Editorial Review

Usability design is one of the most important--yet often least attractive--tasks for a Web developer. In Read more

Reviews (298)

A must read for anyone involved in website creation
An infinitely quotable book which takes you through the fundaments of designing websites that customers will find easy to use.Easy to use websites of course being successful websites.
The Title Says It All
I've read a lot on usability, and this is the single-best source I've seen. Every site designer and developer has to read this book. In fact, everyone on the decision food chain in your organization at least needs to be aware of what Krug teaches us. I will forever use usability testing often and early in the process now. Remember, it doesn't matter how cool your application or website is--if people can't use it, they will get frustrated and leave. Please--give us all a better experience!

definitely not a waste of paper :-)
This is a wise book, intentionaly kept small to be qucikly digestible. Very cleanly and simply the author describes where are the problems customers/users encounter while browsing the web, and how web contents designers should avoid making users think (more than absolutely necessary) while trying to do something on one's pages (look for/report/buy/pay/etc). The best book I have read in years.
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Subjects:  1. Computer - Internet    2. Computer Books: Web Publishing    3. Computers    4. Design    5. Internet - Web Site Design    6. Internet - World Wide Web    7. Web site development    8. Web sites    9. Computers / Internet / Web Site Design    10. World Wide Web (WWW)   

Reviews (64)

Great web design book
This book is an analisys from a designer's point of view of the cssZenGarden.com project, which is a beautiful project on itself.
Css is not only about limits
As the web developer in our company I often hear our graphical designers asking me what IS possible with CSS. Well this book gives you a good idea. It is not really about learning CSS but at least it gives a good idea about all the possibilities. Each time I get stuck in the limits of CSS, I get back to this book.....

MUCH More Design than CSS
If you are a programmer that knows nothing about graphic design, this book is pretty nice.It is about 70% focused on how to do graphic design, and about %30 about CSS.Otherwise, if you want to learn CSS this isnt the best book.
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Subjects:  1. Cascading style sheets    2. Computer - Internet    3. Computer Books: Web Programming    4. Computers    5. Design    6. Desktop Publishing    7. Desktop Publishing - General    8. Internet - Web Site Design    9. Web sites    10. Computers / Internet / Web Site Design    11. Internet   

Editorial Review

PHP is far more than a cult language or open-source icon. It's a remarkably capable language that's well integrated with lots of technologies--notably mSQL and MySQL database servers--and quite easy to learn. Read more

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Reviews (41)

Solid Look At PHP Programming
'Programming PHP' by Kevin Tatroe is a solid look at this popular open source solution for generating dynamic web pages.Competing against the money solutions ASP and JSP, PHP will give you the same kind of functionality, but at a much lower price!Packed with over 500 pages of PHP goodness, this book will make you a better PHP programmer and teach you how to go all the way from defining the most basic of variables to performing database tasks and all sorts of other important tasks and tricks of the trade.I highly recommend this well-written and well ordered book, perfect for anyone that wants to learn and excel at PHP programming!!
Not the best, but decent
It's not the best computer language book I have ever read, by a long shot, but it did give me most of what I needed. I found a number of errors, including places where the example code differs from the text description. This is mostly the editor's fault. Also, there were a number of important details that were left out. This brings me to my main concern: it is not clear who this book was written for. A novice would be overwhelmed, I think, while a more experienced programmer like me may be frustrated with some critical omissions. On the whole, though, it did get the job done.

Programming PHP, 2nd Edition (PHP 5)
I'm assuming via the dates of the other reviews, that most of them are referring to Version 1.
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Languages    2. Computer Books: Web Programming    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Design    6. Information Technology    7. Internet - General    8. Internet - Web Site Design    9. PHP (Computer program language)    10. Programming Languages - General    11. Web sites    12. Computer Programming    13. Computers / Languages / Programming    14. Computers / Programming Languages / General    15. Internet languages    16. Programming PHP, Rasmus Lerdorf, Kevin Tatroe, Php, web, database, mysql, dynamic, html, cgi, apache, database-backed, database-driven    17. Publishing on the Internet   

Reviews (13)

A great buy!
I am a self-taught novice graphic/web designer and I bought this book hoping to be able to incorperate some flash into my works. I downloaded the free 30 day trial of Flash 8 Pro and started working on this book. It worked like a charm. I am half way through the book and I already feel that I have a decent amount of knowledge in Flash.
A Wonderful Learning Tool
I was incredibly happy with Mr. Kerman's book, which, through the heavy use of tutorials, allowed me to become comfortable using Flash very quickly.
Very good book
This is my first review of any book.I felt strongly enough about this book to write up a quick review.
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Subjects:  1. Computer Animation    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computer Graphics - Flash    4. Computer graphics    5. Computers    6. Computers - Desktop Publishing    7. Design    8. Internet - Web Site Design    9. Web sites    10. Computers / Computer Animation    11. Image processing    12. Multimedia   

