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 (221)

Excellent Book
This book covers all the objectives of SCJP 5.0 and moreover in an excellent manner. What I liked most is that this book makes you well aware of what exactly is in the exam and what is not. For instance, the exam objectives include classes like String, DateFormat, File and so on. These classes contain a lot of methods. This book will tell you which you need to know for the exam. This saves a lot of time and effort. To conclude - don't think just buy it and success will follow!!! I passed my SCJP 5.0 with 93%.

Pretty good for those with experience
I used this book to help me pass the exam the first time. The book gives you a lot of helpful tips to write the test. The practice exams are really good. Each topic was covered fairly thoroughly in both tests. The book is definitely worth the money. Even though the book does go over the fundamentals, I don't think the book covers the fundamentals (OO design, Java Basics) well enough for a novice developer.

Excellent reference material.
This book was all I referred to to get my certification.
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Subjects:  1. Certification    2. Certification Guides - General    3. Computer Books: Operating Systems    4. Computers    5. Computers - Certification    6. Electronic data processing personnel    7. Examinations    8. Java (Computer program language)    9. Operating Systems - UNIX    10. Programming    11. Programming Languages - Java    12. Study guides    13. Sun computers    14. Computers / Technical Skills    15. Java & variants   

Reviews (20)

Best Excel development book to date
The depth of Excel development knowledge of the authors can be readily seen a few pages into the Introduction.If you have been frequent visitors to Excel/VBA programming newsgroups like myself, you will notice immediately that all three authors are well-recognized experts in this domain, and have answered countless tricky questions on the topic of Excel/VBA.In my opinion, the particularly valuable chapters include:
Looking to take your Excel to the next level?BUY THIS BOOK!!!!
I've been working with Excel for years...
Goes Beyond my Expectations
This book is a fantastic edition to any programmer's skillset.
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Subjects:  1. Business    2. Computer Books: Spreadsheets    3. Computer programs    4. Computer software    5. Computers    6. Computers - Spreadsheets    7. Development    8. Electronic spreadsheets    9. Microcomputer Spreadsheet Software    10. Spreadsheets - Excel    11. Spreadsheets - General    12. Computers / Spreadsheets / General    13. Excel    14. Software engineering   

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Reviews (150)

Fast and painless way to learn Design Patterns
This is the first book of the Head First series that I've read, and I have to say that I love it! I think their teaching approach is very very efficient. Each concept is presented to you in many different ways and at the end your brain finds its way to metabolize it. Sometimes it's a picture that catch your attention, sometimes it's just a joke but at the end the concept sticks in your head and is gonna be there forever (at least I hope so :-))) ). Moreover this book is so easy to read. I recommend it to anybody that wants to learn Design Patterns (in Java) in a painless and fast way.

A fun way to learn Patterns
Patterns are boring. This book makes them fun. How they did it, I'll never know.

Number one!!!
So far i bought about 30 computer books from amazon. This is the BEST!!!!!! First book that explains something real good but doesn't assume that you (the reader) actualy understood it so they re-explain it and attack the problem from a deferent point of view. I bought steven mezger's design patterns with c# book and read it cover to cover. It doesn't even come close to this piece of art although this is wrriten for java programers. I read "decorator" pattern in mezger's book more than 5 times and didn't actualy understand it. First time i read it in this book and i feel like a design patterns master! I'm thinking a lot about their teaching style. Its briliant!If you realy want to understand design patterns even if you are a c# or c++ programmer, By this book!
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Languages    2. Computer software    3. Computers    4. Computers - General Information    5. Design    6. Development    7. General    8. Internet - Web Site Design    9. Java (Computer program language)    10. Computer Programming    11. Computers / General    12. Computers / General Information    13. Computers / Programming / Software Development    14. Head First, Design Patterns, Object oriented programming, OOP, Java, Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates, Eric Freeman, Elisabeth Freeman, programming, software engineering,   

Reviews (30)

