Macromedia Studio MX 2004 Bible Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Macromedia Studio MX 2004 Bible? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Macromedia Studio MX 2004 Bible. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Macromedia Studio MX 2004 Bible ReviewThe small non-profit company I work for needed a website, and I drew the short straw for designing and maintaining it. We bought the Studio MX suite, and I hoped this book would cover everything I needed to design a simple, yet cool website.
The thing is it DOES cover EVERYTHING I needed, but it is SO overwhelming in all the details, I was pulling my hair out and wondering what I'd gotten myself into.
You really have have some experience with website design before attempting this book. I had no idea what to do, and couldn't filter out what applied to me and what didn't; I needed a little more hand-holding than this book offered. Now that I've been through the H.O.T. and Naked series of help books (which others complain of being too basic), I'm much more comfortable with this book. I'll definitely be using it as a reference as I add dynamic content to the simple website I've built.
Overall, this book is an excellent resource for intermediate or advanced users. Beginners should shop around for other books before buying this one.Macromedia Studio MX 2004 Bible Overview

Want to learn more information about Macromedia Studio MX 2004 Bible?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible ReviewThe title is misguiding. It's everything but an HTML, XHTML & CSS Bible. Title should read "Become a webmaster in a month". I expected to have: - The full HTML Specification with an example for each definition - Same for XHTML (DTD, rules to respect, validation, etc...) - Same for CSS and *PLEASE*, at least the basics of tableless CSS layoutIf the book were to expose the aforementioned information, it would exceed the 800 pages, and the author wouldn't have had to put some more information that is useful, I agree, but it's off-topic, sorry. The author should stress a lot more on standards. Standards are important, and one can't call a book a "Bible" if it only covers 75% of HTML, 50% of XHTML and hardly covers basics of CSS.It lacks information on the PNG file format (open source). Mention of the Opera Browser is almost non-existent, even if it's the most standard-compliant browser. Using tables to create a layout is old-fashioned and many good books (by Dan Cederholm, Jeffrey Zeldman or Eric Meyer) proove that one should *NOT* use tables for layout so that structure and content are clearly seperated from presentation. Without this discipline, the web won't be able to evolve toward XML.The book talks about image retouching, which again is off-topic, pretty much like SMIL, multimedia, FTP, maintainance, databases, weblogs, PHP & MySQL.I noticed several errors, and then I stopped writing them down. These are some of them: - p.93 PNG, is stored without being compressed doesn't loose color or image quality, and does support transparency. At least this can be achieved in Photoshop CS. - p.108 I find it sad that the author doesn't show how image maps are done with circles and polygons - chap.9 "Special characters" should show a sample for every single entity - p.184 The author puts the e-mail address into the code. How is it possible?! With all the spam problems people keep complaining, how come the author doesn't display the e-mail address thanks to a javascript to hide it from spambots? - p.188 in Part III instead of in Part II - p.210 He forgot that the label tag can nest the radio button and the text without ID. - p.284 div.div1 table should read div.div1>table - All examples are shown in IE or Netscape 4. Why not show modern browsers (Opera 7.8, Mozilla 1.8, Firefox 1.0) - p.379 user agent is not Opera but FirebirdThis is not a bad book, it has a lot of useful information, but what drove me nuts is that I wanted a "Bible" for these 3 languages. I had to buy other books. I hope now people who buy this book know it's a general-purpose book on web design.HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible OverviewAn essential update to the key web authoring standards of HTML, XHTML, and CSS
The existence of Web pages depends on three vital technologies: HTML (base language that Web pages are written in), XHTML (standards that define how to write HTML pages), and CSS (standard that applies formatting styles to Web pages). This new edition provides you with critical coverage of these three Web authoring standards, and places special focus on the upcoming releases of HTML 5 and CSS 3.
Serving as a tutorial and reference, this comprehensive resource explains the basic structure and necessary formatting to create a static (non-changing) and dynamic (changing) page on the Internet.
HTML, XHTML, and CSS are the three major Web authoring standards for creating either a static or dynamic Web page
Guides you through using HTML to create Web documents and introduces updates to HTML 5
Demonstrates best practices for using tools and utilities to create Web documents
Includes coverage of the new CSS 3 and tips and tricks for maximizing its abilities

Helpful examples round out this essential guide and will get you up and running with HTML, XHMTL, and CSS in no time!
Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Want to learn more information about HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Foundation Fireworks CS4 (Foundations) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Foundation Fireworks CS4 (Foundations)? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Foundation Fireworks CS4 (Foundations). Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Foundation Fireworks CS4 (Foundations) ReviewThis is not a beginner's guide to Fireworks, nor is it an advanced reference. Instead, it is a selection of various topics about Fireworks. Early sections that present an overview of the various Fireworks bitmap and vector tools are rather straightforward, but with creative examples. Later sections, such as creating Flex skins and AIR applications are for more advanced users. The fact that the book has several authors is rather evident as you read the somewhat disjoint topics in each chapter.
However, even with this variability between the different chapters, there are plenty of "gems" hidden in this book. I've used Fireworks for many months, and I still didn't completely understand how some of the different tools worked until I saw some of the excellent examples in this book. One problem with Fireworks is that some very important features are often hidden within extensions in the Commands menu, or hidden in some far-off panel that needs to be enabled. This book helped me discover some of those hidden gems within Fireworks.
This is not intended to be a Fireworks reference book. But as a stroll through various features of Fireworks (especially those features that make it unique compared to Photoshop or Illustrator), it was a pleasant journey. Reading this book while Fireworks is open so you can try some of the interesting examples will help you better appreciate the features that the authors are trying to highlight. If you just read the book without trying the examples, you will be missing much of the fun.
One downside with this book is that the various images were obviously intended to be published in color, but they are only in black-and-white in this book. If you look at the sample images at the top of the back cover, you can see how some of the images were intended to be shown. By printing these images in black-and-white, many of the examples loose a lot of their value. Another reason to be trying the examples within Fireworks yourself to see how they really look. If the images had been printed in color, I probably would have rated this a 4 instead of a 3.Foundation Fireworks CS4 (Foundations) OverviewAdobe is raising the importance of Fireworks as a creative Web tool for everyone from novices to pros. It would not be out of place to call this the Photoshop-for-the-Web tool. Foundation Fireworks covers all the new features with an eye toward site and page prototyping as well as content creation; a much bigger and more vital market than that served by previous versions of Fireworks.

