There are far too many chapters on how to set up the supporting services and far to little on Java Server Faces. With 8 chapters and 8 appendixes there is only 1 chapter and one appendix on JSF. The other chapters deal with an overview of Web Pages in General, an overview of JSPs, an overview of setting up MySQL (only for a Windows platform), an overview of setting up Tomcat 6 (again only for the Windows Platform) and the underlying structure of Tomcat 6, a superficial discussion of XML technologies such as XPath and XSLT (there are whole BOOKS written on this), a superficial discussion of CSS and HTML and an appendix on the Eclipse platform (ignoring NetBeans or other valid IDE’s).

If one is rusty on some of the technologies, it is a great review. But a person new to JSP’s and Java Web technology would be very quick to get lost. This does not take you from Novice to Professional. It a surface scratch of a handful of the basic technologies and leaves one wanting. Nowhere near a Professional developer.

On the plus side, if one IS rusty, the discussion of JSP’s is a very quick and down and dirty get one back up to speed on Intrinsic Objects, JSP directives JSTL and EL and a slam, bang, thank you mam’ on custom tag libraries.

It would do better to get Pro JSP 2, Fourth Edition (Expert’s Voice in Java) or a book specifically on JSF if you want to learn JSF.

How to start a blog

Learn how to create a blog. This article walks you through the basics of choosing a blog system, setting up your blog, getting traffic to your blog, and making money from your blog.

Read the full article here:

http://www.elated.com/articles/start-a-blog/

Some Themes: http://smashapps.blogspot.com/2009/06/20-most-elegant-free-blogger-templates.html

Tips: http://smashapps.blogspot.com/2009/06/top-10-important-tips-for-beginner.html

FAQs: http://faq.wordpress.com/

Ron

I absolutely love this book and I actually feel like I have accomplished a lot just by reading it. I understand a lot about XHTML and CSS and I am ready to take my learning further. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to explore web design, especially if you want to do it correctly! You will not learn any poor techniques in this reading.

Do not pay attention to some of the negative reviews. Obviously you will not be an expert web designer after completing this book. That is not the point. Maybe the words “Learning” and “beginner” mentioned in the title were not specific enough to lead some people to the understanding that this book doesn’t feature every single bit of code in existence for a reason! However, it does show readers enough material to confidently build great looking webpages with minimal and simple markup!

Over all, this book is exactly what the title claims to be. A starting point and a great one at that!

I never really understood which settings were best when optimizing images for the web. Usually I’d just play around with the settings and have an educated guess. This was the only book that explained what dithering actually does while preparing photos in photoshop. Most other tutorials teach you to simply “play around” and see what happens when saving images for the web. Here you’re given an absolute clear explanation of exactly when & where to use dithering along with all the other image optimization settings. The entire subject of XHTML & CSS is covered exactly the way a professional web developer needs. The visuals are perfectly spot on too. While getting my head around HTML elements had been a little confusing, the chapter here included the exact right diagram to help with the explanation. I was absolutely clear how tags are written as an element and how they get nested together. It’s one of the few books that’s written in a concise manner.

It’s clear that this author has worked closely with students and taught classes. She’s covered off the key subjects perfectly with just the right amount of professionalism. I felt as if I was being taught in her own class. The first book that gets it absolutely right!

I absolutely love this book and I actually feel like I have accomplished a lot just by reading it. I understand a lot about XHTML and CSS and I am ready to take my learning further. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to explore web design, especially if you want to do it correctly! You will not learn any poor techniques in this reading.

Do not pay attention to some of the negative reviews. Obviously you will not be an expert web designer after completing this book. That is not the point. Maybe the words “Learning” and “beginner” mentioned in the title were not specific enough to lead some people to the understanding that this book doesn’t feature every single bit of code in existence for a reason! However, it does show readers enough material to confidently build great looking webpages with minimal and simple markup!

Over all, this book is exactly what the title claims to be. A starting point and a great one at that!

Sections II (HTML) and III (CSS) were the most informative, for me. Clear explanations that take you step by step through some concepts that were new to me. Section III was the least useful, for me: designing web graphics using Photoshop seemed a bit daunting, I simply use GRSites for making all the graphics which works well, but I’m sure I’ll come back to this part of the book go over it slowly eventually. Section I and IV were good too, in that they give useful overviews of web design in general, and the mechanics of getting your site hosted, and other details that I didn’t realize initially were even relevant.

Well written!