Product Description
The mechanics of Web design made easy for visual learners

An effective Web site combines good graphic design principles with a functional user interface. This colorful, step-by-step guide shows visual learners how to plan, develop, and publish a site, all with easy-to-follow lessons. Each task is illustrated with screen shots accompanied by numbered steps. You’ll learn all the tools and techniques for creating great-looking Web sites that users will love.

• Good Web design incorporates basic graphic design principles as well as the techniques required to make a site easy to navigate and user-friendly
• Those who learn best when someone shows them how will quickly get up to speed with the full-color screen shots and step-by-step illustrations in this visual guide
• Covers planning a site, creating eye-popping content with popular Adobe tools, building in functionality with HTML and CSS, testing the site, taking it live, and keeping it up to date
• Companion Web site features code and design examples for experimentation

If you find learning easier when someone shows you how to do something, you’ll quickly learn to build Web sites with Teach Yourself VISUALLY Web Design. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (22)

CSS Fail
I'm "glad" I checked this out of the library rather than buy it first.

I believe the fact this book is the confusing mess that other folks have commented on in their reviews is because of poor editing and sloppy cut-and-paste jobs.

You'd be better off using the "help" feature of whatever software you are using to learn about CSS than this hot mess.

Solid, But Not Great
I already knew CSS and was looking for something a little more in-depth. To its credit the book starts at an intro level but was thorough enough for me to gain a more critical understanding of certain things.

I didn't like that it made the usual mistake of not really going in-depth about the natural flow of HTML elements before talking about the display property and I'd really like a more thorough explanation of the float property from somebody out there and this book didn't step up to the plate.

I was also somewhat underwhelmed by the graphics provided. They looked kind of dated and lacked the wow factor that you get from modern CSS techniques.

If you're new to CSS but want a reasonably comprehensive walkthrough of all the standard properties, this isn't such a bad buy but I'm still looking for something better than this and I'm glad I got this one from the library.

One pissy bit of review crossfire: of freaking course it's assumed you know HTML. If you don't know HTML, you have no business building websites regardless of what Adobe would like you to believe. Learn HTML. Then learn CSS. Then call yourself a web designer.

Intro book on learnng CSS
It is an excellent book on learning Cascading Style Sheets for a web design class that I am taking.It was delivered on time and I liked that fact that I could track the progress of the delivery.

More talk then scripting
You open the book, start reading paragraphs, write a snippet of code, read another paragraph, write a block of code (that doesn't pertain to the snippet of code you just wrote) and repeat. The other author does not add and build on the previous code you wrote and doesn't build upwards. You don't gradually move upward in this book. It's all side-stepping and more reading then typing. I'm talking a page and half on a single line of code. The author sometimes confuses me by repeating a couple of words in the same sentence. Long, drawn-out, boring read, with minimal code, that doesn't get built up.

No pictures
I took this book from the library with two other CSS books. This one has absolutely no pictures, I further browsed through the book looking for hidden gems. However, it did not seem to cover any topic better than the other books.

So, why would I torture myself reading a book on "style and design" if there are no pictures? ... Read more

Product Description
The friendly, tutorial style of Sams Teach Yourself Active Server Pages 3.0 in 21 Days empowers you to create your own Active Server Pages quickly and easily. Using client-proven methods, and his award-winning advice to Web developers from around the world, ASP master Scott Mitchell provides you with an understanding of ASP and IIS fundamentals, and guides you through the use of VBScript and ASP's built-in objects, enabling you to create your own dynamic, database-driven Web solutions. You'll benefit from Scott's expert knowledge of topics including creating dynamic content, interacting with the user, reading and writing files on the Web server, creating personalized content with cookies, reading a database using ASP, and debugging your ASP scripts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (90)

Makes learning ASP Classic easy
I had to brush up on ASP(Classic) for my new job...The book was very helpful and a great resource.

Sams Teach Yourself Active Server Pages 3.0 in 21 Days
This book is great. I am a programmer but have been a mianframe programmer for a number of years. I recently started a new postion supporting a Classic .ASP application and have to make some changes. I am having to learn Classic .ASP from the beginning and this book is very helpful. It is written for people without a programming background so it explains everything very simply. Going from mainfram programming to object-oriented progamming has been a challenge and this book is a great beginner book.

Excellent book to learn ASP-both for beginners and programmers
I wish more Programming books were as good and easy to understand. This is a must read book if you are new to ASP, both beginner and Programmer-new to ASP.

If you have problem understanding the first few chapters, go pick up Sams teach yourself ASP in 24 hours and then come back to this book.

Sams Teach Yourself Active Server Pages 3.0 in 21 Days
nice contents catch me the right knowledge on how to become a asp.developer as time goes by on my training about active server pages before taking an certification exam.

A great learning tool for ASP beginners...

...and a great reference for the advanced programmers.

This was the first ASP book I bought when I began to learn the language two years ago. It has an excellent tutorial methodology to it which is very easy to comprehend. It is also well written by two guys that know what they're talking about! (You can visit their web site at 4guysfromrolla.com)

Even though I have since purchased several other books on the subject (hoping to expand my knowledge base), I continue to find myself referring back to this one. Granted, this book is certainly not the be-all for Active Server Pages, and I have not found one that is, however, it is by far the one to begin with and hang on to.

FIVE STARS ALL THE WAY! I definitely recommend this book!
... Read more

Product Description

In just 24 sessions of one hour or less, you’ll learn how to build flexible, easy-to-maintain, standards-based websites with Microsoft Expression Web 2. Using this book’s straightforward, step-by-step approach, you’ll master the entire process–from concept and design through delivery! Each lesson builds on what you’ve already learned, giving you a strong real-world foundation for success, no matter what kind of site you’re building!

Step-by-step instructions carefully walk you through the most common Expression Web 2 tasks.

Quizzes and Exercises at the end of each chapter help you test your knowledge.

By the Way notes present interesting information related to the discussion.

Did You Know? tips offer advice or show you easier ways to perform tasks.

Watch Out! cautions alert you to possible problems and give you advice on how to avoid them

Learn how to…

·        Build your first Expression website in just five minutes!

·        Import text from Microsoft Word and other software

·        Make the most of Expression Web 2’s advanced image-editing features

·        Create hyperlinks that simplify navigation, perform actions, and send commands

·        Write error-free code quickly and easily with Code View and IntelliSense

·        Use CSS to control your site’s appearance, create standards-based, cross-browser content, and simplify redesigns

·        Design site layouts that communicate more effectively

·        Use Dynamic Web Templates to consistently format (or reformat) hundreds of pages

·        Implement state-of-the-art interactivity with Behaviors

·        Add Silverlight, Flash, and other multimedia content

·        Build a web-based email form with FrontPage Server Extensions and PHP

·        Integrate web application code written in ASP.NET or PHP

Morten Rand-Hendriksen is a web designer, developer, programmer, and digital media expert based in Burnaby, B.C., Canada. He has operated Pink and Yellow Media since 2002, creating web and design solutions for small businesses and individuals. For his work with Expression Web, he was invited as a Canadian VIP to the MIX08 conference in Las Vegas and asked to present on Building Compelling Websites on the Microsoft Platform at Microsoft’s Innovation Briefing. He blogs on Expression Web at http://blog.pinkandyellow.com/.