Want to learn more information about Foundation Fireworks CS4 (Foundations)?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Simply JavaScript Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Simply JavaScript? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Simply JavaScript. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Simply JavaScript ReviewSimply Javascript by Kevin Yank and Cameron Adams lives up to the subtitle of Everything you need to learn Javascript from scratch. Javascript is a tricky subject to tackle. The Internet is full of Javascript snippets and code samples everywhere you look. Often times these code samples are less than satisfactory when you are addressing accessibility within your website. Many of the code samples contain outdated and proprietary code samples, making it a task to work out kinks and debug. The good news with this book is that they stick to a standard. All code used in this book uses object literal notation. Sticking to a coding style and format helps make this book an incredible read. Throughout this book you will learn the underpinnings of Javascript and how you can achieve different tasks.
Learning Javascript from scratch can be a daunting task. After all, there are several libraries and free scripts that you can essentially download and plugin to your website. But what happens when things go wrong? What happens when you need to modify the script to fit your needs? Having a solid foundation and understanding of Javascript will help you as you begin to develop for your own needs. This book gently walks you through the steps you need to take to achieve that solid foundation.Chapter 1 starts off with a brief primer of unobtrusive Javascript and it's role in the three layers of the web. HTML is your content. CSS is your presentation. Javascript is your behavior. These three aspects need to be separate from one another and also co-exist at the same time. Gone are the days of inline event handlers and functions. Using the power of the DOM you can rest assured your HTML will be pure and your applications will work flawlessly without Javascript enabled.
Chapter 2 spends some time setting up the foundation for beginners. This chapter walks you through statements, comments, variables and different variable types, conditions and loops, functions, and objects. Whew, that was a mouthful. This is where the standard of coding is introduced that will be used throughout the rest of the book. Things such as code indenting and formatting are touched on as well. This allows you to write clean code that is readable by you and other developers who may be working with your code. As stated earlier, all code uses object literal notation, and therefore this is explained in this chapter. A few examples are given and we are off to building some handy tools.

Chapter 3 gives you the necessary road map. This chapter is devoted to traversing the Document Object Model. A few helper classes are shown here that will allow us to retrieve elements by class name, add class names to an element, remove class names from an element, and check for the existence of class names within in an element. These will be used extensively throughout the book and are placed in their Core object. In addition to being able to traverse by class names, there is also the list of standard elements such as getElementById and getElementsByTagName. With these powerful tools at our finger tips we can now begin altering our pages as deemed necessary. The example given here is one of striping table rows. For those who don't do this on the server side, this simple task allows you to stripe your rows via the DOM.
Sure it's cool to add stripes to a table, but how can we do more? Chapter 4 is all about Events and the power they add to interacting with the DOM. The brief history lesson in this chapter helps us understand the different interpretations of different browsers and how we can use object detection to abstract these tasks into the Core object. Event Listeners and Event Handlers are both discussed in great detail. We move on to two working examples: Rich tooltips and Accordion. Rich tooltips are used to extract information from our title attribute and then apply them to a more stylish hover tooltip effect. Accordion allows us to save space on our pages by gradually showing the content as it is requested by either a click or keyboard event.
Chapter 5 gets us moving even more. This chapter is devoted to Animation and is probably one of the more complex chapters of the book. We are introduced to two methods, setTimeout and setInterval. Working mainly with setTimeout we are able to achieve our animation effects. This chapter looks at the principles of animation and an example of path-based motion with a soccer ball. We then use our new-found knowledge to extend our tooltip to show after a specified time, and our accordion is given a nice slide effect. We simply extend the code from our previous chapter to make these things happen. This is a good example of the benefits of working with objects and decoupling inside of your Javascript.
Chapter 6 gives use a few more tools to work with Forms. Forms are never easy to manipulate. Whether it be the style or the behavior. The beginning of the chapter starts with smaller scripts and examples of manipulating forms. This is done by specifying dependent fields and only showing them when necessary, and creating cascading menus from a select and it's optgroup. We then move on to some more advanced features for validation and creating a custom slider. These have been presented before in other areas, so nothing is really new in this area. However, this is all a part of understanding the bigger picture and the possibilities. It is about getting the creative juices flowing.
Chapter 7 discusses the inevitable testing for errors and debugging your application. We walk through the different types of erros: syntax, runtime, and logic. With each of these code samples are given with errors. We then use the tools of the browsers to make sense of their often cryptic error messages. In order to debug Javascript there is an invaluable tool in Firebug, a plugin for the popular Firefox web browser.
More interaction is still left as chapter 8 moves us to AJAX. Some very strong disclaimers are made as to when and where to use the right tool for the right job. Caution is also given in regards to assistive devices such as screen readers. With the warnings out of the way, we move to a some practical examples. The first is a small weather widget and the second is an extension to form validation.
The book finishes off by looking too the future of Javascript. Discussions of Rich Internet Applications and their place inside of the web help to stimulate your mind as you think about the possibilities. Not only about building applications on the web, but also using Javascript for such things as Dashboard Widgets and even browser development. In the hands of responsible developers, the future looks exciting for Javascript.
The Appendix is a very important part to this book, and I like its placement. The appendix goes through the Core methods used throughout the entire book. But why wait until the end of the book? Had this chapter shown up earlier it would have caused more confusion than necessary, and more explanation that necessary. As a reader you have the option to read this appendix first, but I felt it was well placed and covered thoroughly at the end of the book. By this point in the book you will have gained enough knowledge to dive in, whereas the beginning might have left you asking all the wrong questions.
If you have been developing Javascript for any amount of time, then you are most likely aware of the array of libraries available to us. These include Prototype, Scriptaculous, jQuery, Dojo, MooTools, and YUI to name a few. Each chapter of this book ends with a discussion of the libraries and how they can be used to help achieve the different tasks. Some libraries can achieve some tasks, while others still take a little work. The authors give a fair coverage to the libraries but do not dwell on them as the end-all-be-all of Javascript. If anything, the author's stress that you understand your Javascript at the core and know why you are doing what you are doing. This book sticks to unobtrusive principles and doesn't take shortcuts. The authors strive to make sure the code is of high quality and compatible cross-browser, but they never take the easy way out. Things such as innerHTML are put away in favor of building the DOM on the fly. This adds to the overall excellent quality of this book. The excellent code coupled with beautiful illustrations make this book easy to take small chunks at a time.Simply JavaScript Overview
Everything you need to learn JavaScript from Scratch!

Packed with numerous examples, Simply JavaScript is a step-by-step introduction to programming in JavaScript the right way. Learn how easy it is to use JavaScript to solve real-world problems, build smarter forms, track user events (such as mouse clicks and key strokes), and design eye-catching animations. Then move into more powerful techniques using the DOM and Ajax.
Learn JavaScript's built-in functions, methods, and properties. Easily integrate JavaScript in your web site. Use JavaScript to validate form entries and interact with your users. Understand how to respond to user events. Create animations that bring your web site to life. Start programming using the DOM and Ajax.
Unlike other JavaScript books, modern best practices such as progressive enhancement, accessibility and unobtrusive scripting are used from the very beginning. All the code in the book is also cross-browser compatible and downloadable for free, so you can get started instantly!


