HTML Manual of Style: A Clear, Concise Reference for Hypertext Markup Language (including HTML5), Fourth Edition (4th Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)If someone were just learning HTML/CSS now, what you would you tell him? That's how the "HTML Manual of Style" is written. Not about hobbling together a web page through a tool. But a back to the basics intro. The author covers why clean code is important both for humans and search engine robots.
The book includes the basic HTML 5 features amidst the "old stuff." One thing to watch out for - the section headers say "HTML 5". They don't really mean HTML 5 though. They really mean here's HTML that happens to include HTML 5. This is fine. It is an HTML book and not meant to highlight what is new specifically.
There are lots of short code examples along with showing how a browser renders them. It gives tips for planning, SEO and hosting. I particularly liked the list of attributes and easy to follow style. I also liked seeing jQuery mentioned.
While the book isn't geared for web developers, it is a nice review. And I think it is a great guide for those starting out. Or those relying on a tool to generate the web page. Or those who still embed style information in their HTML.
Note - while the title was originally about HTML, it has grown to HTML/CSS. The cover could highlight this better.
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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for writing this review on behalf of CodeRanch.

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THE CLASSIC WEB AUTHORING GUIDE, NOW 100% UPDATED AND BETTER THAN EVER!If it's for the Web, this book will help you create it…faster, smarter, better! Don't settle for canned templates or boilerplate designs! Take control, with the classic guide to HTML web authoring…now completely revised for the latest techniques and shortcuts, including HTML5!Build it right…Well-planned and well-organizedEasy to navigateFun to read, view, and useSearch engine-friendly and findableReliable and consistentEasy to update and maintainCompatible with any browserBuild it all…Websites and pagesWiki articlesWeb services and ecommerceeBay pagesBlog postsHTML emailAnd much more!Contains quick reference guides to HTML elements and CSS properties–including the newest HTML5 and CSS3 improvements!

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Creating Cool Web Sites with HTML, XHTML, and CSS Review

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(More customer reviews)Target Audience
Beginning web designers or web designers who want to grow beyond single page designs.
Contents
This is a reference/tutorial guide to web technologies that are necessary to build web sites. The book is divided into three parts:
Part 1 - Building A Wicked Cool Web Page - So What's All This Web Jazz?; Building Your First Web Page: HTML Basics; Presenting Text Attractively; Moving Into The 21st Century With Cascading Style Sheets; Lists And Special Characters; Putting The Web In World Wide Web: Adding Pointers And Links; From Dull To Cool By Adding Graphics
Part 2 - Rockin' Page Design Strategies - Tables And Frames; Forms, User Input, and the Common Gateway Interface; Advanced Form Design; Activating Your Pages With JavaScript; Advanced Cascading Style Sheets; Site Development With Weblogs
Part 3 - Expanding Your Pages Into A Web Site - Web Sites versus Web Pages; Thinking About Your Visitors And Your Site's Usability; Validating Your Pages And Style Sheets; Building Traffic And Being Found; Closing Thoughts; Appendix A: Step-by-step Web Site Planning Guide; Appendix B: Finding A Home For Your Web Site; Index
Review
If you're just starting out with learning how to build Web pages or sites, you no doubt have a wide number of books to choose from to help you learn those skills. But you can easily get bogged down in the minutiae of every little HTML tag and still not know what CSS means. You need a readable book that gives you solid coverage of essential information. With that in mind, you should check out Creating Cool Web Sites With HTML, XHTML, and CSS by Dave Taylor.
To position this properly, let's make sure you're the right audience. This isn't a book that will teach new tricks to an experienced web designer who earns their living developing corporate web sites. This book does an excellent job in covering a lot of ground without needing 1000+ pages to do so. Taylor takes you through the basics of HTML and XHTML, as well as how to use CSS to add formatting and presentation to your page. There's even some coverage of JavaScript as well. As you continue to gain expertise in each of these areas, you will probably want a hard-core reference manual to continue your education, but Creating Cool Web Sites will give you the necessary foundation to get started.
While targeted more towards beginners, the information in part 3 is a worthy read for a larger audience. To properly build a web site, you have to think of it as a cohesive whole, not just a collection of separate pages. The author helps the reader think through site issues, such as traffic, accessibility, and so on. Once again, any one of these topics could be a book on its own, but this is a nice level of coverage for initial exposure and to get started.
Conclusion
Beginners will find this to be an approachable coverage of web technologies, while intermediate designers will probably gravitate to the Web site design and CSS information.