Category: Web Development

Covers: Microsoft Expression Web 2

User Level: Beginning—Intermediate

$29.99 USA / $32.99 CAN / £18.99 Net UK

Customer Reviews (10)

Skip to CSS FIRST
First - watch the tutorial videos at [...] before you buy this or any other books on WE. The thrust of it deals with working tables in CSS, but the author walks you thru the simple steps of creating your first CSS. And it is simple.

Because your CSS is the foundation on which you build your site, start with that chapter and do your best to understand it before you try anything else in the book. To help, think of a CSS as little more than a glorified cheat sheet. Because that's what it is. It names and describes every style you create in your site in a simple list. Say that most of your text is 10 pt Arial in maroon, centered, with 9 px margins. And say you name it ".text" in your CSS. So, whenever you have any paragraph or even one line that you want to look like that, mouse over and click on .text in EW's style panel, and that para is then tagged (labeled) ".text".

When viewer's browsers open your site, they speedily read your CSS into cache and already know what to do when they see the .text tag on any of your pages. Without a CSS, every page of your site has to repeat every style used for browsers to re-read with every page. The benefit to you is that making changes to styles is easy: simply modify and save the style, and everything tagged with that style is changed in your entire site.

As I read thru the first several chapters of the book, I rebuilt my wife's 76-page FrontPage site, learning as I did and doing as I learned. I figured that I could later make a CSS. Wrong. Very wrong! I took the book's lesson too literally and used inline styles. I ended up rebuilding the site from scratch again, but with styles and a CSS.

Second - this is not a reference book. Where I am constantly disappointed in software books is their failure to explain/describe the many, many choices we face in dialog boxes. The most important is, of course, the New Style box (found in the Styles pane). I spent hours experimenting with different combinations of style settings and online looking for explanations of how to best select the many choices. The book's index is not short, but it's not inclusive, either; you will not find all the terms listed in the index. Plan on spending a few hours online.

If you don't use a CSS, at least use styles. When I didn't assign unique styles when I rebuilt my wife's site the first time, I had almost 15,000 compatibility errors using WE's compatibility checker. I just finished rebuilding the site again but used styles in a CSS, and I'm down to 3115 errors; most of which are PayPal's coding errors.

Be sure to see the tutorial part where the author shows how to move styles into a CSS; it's jaw-droppingly easy.

EXCELLENT BOOK!!!!
Great, Great book for the non tech geek.All I wanted to learn was how to tweak my website and make it smoother, faster, learn a little about why things are the way they are and this book did exactly that!

It dealt with standards issues and the best part was the Q and A which answered common questions that the other books just don't.Some complaints from others about it being too simple, but I'm not a web programmer, I want it slow! I'm not sure that I would want this book if I was going to be a full-time code writer, but for running a small business and making a few sites this is THE BOOK.EXCELLENT.

Not What I was Needing!
This book would be great if you wanted to design a web page just exactly like the example in the book. But I don't want a web page that looks like [...]. I needed a book that would help me design my own web page. If what you want varies from his design he gives you very little help getting to where you want to be. Useful information is included but there are BIG holes in what is presented. I was very disappointed in this book. I have used other Sam books and been happy. And yes the first 10 chapters you can get through in an hour or less but don't expect it from the other chapters. Some directions just don't work and you are forced to mess around trying to get to where you need to be to go on to the next step. The directions are not always clear.

I've found this book very valuable
I bought 3 books on EW2 and this is the one I chose to keep. The one from Microsoft was in large font an many less pages than this one and seemed to basic. This one has been just right. I've worked through most of the book by now and I've learned a lot.

I was looking for a 'tutorial' type book and this one is just that. It's also organized in such a way that I feel I will be able to use it to refer back too when I go to create my own website.

I've built websites before with FrontPage 2000 and Expression Web 2 is a much more advanced tool and is 'standards based' as best as I can tell. A few hours of the book are dedicated teaching you CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and the tools to create them in EW2 which is great because I haven't used them before.

All of the lessons files can be downloaded from the authors website and the site he has you build is very relevent to what he is teaching. Each chapter's files are set up in the files you download as 'start from here on this chapter' and 'here's the final files for this chapter' so review will be easy and he starts you fresh in each hour so that if you haven't done things exactly his way he has a way of saying 'start from here.'

The only drawback to the book is the number of typos, mis-labeled screenshots, etc. However, I've been able to recognize these errors easily and move forward. These are why this book gets 4 stars instead of 5. That said, you will learn EW2 with this book.

Not for Everyone
Since the book has received some five-star reviews, it is obviously serving the needs of some readers.I would like to mention several things that may limit its value to others.

First, the book is clearly more of an extended tutorial than a reference work.You have to want to take the time to work through each exercise (24 one-hour exercises in all), working on the author's whimsical little website called MyKipple.com.Beginners will probably find this a good way to learn, at least for the easier exercises earlier in the book.Users with previous web design experience might prefer to have the workings of the program more simply stated, without having to learn them by working on the same couple of pages over and over again.All users will have to be able to abstract the design principles from the details of the "do this, now do this, now do this...."It isn't always easy to distinguish the general procedures to follow in constructing your own site from the instructions that apply only to the practice site.I would have liked a better explanation of the material first, and then the practice exercise applying it to MyKipple.com for those who want it.

When the book gets to some of the more powerful design tools, such as prepackaged layouts and cascading style sheets, the fact that the tutorial has already led you to create pages with specific content creates a little confusion.The early exercises tell you to do something in a primitive way, and then the later exercises tell you to revise it in order to take advantage of the tool that in real life you should have used in the first place!For example, when you design your own site, you probably want to select a layout with places for a heading, navigation menu, etc., and then create the content to fill it.But when this book comes to layouts, it has you take the page you've already created and rework its content and styling to fit it into the new layout.In your own web design, you will probably want to proceed in almost the opposite order of these tutorials, working with the general organizational tools before you add the specific content.I realize that any book has to cover things in steps, but I would have appreciated a general putting-it-all-together chapter that forgets the practice site and suggests a logical way to proceed when you are trying to organize your own site.This book seems to get bogged down in the details of MyKipple.com and lose sight of the bigger picture from the reader's perspective.

The practice exercises sometimes lead the author to cover one thing in the context of another thing, instead of making it a topic in its own right.The important topic of how to create a simple navigation menu is buried on pp. 238-9 in the context of how to adapt existing content to a new layout.Not only does it make the discussion unnecessarily confusing, but it makes it hard to find the section again, since the index doesn't reference it under the heading of either "menu" or "navigation" (the latter term isn't an index heading at all). The menu heading in the index refers you primarily to the chapter on how to create advanced drop-down menus using layers or CSS.

Finally, I noticed a lot of minor errors in the book that reflect poor editing, especially in chapter 1, where the numbers and titles of figures don't correspond very well with the text.Some material seems to be missing at the end of p. 99.The book is printed in fairly small type; some of the figures are very hard to read; and the index is not very thorough. For example, there's no listing for "float," a vital technique for creating multi-column layouts.

After becoming frustrated with this book, I bought David McFarland's CSS: The Missing Manual.That book isn't specific to Expression Web alone, but it provides a much, much clearer introduction to programming with cascading style sheets, a large part of what Expression Web is all about.It is beautifully written, with a great balance between general principles and exercises.Unless you are already very good at CSS, that book is the much better place to start.

In general, I think all readers can learn something from Sam's Teach Yourself MEW2, and readers with the patience of Job will learn a lot, but I think the book makes it harder than it has to be. ... Read more

Product Description

Sams Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML and CSS in One Hour a Day is a new edition of the best-selling book that started the whole HTML/web publishing phenomenon. The entire book has been revised and refined to reflect current web publishing practices and technologies. It includes extensive coverage of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which have become a staple in web development.