An OK Java Book -- Not as Good as Their Other Books
This book follows the Deitels' standard format and content used in the other two of their books I've read ("C++ How to Program (4th Edition)," and "C How to Program (Fourth Edition)").As before, the teaching method, programming style, most of the examples used, and most of the problems presented are largely the same but have been rewritten to a Java perspective.If you've read and liked any of the Deitels' other books, this book will be fine for you and you'll know pretty much what to expect from it.
I hate this book
I am a programming newb with a geek streak a lifetime wide. I took a Java class this summer hoping to begin groking the one final frontier of computing that has always eluded me. We used this as the text. As somebody who teaches postsecondary courses in an entirely separate field, I feel this book is not a good first choice for an instructor in comp sci, especially for courses for nonmajors or beginners. The prose is exceedingly dry and longwinded *without real purpose*, and tests even my attention span... which is ordinarily sufficient for a continuous performance of the Ring Cycle. What really hacked me off is the way that the book handles terminology and syntax-- from the very beginning, the code examples often use parallel terms within the code in a way that makes it utterly unclear to the newbie whether they're staring down the barrel of a method name, a parameter/argument, what-have-you, which makes it very difficult to trace the logic of the code and get a good handle on the syntax. I have had far better luck grasping the concepts of Java and programming generally with Beginning Java for Dummies, believe it or not. I am a mature and educated adult actually INTERESTED in this topic and this book was absolutely dreadful to me-- instructors, please do not think you're going to choose this text for the present generation of undergrads and have it be anything but an utter waste of a hundred bucks for them.

Not for everyone
While I found this book informative and detailed, I think that may be the main problem with it.It is written in a confused manner that gives the reader too much information on each page.I was constantly feeling bombarded.The information is presented in several different ways on each page and it can get disorienting while reading.That said, the book is very thorough and well researched.I am not sure that it is anywhere worth the price, however.For a third of the money you might consider Java: A Beginner's Guide by Schildt, or one of the O'Reilly books. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Bks - Languages / Programming    2. Computer Books: Languages    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Java (Computer program languag    6. Java (Computer program language)    7. Object-Oriented Programming    8. Programming Languages - Java    9. Computers / Programming Languages / Java    10. Java & variants   

Editorial Review

Provides a rapid and thorough exposition of the JavaScript programming language, as well as an in-depth reference section covering each JavaScript function, object, method, and even handler. Experienced programmers will quickly find the information they need to start writing JavaScript programs. ... Read more

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Reviews (226)

The one JavaScript book to rule them all...
I'm a technical trainer, and we've decided to distribute this book as part of our Ajax courseware.We've reviewed many other JavaScript books, but we keep coming back to this one.
Best JavaScript Reference!
This is the 5th edition of this almost thousand page book (992), and has been pretty much the gold standard for JavaScript reference books.I have the 4th edition that came out a few years ago and it was worth upgrading to this new 5th edition.
The Bible
It's called "The Definitive Guide" for a reason. Covers everything from simple variables to complex AJAX coding. Beginners may be a bit overwhelmed by it, but I would still recommend any O'Reilly guide as it's the one you'll actually use as your skills increase.. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Languages    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. JavaScript (Computer program language)    5. Object-oriented programming (Computer science)    6. Programming Languages - CGI, Javascript, Perl, VBScript    7. Web servers    8. Computers / Languages / Programming    9. Computers / Programming Languages / CGI, JavaScript, Perl, VBScript    10. Java & variants    11. JavaScript, Ajax, DHTML, HTML, scripting, css, dom, httprequest,    12. Object-oriented programming (Computer science   

Reviews (113)

Big Thick Book With Little Content: Beware!
I have more than 15 years of project management experience. I've read this and quite a few other PMP books from cover to cover. Most of the reviews on this page sound like a propaganda to me. This book gives you the impression that it's a big book and must be covering lots of material. But this, in my opinion, is not true. It's big due to the large font and because most of the space on each page is empty.
Great book to study for the PMP!
I used this book along with two others. I took the exam before purchasing this book, and I did not pass, but after using this book, I passed with flying colors. The author organizes the material clearly and explains things very well. I wish I had purchased this book the first time!
Good Book and clear
The book is very clear and helps the end user understand all the terms.The online tutorial is good too. However it needed more "situational" examples. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Certification Guides - General    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computers    4. Computers - General Information    5. General    6. Project Management    7. Computers / General    8. Internet languages    9. Special purpose languages    10. Study guides, home study & revision notes   

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 (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   

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Reviews (29)

Best book on programming ever!
I am a successful self taught programmer. I have learned C/C++, Java, Perl, and now Ruby all from books and reading other people's code. I have to say this is the best book on programming for a particular language that I have ever read. And I have read quite a few.
Great for learning
For learning Ruby, this is a great book.It'll help you learn the basics (although a little coding will help you more than reading will), and then, it'll introduce you to some of the more advanced topics.A great introduction.

