computers and internet

The authors of HTML books tend to fall into three categories: Coders, Tech Writers, and Designers. Robin Williams belongs proudly in the last category, and it shows. Four chapters of sharp and specific advices on design are accompanied by 12 rather watered-down chapters on web basics - with no coverage of HTML itself! Apparently Robin decided to target her book to amateurs and graphic designers who think they can do everything on Dreamweaver and other graphic tools, thus never have to deal with the messy HTML plumbing ...

Not so! Web and browser technology still have many idiosyncracies, and any serious web designer will soon have to master the actual plumbing works - in all its glorious variations. For that, there is no shortcut to a step-by-step study of HTML and CSS - perhaps the Molly Holzschlag book. She, however, is not technical enough to write it.

Robin Williams shine when she lays out realistic (and above-average) examples and explains why they work (or not). Her chapter on typography was outstanding - she analyzes each of Microsoft's near-universal web core fonts, pointing out their strengths and weaknesses, and discourses on the use of Arial vs. Helvetica (one for screen and the other for printing). No other book goes into such detail. I give her four stars for this chapter alone.

The perfect HTML book would probably be Laura Lemay/Holzschlag teaming with Robin (and maybe Lynda Weinman). Failing that, getting both Holzschlag and Robin Williams is not a bad substitute.

Just like the title says, if you have little or no design experience/training, this is a great book to have. But even if you have been designing web sites for a while like me (3 years), there are plenty of things you might find useful.

The book is full-color. Much of it assumes you know little about computers, HTML, and the Internet. It also assumes you are using one of the popular HTML editors and graphics programs like Frontpage and Photoshop. Even with these liabilities, there are wonderful principles, tips and techniques provided by the authors that should benefit even experienced designers.

For me, the meat of the book was the middle where it describes the basics of design, color, layout, and typography. The advanced tips and tricks chapter also offered some tidbits I hadn't thought of before. However, I breezed through the beginning and ending chapters (on the Internet, web pages, site organization, uploading your site, and testing it) because they had little to offer I didn't already know. But for a beginner this may be valuable information.

One reason I wanted this book was all of its beautiful and creative design examples. If I am stumped on how to design something, I will pick up this book and see if it may inspire me. The authors didn't provide "cutting edge" type graphics, but examples that are simple, colorful and effective.

"The Non-Designer's Web Book, 2nd Edition" is perfect for those of you who want to build your own site but don't want to use one of the canned templates so many ISP's offer.
Ms. Williams advice is, as usual, right on target and very easy to understand. Her humor is understated and well placed, encouraging the reader to continue in the project at hand. The book has plenty of color illustrations and screen shots, and is peppered with great advice on creating graphics, getting your site listed, basic design principles, and even a few lessons on HTML coding, if you like.
Each chapter concludes with a short quiz to help cement the principles that were just taught, and her coverage (despite what some people have written) of the basics is just what is needed for those of you who have skipped over an idea or two and wonder just what the heck something such as the difference between search engines and directories are.
Starting on page 50 is a Ms. Williams takes you through setting up a page and the associated site, step by step, in a concise, easy to understand way. It covers such things as typing and formatting text, changing colors, creating links and adding an email link, adding graphics, setting up a table, explaining what frames are and how to use them, and finally, adding some HTML code, if you want. These topics are the very basics of web construction, and the author expounds on them in later chapters, but it's especially nice that she distilled them into a short, easy to read section (that is extremely well illustrated) so you don't have to hunt through the rest of the pages later.
Some people have taken exception to the Netscape emphasis. They fail to realize that when the book was written Netscape was still a big player, and that IE's implementation of standards left a lot to be desired. Also, someone has stated that there are big errors throughout the book, but I haven't found any, and the example the reviewer gave (directions to use a page-sized graphic as a background) doesn't exist. In fact, Ms. Williams stresses that's just want you DON'T want to do.
There is a slight Mac-bias, but it is slight, with plenty of screen shots of Windows software along with the appropriate instruction. Given that the design industry is predominately centered on the Mac platform, this preference is easily understood.
All in all, this is one of the best books out for learning the basics of setting up your web site, as the title implies. You won't go wrong with Robin William's books, and this is just one example of why: clear writing, excellent advice, easy to follow instruction.