Recommend a book on building your own website

Bodhidharma

Hi Lads,
I'm looking for a good book on building a website from scratch. I have no experience in website design, in fact I am not overly familiar with most operations on the net and on a computer. Iwould like something that will be fairly easy for a novice to follow.

So any recommendations would be grately appreciated.

aidan_walsh

Rather than a book I would look to a good website like W3Schools.

sheesh

thats a fairly tall order

I suppose something to do with html, css, images and a scripting language like javascript would be you best bet.

I have found those 'for dumbies' books are really good

www.webmonkey.com have good tutorials and a very easy pace to follow

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/ is good too.

you will have to learn how to use an ftp program as well thats easy too.

Nulty

Gimme €20 and I'll tell you a book








I'm only joking

Go into a book shop, flick through some html/CSS books and pick the one you like. Simple as. They all do the same thing, it's just a matter of preference.
Good Luck

ron_darrell

Just came across one yesterday that I've recommended to my students. It's Build your own database driven website using PHP & MySQL, by Kevin Yank, published by Sitepoint.

Hope that helps,
Regards,
James

Eoin

I always recommend "web standards solutions" by Dan Cederholm. Mostly because it's one of the few books I have, so can't compare.

It's not half as dull as the title suggests. It's not very preachy about standards either; it simply explains why you should use certain tags for what you're trying to display.

p

Bodhidharma wrote: »

Hi Lads,
I'm looking for a good book on building a website from scratch. I have no experience in website design, in fact I am not overly familiar with most operations on the net and on a computer. Iwould like something that will be fairly easy for a novice to follow.

So any recommendations would be grately appreciated.

What is your background & skill level. What type of website do you want to build.

A simple way would be to setup a blog on wordpress.com and play around, but that may not be what you're after.

ScumLord

I got "CSS the missing manual" which was pretty good. They're a series of books called "the missing manual"

Bodhidharma

Thanks for the replies so far, a lot of food for thought.

I want to build a very basic website for a business. Nothing fancy just information, a logo, a few pics and maybe a few menus.

I am a complete novice at building a website but I like the idea of challenging myself and learning a new skill.

Eoin

If this is for a business, then I'd consider paying to have it done. It's great to learn a new skill and all that, but if this is to represent your company online it may not be a good idea to have a first timer's effort up there.

nellyshark

If you are a complete novice maintaining a website will be difficult not to mind creating a website from scratch. It can be a steep learning curve, possibly too steep with a business' reputation at stake

Bodhidharma wrote: »

Thanks for the replies so far, a lot of food for thought.

I want to build a very basic website for a business. Nothing fancy just information, a logo, a few pics and maybe a few menus.

I am a complete novice at building a website but I like the idea of challenging myself and learning a new skill.

Bodhidharma

The business is only a theoretical one at the moment so there isn't any pressure to get it 100% right. As I said its a skill I'd like to develop.

So don't worry lads, its only for personal use really

Iisto

I can suggest you the next books:

HTML: A Beginner's Guide, Second Edition
by Wendy Willard
It has a lot in common with html tutorials

The Ultimate CSS Reference
by Tommy Olsson, Paul O'Brien

Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to HTML, Graphics, and Beyond
by Jennifer Niederst

The JavaScript Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks
by Cameron Adams and James Edwards

PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide (2nd Edition)
by Larry Ullman

John368

Last week I bought a book "Building a Web Site for Dummies". It comes with a CD with some programs that you can practice on and like all of the Dummies books it is written well. There is still a bit of technical jargon, but I have never read a book about computers which does have that. It is important to start to play around with ideas and actually start building simple elements and get hands on experience.

The Coffee Cup program which comes with the book on the CD (30 day trial) is useful in that you can go to a simple website on the internet, save it and then play around with it off line and see how it is built up that way you can learn a lot.

I am still very much a novice at the whole thing and I still have not got a site running, but I know tons more about it than I did last week.

John

p

Bodhidharma wrote: »

The business is only a theoretical one at the moment so there isn't any pressure to get it 100% right. As I said its a skill I'd like to develop.

So don't worry lads, its only for personal use really

An excellent books is Head First XHTML & CSS. That's teaching you how to code a site, but is an absolutely great book that you can work through.

I'd also recommend trying to set up a site on Wordpress.com. That will get something up & running very quickly and you can apply templates etc... so will get good results.

If you did both of those things you'd have a pretty good grounding