A Must For Ruby and Rails Developers
This book is a must for both Ruby and Ruby on Rails developers. It is extremely well written and contains much more than a normal programming book. Most importantly it assumes that you're above average intellegence and doesn't pull punches when it comes to complex ideas.
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. Programming - General    5. Programming Languages - General    6. Reference - General    7. Computer Programming    8. Computers / Languages / Programming    9. Computers / Programming / Object Oriented    10. Computers / Programming Languages / General    11. Object-oriented programming (Computer science    12. Programming languages, scripting, Ruby, reference, web programming, dynamic languages    13. Ruby (Computer program language)   

Editorial Review

It has taken four years, but with Read more

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Reviews (139)

Awesome Quick Read
This is a great book.How many technical books have you read in 1 week?That's what I did with this book.I love the Head First series. They don't make great reference books if you are an expert, but the expert on the title topic is not the audience.

quick review
After I borrowed and read this book I decided to purchase it for the following reasons:
Great book to get you started
After reading a great book titled "Thinking in Java (JAVA 1.4)" by Bruce Ekcel.That book is so far the best book I have read on JAVA so far.It has TONS of information and for the most part the author does a very good job in explaining the information.However my main complaint with the TIJ book was that it was very hard to read at times due to the author's writting style.
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Languages    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. Java (Computer program language)    5. Programming Languages - Java    6. Computers / Languages / Programming    7. Computers / Programming Languages / Java    8. Java & variants    9. java, head first, head first java,Java 5.0, J2SE, servlets, JavaServer Pages   

Reviews (25)

Excellent book for just about any level programmer looking to do ASP.NET the right way
I'd like to give Marco a personal thank you for writing the lastest book with the beer house sample. I have learned quite a lot, compared to other .net books. The concepts in this book work quite a bit better than the standard asp.net 2.0 books, where they discuss everything ASP.NET capable of, but give no real world implementation or design pattern. I have purchased 7 books on asp.net 2.0 alone, and wasted quite a bit of time reading through them. This book has given me more concrete knowledge and help building real applications for businesses than I ever could have found in the others.
Great book
This is a fantastic book. The layout of each chapter and the book in it's entirety is exceptional. It doesn't go into too much details about specific content but rather gives the reader a greater appreciation for the website development process.

Excellent - Puts it all together
This book presents by far the best sample site/case study available for ASP.NET 2.0.Most/all of the primary ASP.NET 2.0 features are utilized.Unlike with the minimalist Microsoft sample apps, design alternatives and decisions are thoroughly explained.
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Subjects:  1. Computer - Internet    2. Computer Books: Languages    3. Computers    4. Design    5. Internet - Web Site Design    6. Internet programming    7. Microsoft .NET    8. Programming - General    9. Web sites    10. Computers / Internet / Web Site Design    11. Internet   

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Reviews (77)

Needed to do some Refresher Training
I have experience in HTML and CSS; however, I had not dealt with them in some time (five years or so). I needed to find a book that would get to the basics, yet at the same time NOT be so exhaustive that I would find myself dozing. Can anyone blame me for not wanting to be bored to death by wordy descriptions?
very good book
this is a very good book for beginners.TSTC Waco is using it for the intro class in the webmaster 2 year degree program. Covers HTML , XHTML, AND CSS STYLE SHEETS in detail. A lot of screen shots showing what the code should look like.Which, for a beginner is VERY IMPORTANT! If you do not know the code how else would you know that you got it right if something small is wrong.The only fault I have with the book compared to my first HTML book is there is not a quick reference card printed on the back cover.This is a minor thing but is handy for quick review.

Great Learning Tool for the non-technical
This is a true learner's guide to building standards-based Web pages.It includes a lot of information on common HTML and CSS traps and pitfalls as well as why common conceptions about style are often wrong.To help the reader actually learn the material in a fun and friendly manner it includes a lot of puzzles and exercises and other material that make it a joy to learn.This is truly a guide for the non-programmer that will have them quickly up to speed on how to design and build a web site.One of the virtues of this particular book is that the authors relate common problems and frustrations of users and how to avoid them in your website.
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Subjects:  1. Cascading style sheets    2. Computer Books: Languages    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. HTML (Document markup language)    6. Internet - Browsers    7. Internet - General    8. Internet - Web Site Design    9. Programming Languages - HTML    10. XHTML (Document markup language)    11. Computers / Languages / Programming    12. Computers / Programming Languages / HTML, SGML, VRML, XML    13. Computers/Internet - Web Site Design    14. HTML    15. HTML, CSS, XHTML, web site, web page, web design, webmaster, FrontPage, DreamWeaver   

Reviews (4)