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Reviews (12)

Finally, an excellent book!
This is by far the best book I have ever bought on Dreamweaver. I am a self-learner, and I have about ten books at all levels on Dreamweaver, starting from "dummies" to "beyond". In this book, the author goes through the laborious tasks of explaining the basic concepts first, and then follows these up with one or more step-by-step tutorial. He also provides a host of appropriate tips and "notes" such as "Power Users' Clinic", "Up to Speed", etc. that are very useful to a self-learner like myself. The videos are simply outstanding.I wish that there were more videos. I assume that the author will continue writing such books. How about a Flash 8 book, David?
All that you need
~
Nice program
I haven't gotten very far into the book, but I can already tell that this manual is very comprehensive.It is simple to use and explains everything thoroughly.I noticed that even though I did free shipping, the book arrived well before the approximate arrival date it gave me, which was nice.I would reccomend this book for anyone. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Authoring programs    2. Computer - Internet    3. Computer Books: Web Programming    4. Computers    5. Design    6. Desktop Publishing    7. Desktop Publishing - General    8. Internet - Web Site Design    9. Web site development    10. Web sites    11. Computer / Internet    12. Computers / Internet / Web Site Design    13. Dreamweaver, HTML, Web site building, Web site authoring, Web page design, Web site creation, CSS, Flash, Cascading Style Sheets, DHTML    14. Internet    15. Web publishing   

Reviews (13)

Dreamweaver 8 and Nac OS X
Good book, walks you right through each step of the way. Examples are good. Slight problem with the Mac OS X instructions, but workable. A good understanding of your computer system and operating system is suggested to help with some of the exercises.

Effective, but needs a little tweaking....
Dreamweaver is a deceptively simple-appearing program, but is incredibly powerful and complex "under the hood". Thus, future users will need exceptionally well-prepared materials to learn it well.
Great book for starters
Before I picked up this book, I had no experience with dreamweaver whatsoever, and basic html skills (I can read html and know what it is.
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Subjects:  1. Computer - Internet    2. Computer Books: Web Programming    3. Computers    4. Desktop Publishing    5. Desktop Publishing - General    6. Internet - Web Site Design    7. Computers / Internet / Web Site Design    8. Internet   

Reviews (6)

Not a bad book - Good fundamentals less on development focus
This book is all about Web services platform architecture and standards. It cooks well on most of the alphabet soup of web services standards. This book would guide you instead of browsing over the internet for what is what. The book falls short on guidelines for implementing them. The book also a bit old in its evolving specifications and endorsed standards coverage particularly less about WS-I and WS-Security* standards. That is disappointing.

Explains all you need to know about the Web Services Platform
What do you get when you put a number of Web Services gurus from IBM in a room for a while?You'll get the "Web Services Platform Architecture" book.In short, all the authors that assisted in writing this book are Web services experts from IBM who have either wrote the specs or assisted in writing the Web services specs in question.The nice thing about the book is that is it an easy read.It is not a dry, boring, "reading-these-specs is-putting-my-to-sleep," book.As you know, there are a number of specs that cover Web services, so the authors have a taken a short-and-sweet approach to each protocol.Each protocol is covered in detail, but the detail surrounds why you would want to care about this protocol, and not what paragraph 4, subparagraph 8 of chapter 2 of WS-Security says about naming conventions, for example.Each chapter ties the business needs to the technical aspects of the protocol, and talks about how the protocol can be used to solve a given business problem.
Too high level
There are several other books, that are over 2 years old that do the same job as this book. As an SOA enthusiast, you probably own or have read several of them already .. why bother with another one? ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer - Internet    2. Computer Books: Web Publishing    3. Computers    4. Internet - General    5. Internet - World Wide Web    6. Web services    7. Computers / Internet / World Wide Web    8. World Wide Web (WWW)   

Editorial Review

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.Read more

Reviews (513)

Far and away the best book for everyone!
This is simply the best HTML and CSS book.It has basically everything you need to know, with easy-to-find, easy-to-understand, and concise descriptions.It it not "web for dummies," rather, it is a very sophisticated and realistic approach to HTML and CSS, without a lot of hype or self-promotion.If you want to hear people wax poetical about the "EM" unit, you can get the book by Lie & Bos, but I think Castro's book is far more useful.She gives links to many web sites to help with more advanced stuff (Javascript, etc.), which is nice, but the book itself is incredibly comprehensive.And the layout of the book is a model for all instructional texts.A winner!

