Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS by Dan Shafer ISBN: 0-9579218-2-9 Publisher: Sitepoint Pty Ltd Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $39.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.93 (15 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: The biggest problem with this book
Comment: This book is OK as a general CSS guide, but it fails miserably at what it was intended for- teaching you how to create a tableless CSS layout. In other words, it's outright cheating by the author, which no doubt used such a title for the book just to distinguish itself from other CSS books. The problem is, there is less than 1 chapter discussing using CSS as layout in a book that's supposed to be all about it. You can't help but feel cheated. I knew more about using CSS to replace tables going into this book than what the author taught me coming out. The one technique discussed- using absolute positioning to replace tables- is so inadequate and poorly illustrated it pushes you back into wanting to stick to using tables. Oh yes, and half of the book is a CSS reference that's there just to fill pages and make the book appear thicker than it really is. Without the reference this book becomes a booklet, just like their php/mysql book.
This is the last time I buy Sitepoint books. There's a pattern emerging here with their books- low quality print, low quality content, poor editing job, and misleading but hyped up marketing (not to mention very high prices). I'll stick with the professional publishers like O'Reilly from now on.
Rating: 1
Summary: Better Books on the Market
Comment: If you want to learn to do CSS tabless designs, then dont buy this book. This book is a waste of the paper it is printed on. If you want the CSS2 Reference, they buy another book or print it out from the web.
The author has a lofty goal, but unfortunately did not have a good plan. Again if you want a tabless site, go to google and type in tabless css. Spend a few hours doing those tutorials and you will know more than if you spent any time reading this book.
Rating: 1
Summary: High Expectations, Disappointing Delivery
Comment: The title of this book - 'Designing Without Tables Using CSS' - led me to believe that I'd found a tutorial to teach me how to develop a Web site using CSS for layout. The subtitle further stoked my enthusiasm: 'A Practical Step-by-Step Guide'.
Boy, was I disappointed...
The second half of the book is a property reference undoubtedly culled from various online sources. The first 100 pages of the book trundles through the obligatory, tiresome overview of CSS that really has no place here. The rest of the book does focus on building a table-less site, but the author has not logically arranged his material and instead of delivering an annotated tutorial wanders hither and yon, discussing topics that sometimes pertain to the site he is trying build, and sometimes not. It seems that the author couldn't make up his mind, on a page-by-page basis, whether he wanted to write a CSS tutorial, overview, or reference. As a result, he failed at them all.
The quality of the writing itself isn't bad. The author has a friendly, readable style. In places, though, his pen runneth over, and a good editor could have tightened things up.
This book could have been done in half the pages if the author had focused on the tutorial and left the overview and reference for other books. A good printed tutorial on 'Designing Without Tables Using CSS' would have been invaluable. The author should have had faith in his material and written one.
At $39.99, with no Amazon discount, the book is grossly overpriced. It does have one of those nifty spines that let you lay the book flat without it closing, but there is no interior color, and both the paper and the print quality are sub-standard, leading me to believe that the book was published by a vanity press instead of a commercial printer.
You can judge the book for yourself by going to sitepoint.com and downloading the first couple of chapters. Read before you buy.
 |
Title: Designing With Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman ISBN: 0735712018 Publisher: New Riders Pub. Date: 14 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
 |
Title: Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design by Eric A. Meyer ISBN: 073571245X Publisher: New Riders Pub. Date: 28 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
 |
Title: Designing CSS Web Pages by Christopher Schmitt ISBN: 0735712638 Publisher: New Riders Pub. Date: 20 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.99 |
 |
Title: Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL, Second Edition by Kevin Yank ISBN: 0957921810 Publisher: SitePoint Pty Ltd Pub. Date: 03 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
 |
Title: JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook by Danny Goodman ISBN: 0596004672 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