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Walks readers through the process of creating a basic Web site from scratch using HMTL, the basis for billions of Web pages, and then jazzing it up with advanced techniques from the author's award-winning sites
This updated edition features new material that shows readers how to attract visitors to a site and keep them there, including new JavaScript examples and coverage of cascading style sheets and XHTML, technologies that make building successful Web sites even easier
Also features exciting new tips and tricks for beginning and advanced users, as well as more expanded examples and samples for users to incorporate in their own sites
The book moves from basic design and deployment to advanced page layout strategies, showing how to spice up new or existing sites with sound, video, and animation

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Bulletproof Web Design: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS (2nd Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)If you are just coming over the the standards-compliant light, this book is the best for showing real, working techniques. Great examples that work. A cookbook. Cederholm won my heart and my mind with "Web Standards Solutions" and this book builds on that theme. The man is a good writer, easy to understand, and he makes compelling and lucid points.
Cederholm's presentation is great: he states a problem or goal, then examines several different ways of solving it. The examinations are just a paragraph or two long -- short and to the point. He points out the strengths and weaknesses of the various solutions, then concludes with a "best practices" solution. Finally, he builds on and refines the best practices solution to deliver a finished piece. When there is no clear-cut best way, he lays the cards on the table and let's you decide what is best for your specific application. He talks about the compromises between pixel-perfect layouts and fluid layouts and how each effects design and useability issues.
It is not stand-alone because a good reference is still useful to have by your side.

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No matter how visually appealing or content-packed a Web site may be, if it's not adaptable to a variety of situations and reaching the widest possible audience, it isn't really succeeding. In Bulletproof Web Desing, author and Web designer extraordinaire, Dan Cederholm outlines standards-based strategies for building designs that provide flexibility, readability, and user control--key components of every sucessful site. Each chapter starts out with an example of an unbulletproof site one that employs a traditional HTML-based approach which Dan then deconstructs, pointing out its limitations. He then gives the site a make-over using XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), so you can see how to replace bloated code with lean markup and CSS for fast-loading sites that are accessible to all users. Finally, he covers several popular fluid and elastic-width layout techniques and pieces together all of the page components discussed in prior chapters into a single-page template.

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HTML, XHTML & CSS For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)) Review

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(More customer reviews)As a retired aerospace engineer closing with 70, I must be the quintessential cyberspace "Dummie". Looking for a change from retirement boredom, I decided to write a specialist e-guide on kayaking and river running in Thailand. Of course, I would need a website to carry it. So, I set out to build one and obtained two "Dummies" books on website building. They were very good books, both, full of great info. But they made it very clear that I'd have to have something a little more than a passing acquaintance with the site building code, HTML. I had a bad feeling. It sounded, boring, ominous and turgid, rather like eating breakfast cereal without the milk. But I pressed on and bought one of the books recommended which was "HTML 4 for Dummies" by Ed Tittel and Mary Burmeister, 5th Edition. What a surprise. I may be a computer slowcoach, late to the cyberspace gate, but I am a professional and I do recognize and respect professionalism when meet it. The book was a breeze to follow, well written and superbly structured, with countless tips and links to helpful websites. I read the book through with pleasure and plundered it for instruction as I built my website. Mr. Tittel is a pro. He knows his subject well and, writing with a deft sense of humor, he teaches, guides and instills confidence in the reader. So much confidence that I have decided to build more websites. And who knows, maybe even become a webmaster. I lent my copy to a friend and he feels the same. It now sits torn, dog-eared, taped-up and battle-scarred on my bookshelf.
So when I heard of the latest edition "HTML, XHTML and CSS for Dummies" with Mr. Tittel in collaboration with Jeff Noble I obtained a copy. This book has everything the earlier book had, but more. Expanded, naturally, and with more emphasis on CSS and other relevant advances it's a wonderful book. I cannot recommend this work highly enough. It even packs along a dedicated website! If you're a beginner and want to build a website and want a good grasp of HTML, grab this book. And you'll be glad you did.


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The indispensable introductory reference guide to HTML, XHTML and CSS
Even though new technologies enable people to do much more with the Web, in the end HTML, XHTML and CSS are still at the root of any Web site. The newest edition of this bestselling guide is fully updated and revised for the latest technology changes to the field, including HTML5 and CSS3. Illustrated in full color, this book provides beginner and advanced coders the tools they need to be proficient at these programming languages.
Shows you how to create a Web page and formulate XHTML document structure
Addresses working with content management systems (WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla), and designing for mobile devices (iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android)
Introduces HTML5 and CSS3, tools critical to mobile Web development
Reviews working with text, lists, and images, and customizing links
Demonstrates ways to employ cascading style sheets (CSS) and get creative with colors and fonts
Details integrating scripts with XHTML and understanding deprecated HTML markup tags

Written by two veteran computer whizzes, HTML, XHTML and CSS For Dummies will help you get the design results you want!

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