For Reference or for learning
Elizabeth Castro has been writing Visual Quickstart Guides to HTML and web design in an easy to understand manner. Now she provides resources for those who would be interested in web design that will create sites that are usable for years to come. Since I first picked up the fourth edition of this book, I have been hooked on the series, because its explanations are written on a level for the average person. The organization allows the reader to move at their own pace and easily refer back to topics that they want to refresh.
Coding
This book was a real help to me when I first became addicted to coding. The pictures are quite helpful, or at least more helpful than long explanations, and Elizabeth Castro is a fabulous writer. I learned so much that I went on to learn many other programming and coding languages with ease. You don't need to have any experience to use this book, it explains everything. Visual QuickStart Guide's are the best type in the market, cheap and easy to understand. So if you are itching to learn another computer language, I suggest checking them out! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Cascading style sheets    2. Computer Books: Languages    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Desktop Publishing - General    6. HTML (Document markup language)    7. Internet - Web Site Design    8. Programming Languages - HTML    9. XHTML (Document markup language)    10. Computers / Programming Languages / HTML, SGML, VRML, XML    11. HTML   

Editorial Review

Creating Web sites is easy. Creating sites that truly meet the needs and expectations of the wide range of online users is quite another story. In Read more

Reviews (232)

Very nice book
this is a very good book about web usability and its not a complex kind of book, you start reading it and u dont want to stop it untill you finish it!

Not quite what I expected..
As an avid read of Mr.Nielsen's blog and his website, I figured this book would comprise the "Bible of Web Design".Unfortunately, I was a bit let down.
Simple IS usually better
Please people don't design incredibly complex sites with over the top graphics that take an hour(feels like) to download even on broadband! I encounter this everyday and can't imagine what it must be like for those on dial-up, which is still most of the internet user base. Designers like to design and justify their high paying jobs by these crazy sites that simply drive me nuts. I recently tried looking for sunglasses on the Ray Ban site and Holy [...]! What a pain in the [...]! I finally went to a small reseller site where I could actually see the glasses quickly and make a purchase. The Ray Ban site I'm sure cost a fortune and is pretty but NOT user friendly. Web site designers need to remember that these sites are for people to find products and services, not to win design contests. My ex is a graphic designer(excuse me...User Interface Experience) for a very well know company and I know how they think. The more elaborate the better, we can charge clients more! KISS ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer - Internet    2. Computer Books: Desktop Publish    3. Computer Networks    4. Computers    5. Design    6. Electronic publishing    7. Internet - General    8. Internet - Web Site Design    9. Networking - General    10. User interfaces (Computer syst    11. User interfaces (Computer systems)    12. Web sites    13. World Wide Web    14. Computer graphics software    15. Computers / Internet / Web Site Design    16. World Wide Web (WWW)   

Reviews (7)

Good Choice for the CSS beginner and up
This book is a well written introduction into the world of css and pinpoints key concepts of css.It's by far one of the most readable texts that I have picked up out of all the technical books I've read in my few years of being alive.The book lacks a little in having some references to an example on a previous page while the reference to it is one to pages after the example.This discrepency is understood though since it is hard to keep everything together and not spill out onto other pages when planning the layout of a book. Overall this is a good book on css, and I would recommend it to anyone wishing to start into css.

Good book but irritating typos
I would have given this book atleast 4 stars if it weren't for the misleading typos! here's a few - Chapter 6 Pg 127 refers to Figure 6.2 (which doesn't exist!) instead of Figure 6.3; Chatper 10 Pg 228 the example "H1 {color: #ff000 }" is plain wrong (needs a extra zero at the end) and will not work.
Great resouce for new to css
ritten by the authors of CSS, at first I found it a bit heavy in dialogue and backgrounds. Not until you open the book to the index does one actually realize the wealth of information in the book. Do not expect this book to show examples of the next great page, but as a resource in trouble shooting it helped explain alot of questions I either was too lazy to look up in Dreamweaver Help or couldnt find the right type of answer elsewhere. My level is pretty much entry intermediate, but with this book, it took me a bit higher. I am getting rid of my introductory CSS books and using this one as my main go to guide.
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Subjects:  1. Cascading style sheets    2. Computer Books: Web Programming    3. Computer graphics    4. Computers    5. Computers - Languages / Programming    6. Design    7. Desktop Publishing    8. Desktop Publishing - General    9. Internet - Web Site Design    10. Programming Languages - HTML    11. Web sites    12. Computers / Programming Languages / HTML, SGML, VRML, XML    13. Internet   