You'll have no problem learning from expert author Laura Lemay's clear and approachable writing style. Simple, step-by-step instructions with lots of practical, interesting examples of web pages will guide you as you master current web publishing technologies and practices.

Customer Reviews (9)

Very Explanatory - a bit too much
If you want to spend hours reading about html, this is the book for you. To be fair, I used a free online tutorial ([...]) to teach myself html and CSS and it worked well for me because it teaches you everything you need to know and takes you through the lessons quickly with no extra fluff. I definitely won't say that this book isn't useful, but it isn't easy to read and it takes much longer to understand the concepts than it should. Plus it mixes in CSS near the beginning without explaining it.
It does split everything into lessons, which makes for a more orderly learning experience. Overall, only buy this book if you need it for a class.

Could be misleading
I remember Lemay's earlier books, and that she's a good writer.I was ready to pick this one up, but early on, when the authors write about DOCTYPE, they say "you don't really need it" - if you leave it out you'llbe OK.

That's asbad as saying "just leave out HEAD and BODY, it'll work anyway".

It might work, but you really need to specify DOCTYPE if you're going to build websites.

A big error like that makes me wonder how much the've left out or skimmed over in the rest of the book.

I'd call this a "Getting Started" book - one to get your feet wet.But you'll need to go on to other, better books if you really want to do HTML & CSS.

Not a bad book
I'm about 1/3 of the way through the book right now, and I am pleased with it so far. I'm pretty familiar with computers and the Internet already, but the authors include enough information for beginniers to get a good grasp on the terminology early on.

The book breaks down the material into 21 lessons, implying that each one should take one hour per day. A word of warning: you'll probably need more than an hour unless you're a really quick study. The early lessons are pretty basic and go by quickly, but by lessons 5 & 6 the terminology starts coming fast. The authors offer several suggestions for HTML editors to use while reading the book, and I highly recommend downloading one (I use the free HTML-Kit, and it works quite well).

I do have a few complaints. The authors seem to spend a lot of time covering "deprecated" HTML tags, which are considered outdated in favor of CSS. They say that it these tags are good ot know if you find them in older websites, but for someone like me who is new to HTML, including the old tags with the new is a bit confusing, and I frequently have to check the appendix to make sure that the tag I'm using is not obsolete. CSS has not been covered extensively yet (it looks like lesson 9 will do that), but it looks pretty different from HTML. If a new edition of this book is made, the authors need to ditch the outdated HTML and include the CSS right from the beginning.

My other complaint is that, for a book on HTML, the examples aren't that well edited. I just finished lesson 7 and was having a difficult time adding color to my pages until I realized that the author(s) had accidentally used a comma instead of a semicolon. That tiny mistake made a huge difference, and it's not the only tiny mistake they made.

Good beginner text for learning HTML and CSS
I purchased this book for a college course I am taking titled "Web Design and Development".The instructor chose the the textbook but it is well written and has numerous examples of good web site and page design.Gets into some of the more advanced features of creating web pages using XHTML and CSS.I would recommend this book for a beginning web programmer or administrator.

This is great until lesson 9
and then the bottom falls out.This book is fantastic as far as a beginner or review course for html and basic CSS.However . . . the chapter on CSS layouts and positioning (lesson 9) leaves ALOT to be desired.I became completely lost when I reached this chapter.I don't know which one of the authors handled this lesson but I'm hoping they'll fix it for future editions.They assume that the audience knows more than they should about class and IDs without ever providing adequate examples.The examples that are provided seem to skip steps.Still a good book but if you're new to CSS layouts and positioning like me, you're better off googling a CSS tutorial for beginners. ... Read more

Product Description

Sams Teach yourself .NET XML Web Services in 24 Hours takes a straightforward approach to teaching the hows and whys of XML Web Services and builds upon the skills learned in each successive chapter. The intent is to give readers a competitive edge in creating new and innovative software solutions before the competition has even heard of them. It includes coverage of XML,XSD, WSDL, SOAP, UDDI, and DISCO and ASP.NET. The examples in the book will be given in both C# and VB.NET.

Product Description

Did you know that all the tools you need to create great web pages are free, and they are built right into Windows XP or are available online? Sams Teach Yourself to Create Web Pages All in One will show you how to use these different tools to create a variety of web pages. Preston Gralla, best-selling author of more than two dozen books about computers and the Internet, and Matt Brown, editor of more than 20 Dreamweaver and Photoshop books, will walk you through how to quickly and inexpensively create certain types of popular web pages, such as:

• A personal or family home page
• eBay listings and shops to buy and sell merchandise
• Web logs to impart news, information and observations

If you are not looking to make a huge investment in software, technology or time, but you want to quickly and easily get up-to-speed on how to create basic types of web pages, Sams Teach Yourself to Create Web Pages All in One is just the book you've been waiting for!

Customer Reviews (2)

Good for a beginner on a PC
Creating Web Pages by Preston Gralla and Matt Brown (ISBN 0-672-32690-6) does start out well. It gives one a great overview of what the internet is and how it works. The book then proceeds to explain the basics of HTML and how to plan out a website in very comprehensive and understandable language. After the first three chapters, you have to skip ahead to find out how to effectively prepare and add graphics to your pages. In between, there are chapters dealing with building websites on Geocities or using Yahoo PageBuilder or Netscape Composer to actually build your site. The problem I had is that everything is really geared to PC - Window based users. I have a MAC and there is really nothing in the author's approach to show that things change and that there are differences between the MAC and PC platforms and how pages may appear.

The last third of the book deals with eBay listings and Blogs. The section about eBay is pretty extensive, giving the reader all sorts of helpful information about everything from finding items to sell to preparing effective graphics to post to pricing and effective ad copy writing. If interested in opening an eBay store, this is a great resource to turn to. Again, the authors explain things thoroughly and in an easy to read manner.

Finally, there is a section about Blogs, which was interesting, since I have never really had a clear understanding of what a Blog was. So while helpful, not something I am interested in creating.

Overall, the book is good for a beginner with a PC. It is excellent if you want to sell on eBay. If you are a MAC user, I'd recommend finding another book.

iconic usages
As the web has grown, several modalities of usage have become iconic. In response, Gralla and Brown explain 4 of these. To be sure, entire books are devoted to eBay alone, for instance. But this AllInOne text steps back and offers a consistent thematic understanding. Based on being able to make a web page.

The early part of the book goes over HTML basics. You need mastery of this to proceed. The book then gives the 4 modalities as case studies. You may well not want to learn all of them. But if you are reading this, you're probably interested in at least one. The utility of the exposition is to show how learning the chapters for that can give you skills transferable to the other topics.

Now of these topics, blogging has the skimpiest coverage. This might reflect its realities. Most blogs afford you some graphics that you can alter, as a blogger. Like uploading images. But blogging is primarily textual.

