Web Stuff and Whatnot

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.

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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!

Tucson Golf Review recently launched a list of the Best Tucson Golf Courses. This list is unique because it is the only list of the best courses in town based on ratings from the golfing public in Tucson. Anyone can visit Tucson Golf Review and rate any course in town. Very cool feature! Time for me to go play the top five.

Don’t ask me! I could offer some incomplete definitions, but if you really want to know, just read this article from Tim O’Reilly (the O’Reilly book guy). For the average user, Web 2.0 means getting better and richer applications from the Internet. Applications like Google Maps and Gmail are quick examples. Web 2.0 isn’t here yet, but it’s getting closer. Read this to learn all about it: What is Web 2.0.