Reviews (12)

Great usability book
As my second most favorite usability book, this book points out the hundreds of ways a site can go wrong, and the many points to consider when designing sites. Let's be honest - it's pretty impossible to satisfy all their guidelines and STILL meet a deadline - but at least you can pick the ones that matter most to your company, and be aware of the once you missed. Another must read for web designers.
Must read for any serious web developer
rioritizing Web Usability by Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger can best be described as a more 'strict' approach to web usability. If you have been in web development for any extended period of time it is likely that you have heard the name Jakob Nielsen. He offers great insight to web usability and has for many years. Some may view him as strict, some as normal, and still some as WAY off his rocker. No matter how you view him, he deserves much respect for his time spent in usability studies and the (somewhat timeless) statistics and information he brings to the table. I just finished reading this book, coupled with "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krugg, and appreciated what all of the authors could present through statistics, screenshots, and customer insight.
Good value for money
It was in v. good condition and the book was useful for us in building some web standards through our organization ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer - Internet    2. Computer Books: Web Publishing    3. Computer Programs Testing    4. Computers    5. Design    6. Internet - Web Site Design    7. Internet - World Wide Web    8. Programming - Systems Analysis & Design    9. User interfaces (Computer systems)    10. Web sites    11. Computers / Internet / World Wide Web    12. Computing and Information Technology   

Reviews (11)

Errors and omissions
The discussion on how to use the new SqlCacheDependency class is wrong. The book claimed (in page 623) that "with SQL Server 2005 no setup work is needed and no external objects must be added to the Database.". In reality, you need to setup several permissions in the database side. In addition, you have to make sure that the compatibility level of your database is set to 90.
Does what it says on the cover
This book is an excellent introduction to the facilitites available in ASP.NET 2.0. It covers simple topics such as HTML controls, WebControls, page lifecycle etc, and also goes a little deeper to discuss details of providers, personalisation & master pages to name but a few. There are also several chapters devoted to displaying data using ADO.Net which are useful. There's also a good chapter on ASP.NET security. Most if not all of this information is available on the web, however having a single book that covers these topics is well worthwhile - it's a great book to have by your side when you are writing ASP.NET sites.

Broad and deep coverage
The two books of this series (Core Reference & Advanced Topics) offer broad and deep coverage of ASP.NET.
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Subjects:  1. Computer - Internet    2. Computer Books: Web Publishing    3. Computers    4. Internet - Web Site Design    5. Internet - World Wide Web    6. Microcomputer Application Software    7. Programming - General    8. Computers / General   

Reviews (84)

Ecellent for covering SEO basics
This book is the best start to learning SEO. It covers all the SEO basics which may be all you need to get a decent listing. I'd say that the basics are 90% of rankings. My sites which I can't list due to the review policies enjoys about 5 keywords on page 1 of Google and Yahoo. It would have been a 5 star rating but I felt not enough changed from the prior revision.
LOVE this book!
While in the process of working on my new website, I came across this book and ordered it right away based on other reviews. I was not disappointed. It's a must for anyone getting ready to launch a new site or anyone wanting to drive more traffic to their already built site. Even if you think you know a lot about keywords and SEO, this is an excellent buy. It did for me what a company specializing in SEO wanted to do for $8,000. I'm sure the SEO company would have provided an excellent service, but by reading this book, I've learned how to do it myself and will now know how to tweak my site in the future.

Great for Newbies
If you're up-to-date with all the latest and greatest this is mainly a review. However, if you're not completely familiar with the terms and usage of SEO this is a great book.
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Subjects:  1. Computer - Internet    2. Computer Books: Web Publishing    3. Computers    4. Information Technology    5. Internet - General    6. Internet - World Wide Web    7. Computers / Internet / World Wide Web    8. Internet   

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Reviews (43)

A beautiful introduction to a beautiful technology... but wait for the second edition
I just read the beta version of the second edition cover to cover in just a couple of days, and I love it, the content as well as the exposition.The first edition only gets four stars, though, because the second edition contains a lot of updates worth waiting for.Even in its rought beta state it's a great resource, and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished book.