The eBay section is far more extensive. For some of you, it may also be the most compelling. Since unlike the other modalities, this is about directly making money. To this ends, if you are interested in this section, read the descriptions about using images in your auctions. Of all the actions you can do as a seller, providing a good image of your item has been shown, on average, to yield higher bids. This also nicely ties into an earlier section of the book, that discusses using Photoshop to improve your digital photos. ... Read more

Product Description
Sam Sloan whom has a book publishing house along with his son Peter is the Creator of a clut classic web site, Sam Sloan.com and also an email marketing campaign that became known as Sam the Spam. In this 54 page manual we cover from the very start creating your web site from a template, all the way to the finish, where we have our Outlook account downloading all of our daily email in our home office and creating backup CD's to keep all of your hard worked over business contacts secure. ... Read more

Product Description
WYSIWYG Web page editors like Netscape Composer, Microsoft FrontPage, and many others have made it extremely easy to create and edit Web pages.No longer do aspiring Web publishers have to have an extensive understanding of HTML, scripting languages, and CGI scripting. This book teaches the beginning Web page author just what he needs to know to get a Web page up in the shortest time possible, using the tools that come packaged on the book’s CD.It starts out introducing the reader to the included WYSIWYG tool (Netscape Composer), and moves into the steps necessary to design, create, and publish a page on the World Wide Web.The reader does not need to know anything about HTML. This edition of the book has been thoroughly updated and revised to include all new examples for better clarity and reader appeal, coverage of the latest release of Netscape 6, and more coverage of finding a place to host a Web site. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

in 24 hours or even far less
This is a great book to learn how to create your own website. It teaches you all the basic skills in 24 chapters of 1 hour each. However, if you have any basic knowledge of MS office programs, you can do each chapter in about 30-45 minutes. Also, because of the rational order of the chapters, you do not have to wait for the last chapter before you can start creating your own web pages.

The Dutch version that I was using came with FrontPage Express on the accompanying CD-Rom and even though my website is by this time already 8 megs, it is still the program I am using instead of the very expensive full version of FrontPage. So this book was awfully good value for money. And making a website is real fun, so try it!

in 24 hours or even far less
This is a great book to learn how to create your own website. It teaches you all the basic skills in 24 chapters of 1 hour each. However, if you have any basic knowledge of MS office programs, you can do each chapter in about 30-45 minutes. Also, because of the rational order of the chapters, you do not have to wait for the last chapter before you can start creating your own web pages.
The Dutch version that I was using came with FrontPage Express on the accompanying CD-Rom and even though my website is by this time already 8 megs, it is still the program I am using instead of the very expensive full version of FrontPage. So this book was awfully good value for money. And making a website is real fun, so try it!

reviews are WRONG....this book focuses on FrontPage Express!
I bought this book because I wanted help working with Netscape Composer. The reviews indicate that this book focuses on this shortware. Unfortunately, the Second Edition (1999) does mentions Netscape Composer twice and includes ONE page discussing Composer. The rest of the book deals with use of FrontPage Express. I'll be returning this disappointment.

I was clueless!
From an earlier review: <>

Had to laugh; that's me! I've got grandkids this kids age. I checked this out atthe library, renewed it twice, and had to HAVE it. I especially liked thatit's equally good for Macs and those others. This got me through getting myfirst web site up and running -- I don't intend to use it for marketing oranything else high traffic. This book gave me everything I needed as wellas some pointers about how to go further if I ever want to.

View from a Novice Website creator
I find this book very helpful for someone who has not ventured into Web creation as yet. It gives pointers on how to put your site together, alerts you to the fact that "not all browsers are the same" and you need to be diverse in what you produce.The references and glossary are verygood.I would highly recommend this book to get your site started.Whenyou have gotten your feet wet, then you can move on with confidence to morehigh-powered web building. ... Read more

Product Description
If you are familiar with creating HTML web pages but aren't familiar with creating dynamic, data driven web applications, you should consider learning ASP. And Sams Teach Yourself ASP.NET 2.0 in 24 Hours, Complete Starter Kit is the perfect learning tool. The Starter Kit provides the unbeatable combination of programmer/author Scott Mitchell and the step-by-step learning method of the best-selling Sams Teach Yourself series. The accompanying CD includes Visual Web Developer 2005 Express, a lightweight, easy-to-use and easy-to-learn web development tool, and all projects developed in the book's examples. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

Very good "pre-intro" book on ASP.NET
I've read the book from cover to cover and I give the book 4.5/5, which is nearly perfect. The most valueable part about this book is the sample website at the end of the book. Unfortunately the later editions did away with a sample website. Having said that I have to admit most programming books nowadays do not come with a sample project, which is a shame. I read the book twice from cover to cover, and it surely got me started on ASP.NET, a server-side scripting language that has a lot of significance in web programming. ;-)

the book review from AskBargains.com
very nice book, easy to follow. include most basic concept of theASP.NET 2.0

Should be called "Teach Yourself Visual Web Developer"
I'm only about 1/3 of the way through this book (I just finished hour 8) and am already frustrated with it.It seems to be a book all about how to use Visual Web Developer, not about how to program for ASP.NET.It relies completely on the tool to generate all your code, and rarely shows you the resulting VB.NET code, only the HTML that gets generated once you execute it.If you want to learn how to program in the ASP.NET world, you're better off with a book on VB.NET or C#.NET, as this book doesn't cover it well.

UPDATE 7/23/08 - I'm now finished with the book, and my opinion hasn't changed. This book tells you what ASP.NET is capable of doing (and it's capable of a lot of nice things), but if you don't plan on using MS Visual Web Developer, this book will do you no good.It does not show the code that it generates, only the resulting HTML.Also, I tried using several of the programs the MSVWD created, and they were incompatible with our web server configuration.This code appears to be highly configuration dependent, so if you can't control the configuration of your web server (and I can't for the class I'm taking), this book will help you even less.

Perfect How To Book
This is as close as I ever hope to come to a perfect how to do it book.
If you know anything about programming with almost any GUI IDE, this book (alone)will teach you how to build complete, functional, real-life, non-trivial, database, web sites and applications.

It requires no extra purchase. It does have examples for Access mdb files, Microsoft SQL databases and MySQL. Except for Access, the other databases are no-cost free downloads.

It uses and includes the Microsoft Visual Web 2005 Developer IDE.

If you are not familiar with SQL it will get you off to a useful start but you will soon need some additional help there. I recommend Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 Databases by Damien Foggon.

It will not teach a non-programmer anything useful.
It is NOT a "You can" book that tells you what can be done but not how to do it.
It is NOT copied from the help files.
It will not teach you HTML, XML, or any other *ML. It will show them and explain what they are.

Unfortunately ( Its only failing in my opinion. ) it does not show you how to publish the web sites you create. The author would argue that that is a topic for another book and I can't really argue with that opinion.

It does start at the beginning with how to use the IDE. It provides examples of every step required to create complete web based sites/applications with database support. including how to use and customize all the commonly used windows controls. It also includes user access control.

It is especially good for a VB programmer who wants to move from client side applications to web based browser/dot.net applications.

Way to go, Scott!

Good starting point
I don't often review books but I felt I had to on this one. Coming from a classic ASP background I think this book really helped me get my feet wet in ASP.Net 2.0. It had easy to understand examples on using the IDE to accomplish a lot of the common things you would normally do while developing.

Granted, the book does not get deep into best development practices or higher level concepts such as Data Access Layers and different types of databases and methods for accessing them. What it does do, is give you a very good starting point if you've never done any .Net development.

After you absorb this book and understand what you can do, you can move onto a more full featured ASP.Net book that covers a lot more.

