inspector General for Collin Powell's State Department. Before he could properly enter into this job, he was asked to become the Inspector General for the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that came into being following the tragedy of 9/11. Although nominated to the job by the President, his conformation was put on hold by the U.S. Senate for reasons not made clear in this book and he ended up with a recess appointment. Now the position of Inspector General (IG) in any government agency is a very important one because it is the IG office that ensures the agency is doing the job it was charted to do and obeying the regulations and procedures it created as guidelines for doing that job. Although an unconfirmed political appointee, Ervin clearly took a conscientious and proactive approach as DHS IG.

This book chronicles what he found wrong at DHS and explains why this means that the U.S. is vulnerable not only to terrorist attacks, but to other manmade or natural disasters as well. Of course this book is self serving, as are most Washington D.C. memoirs, but on the whole it appears an accurate appraisal of the ineptitude and incompetence that has plagued DHS since its creation. As such it makes alarming reading.

Much of the problem as Ervin points out is that creating a new government organization to solve what is seen as a problem is an easy, but not necessarily a good solution. President Bush, to his credit, did not want to create a cabinet level organization at all and, to his discredit, did nothing to provide the leadership needed to get DHS up and running after he was forced to create it. Tom Ridge, the first DHS Secretary he appointed, clearly shared the President's views and did little to make DHS a viable organization. Michael Chertoff who succeeded Ridge as DHS Secretary appears to be a competent administrator, but an incompetent manager. And most of the problems that Ervin identifies in this book as DHS potholes apparently remain unfilled.

Assuming this book to be accurate, the senior management at DHS appears remarkably passive in their execution of their responsibilities and, in many cases, ignorant of and indifferent to those responsibilities. Ervin did his best to move DHS in a more positive direction, but he himself was scarcely an expert on national security issues and structural efficiency. As is often the case in Washington, an inability or unwillingness on the part of DHS senior leadership to dirty their hands with the details of day-to-day operations or to reflect on the concepts they were charged with implementing doomed DHS from the start.

I actually like the "Tedious and Flawed" review even though I do not fully agree with that characterization of this book. That review is useful as a counter-balance to blind acceptance of the author's assertions as well as my own praise of this book.

However, as a 30 year veteran of the U.S. Government, and as the lead Amazon reviewer on national security matters, I have to give this book five stars and opine that on balance, this author is closer to the truth than the U.S. Government might wish us to believe.

The key assertion in the book, which most reviewers fail to note, is that stove-piping and a failure to share information is the key threat to our Nation. The Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) appears to understand this assertion, and the ONLY thing about the DNI that impresses me is the focus on information sharing standards and processes being devised by the DNI CIO. The author gives this information sharing blockage more weight when he discusses the fact that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ten different intelligence units out of the 22 agencies it manages, yet the Secretary of DHS (then Tom Ridge) refused to do what Congress asked him to do, which was to be the lead for coordinating and consolidating intelligence about threats to the homeland. Little wonder that years after 9-11 we still do not have a consolidated watchlist of suspected terrorists.

The author says on page 175 that DHS suffers from a clear failure to take intelligence matters as seriously as they should be, and he cites testimony to the effect that DHS gets a grade of 5-6 on a scale of 10. A memorable quote on page 11 sets the stage for the book: "Instead of connecting the dots, the Secretary of Homeland Security was passing the buck." Exactly right, and Hurricane Katrina, which the author does discuss, proves the point. DHS is a charade, line the DNI, the Secretary of DHS is simply a figure-head, a placebo for public.

EDIT of 28 June 2007: I reread this book by accident while at the beach, having forgotten I went over it earlier, and this time one additional observation jumped out at me: the author, in the chapter on intelligence failure, documents how the lawyers working for the original Secretary of DHS refused to allow DHS to execute its mandate to be the sole authority in bringing together all the terrorist watchlists. The national counter-terrorism center is in my view unnecessary, counter-productive, overly obsessed with terrorism, and oh, by the way, five years later, they have a gift shop but they still do not have a consolidated terrorist watch list.

I happen to sympathize with the author, and there are no doubt many that will consider this book to be self-serving, but when the author says on page 15 that "doing your job can ruin your career," he is speaking for many. Today the Washington Post tells us that the Supreme Court has ruled against government employees being entitled to freedom of speech, even when they are attempting to report criminal actions by their organizations or leaders. The U.S. Government has, in my view, become corrupt with respect to the integrity of the information and the transparency and accountability of all the Cabinet departments. Fraud, waste, and abuse are the rule, not the exception, and we are long overdue for a massive housecleaning. I have seen too many good people driven out of government through "fitness of duty physicals," transfers to dark corners, and other punitive measures that should be illegal and punishable by prison or at least impeachment. The U.S. Governments shoots the messenger and plays politics with the truth, and that is a fact.

In that regard, the authors slams Senator Joe "never met a Republican I cannot love" Lieberman, and Senator Collins, for not being serious about their oversight roles, for being too intent with "going along" with what according to this author, the Inspector General charged with knowing such things, were not only fraud, waste, and abuse, but MISSION FAILURE.

I was impressed that the author established a separate IG unit to focus on information technology, and distressed that like the rest of the US Government, he does not seem to recognize the extraordinary value that the Government Accountability Office (GAO, an investigative arm of Congress) can offer as a partner in rooting out fraud, waste, abuse, and plain incompetence.

In the intelligence arena, my primary area of int3rest and my main reason for reading this book, the author has real credibility with me when he states that the U.S. Intelligence Community has NOT been fixed (as of 2006, five years after 9-11), and that DHS is a minor and abysmally incompetent player in the US IC--the "last to know" anything relevant to defending homeland security.

The book has excellent notes and an extremely poor index. I would normally reduce the score of this book to four stars for such a poor index, but the importance of this topic, and the authenticity of the author's experience and shared knowledge, cause me to leave it at five stars. I recommend the book be read with Stephen Flynn's America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism, which I have also reviewed, some time ago, very favorably.

I admire the courage of this author and thank him. He has clearly informed his readers of the dangers that US citizens still face after 911. This very important information needs to become action and this book explains how.

This book has a 206/24 combination: The first 206 pages is like an undercover sting operation where we learn, in detail, exactly what the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Government is doing to `make us safe' from various terrorist threats and how they are doing it. The last 24 pages lays out exactly what the DHS and the Government SHOULD be doing to combat domestic terrorism.

I must forewarn you, reading this book will make you angry, sad, appalled, dumbfounded, and scrambling to your favorite vice for relief. But it is time for us to really know what terrorists already know: American has a long way to protecting its people the best we can.

I highly recommend this disturbing and illuminating book.

PS I had the brilliant idea of sending a copy of "Open Target" to every Senator and Congressman to ensure they `get the message'. If I just knew they would (or could) all read it.