Want to learn more information about Simply JavaScript?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

jQuery Mobile Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy jQuery Mobile? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on jQuery Mobile. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

jQuery Mobile ReviewI thought this book "okay" for getting started with jQuery Mobile. However, I thought this book was going to be more than just a small introduction to jQuery Mobile. Don't get me wrong, it does provide enough information to get you going in developing your jQuery Mobile website, BUT it lacks in proper documentation.
This book was below my expectations for an O'Reilly book. You are better off just going to the jQuery Mobile website, and reading their documentation in all honesty. Beware though, even the jQuery Mobile website documentation isn't all that clear,also. So you will have to experiment.jQuery Mobile Overview
Native apps have distinct advantages, but the future belongs to mobile web apps that function on a broad range of smartphones and tablets. Get started with jQuery Mobile, the touch-optimized framework for creating apps that look and behave consistently across many devices. This concise book provides HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript code examples, screen shots, and step-by-step guidance to help you build a complete working app with jQuery Mobile.

If you're already familiar with the jQuery JavaScript library, you can use your existing skills to build cross-platform mobile web apps right now. This book shows you how.

Get a high-level overview of jQuery Mobile: how it works and how to use it
Learn about paging and navigation, including dialogs, Ajax content, and history
Employ jQuery Mobile's extensive event system to create rich interactions
Work with toolbars, buttons, lists, forms, and other UI elements
Create a variety of visual designs with jQuery Mobile's sophisticated theming system
Use the jQuery Mobile API for finer control over elements and interactions
Put everything together and build a mobile app from start to finish


Want to learn more information about jQuery Mobile?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Cascading Style Sheets: The Designer's Edge Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Cascading Style Sheets: The Designer's Edge? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Cascading Style Sheets: The Designer's Edge. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Cascading Style Sheets: The Designer's Edge ReviewI grabbed this book at Barnes & Noble and sat in the cafe with a cup of coffee just to check it out. 2 hours later I felt like I had just learned an amazing amount of information.
When I got home I started reading the reviews of this book on Amazon and was dumbfounded by the criticism of this book.
This book is fantastic for the person who hates "computer talk" books. You know what I'm talking about... books that are written so dryly and by people who write so technically that you can barely understand anything you are reading.
This book is like a breath of fresh air. The fact that the author provides a history of SGML, HTML, XHTML, CSS and such is great because it gives you an underlying basis of knowledge, a foundation from which to grow.
Her style of writing is conversational, perhaps a bit repetitive but that helps drive home the concepts. I did not find it distracting at all. I like this style of writing because it helps me to learn better. The book takes a measured, logical approach to the subject. I put this book down realizing that I had LEARNED the fundamentals of CSS without any confusion whatsoever.
This book is not intended for people already familiar with CSS concepts. It is best for newbies to the subject. I've looked at a lot of CSS books and I would rate this as one of the best I've ever read. Even better than the knowledgable Eric Meyer books. I prefer this author's style of writing compard to Eric's. However, Eric's books are more comprehensive and are better suited for taking you to the next level.
The biggest negative with this book is that there are numerous typos and errors. an astute reader may pick them out quite easily but it is a very poor reflection on the publisher and that is why I can only rate this book a 4.Cascading Style Sheets: The Designer's Edge OverviewCSS is finally supported by all modern web browsers, empowering Web designers to do what they've been hungering to do for years: control layout more precisely, use color more effectively, and expand typographic options beyond the frustrating limitations of the past. So where to begin? Where can you get design-focused instruction on CSS while learning the technical details?Cascading Style Sheets: The Designer's Edge is precisely the resource you've been looking for. Written by renowned web designer Molly Holzschlag, this book begins with an in-depth look at structured markup, both XHTML and CSS. It then explains how to use CSS to achieve specific design goals involving typography, color, layout, and more. Finally, it deconstructs a series of impressive designs, showing you how the authors used CSS to maximize their efficiency and get exactly the right effect.Key topics you'll learn about include:* Writing valid XHTML* Authoring effective CSS rules* Working with classes and IDs* Validating your CSS* Creating great typographical designs with CSS* Using CSS for backgrounds, borders, and color* Creating multiple link styles* Using absolute positioning* Working with relative positioning* Positioning with float* Creating great CSS layouts

Want to learn more information about Cascading Style Sheets: The Designer's Edge?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Mastering Macromedia Contribute Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Mastering Macromedia Contribute? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Mastering Macromedia Contribute. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Mastering Macromedia Contribute ReviewAfter leaving the PC and Windows world behind by buying an iMac G5 I needed to convert my personal website from a FrontPage format. I am not a web designer by any stretch, but I do know my way around html codes and desire some creative license on how my site looks. Contribute was recommended to me for it's ease of use - the only other option for Macs is Dreamweaver, which was entirely too technical for my needs.
I used it for about one month and decided it really geared more for a static corporate page where you may want to periodically update text. It has a nice 'user' restriction function, so your employees can log on and make changes, then those changes can be reviewed and uploaded (a safety net for those admins who do not want their employees monkeying around with the live website) - but as a photographer I found it really lacking in ease of use for photo uploads, major text or style changes, and the theme selection was limited and BOOORRRING. Definitely not a replacement for FrontPage and I wished I would have figured all of this out before I purchased so hopefully this revew will be helpful to you.Mastering Macromedia Contribute Overview* Macromedia Contribute is an easy, safe, and efficient desktop application that anyone can use to publish Web content and edit existing Web sites* Unique reference skillfully guides Web designers and content contributors through setting editable content areas and permissions for their users* Explains Contribute's ability to be used with other popular Web development tools, such as FrontPage and GoLive* Authors are both Macromedia insiders who have extensive experience working with Contribute* Companion Web site contains a Contribute-enabled Web site, source code and examples

Want to learn more information about Mastering Macromedia Contribute?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Learning Drupal 6 Module Development: A practical tutorial for creating your first Drupal 6 modules with PHP Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Learning Drupal 6 Module Development: A practical tutorial for creating your first Drupal 6 modules with PHP? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Learning Drupal 6 Module Development: A practical tutorial for creating your first Drupal 6 modules with PHP. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Learning Drupal 6 Module Development: A practical tutorial for creating your first Drupal 6 modules with PHP ReviewIt seems every version of Drupal likes to change the API considerably. Signatures change, and many functions are dropped. Backwards compatibility is really NOT a concern with Drupal. This book covers the current version, 6, of Drupal.
It walks you through all of the code ideas of Drupal module and theme development. And really does a great job of doing this. Even if you are familiar with 5, the book examples are such that you can skim and upgrade your knowledge to 6.x.
One nice addition would have been a bit of reference. Maybe list all of the hook functions. List all of the form component types, with every attribute. I often found myself going online for examples of how to do form components that were not covered by this book.Learning Drupal 6 Module Development: A practical tutorial for creating your first Drupal 6 modules with PHP OverviewWalk through the development of complete Drupal 6 modules with this primer for PHP programmers, written specifically for Drupal 6 to get you started coding your first module. Are you a Drupal developer looking to update to version 6? This book covers the new and updated APIs to guide your transition to Drupal 6. The new menu system, the Forms and Schema APIs, and many core revisions are covered in this book. This book is written for PHP developers who want to add custom features to Drupal. You will need to know the basics of PHP and MySQL programming, but no experience of programming Drupal is required, although you will be expected to be familiar with the basic operation of Drupal.