Great book; unethical publisher
This book is excellent. The author writes about programming in a clear and concise way that makes Java make sense. While Java may not be the simplest language to start with, it is widely used throughout the industry and provides a solid stepping stone to other languages. Savitch provides many examples of code and explains how it works, step by step. Too many programming books assume the reader will fill in missing pieces. Finally, an author who fills them in for us!
Best Written Java Book
The author, Savitch, writes some of the best-written, easy-to-read computer language books.The fourth edition is a concisely-written, enjoyable book with excellent examples and coverage of Java 5.0, which is the newest, latest revision as of January '06.
1st edition review
I have just completed (i need only two more chapters) the first of edition of this book.While not as exhaustive as the the edition for sale here I can tell you the author is good at what he does.I haven't decided if I am going to purchase this edition but let me say that the author's prose style reminds me of the best computer programming books I read while I was an undergraduate at the University of Florida in the early 90's.This book is suitable for teaching a first or second year class of computer science students at a university.Unlike those silly "Teach yourself Java programming in 24 hours" this is the kind of programming book that really teaches you something. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Bks - Languages / Programming    2. Computer Books: Languages    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Java (Computer program languag    6. Java (Computer program language)    7. Programming - General    8. Programming Languages - Java    9. Computer Programming    10. Computers / Programming Languages / Java    11. Java & variants   

Reviews (58)

author brilliantly combines what and how with why of css
this book is excellant.the author does a great job of teaching css by providing clear examples which build upon one another. he combines what and how with why and makes it fun in the process. this is a very efficient learning tool. i'll be sure to buy his coding book when it comes out.great job!

Probably the best CSS book I've ever read.
I've never written a book review before but feel compelled to comment on this one.
Great, Straight-Forward, No Fluff
This book is an incredible guide to writing Web code the right way from the design side. Most websites are so poorly coded, and most texts I've used to make sense of using XHTML/CSS have fallen short. But Stylin' delivers real-world, extremely useful examples like the drop down menus. You will walk away from this book understanding clearly how to structure your pages with clean, standardized markup (XHTML) and how to style them perfectly across clients (CSS). Imagine (for example) a dynamic dropdown menu built solely from a super-clean ul list!
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Subjects:  1. Cascading style sheets    2. Computer - Internet    3. Computer Books: Web Programming    4. Computers    5. Design    6. Internet - Web Site Design    7. Microcomputer Text Processing Software    8. Web sites    9. Word Processing - General    10. Computers / Internet / Web Site Design    11. Internet   

Reviews (40)

You haven't mastered CSS until you've read this book.
After going through a round of book buying on Amazon (mainly Ajax and PHP books), I originally decided that this would be a 'glancer' at Barnes and Nobles. Having spent over a year designing full CSS w3c-compliant sites, I though there wasn't too much more I could learn on the subject. A day later I spent over an hour at B&N reading this book and then decided to purchase it. It's that great.
Not a good book
I've gone thru half the book, and I'm very disapointed to say the least.
A Perfect Step Beyond the Basics
To my web designer friends who are ready to move beyond DreamWeaver/GoLive and start doing things the "right" way, I have been recommending Dan Cederholm's "Web Standards Solutions" as the best beginner's CSS and HTML guide. I also tell them that they should buy this book, CSS Mastery, at the same time and start reading it once they have absorbed all of W.S.S.
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Subjects:  1. Cascading style sheets    2. Computer Books: Web Programming    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Design    6. Internet - Web Site Design    7. Programming Languages - HTML    8. Web sites    9. Internet   

Editorial Review

The PHP server-side scripting language and the MySQL database management system (DBMS) make a potent pair. Both are open-source products--free of charge for most purposes--remarkably strong, and capable of handling all but the most enormous transaction loads. Both are supported by large, skilled, and enthusiastic communities of architects, programmers, and designers. Read more

Reviews (158)

All their examples work!
Excellent book. All their examples work and they describe the differences that can be encountered in different recent versions of PHP. Pretty much all you need is here, and the whole book comes on the CD so you can take it with you when you are travelling.

Excellent Read and Reference
For beginners this book is very worthwhile. I bought 2 "PHP and MySQL" books from Amazon and I haven't even opened the other book. Whenever I need code examples or a reference this book provides me with the answers.
helpful to get up to speed on php
a lot of this ends up being skippable but if you're looking to get started with php, this tutorial/reference type approach is pretty helpful. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Web Programming    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. Design    5. Internet - Web Site Design    6. PHP (Computer program language)    7. Programming Languages - SQL    8. SQL (Computer program language)    9. Web sites    10. Computers / Programming Languages / General    11. Internet languages