Buy My Book

Practical Web 2.0 Applications with PHP

By Quentin Zervaas

Want to assert yourself as a cutting–edge PHP web developer? Take a practical approach...

HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition (Visual Quickstart Guide)

By Elizabeth Castro

Media: Book (Paperback, 456 pages)
ISBN: 0321430840
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Release Date: Aug 26, 2006

Buy from Amazon

Product Description

It's important for anyone who creates Web sites--even those who rely on powerful editors like Dreamweaver or GoLive--to know HTML. The World Wide Web Consortium rewrote HTML as a subset of XML (dubbing it "XHTML 1.0") and the allowable code will eventually be stricter. Tags that are being phased out are labeled "deprecated"--current browsers can still handle them, but if you want your site to keep up with future browsers, not to mention conform to accessibility requirements, you will want to get on top of XHTML.

Of course, Elizabeth Castro manages to write books that not only speak to those who are already fluent in HTML, but are good for newbies too. She makes it a breeze to create sites that are visually stylish and technically sophisticated without the expense of buying an editor.

Among the topics covered in her new book, HTML for the World Wide Web with XHTML and CSS: using the (relatively newer) structural tags (like doctype and div); correctly using older tags (like p and img) that have been modified in XHTML; writing XHTML so that formatting is done by the style sheets; writing those style sheets (cascading style sheets, a.k.a. "CSS"); creating a variety of layouts; and dealing with tables, frames, forms, multimedia, a bit of JavaScript (including mouseovers), WML (for mobile device displays), debugging, publishing, and publicizing your site.

As with all Visual QuickStart Guides, this one features clear and concise instructions side by side with well-captioned illustrations and screen shots that show both the source code and the resulting effect on the Web page. The index is extremely detailed, making this a great reference.

Also great for reference are the outstanding appendices. The first is an extensive list of tags and attributes, indicating which are deprecated and/or proprietary and on which page they are discussed. A similar appendix shows CSS properties and values; given the future of Web coding, this chart alone is worth the price of the book. Other handy charts cover intrinsic events, symbols and character Unicodes, and an expanded color chart that goes way beyond the virtually archaic Web-safe palette. All of which makes this a definite must-have for every Web designer's bookshelf. --Angelynn Grant

Excellent Book!

This book really gave me a lot of insight on the fundamentals of Web design. It takes you step by step through the processes of hand writing the Web code. It was a lot of help for me, and I plan on keeping this book for future reference.

Submitted 31 Oct 2008

HTML, XHTML & CSS

This book is really well written and gave me confidence that I could build a web site for myself. Ms. Castro has taken each building block carefully and walked the reader through the steps with examples at each level. What I really liked was that she continually provides reminders of previously covered details and notes places later in the text where more details will emerge. Also, she provides a continuous example that matures slowly with the text. That way the reader can concentrate on the new information at each phase of the site construction. This is a very useful text and even written in a personable style. Give it a try if you're a complete novice as I was.

Submitted 23 Oct 2008

great textbook!

I bought this book as a required reading for my web design level 1 class. My teacher likes it as a reference and I like the way it is written. Easy to follow with gotcha's and tips well laid out. I would recommend it for anyone trying to learn how to build a website with CSS.

Submitted 12 Oct 2008

So great! This book is very helpful and useful for learning HTML and web layout

Even the least experienced web layout designer could learn a lot from this book. The font is large, the layout is easy to read and understand. The book goes into GREAT depth in each field. I recommend this book. I am using it for a class, but will hold onto this book for ever. Great transaction as well, here in about a week.
-Thanks, Amazon!

Submitted 30 Sep 2008

BEST BOOK TO PICK-UP FOR WEB SITE BUILDING

This book is A-ma-ZING...... It teaches you everything that you need to know to get started building, the whole process. It just breaks everything down into smaller bits of information. I know that with time, because of this book, my Web site skills will be all that I hoped for. It's definitely a go-to book for how to do anything.