Want to learn more information about Learning Drupal 6 Module Development: A practical tutorial for creating your first Drupal 6 modules with PHP?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Using Drupal Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Using Drupal? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Using Drupal. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Using Drupal ReviewThis book has been eagerly awaited as the first O'Reilly volume covering Drupal, and having been written by such a rockstar team of Drupal pros.
It's also the first book to focus on a wide range of third party contributed modules rather than just Drupal core, or a narrow subject area of modules. It's written for Drupal 6, although the book would be fairly applicable to Drupal 5 (with the caveat that one of the major modules, Views, is completely different for Drupal 6 - the underlying concepts are similar though).
The first thing that struck me about this book is its fundamentally different approach from most early Drupal books, as well as the kinds of books you find in the early stages of any new technology's mainstream acceptance. It's not simply a higher quality rehashing of handbook pages and technical how-tos, but it has an incredibly cohesive and clever process through the entire book.
Every main chapter of the book will:
* Introduce an example scenario that's easy to relate to. For example, an early chapter that covers creating a simple site for a Mom & Pop shop has this sample case study: "in order to update the web page content each week, they currently pay their next-door neighbor Goldie to hand-edit the page"
* Outline what you're going to be building
* Explain why certain decisions or trade-offs were made when creating this site, and highlight alternative choices depending on your particular situation
* Explains step-by-step how to complete the site with lots of tables and screenshots, pointing out gotchas and important concepts along the way
* Ends with a "Taking It Further" section with suggestions for other features or future modules to watch that are related to the site recipe
The hands-on approach of this book takes you through a single, cohesive example in each chapter. This gets you building a site to completion at every step. This approach reminds me of the different ways to learn a musical instrument such as piano or guitar - you can start with theory and technique and practice your scales first, or you can just learn some chords and be able to whip out a few simple pop songs your first afternoon. This book is the chords.
It also has some great moments of explaining fuzzy concepts that are difficult to understand without significant Drupal experience. The Using Drupal team shows their years of expertise training users and implementing Drupal sites in gems such as this, describing whether you should use taxonomy or a CCK field for content categorization:
A general rule of thumb is that if you can remove the field and the content type still makes sense, use Taxonomy. An article filed under a "Technology" category is still an article if you remove the category association, so Taxonomy is a good fit. If the field is part of a piece of content, such as an album's recording artist, then CCK is generally a better choice.

Using Drupal will take you through building a:
* Simple website with blog for a mom & pop grocery store, including a WYSIWYG editor and uploading images to content
* Job posting board for a university, which introduces the key CCK and Views modules
* Product reviews site with user ratings, Amazon product data importing, some simple CSS tweaks using the CSS Injector module, and more CCK/Views
* Wiki, which brings in revisions, input formats, and Pathauto module
* Local arts news site, which takes you into Actions, Triggers, Workspace, Workflow (both as a concept and module), and Views Bulk Operations to create an administration page
* Photo gallery, with ImageField, ImageCache, much more Views and some site display tweaks
* Multilingual website with a strong overview of concepts, then Locale, i18n, and the Localization Client
* Event management site with calendar and attendees
* Online store using Ubercart (focuses on basic store setup, products, attributes, and orders - you'll still need to set up payment methods)
It also covers a few additional topics:
* An overview of Drupal, and where to get help
* Basic theming (this is the only time you'll see code!)
* Installing and upgrading Drupal and modules
* How to choose modules and participate in the community
So what's it missing?
Obviously Using Drupal only scratches the surface of the many, many types of sites you can build with Drupal. There are a few major topics you won't find covered in here - membership sites with protected user access, Organic Groups (a chapter that didn't quite make it due to module readiness for D6), more advanced magazine/newspaper-style sites with modules like Node Queue and Panels, multimedia (there's another book for that!), or social networking sites. However, I think they picked a great selection of site recipes to cover in a relatively small amount of space, and each recipe will get you a solid site built.
The book will also direct you to two additional resources available online: the finished demo site for each chapter for you to browse, and a download package containing installation profiles with the same versions of modules and themes used on each site. The installation profiles will set you up with a clean slate with your modules all prepared for you to start following along step-by-step in each chapter.
Other things I really love about this book:
* It isn't afraid to recommend helpful modules early, such as Administration Menu
* It highlights common newbie gotchas, such as using the blog module when you really want a story
* It points out future modules or alternatives to watch, for example, the WYSIWYG API
* It gives contrib modules such as CCK and Views the foregrounding they deserve when learning Drupal
This is the book I wish I had when learning Drupal. We're even giving away copies of it at [...] because we love it so much. I would recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone new to Drupal, intermediate users who want to take their skills to the next level or brush up on Drupal 6/Views 2, or anyone who actually needs to build a site similar to the recipes listed above. And, y'know, anyone else who's ever built or wanted to build a website :)Using Drupal Overview
With the recipes in this book, you can take full advantage of the vast collection of community-contributed modules that make the Drupal web framework useful and unique. You'll get the information you need about how to combine modules in interesting ways (with a minimum of code-wrangling) to develop a variety of community-driven websites. Each chapter describes a case study and outlines specific requirements for one of several projects included in the book -- a wiki, publishing workflow site, photo gallery, product review site, online store, user group site, and more. With Using Drupal, you will:

Get an overview of Drupal concepts and key modules introduced in each chapter, with a bird's-eye view of each module's specialty and how it works
Explore various solutions within Drupal that meet the requirements for the project, with details about which modules are selected and why
Learn how to configure modules, with step-by-step recipes for building the precise functionality the project requires
Get information on additional modules that will make the project even more powerful
Be able to access the modules used in the chapter, along with other resources

Newcomers will find a thorough introduction to the framework, while experienced Drupal developers will learn best practices for building powerful websites. With Using Drupal, you'll find concrete and creative solutions for developing the exact community website you have in mind.