I actually emailed the author and asked what book he would recommend next and he pointed me in the right direction. Overall a good book to start with. ... Read more

Product Description
Sams Teach Yourself ColdFusion Express is a step-by-step tutorial that teaches you how to turn basic Web sites into Web applications. From installation to database connection configuration, from tag and function usage to code reuse, this book helps you take advantage of Web application technology so you can take your Web sites to the next level. Learn how to interact with databases to create dynamic data driven web sites, how to perform intelligent server side condition and logical processing, how to create guest books, counters, and other server side applications, as well as how to create personalized and interactive Web sites. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Great into to programming!
I can't say enough good things about this book.I have taken a Cold Fusion class about 2 years ago.This book was so much more helpful than that $2000 class! Ben Forte and Sue Hove ease you into building your application, step by step.It is such an easy process.This is the best way to learn ColdFusion, by using ColdFusion Express for free! I was able to implement the form I needed on my website using Coldfusion Express and MS Access.You can view my pages at kdrdesigns.com/contact.html. Click on the Get Started link. I'm ready to purchase a copy of ColdFusion. I will now look for a book by Ben or Sue to move me to the next level. Good Luck!

So Well Written!
The author Ben Forta has done a wonderful job in presenting ColdFusion thru the Express version.Just the right amount of stuff for a beginner.I could not put this book down until i finished reading it! Now I am confident of learning more advance topics and look forward to reading more titles by Mr. Forta.

This book is a champ!
I picked up the book over a weekend & was coding on a project the following Monday.My background is in Java application server development & CGI, so web programming isn't new to me.However, I believe this would be a great jumpstart for beginners & more advanced developers alike.

The book is a good tutorial & a lightweight reference.Download the cold fusion server documentation for a more complete reference set ....

My only complaint is about installing Cold Fusion Express - it doesn't seem to recognize iPlanet or Apache webservers without a bunch of tinkering (I never got it to work) - so you may just want to stick with MS IIS for this version.Cold Fusion 5 is available for evaluation & works great with iPlanet.I would recommend the later if you are just using it as a single developer in a development environment.

Excellent book on ColdFusion Express
As a professional ColdFusion programmer, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book from beginning to end. Ben Forta clearly describes all aspects of the ColdFusion Express application server from installation, CFML (Coldfusion markup language) to administration and security. I have really learned quite a few tricks from reading this book, and I would recommend it to anyone who is considering using ColdFusion platform.

Excellent Beginners Book
I'm new to Cold Fusion and I spent a couple of hours at B&N yesturday evaluating all the books they had (the Dummies and Quick and Easy books specifically). Forta's book is hand's down the best of the bunch. I agree with the previous reviewer that there are some typos, but when you consider how easy he is to understand - especially compared to what else is out there - this is the book I bought. ... Read more

Product Description
Sams Teach Yourself Active Server Pages in 24 Hours is a step-by-step tutorial that teaches you how to create dynamic, fully functioning Web applications using Active Server Pages. Detailed coverage is provided for both Microsoft Personal Web Server and Microsoft Internet Information Server. Shows how to make sure your Web server is up and running correctly as well as how to build basic ASP applications. In addition to coverage of the basics of data access, you'll learn to send data, retrieve information, manage user sessions, use components, and work with files. Advanced topics include debugging ASP applications, building components, designing effective sites, adding security, and tuning ASP applications. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (49)

excellent book, particularly for intro to asp ado
i picked this book up in hopes of making a quick transition over to asp from php.it did the trick, it's well written, and i was able to move quickly through it and gain the background i was after.I had worked w/ asp before, but mainly just hacking around w/ other people's code trying to fix their bugs.I'd often looked at the db access code blocks and been unsure of why developers were setting properties the way they were, or why performance seemed to be so much faster in one scenario than another even though the sql code was comparable.this book did an excellent job in explaining key asp concepts, and demonstrating how to be efficient when accessing a database. again, it really is just what is says - a good resource for learning asp in 24 hours.i then went up to amazon just to check out the reviews, and was very disappointed w/ what some people were saying about this book and thought it unfair.especially the dork that posted a review for an atl book - dude, wake up and smell the acronyms.

ASP in 24 Hours
Very poorly written. The authors should pay you to read this book. With VC++ 6.0, chapter one, listing 1.1 SysAllocString(L"Hello, ATL!"); that L is a type cast to OLECHAR FAR *. The same orthgraphy is in the source code. Listing 1.2: it seems that the #include should be for Hour1Server which was created on page 6, not Day1Server. Also no idea what a Day1Server_1.c is but it is referenced later on page 53 in chapter three. Too many forward references in chapter one to concepts that they say will be explained in later chapters like five or six. This is not a stepwise refinement to learning ATL. For SAMS Publishing, a sorry excuse of a book. Best to pass on it.

Not that impressed
If you have the patience I think this book could be good.In my opinion it fails to deliver because it strays from the format that is the reason I usually buy their books.This book spends WAY too much time explaining code and way too little giving you examples of how to do things within ASP and creating commom web pages and functionality.If you have alot of patience buy this book, but if you're looking for one full of step-by-step tutorials then I'd look elsewhere.Also, if you have the most recent version of IIS it's outdated.

Much better than I thought
I thought this would be too basic - but, Wow! it's great. Easy to understand the concepts and put them into practice right away. One of the best books I've gotten this year!

Worth it for its price, but prepare to work
If you buy this book, then be prepared to work. If you're new to the whole programming field, or maybe just web programming, don't think the knowledge will be served to you on a silver platter. People's expectations about this book are too high. The introduction to VBScript (which ASP supports) is well put together. It's not excellent, but it's good. As the book progresses, it covers all the essentials of ASP: setting up PWS, IIS, setting up SQL server or Access to work correctly with ASP, databases, cookies, files, and all the essential ASP objects. The examples were also useful, e.g. sending mail through the SMTP server, creating cookies, working with files... these are all good examples that can be modified and copy-and-pasted on any of your creations. It even contains tips on how to create a shopping cart and implementing XML. Now, this book is not intended as a bible. As with any method for learning, you're going to have to access external resources: the web, people, etc. This will make the learning experience more enjoyable. The reasons why I didn't give it five stars was because, the person who knows some programming has an EXTREME advantage over the one who doesn't. But then again, if you're not experienced, it just takes time. Another thing I didn't like was the way the examples were presented. It looked confusing and this confusion can lead to a lack of motivation. The last thing I found strange was the transition between chapters. Sometimes it seemed that there was no transition. Overall, not a bad book. For it's price however, it's an excellent book. If you're new to programming, it will take hard work to grasp the language. If you're experienced, and also have worked with a web language such as JSP, PHP, or maybe even some Coldfusion, then this book will certainly be easy to follow. ... Read more

Product Description
The friendly, tutorial style of Sams Teach Yourself E-Commerce Programming with ASP in 21 Days empowers you to create your own online stores quickly and easily. Using online-proven methods, Stephen Walther, an expert e-commerce developer, provides you with an understanding of online commerce applications, then guides you through the use of VBScript and ASP's built-in objects, enabling you to create your own dynamic, database-driven e-commerce solutions. This book does not stop at just creating the online store. The author teaches you to create order tracking systems, manage advertising, create store reports, personalize the shopping experience and much more. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (33)

ASP programming
this is a great book it is well written and easy to follow. you can almost immediately grow comfortable with asp

ecommerce programming
Ok, finally it arrived...

In contrast to two other books which I ordered the same day (2. september) and arrived after one or two weeks, this one arrived, still within the time promised, but only after 4 weeks although it was shipped the same day.
I still don't understand how this difference is possible...So as I began to worry about the arrival of the book I was tried to give only 4 stars, but I can't blame the seller for the time delay. Also, it was within the 4 weeks, as announced.