second edition expected for fall 2006
Would have been 5 stars, but ...
The only book I've used cover to cover
In all my years of reading, using and reviewing technical books, this is the first title I've read cover to cover, and in so doing actually built the sample application from start to finish.Most other books use a series of disconnected This book was my first foray months ago into the beautiful world of Rails development, and continues to function as the crowned jewel in my reference library anytime I have a question about Rails or Ruby.
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Subjects:  1. Computer - Internet    2. Computer Books: Web Programming    3. Computers    4. Internet - Web Site Design    5. Object-oriented programming (Computer science)    6. Ruby (Computer program language)    7. Computer / Internet    8. Computers / Internet / Web Site Design    9. Computers / Programming / Software Development    10. Publishing on the Internet    11. Web site development    12. World Wide Web (WWW)    13. web, ruby, rails, ajax, framework client, server, development,lightweight scripting, better, faster   

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Reviews (15)

Essential For People Who Want To Make Money With Google
'Google Advertising Tools: Cashing in with Adsense, Adwords, and the Google APIs' by Harold Davis is one of those specialty books that is absolutely a must have for anyone that wants to succeed with advertising on Google.Teaching you the ins and outs of how to use the behemoth marketing tools AdSense and AdWords, this book will instantly start producing results if you stick to what this says and learn to make ads that are not only seen, but seen OFTEN.300+ pages of advertising yum yums will get more people to pull over and take a look at your web site, and you will better understand the metrics behind what kinds of advertising works and what DOESN'T.
Though not groundbreaking, a comprehensive and current reference on marketing your site through Google
Harold Davis has not necessarily broken new ground with his "Google Advertising Tools" book. Yet, he's managed to put together a volume that summarizes effectively the basics of SEO and how to structure your site to maximize return on investment as a lead into Google Advertising at large. Starting with Google AdSense (placing Google Ads in your site), he works his way into AdWords (buying pay-per-click keyword-based ads) to wrap the book up with a detail discussion about the APIs offered by Google if developing tools to maximize your overall use of Google's interface and options is up your alley.
Good Book
I'm just getting in to the "Adsense" arena and I found this book to be quite informative. More than enough to get me started. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Advertising    2. Advertising & Promotion    3. Computer - Internet    4. Computer Books: Web Publishing    5. Computers    6. Internet - Browsers    7. Internet - Web Site Design    8. Internet - World Wide Web    9. Internet advertising    10. Internet marketing    11. Business & Economics/Industries - Retailing    12. Computer / Internet    13. Computers / Internet / World Wide Web    14. Computers/Internet - Browsers    15. Computers/Internet - Web Site Design    16. Computers/Online Services - General    17. Computers/Social Aspects - Human-Computer Interaction    18. Electronic commerce    19. Google, web advertising, AdWords, AdSense, google.com, selling, paid search    20. Internet   

Reviews (22)

Good, but ONLY FOR WINDOWS
Great detail, but I was very disappointed to discover it is only for Windows.It does NOT cover PE4 for the Mac.There are some substantial differences between the applications on the two platforms.Good material, but now I have to figure out what to do on my Mac ...
Excellent Illustrations
What makes this book so useful is the preponderance of excellent illustrations! This book very clearly illustrates where the user should focus on the Elements' tool bars, option bars, menues, screens, etc.
Very helpful manual
The manual is essentially great for beginners and advanced users. Probably a little bit more illustrations would have inspired me to rate it with five stars. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Graphics - Design    3. Computer Graphics - Game Programming    4. Computer Graphics - Photoshop    5. Computers    6. Computers - Desktop Publishing    7. Computers - Other Applications    8. Internet - Web Site Design    9. Techniques - Digital    10. Computers / Computer Graphics / Design    11. Computers / Computer Graphics / General    12. Computers / Desktop Publishing    13. Digital techniques    14. Image processing    15. Photography    16. Photoshop    17. photography, digital photography, graphics, photo editing,   

Reviews (5)

Frontpage 2003 Review
When I first purchased the Frontpage Software I should have bought this book at the same time, in fact they should actually be sold together.It is very well written and a very good guide once you are up and running.I would recommend this book to anyone who has a basic understanding of MS Office products.

Terrible for a Help Book
This is a terrible book. I am a total novice in FrontPage and web page creation but have lots of experience in computers including programming years ago.
I'm lost
I've never written a review before, but I'm so lost after reading this book that I had to warn others before they come down the same road.
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Subjects:  1. Authoring programs    2. Computer - Internet    3. Computer Books: General    4. Computer programs    5. Computers    6. Design    7. Internet - Web Site Design    8. Internet - Web Site Design - Frontpage    9. Web publishing    10. Web sites    11. Computer Software Packages    12. Computers / Internet / Web Site Design    13. Internet languages    14. World Wide Web (WWW)