Want to learn more information about Using Drupal?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Create Your First Web Page In a Weekend W/CD Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Create Your First Web Page In a Weekend W/CD? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Create Your First Web Page In a Weekend W/CD. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Create Your First Web Page In a Weekend W/CD ReviewIf you have never looked at HTML before, this is a great book to get you started. Expect no reliance on commercial web editors, this book tells you how to create your web pages in Windows Notepad or a similar text editor. The tools he gives you in this first book match and exceed what a novice would get using a template from a commercial web editor. If there is anything negative about this book, it is that it makes transition to a web editor harder. With the essentials this book offers, it is easier to pop into Notepad and make the change than to figure out the software. All in all, I don't think that is such a bad thing.Create Your First Web Page In a Weekend W/CD Overview

Want to learn more information about Create Your First Web Page In a Weekend W/CD?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Ajax in Action Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Ajax in Action? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Ajax in Action. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Ajax in Action ReviewLet me first preface this review by saying this is the first technical book that I've read cover to cover TWICE prior to posting a review. I had to make sure the stuff stuck, because the material covered in Manning's very excellent "Ajax in Action" is really deep. But bringing the next evolution of user experience, giving your web applications a rich client feel, isn't completely easy. This won't scare you away from using Ajax in your existing applications, but make you aware of exactly what to expect.
The book first starts out by presenting a healthy discussion of the key components of remote scripting - CSS, the DOM, JavaScript's XmlHttpRequest object and client callbacks - and how they interact within the scope of your project. Before diving into full-on Ajax development, authors Dave Crane and Eric Pascarello discuss the need for object-oriented JavaScript programing, which will be foreign and awkward to most developers, even those coming from procedural backgrounds like Java and C++. The authors familiarize you with the various ways of composing the unconventional constructs available (JSON-RPC, prototypes) for optimizing remote scripting.
Best practices are encouraged throughout the chapters and enforced in all code snippets. The use of patterns like Observer, Command and MVC and refactoring and module-based programming (mainly .NET assemblies and Java servlets) permeate the entire work. The actual meat of the book doesn't get started until Chapter 9, which the authors clearly state, dealing with the aforementioned discussion of raw JavaScript programming that'll be completely new to most people. But for those not wanting to engage in the massive task of writing syntax by hand, the major libraries available are thankfully referenced.
The book also isn't a "copyist's" title, one that can provide working code right out of the gate. Also, the audience for this work should be fairly sopisticated and experienced with modern-day web programming, as the book assumes a certain level of competency and doesn't waste time with rudimentary concepts or examples. Crane and Pascarello take a platform-agnostic look at incorporating Ajax-style programming into web applications, citing examples in PHP, Java and .NET, and accordingly the examples are all partial and abstracted, to be implemented in whatever platform the developer/reader is familiar with.
This is also one of the few books that I've ever recommended people read the appendices in addition to the chapters. Most titles have supplementary info that doesn't match the flow of the chapters, or exclusionary stuff you can skip, but this book is really a tome of good reading. Appendix B is an outstanding discussion on JavaScript OOP, providing an introduction to and examples in JSON.
Ajax programming is a lot more complex than it lets on, but not as daunting as you might think. This book is critical in your understanding of how to make the next big thing in web development to work for you. A must-have.Ajax in Action Overview
Val's Blog "A tremendously useful field guide specifically written for developers down in the trenches...waiting for the killer solution..."

Web users are getting tired of the traditional web experience. They get frustrated losing their scroll position; they get annoyed waiting for refresh; they struggle to reorient themselves on every new page. And the list goes on. With asynchronous JavaScript and XML, known as "Ajax," you can give them a better experience. Once users have experienced an Ajax interface, they hate to go back. Ajax is new way of thinking that can result in a flowing and intuitive interaction with the user.

Ajax in Action helps you implement that thinking--it explains how to distribute the application between the client and the server (hint: use a "nested MVC" design) while retaining the integrity of the system. You will learn how to ensure your app is flexible and maintainable, and how good, structured design can help avoid problems like browser incompatibilities. Along the way it helps you unlearn many old coding habits. Above all, it opens your mind to the many advantages gained by placing much of the processing in the browser. If you are a web developer who has prior experience with web technologies, this book is for you.


Want to learn more information about Ajax in Action?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Graphic Design Solutions (with Premium Website Printed Access Card) (Graphic Design Promotion) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Graphic Design Solutions (with Premium Website Printed Access Card) (Graphic Design Promotion)? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Graphic Design Solutions (with Premium Website Printed Access Card) (Graphic Design Promotion). Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Graphic Design Solutions (with Premium Website Printed Access Card) (Graphic Design Promotion) ReviewAn excellent book. The text is thorough and illuminating, covering everything from the basics to advanced concepts, with hundreds of accompanying real-world samples in a vast array of design styles. The book itself is a work of art, with outstanding layout and typography. The dozens of case studies peppered throughout will be interesting and illuminating to new and experienced designers alike.Graphic Design Solutions (with Premium Website Printed Access Card) (Graphic Design Promotion) OverviewThis best-selling text remains the most comprehensive how-to reference on graphic design and advertising for print and interactive media, intended to serve as a foundation for a graphic design and advertising design education. Theory and applications are stressed with an instructive approach. Known for its thorough treatment of theory and major graphic design applications, this text concentrates on the integration of design principles and elements, providing hundreds of meaningful examples of their interaction throughout.

Want to learn more information about Graphic Design Solutions (with Premium Website Printed Access Card) (Graphic Design Promotion)?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Joomla 1.5: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla Powered Website (2nd Edition) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Joomla 1.5: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla Powered Website (2nd Edition)? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Joomla 1.5: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla Powered Website (2nd Edition). Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Joomla 1.5: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla Powered Website (2nd Edition) ReviewI recommend to every Joomla user who is less than "expert level" -- read this book! I have been working with Joomla 1.0 for about 5 months, so already had a basic understanding of many of the terms: component, module, etc. I purchased this book just before Christmas and took it with me to read on the holiday roadtrip. You know you are reading a great computer-related book when you can read and understand and make copious notes in the book margins...without sitting in front of a computer! Not only did it "fill in the blanks" about much of my understanding re: Joomla (any version), but I felt excited, and much more confident, about using Joomla 1.5. Great overview of Joomla, great details, great tips! A well-written user's guide. Thank you!Joomla 1.5: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla Powered Website (2nd Edition) Overview

Want to learn more information about Joomla 1.5: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla Powered Website (2nd Edition)?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Ajax in Practice Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Ajax in Practice? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Ajax in Practice. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Ajax in Practice ReviewThe back cover says that "Ajax in Practice" is a "second generation" book. The book covers a mix of problem/solution descriptions for common problems, Ajax tips and advanced JavaScript techniques. The cookbook style is useful if you are trying to implement a specific Ajax effect. The book touches on a number of libraries/toolkits where appropriate. It also covers integrating with existing Ajax libraries.
The book assumes you know basic JavaScript, CSS and HTML. If you are new to Ajax, I recommend reading a "first generation" book like "Ajax in Action" first. This book is a lot easier to follow if you have some exposure to Ajax. In particular, the problem/solution style involves learning by reading a lot of code. This is overwhelming on the first shot. I had to pull out my copy of "Ajax in Action" to follow parts of it. While some of the examples are long, they don't include unnecessary code.
I liked that the book has a common flow to it. Even though there are seven authors/contributors, the style is the same and it makes sense. I learned a lot about specific uses of Ajax along with examples/techniques of good Ajax code. This should definitely be the second Ajax book you read!Ajax in Practice Overview
Ajax in Practice provides example-rich coverage of Ajax packed with ready-to-use code and practical recipes for common and not-so-common tasks. Ajax developers now face the move from Ajax-as-theory to Ajax-in-practice. Ajax in Practice guides web developers through the transition from learning about Ajax to successfully applying Ajax-driven techniques in real-world development scenarios.