Besides this, the book is perfect, contains all I wanted. It is thicker than I thought.

Thommy

Its What You Need. Seriously!
I have been a Web Design and Developer since 1998. I picked up this book in 2002 because I wanted to learn how to create an online database program and a e-commerce store. I picked it up at my local book store and found that it was very easy to read.

Today, creating an online store in less than 21 days for any of my customers is not a problem.

I highly recommend this book for anyone wishing to get their web development career started.

Use it for any type of online application.

Great book!
Very useful book with great code samples.Defiantly buy this book if you are looking to do some e-commerce programming with ASP 3.0.

Good book...great Instructor
Good book...great instructor. I bought this book a while back and since I've gotten so much from it, I figure I'll give it a plug.
If you've programmed in VB and have some ASP experience, then this is great book. A lot of the programming I've done has been within the context of a programming team. So, most of the time, I would work on a specific, limited portion of a program. For me, this book was great in that it guides me through the ENTIRE process of building a website by myself. Through working on the project in the book, I gained a good understanding of how to set up navigation for a website and also little tricks on state maintenance. (Coming fr. mainly a VB and SQL Server background, those were my weak points.) There are other little points that are too numerous to mention here. The style of the writing is clean and easily understandable. The author also gives alternative solutions to a single problem. An example, is the shopping cart. You are shown the implementation of a session cart and a database driven cart, and the pros and cons of each solution is discussed.

Anyway, to cut this short, I've built a number of websites all based on the code in here but fleshed out with SQL Server (instead of Access) and broke the implementation up into n-tier by implementing classes and objects. But that really is easy once I got the understanding and foundation of E-Commerce websites fr Stephen Walther's book.

I'm just wondering when Stephen is coming out with E-Commerce Programming with ASP.NET ... I'm sure it would be a blockbuster.
(hint hint) ... Read more

Product Description
Teach Yourself VISUALLY™ Macromedia® Web Collection uses the proven Visual step-by-step approach to learning the best of Macromedia products - in full color! Coverage includes Flash animation, Dreamweaver page design, and Fireworks integration. This is a full-color tutorial with clear, concise, jargon-free instructions with over 500 color screenshots throughout. Jam-packed with information, this book goes beyond the basics. The book covers the latest versions of Macromedia's popular Web software tools: Flash 5, Fireworks 4 and Dreamweaver 4. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

wasn't what I expected from the series
I have had a lot better results from this series with other products... but this fail short.Perhaps because it's more than one program into one book.It's not thorough and it's pretty basic!

Great Value!
If you hate reading like I do, buy this book.It has killer colorful pages.If you are a beginner and would like to get your feet wet, look no further!If you are advanced user, you might want to think it over.Look at the index first before deciding on buying it. ... Read more

Product Description

According to recent press reports, everyone is developing Web Services, but many are still in the exploratory phase - learning what's involved and how to achieve ROI.This book is designed to give a working introduction to Web Services to help decision-makers prepare for the implementation in their companies.It demystifies the topic by providing a beginning level explanation of what this technology is, what it means to businesses, where to apply it, and how to make it work.

Using numerous simple examples, the book explains the core concepts of Web Services: SOAP, UDDI, and WSDL, as well as tools and related concepts that will help create the "big picture" in readers' minds.

Customer Reviews (5)

Served me well as an introduction to web services.
To get right to the point, this book is written in a very easy to read and accessable style, with just the right diagrams and illustrations in the right places to aid in understanding.

I've never programmed with web services, but I need to know the terminology and basically what it's all about.This book served me well in this capacity.

It is not a book that goes into detail as to exactly how to do programming.This book is not technology specific, but rather after spending the first half easing the reader into exactly what web services are and why they exist, shows at a high-level how they are created with several different common technology platforms.

Also, there is a chapter on real world web services so the reader can go out and see exactly what web services look like when they are deployed in the "real world".

If you've never programmed a web services application before, I seriously doubt that you'll be able to do it after reading this book, at least nothing more than a simple example application.And in that sense, the title is a bit misleading.Perhaps it should have been "Introduce yourself to web services in 24 hours."

So, I can see how a certain type of reader might be dissapointed, but this book is exactly what I needed when I needed it.

Shipping and quality was great!
Book was practically new just like it was stated, and it didn't take more than 2 weeks to come which was PERFECT! There was almost no difference between this book and the new books =]

Great reading
The "Teach Yourself" series has done little to impress me until the arrival of this book. XML-based web services are getting traction as a truly standard way of enabling the service-oriented systems architecture. An architecture where systems can be built to expose services in such a way as to make it easier to integrate enterprise systems has been built many times already, but always ending up with constraints related to programming language, operating system and hardware. This book provides a good introduction to XML-based web services components including XML schema, WSDL, UDDI, SOAP and HTML with a comparison to the past attempts including DCOM and CORBA. The code examples require some analysis but are pretty helpful once you've taken the time to decode the XML and the scenario examples / case studies provide an interesting context to see how XML-based web services can be applied.

Diving into Web Services
As someone who knew ABSOLUTELY nothing about web services when I started, this book was the best of the 1/2 dozen titles I perused because it balanced high level understanding with the nitty-gritty and code examples. I found this book far most useful than titles such as 'Web Service: A Manager's Guide' and '.Net Web Services for Dummies'.

As someone who is not particularly technical, the code segments were still very useful in understanding what is going on.Without looking at a little code, understanding web services and its components becomes too esoteric.Why would you just describe an elephant when you can also provide a picture.

As someone who was just trying to understand web services and had no interest in comparing specific vendors' web services offerings, the chapters on commercial tools such as Apache Axis, Java, .NET, IBM Websphere and BEA Weblogic, and their specific pros/cons was not terribly interesting to me.But I could see how they would be valuable to an IT Professional.

The book does not really take 24 hours.Overall, I spent 9 intense hours working through this book to developing a good grasp of the technology.I recommend the opening chapters of 'Understanding .NET' by Chappell as a great supplement.Chappel gives great brief high-level descriptions on the components of web services and how they came about.

...

A good way to learn what web services are
To learn how to build and use web services, you first must determine what they are and how they differ from current technologies used in the development and use of web pages. With the exception of being based on eXtensible Markup Language (XML), they are only different in degree from widely used web technologies such as Active Server Pages (ASPs) and Java Server Pages (JSPs).
The authors do a good job of explaining what web services are and how they differ from other technologies. They also do not fall victim to the evangelical bug, being very explicit in pointing out the disadvantages of web services as well as the advantages as a chapter is devoted to each point. Another chapter is devoted to comparing how web services differ from other technologies such as ASPs, JSPs, Common Gateway Interface (CGI), Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) and Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI).
The middle section of the book is devoted to describing the architecture of web services , the basics of XML, how web services communicate using XML and Simple Object Access Prototcol (SOAP), how web services are described using Web Services Description Language (WSDL), and how to advertise a web service using Universal Description , Discovery and Integration (UDDI). While not detailed, it is a complete introduction to all of the steps you must go through to create a complete web service that others can use.
The third section is devoted to describing several tools that can be used to build web services. Commercial tools such as Apache Axis, Java, .NET, IBM Websphere and BEA Weblogic are covered and the authors are to be commended in also showing how they can be built using inexpensive and free toolkits. Finally, the last section covers topics such as the interoperability of web services, how security is included in web services and what some of the future trends in web services may be.
This book is an introduction to web services, so it is not possible to learn all of the specifics you need to build complex web services from it. However, if you are a beginner, there is enough information to get you started and to help you make decisions concerning whether you want to start building them. ... Read more

