Web Stuff and Whatnot

Confessions of a Street Addict, by James J. Cramer: This is not a how-to investing book, but more along the lines of an autobiography, pertaining mostly to Jim Cramer’s investment career. The story begins with his childhood fascination with stocks and their quotes in the newspaper. Cramer then tries his hand at journalism and law school, but he always had that inner desire to be picking stocks and knew that’s where he needed to be. It was quite amazing to me to see that times were rough before Jim finally made his investment career successful and he actually lived out of his car for a while as a struggling journalist. Once landing in law school he made some shrewd investments that paid his way.

The rest of the book is the progression of Cramer from broker to hedge fund manager to ‘retirement’. If you love investing and you love the stock market, this book is a must read. If you are looking for tips on how to pick stocks, you should read Jim Cramer’s Real Money instead. As someone who has been fascinated with stocks and the market since about the 6th grade, I loved the inside look at the hedge fund business and read this book cover to cover in just a few days.

Financial Peace, by Dave Ramsey: I read this book for the second time recently, and I once again find myself excited and focused on cutting expenses, paying off debt, and taking control of my financial life. This book is absolutely a must-read if you find yourself living beyond your means.

Dave does an excellent job of making this a simple process- spend less money than you make! Yes, really. It is possible and it will change your life. I didn’t understand how crazy it is to take on debt (any kind of debt is an enemy of your wealth) until I read this book. You really have no financial security or peace until you pay off your debts, even your mortgage.

Of course there is no magic solution, only hard work and discipline will solve your debt problem. Dave has a simple approach for attacking debt- start by paying off your smallest debts first, putting any extra money you can toward the smallest debt. Once you have knocked out the first, move on to the next and so on until you have eventually paid off everything including your mortgage. Certainly this is a long term plan, but the prospect of having no extra payments, not even a mortgage payment, is quite exciting if you think about it.

Another important part of this plan is saving money. One of the first steps you need to take, assuming you have little or no savings as most Americans tend to not have, is to fund an emergency fun savings account. Dave recommends starting with $1,000, the purpose of this account being to get you through an unexpected financial emergency without relying on a credit card. Your next savings goal is to have 3-6 months of living expenses saved.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is feels the need to take control of their finances. It is easy to read and the advice is easy to follow. Dave also has a radio show and podcast available, both of which are good sources of free advice that you can take advantage of right now on his website, www.daveramsey.com.

My wife and I are now working on implementing the Financial Peace plan in our lives and we can already see many differences. We used to spend money on so many things that are just so unnecessary. Cutting out some things that you don’t need, and truly won’t even miss, can be enough to take down some small debts right away and get you off to a good start. We are now living on a budget and already feeling much more in control of our financial lives. I hope this book and Dave’s advice can help you too!

This is the perfect book for someone getting started with CSS and standards-compliant markup. You should be familiar with the basics of CSS and XHTML to get the most out of it.

This book, written by Dan Cederholm, offers very practical, how-to instructions for building standards-compliant web sites that separate content from presentation. Ready to scrap tables in favor of CSS-based layouts? You can read this book to learn how to do it and why you should do it. Some of the other basic elements covered include styling lists for navigation and presentation, styling forms, handling backgrounds efficiently, image replacement techniques, and much more.

There is too much great content to cover here, but what you basically get is all of the basics needed to combine CSS and XHTML to create a standards-compliant web site. This book is a great place to start and I highly recommend reading Dan’s other book after this one.

This is an excellent book to have on hand for inspiration. Just as keeping a link to the CSS Zen Garden is important for design inspiration and CSS methodology. You may wonder why you would need to buy this book when you can access the CSS Zen Garden online at any time; if so, I will tell you why.

This book was written by Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag, two great minds who help push Web Standards and cutting-edge design. I also have to add that I was fortunate enough to take a class taught by Molly at the University of Arizona a few years ago and I cannot recommend her enough.

The concept behind this book is to take some of the most beautiful and most innovative designs from the CSS Zen Garden and break them down, step-by-step, while pointing out challenges and solutions along the way. You will see many examples of taking CSS to the limits of browser compatibility (and dealing with the failings of Internet Explorer along the way). There is no doubt in my mind that you will feel more confident when it comes time to create a new CSS-based layout after seeing the way to solve various browser errors and markup challenges that can seem daunting at times.

I would not recommend this book for someone just getting started with CSS. I think this book is perfect for the designer who has built a pure CSS site or two and wants to add some polish or more advanced features to a new design. This book is also highly valuable as a source of graphic design inspiration and instruction. There are some chapters devoted to topics like typography and color as well.

Overall, this is a great book about design on the Web, no just CSS design. I consider this a must-have for your Web design bookshelf.

If you want to build a standards-compliant, flexible web site, buy this book. It’s not necessarily for someone just getting started with CSS- you will probably be a bit lost without the basics down first, but once you have built at least one CSS based web site, you will learn a lot from this book.

I am also a big fan of Dan Cederholm’s other book, Web Standards Solutions. If you are new to CSS, you should probably read that one first as it is a bit more on the introductory level.

Overall, this is one of the best CSS books you will find. It’s not a code reference- you get to learn by real examples and work with real code. You will come away from this book with great tools at your disposal like flexible CSS menus and expandable boxes with rounded corners- things you can put to immediate use in your projects. I highly recommend it!