Ajax gives web developers the potential to create rich user-centered internet applications. But Ajax also adds a new level of complexity and sophistication to those applications. Ajax in Practice tackles Ajax head-on, providing countless hands-on techniques and tons of reusable code to address the specific issues developers face when building Ajax-driven solutions.

After a brief overview of Ajax, this book takes the reader through dozens of working examples, all presented in an easy-to-use cookbook format. Readers will learn how to implement drag-and-drop interfaces and will discover how to create effective nagigation strategies for their applications. Unlike a traditional cookbook, though, Ajax in Practice provides a thorough discussion of each technique presented and shows how the individual components can be connected to create powerful solutions. A fun "mash-up" chapter concludes the book. Throughout Ajax in Practice, the examples chosen are interesting, entertaining, and practical.


Want to learn more information about Ajax in Practice?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

JavaScript Programmer's Reference (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy JavaScript Programmer's Reference (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on JavaScript Programmer's Reference (Wrox Programmer to Programmer). Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

JavaScript Programmer's Reference (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) ReviewAs a reference, this book works really well. One can pick up the book and quickly find anything from information about basic syntax, the DOM, to advanced features like Ajax and JSON. The examples stand alone from previous chapters, so there is no need to read the book linearly from cover to cover.
But if one *were* to read the book from cover to cover, it makes a great introduction to JavaScript for designers or others who are already familiar with HTML and CSS. White's writing style is pitch-perfect for such a use--the information is easy to follow while not being "dumbed-down."
The bottom line: great reference, but don't be afraid to use this to learn JavaScript as it is used today.JavaScript Programmer's Reference (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) OverviewLearn everything about utilizing the JavaScript language with the next generation of Rich Internet Applications from the accessible information in JavaScript Programmer's Reference, both a tutorial and a reference guide for web developers. Master methods for using Java with applications like Microsoft's Silverlight, Ajax, Flex, Flash and AIR by practicing with hands-on examples with practical, usable code. Employ this complete JavaScript reference to help you understand JavaScript Data Types, Variables, Operators, Expressions and Statements, work with JavaScript Frameworks and data, and improve performance with Ajax.

Want to learn more information about JavaScript Programmer's Reference (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Joomla 1.6: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla Powered Website (3rd Edition) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Joomla 1.6: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla Powered Website (3rd Edition)? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Joomla 1.6: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla Powered Website (3rd Edition). Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Joomla 1.6: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla Powered Website (3rd Edition) ReviewI appreciate that Mr. North published a Joomla! 1.6 book so soon after the release of Joomla! 1.6. (I bought the Kindle edition.)
But what's best is that it is a very well written and practical guide to building a web site with Joomla! 1.6. It's exactly what I was looking for.
Barrie North writes in a very linear style, which is what I like in a technical book.
Obviously, Mr. North took his Joomla1! 1.5 book and updated it for 1.6. As a result there are a few (but not too many) places where 1.5 references remain. For example, the word "section" is used in places where it no longer applies. When Mr. North makes these corrections, it would be nice to have a free update for the Kindle version. :-)Joomla 1.6: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla Powered Website (3rd Edition) Overview

Want to learn more information about Joomla 1.6: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla Powered Website (3rd Edition)?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

HTML5: The Missing Manual Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy HTML5: The Missing Manual? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on HTML5: The Missing Manual. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

HTML5: The Missing Manual ReviewI have mixed feelings when it comes to this book. At some point it is entertaining and can teach you the basics of HTML very well, however, it is too basic for a professionals or semiprofessionals. Topics covered within the book are well explained, it covers basics of the HTML 5. You will find here information regarding new tags, new ways of input validation, progress bars, sliders, video embedding, audio embedding, managing the canvas, working in offline environment, etc. If you are not sure whether this book is for, ask yourself question, where you put yourself. Do you start your adventure with HTML? Or maybe you are HTML veteran? If you are about to begin your experience with HTML 5, this book sounds like a good read. At the very beginning, Matthew lays down the basics of the HTML 5. You literally build a simple HTML page by extending it step by step. Second chapter gives you the overview of how to create a structure of the page, how to use new tags and what to avoid (especially the old markups). I really enjoyed part four, where details related to forms are laid down - how to create them, how to validate values, how to provide users with input suggestions - entirely at the browser's side. Video and audio related section will shade some light in terms of the variety of video/audio codecs - there are few of them, and they can make you confused, believe me. Another great benefit is that you get CSS explained by examples rather than by definition. However, you may fell slightly disappointed if you are looking for a CSS reference.
I like the style of the book. It is really simple written, at least that's what I think. You shouldn't have any issues with following what Matt tries to explain. Keep in mind, however, that this book is rather brief overview of HTML 5 rather than comprehensive HTML 5 reference. Great plus for Matt for putting lots of references to external resources and for really impressive examples. You will be guided how to find them at the very begging of the book.HTML5: The Missing Manual Overview
HTML5 is more than a markup language—it's a dozen independent web standards all rolled into one. Until now, all it's been missing is a manual. With this thorough, jargon-free guide, you'll learn how to build web apps that include video tools, dynamic drawings, geolocation, offline web apps, drag-and-drop, and many other features. HTML5 is the future of the Web, and with this book you'll reach it quickly.

The important stuff you need to know:

Structure web pages in a new way. Learn how HTML5 helps make web design tools and search engines work smarter.
Add audio and video without plugins. Build playback pages that work in every browser.
Draw with Canvas. Create shapes, pictures, text, and animation—and make them interactive.
Go a long way with style. Use CSS3 and HTML5 to jazz up your pages and adapt them for mobile devices.
Build web apps with rich desktop features. Let users work with your app offline, and process user-selected files in the browser.
Create location-aware apps. Write geolocation applications directly in the browser.