Product Description

The World Wide Web is a big place, and it is hard to find your way through it, much less make an impact on it. Blogs have revolutionized the idea of each person having a voice on the web and Sams Teach Yourself Blogging In a Snap is your guide to making your mark on the Internet world. This comprehensive guide to blogging focuses on using Blogger, the blogging tool hosted by Google. Blogger is a user-friendly blogging tool, but documentation on how to maximize your blogging experience using it is limited. This book bridges that gap, and provides you with everything you need to know to create and maintain your blog, from setting up a Blogger account to creative blogging tricks and techniques to blogging etiquette. You'll learn how to customize your blog, comment on other people's blogs, and share photos through your blog. Even if you already know what blogging is and are just looking for a few tips on how to make your blog bigger and better, the book's modular, task-based format will allow you to jump in anywhere and be on your way. Join the blogging craze with the help of Sams Teach Yourself Blogging In a Snap.

Customer Reviews (4)

A little dated, but one of the most helpful books ever!
It's a shame that this book was written about five years ago. Many of the references are out of business. Also, from what I understand, the Blogger platform itself has changed since this writing. All of that aside, it is one of the most helpful books I have ever bought. Not only do I recommend it for those using Blogger, I will probably buy a dozen more copies of the book so I can give them to people that I am encouraging to create a blog. I am leading a campaign to get the antique business into social media and this is the right book to help them do that. Most of the other books which I have bought lately are all talk and little action. This books literally breaks it down step-by-step; even some of the hard stuff, html coding. Five stars and three cheers. Last note: does anyone know of a better blogging book that is more up to date? I'll buy that one, too.
Frank! Mentor of the Collector Network (909) 593-1018.

Blogger basics clearly explained
While most of this book focuses on Google's Blogger service rather than blogging in general, many of the tips included about HTML code, building community, and using other services with your blog are applicable to other blog tools as well, so even WordPress or Movable Type users will find something useful in this book. Meloni is very good at balancing her explanations so knowledgeable users will not find them condescending, but novices will not be confused. If you want to take Blogger beyond stock templates and a stock blog, this book is indispensable.

One of the best written and structured books on basic blogging
I've looked through lots of basic blogging books and this one is definitely one of the best.It's written clearly and the explanations interface really well with the illustrations.As a writer myself, I was impressed with the tone and style of this book.Another book I'd recommend is the McFredies book 'Idiot's Guide...Web page & Blog':it is also a high caliber basic manual.Some others that are popular are definitely Grade B level writing, but not these two.Of course, this book is a bit limited as it focuses on google blogger, but that is its purpose.

MyMac.com Review
Blogging in a Snap
By Julie C. Meloni
SAMS Publishing
ISBN 0-672-32843-7
270 pages
Price: US $24.99, CAN $34.99£17.99

If you've been thinking about starting your own blog but haven't figured out how and where to begin, Blogger.com is a very popular place to check out. Its simple user interface can get you up and blogging in no time.

Though the set up instructions for Blogger.com is are relatively easy, Julie Meloni's Blogging in a Snap explains the obvious and not so obvious ins and outs of blogging on Blogger.com. She takes you through the process of setting up your account, selecting a template, configuring your comments settings, creating your blogging profile, naming your blog, writing and publishing your first posts, and bringing potential readers to your site.

If you've already begun a blogging on Blogger.com and you want to expand your use, Meloni explains how to modify your template using HTML and CSS codes, how use third-party tools, and how to create a moblog, a type of blogging done with your cell phone. I was surprised that she doesn't explain how to edit the link list, which is an essential part of every Blogger template. Unlike other blogger platforms, Blogger requires that you manually add links in the template itself using HTML code.

I've visited many Blogger.com websites and noticed a number of new bloggers who seemingly don't know how to modify their site, such as the elements in the sidebar. They haven't learned how to add links or change the names of the subheadings. Perhaps the reason for this is because they have to open up and modify the blogsite's template. Users with little or no knowledge of HTML code might even wonder why they have access to this coded template. What on earth do you do with language that looks like this:

Meloni tries to demystify the template code and show you ways to customize your Blogger site. Like other SAMS Teach Yourself books, Melon's step-by-step instructions include numerous screen shots that reflect and expand on what she explains in her textual instructions.

She includes the template code for one of Blogger.com's basic templates and identifies and explains its major elements, like the header, sidebar items, the comments-related area, and the metadata. Her best instructions are when she takes you step by step through a particular template modification, like including images in your blog posts, adding tables, displaying recent comments and adding a blogroll on your main page. However, some of her other perhaps more advance HTML and CSS modification strategies are too brief and could use more explaining or a second book for intermediate and advance users.

Learning and using HTML and CSS code can be daunting for many users. Working through this book gave me the idea to print out a copy of my Blogger template and peruse it using Meloni's guidelines. There's little risks making modifications to your template if you back-up a copy of it and use the preview button before saving your changes. I also magnify my template on my computer screen (using Command-+) so I can better read and modify selected code. The template window also includes a button to clear the edits you make in it.

Meloni goes to explain how to use many other and newer tools found on the Internet. For example, how to use your Flickr account to insert images and messages in your Blogger site. And setting up a Google ads and affiliation links if you're interested in making a few bucks with your blog.

A useful Appendix further explaining HTML and CSS fundamentals is included, but a list of additional resources might have been valuable for intermediate bloggers.

Overall, Blogging in a Snap is a good introduction if you want to set up an account with Blogger.com (other platforms are not covered.) The instructions are clear and concise, and Meloni has set up a Blogger site to promote and make updates to her book.

MyMac.com Rating: 4 out 5 ... Read more

Product Description
Written by Dreamweaver professional user and UC Berkeley Extension instructor Mike Woolridge, Teach Yourself VISUALLY Dreamweaver® 4 contains hundreds of full-color, oversized, ultra-clear screenshots for the visual learner. Each task is illustrated, showing you each step, screen by screen. No programming or HTML experience required -- you learn to create Web pages without writing code. Topics include converting from Photoshop, Cascading Style Sheets, Automatic link checking, Animation Timelines, and more. From using the Web-safe color palette to using Dreamweaver's pre-coded objects to adding movies, checkboxes, and more, this full-color guide to the latest version of Dreamweaver will appeal to visual learners at all levels. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Get started with Dreamweaver in no-time
I was really impressed with the lay-out and full page color pictures as the main learning element for dreamweaver.This breaks down step by step all the things neccessary to begin building your very own webpage, and is perfect for novices.
Although I found this book perfect for someone only starting out using dreamweaver, if you want a more complete, detailed description of html, or other elements inside dreamweaver, don't choose this book.But if you are just starting out, this is a perfect way to learn.Using full page color pictures rather than confusing computer talk is a lot faster.I recommend this book in conjunction with another detailed book once you become an advanced user.

It's like having a great instructor in paperback form!
This is an amazing book.A professor suggested that I check it out, and I'm glad I did.I became a Dreamweaver expert without having to attend a class or ask a lot of questions, because everything you could possibly want to know is right in front of you!When I bought the book, I had a good grasp on how to use Microsoft FrontPage but wanted to learn a more sophisticated program.The book details everything I needed to know in order to build a professional site in Dreamweaver and provides picture tutorials for every step.It is the equivalent of taking a Dreamweaver class and watching the instructor go through all the different steps using a projected computer screen, but this is even better because you can go back and re-read things if they don't make sense at first (although that rarely happens).This whole series of books is worth checking out if you need an introduction on how to use a new program.