Want to learn more information about HTML5: The Missing Manual?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Beginning DotNetNuke Skinning and Design (Programmer to Programmer) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Beginning DotNetNuke Skinning and Design (Programmer to Programmer)? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Beginning DotNetNuke Skinning and Design (Programmer to Programmer). Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Beginning DotNetNuke Skinning and Design (Programmer to Programmer) ReviewThe book is OK, there are some useful recommendations. However, the actual information about skin creation takes just a few chapters, and a good deal of the book is about DNN, installing DNN, they even throw in something about Silverlight. Which is useful, but probably not completely in the focus of the title, in my opinion.
Perhaps it would be nice to see more information about skin objects and container objects, with more information on how they look and how they can be configured. Or even discuss the appearence and skinning possibilities of some of the core modules.
The book seems to be targetting half way between developers and designers, and in that attempt may not result as useful as it could, to neither of them (too light for a developer, too technical for a designer). It does say "Programmer to programmer" in the subtitle, so the reader should consider himself warned about it. In any case, it would be nice to see a book like this, but aimed from a designer's perspective.Beginning DotNetNuke Skinning and Design (Programmer to Programmer) OverviewDotNetNuke is an open source framework built on top of the ASP.Net platform. While this system offers an impressive set of out-of-the-box features for public and private sites, it also includes a compelling story for folks who want to present a unique look and feel to visitors.
The skinning engine inside of DotNetNuke has strengthened over the course of several years and hundreds of thousands of registered users. The success of its skin and module developer community is another key indicator of the depth and breadth of this technology. The Core Team responsible for the DotNetNuke brand has gone to great lengths to enable a predictable and positive experience for both the visitors of the site and the developers who build them.
This book takes you through the process of designing a skin for a site. It describes a variety of techniques you can use in your HTML and CSS development as well as coding a few JavaScript, VB.Net, and C# statements. By the final chapter, you will be well versed in the installation, configuration, and customization of a DotNetNuke website.
The practical website design techniques described herein provide you with a modern, agile architecture that embraces the features in DotNetNuke and the flexibility of CSS. As a good steward of standards-based development, the author shows you how to work toward a DotNetNuke solution that successfully passes an HTML validation test. The interactive portions of this book examine how to add personalization, AJAX, Silverlight, and sIFR technology to extend your site.
When you finish this book, you'll have a good idea of your next pursuit. You might choose to stay close to the presentation layer and dive deep into CSS and standards-based web development. Alternatively, this book might have whetted your appetite for DotNetNuke module development, or something in-between including JavaScript, AJAX, or Silverlight technology.
The primary audience for this book includes people interested in customizing the look and feel of a DotNetNuke website. Skinning is approachable by developers with a software engineering background as well as HTML and CSS specialists.
Although DotNetNuke expects a Microsoft SQL Server database by default, it's not necessary to have any background in database technology. This book walks you through the database configuration process and quickly moves on to the core focus of the book.
Readers with a little background in website development, regardless of platform, will feel at home here. This book is targeted at showing how to apply web design features to a DotNetNuke site as opposed to teaching individual web development skills like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. If you have a basic idea of where these technologies fit into the overall spectrum of a website, you'll be able to follow the context of the discussion with ease.
This book covers how to create a custom skin for DotNetNuke. As part and parcel of this process, it discusses the steps to install, configure, and construct a website for a specific group of users. The skin helps invoke the appropriate look and feel of the site and augments the content. It shows a variety of angles to address this challenge and presents several related technologies including CSS, Silverlight, AJAX, and sIFR that can be used to inspire the right mood for your particular site.
DotNetNuke is under active development and this book focuses on version 4.X of the framework. The skinning development features presented herein are interoperable with all 4.X versions, unless otherwise specified. For example, the chapter on Microsoft ASP.Net AJAX recommends version 4.5.5 or higher.
This book contains three sections. The first section levels the field and addresses some basic terminology in DotNetNuke skinning. The second section applies the skills of a skin developer to a specific website. The final section explores a few vertical segments that transcend DotNetNuke and offer opportunities for specialized skills in their own right.
Chapters 1 through 5 get you familiar with installing the system using a variety of techniques and getting acclimated with the files that make up a DotNetNuke skin.

Chapter 1, "Introducing DotNetNuke Skinning": In the first chapter, you receive a broad overview of DotNetNuke and learn some key concepts including skins, containers, modules, and panes. If you're new to this open source platform, then this chapter is essential to your success in using the system.

Chapter 2, "Installing DotNetNuke": In this chapter, you learn how to get started on the right foot by installing the system through a variety of techniques. DotNetNuke is built on ASP.Net and there are several ways to work with it including IIS, Cassini, Visual Web Developer, and our old friend, Notepad.

Chapter 3, "Installing Skin Packages": Chapter 3 starts at the end and shows you how to apply a new skin package to a DotNetNuke site as well as examines the individual parts of a skin package.

Chapter 4, "Exploring Skins": After you complete a skin package installation in Chapter 3, you explore the essential parts of a skin file. Chapter 4 discusses the essentials of using panes, skin objects, and containers to augment DotNetNuke modules.

Chapter 5, "Creating Custom Skins": Chapter 5 expands on the foundation established in the previous chapter by constructing a custom skin through an HTML file as well as an ASP.Net web user control. The author also recommends a couple of tools for developing skins that will help provide some visibility into how the browser renders the page.

Chapters 6 through 9 present an opportunity to apply the skills you started to develop in Part I. You'll build a DotNetNuke website for a neighborhood association, including an assortment of custom skins.

Chapter 6, "The Neighborhood Association Website": This chapter presents the background and requirements for the neighborhood association website that you will design and build. Here, you apply an appropriate configuration as well as install a set of modules the community will find useful.

Chapter 7, "Skinning the Neighborhood Association Website": Chapter 7 goes to work with the process of developing a custom skin for the neighborhood association website. This chapter discusses a process for identifying the number of distinct skins to build and how to architect them for a variety of pages.

Chapter 8, "Designing the Navigation": This chapter discusses how to switch the menu navigation feature and apply custom CSS rules to modify the look and feel of the site. As part of the discussion, it shows how to install a third-party menu component and work toward a smaller, standards-compliant page.

Chapter 9, "Leveraging Web User Controls": The last chapter of Part II shows how to add a little panache to the neighborhood association website with a personalization feature that enables the visitor to make small adjustments to how the website renders in their browser. Web user controls provide an enormous potential and you don't have to be a hard-core developer to utilize them in your site.

Chapters 10 through 15 introduce you to a few specialty areas of DotNetNuke, ASP.Net, and general website development. You learn about some compelling new technologies as well as how to maintain consistency in DotNetNuke across several types of browsers.

Chapter 10, "Exploring Silverlight": This chapter explores an amazing new client-side feature named Silverlight. It discusses how to add animation and video to the DotNetNuke website you built in Part II.

Chapter 11, "Using Cascading Style Sheets": Chapter 11 presents the basic information you should understand about CSS including margins, padding, fonts, backgrounds, and positioning. CSS skills provide you with an agile and search engine–friendly website. This chapter shows you how to modify the various CSS files embedded inside DotNetNuke.

Chapter 12, "Web Standards and Compliance": After the fundamentals of CSS are laid out in Chapter 11, it shows how to work toward a standard-compliant website in DotNetNuke. It discusses how to swap the menu provider and the HTML Editor provider, too.

Chapter 13, "Targeting Modules with CSS": Chapter 13 takes a pragmatic approach to applying CSS to existing DotNetNuke modules without modifying the HTML. The last section builds a web page out of an RSS feed and Extensible Stylesheet Language or XSL.

Chapter 14, "Exploring AJAX in DotNetNuke": This chapter takes a look at another hot Microsoft technology, ASP.Net AJAX. The chapter starts with a brief background on AJAX and the DotNetNuke Client API and launches into an example of using AJAX Control Toolkit inside your DotNetNuke page to build an interactive game.

Chapter 15, "Using sIFR with DotNetNuke": Chapter 15 rounds out the book with a compelling case for replacing image-text files with a more search engine–friendly component. The technology known as sIFR converts the targeted HTML text into any TrueType font at run time through JavaScript running on the visitor's browser. This feature embraces the work of the copy editor without adding a burden to the graphic designer.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Want to learn more information about Beginning DotNetNuke Skinning and Design (Programmer to Programmer)?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Developing Effective Websites: A Project Manager's Guide Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Developing Effective Websites: A Project Manager's Guide? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Developing Effective Websites: A Project Manager's Guide. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Developing Effective Websites: A Project Manager's Guide ReviewIf you are managing small-to-medium web projects, or are managing vendors who are implementing a small-to-medium site, this is an ideal book. What I like about this book is that it sticks to the basics and doesn't pretend to be a "silver bullet" or "killer methodology".
What it does do is step you through web site development, starting with the most important part: requirements, and from there through the development and management of a project plan. Here is where the book shines because the project planning starts with a work breakdown structure (WBS), which is essential to a viable project plan. Only after the WBS has been developed does the author cover scheduling. This is a refreshing change from other "project management" books that [erroneously] jump right into scheduling. Another strong point is the author covers cost estimation in a thorough manner.
This book is also complete from a workflow perspective in that roles and responsibilities of the project team are defined, and all project milestones are covered, including testing and maintenance, which are not always covered in web project books in any great detail. I especially like the way the author addresses contractor/customer relationships. If you are reading this as either a customer or a consultant this part of the book will prove valuable for advice and insights. Another key point that I like is the iterative development approach taken. This reflects the way most web projects proceed, although some books portray such projects as a linear waterfall process that leads to false project assumptions.
This book and "Web Redesign: Workflow That Works" by Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler complement one another. I recommend getting both if your budget allows it. If you are faced with a large-scale web project this book may not fit your needs as well as "Web Project Management: Delivering Successful Commercial Web Sites" by Ashley Friedlein. Regardless, this book is well written and is a refreshing change from many I've read because it's based on tried and true project management principles that have been closely integrated into the workflow of website development.Developing Effective Websites: A Project Manager's Guide OverviewIs your website project out of control?Every website project needs a manager. Developing Effective Websites describes Internet technologies in plain language and helps you see beyond your expertise to the big picture. It does this by drawing on established software project and management principles.Like any project, effective management of website development starts by understanding and balancing the constraints of time, resources, and tasks. You can deliver your project on time and on budget, by following a process that includes:Analyzing the requirements of users and your marketDeveloping a workplan for the site and breaking it down to tasksScheduling with Gantt and PERT charts and measuring slippage for more accurate revisionsEstimating cost by the budget-first or design-first methods Using the team development process and covering all the necessary rolesAligning contractor and client interests to create a win-win relationshipFollowing an iterative development process for designing, prototyping, and building outApplying software testing principles to website developmentMaking hosting decisions and planning for maintenancePractical techniques for managing a variety of projects from simple presentations to consumer web sites and applications (e-commerce, web-based training)New chapters on web development tools & technologies and hosting options & solutionsBased on real-world experiences and current development techniques

Want to learn more information about Developing Effective Websites: A Project Manager's Guide?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Professional SharePoint 2010 Branding and User Interface Design (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Professional SharePoint 2010 Branding and User Interface Design (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Professional SharePoint 2010 Branding and User Interface Design (Wrox Programmer to Programmer). Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Professional SharePoint 2010 Branding and User Interface Design (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) ReviewIt is easy to leave reviews, or even read books, but writing books is a whole another deal.
Writing good books is not easy. It is very difficult to present cohesive and accurate thoughts that are the work of many minds over many months over hundreds of meticulously carved pages.
In reading this book, I was happy to see that no stone was left unturned when talking specifically about SharePoint 2010 branding - no this is not a IT pro book, this is not a developer's book.
There cannot be a single book that covers EVERYTHING about SP2010. But when it comes to branding, this book is top notch.
I was especially pleased to see attention to detail such as not ignoring core CSS principles, HTML standards, browser sense, trends etc.. Branding SharePoint is not exactly the same your typical ASP.NET or PHP site. Branding SharePoint 2010 is it's own unique skill that requires significant SharePoint knowledge. It isn't just CSS and HTML and JavaScript, it is also navigation, security, master pages, standard CSS specific to SharePoint, SharePoint and ASPNET controls applicable to SharePoint, the theming engine, etc. etc. etc.
I was hoping that this book didn't sacrifice the classic branding knowledge, which is pure CSS,HTML and Javascript, in favor of being a pure one sided SharePoint book. And I am happy to see that this is a book well grounded in the current technology set, SharePoint or otherwise.
Finally, I like the author's writing style (disclaimer, I'm around page #200 right now). I hate to read books that have the personality of a whitepaper. This book is very conversational and fun to read.
Good work!Professional SharePoint 2010 Branding and User Interface Design (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) OverviewA must have guide for creating engaging and usable SharePoint 2010 branding
With SharePoint 2010, Microsoft has provided a more robust environment for creating collaboration and content management sites that rival any of the popular websites on the internet. Creating a branded SharePoint site involves understanding both traditional web design techniques as well as topics that are typically reserved for developers. This book bridges that gap by not only providing expert guidance for creating beautiful public facing and internal intranet sites but it also addresses the needs of those readers that only want to understand the basics enough to apply some style to their sites.
Things like creative design, the experience visitors have navigating your user interface, ease of use?these are all important branding considerations and not always intuitive. This unique book from a team of SharePoint branding experts lays it all out. The book is divided into four sections:
Introduction to SharePoint Branding: In this part you will learn about what SharePoint branding is and how the topic has changed since SharePoint 2007.
Branding Basics: This section is geared towards both getting started as well as being a guide for people that don?t want to dive super deep into the advanced topics of SharePoint branding. You will learn about how to plan for branding projects, including creating wireframes and creative mockups as well as gathering requirements and estimation. You will learn how to work with SharePoint Designer 2010, SharePoint 2010 themes, and SharePoint navigation as well as gain an understanding of the low and medium effort approaches to branding can be used to make SharePoint look more like your own visual style.
Advanced Branding: This is where you will learn about the more intricate techniques for making large changes to the SharePoint UI, such as cascading style sheets (CSS), master pages, page layouts, web parts and XSLT. You will also get an introduction to deploying SharePoint branding to production servers using solution packages (WSP).
Other Topics: Everything else that is related to SharePoint branding is discussed here, including working with the SharePoint 2010 ribbon and client side technologies such as the client object model, jQuery, and Silverlight.

Whether you want to make SharePoint look completely different or just make minor design changes, this expert guide will provide tips, techniques, and insights to get the job done.

Want to learn more information about Professional SharePoint 2010 Branding and User Interface Design (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...