Great Beginner Book
These visual books are awesome for beginners.If you have never touched a program before and need to learn from scratch then these are the books you need.These books spoon feed the information to you using visual graphics of each window and option you would see on the screen.

If you have used a specific program before and are looking to increase your knowledge you will find this book more like A,B,C's.So unless your brand new, novices and experts will find these books a waste of time.They do not go into specific advance features but do teach new comers how to become novice users.

...

Buy It !!!!!
Excellent book for Beginners.I was a Frontpage user until I bought this book.This book gives good details and picture's on how to use Dreamweaver 4.0.Highly Recommend it !!!!!! ... Read more

Product Description

Find all the answers to a new Internet user¿s questions in one big, easy-to-use book.Sams Teach Yourself Internet and Web Basics All in One is designed to teach he new computer user how to easily work with a variety of digital media.It does not assume the reader wants to learn how to use just one product, but covers multiple products and technologies in a logical fashion.Topics covered include: Internet Basics, Choosing a Service, Web Browsing, Email and Chat, Fun and Games, Stopping Viruses and Hackers, and Creating Web Pages.If you are a beginning Internet user who wants to buy one, single book to help you better use your Internet and your computer, or accomplish a broad range of computer activities Sams Teach Yourself Internet and Web Basics All in One is the book for you!

Product Description
This book is a carefully organized tutorial that is divided into 24 short, one-hour chapters that teach the beginning Web page author what he needs to know to make a Web page operational in the shortest time possible.Amazon.com Review
Teach Yourself to Create a Home Page in 24 Hoursprovides Web novices with simple, useful techniques for creating andpublishing Web pages. You use Claris Home Page 2.0 Lite, a Web-pagecreation package for Windows 95, Windows NT, and Macintosh, to createand edit a sample Web page complete with links and images. Thesoftware is included on the CD-ROM that comes with the book, alongwith sample files, Web graphics, Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 forWindows and Macintosh, and Web-page templates.

Although Claris Home Page shields you from HTML coding and lets youcreate pages in an almost WYSIWIG environment, there's some guidanceon using HTML to tweak your pages. You also learn how to useinteresting and appropriate text effects and color schemes, createtables and lists, and add animations, movies, and Java applets to yourpages. Finally, the author tells you how to plan and publish your ownsite. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Easy to understand, great examples, excellent CD
I purchased this book because I was familar with other SAMS 24 Hour texts. The book is well written with lots of good examples, a very useful CD with a working, no limitations, web page editor, and the author and publisherhave excellent support via telephone or on their web pages.If you buy onebook on creating a home page and you do not want to learn the technical insand outs of webmastering, make that book this book.

Great for Beginners
This book has proved helpful in creating my first home page. Although thebook talks mainly about how to use the software, there is a breif bit onHTML and where to host and advertise your page. The software included,(Claris Home Page Lite 2.0) is very easy to use, and good for beginners. Ifyour looking to get your feet wet, I'd recommend this book.

The most boring, dry read I have ever encountered.
This book greatly disappointed me.The book does include a CD with a webpage design program on it.That would have proven useful had I opened it. I read the book through, first, and was not able to keep awake.I havefound that the book serves me only one good purpose; a drink coaster for mycomputer desk.

Excellent for beginners,but followup difficult to find
My only adverse comment lies in Appendix A to this book. There is a reference to the Heavy Version (Claris Home Page 2.0) that I would like to review.I cannot find it in bookstores, nor in the internet. e-mail to the author and the publisher have not been answered. I understandthat the name Claris has been renamed Filemaster, or something like that. Otherwise the book has easily helped me to to learn how to construct a web page.R.S.

Excellent.. easy to read and understand.
I found the tutorials easy, none of them actually took me an hour to get through. I knew nothing about HTML, and yet I had my web page published over a weekend.The free Claris Home Page software was easy to install and use... I would recommend this title to anyone wanting to try building a page. ... Read more

Product Description
Sams Teach Yourself Web Development with ASP in21 Days, Complete Developer Edition, is the perfect starter kit if you're a Web programmer or designer and want to add dynamic content to your site utilizing Active Server Pages (ASP). Two books are included to give you everything you need: Sams Teach Yourself Active Server Pages in 24 Hours and Sams Teach Yourself Visual InterDev in 24 Hours. The Sams Teach Yourself books will help you learn the essentials of ASP and Visual InterDev. You can use ASP technology to create your own active Web pages and applications.

• The one-stop solution for learning and building dynamic interactive Web sites
• Test engine helps you reinforce your new skill set or sharpen existing knowledge
• CD-ROM contains Publisher's version of DrumBeat 2000, a trial version of Visual InterDev, ChiliSoft ASP Server, HomeSite 4.01, ASP Table Wizard, and WebTools 1.0

Customer Reviews (6)

Actually, quite nice.
This book keeps the pace with ASP, but you're going to want ASP.net instead.

My Easy Gate to ASP
Really It's my easy gate to ASP Web scripting, the Active Server Pages help me to understanding the basic mechanism of ASP I can rate this book by give it five star (5), but in Visual InterDev 6™ not power as ASP book, it's explain in description more than technical!

When you want start with ASP and related Development Tools (Visual InterDev 6.0™), I can said that take this Training Kit to start! :o)!

Perfect for a short-of-time type of guy!
This book concentrates on the common day-to-day issues that programmers face when writing ASP pages. If you are not an accomplished ASP programmer, and need to quickly learn the essentials and deliver a product in a short time, then this book will come in handy, especially at times when you get stuck on a specific problem while in the midst of writing the code. I have been through such situations and have had a good hit-rate coming out successful with this book by my side.

An excellent book to start with.
I hate technical books like this but I was impressed after the first couple of chapters. In plain, simple English, you are walked through the architecture and set up of ASP and the environment in which to run it. Themodules are well thought out and easy-to-follow. You don't get lost.

Ifyou already have some ASP experience, then this book will probably be alittle basic. for someone like me who needed to do some form-submissionsusing email and page counters, the book is ideal. I was up and running in acouple of hours (you can skip bits).

My only complaint is withtroubleshooting. The writers tell you what results to expect which is good,but they don't tell you what to do if you don't get the results you expect.This is particularly the case with the database modules where I had someproblems writing to a database and I had followed the instructions to theletter.

However, an overall good starter book and I recommend itthoroughly.

Good start, but leaves you wanting more
This book does a fine job of introducing ASP, and showing you how to accomplish specific tasks.I had no previous experience writing ASP, and within a few days I was creating form handlers, sending email, and even hadcreated a simple database app.But after finishing, I felt as though Istill didn't really KNOW asp.I had merely followed the books examples,and improvised.And while I was happy to be able to do some neat things soquickly, I felt like I needed more.So, if you're looking for a quick,easy intro to ASP, and you want to get busy right away doing some basicstuff, this book should serve you well.But you want to really learn thenuts and bolts of how ASP works, and be able to create involved codecompletely on your own, you may want to look elsewhere.Suggestion: Beginning ASP Databases by Kaufman has had excellent reviews.I'm in to ita bit already, and it appears to be much more thorough, but it does assumesome previous knowledge.Happy coding! ... Read more