The Insider's Guide to SEO is a short book, but well organized and an easy read. It seems to cover the ins and outs of optimizing for Google almost exclusively, which is probably OK, being that this year Google has well over 50% of searches. It's advice seems mostly common sense, but sometimes stating the obvious can be good. As a relative newbie to SEO, I feel I picked up a lot.

Proving once and for all that standards-compliant design does not equal dull design, this inspiring tome uses examples from the landmark CSS Zen Garden site as the foundation for discussions on how to create beautiful, progressive CSS-based Web sites. By using the Zen Garden sites as examples of how CSS design techniques and approaches can be applied to specific Web challenges, authors Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag provide an eye-opening look at the range of design methods made possible by CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). By the time you've finished perusing the volume, you'll have a new understanding of the graphically rich, fully accessible sites that CSS design facilitates. In sections on design, layout, imagery, typography, effects, and themes, Dave and Molly take you through every phase of the design process--from striking a sensible balance between text and graphics to creating eye-popping special effects (no scripting required).

About the Author
 

Dave Shea is the creator and cultivator of the highly influential CSS Zen Garden Web site (www.csszengarden.com). As well as being a member of the Web Standards Project, Dave is the owner and director of Bright Creative, and he writes about all things Web for his daily weblog, mezzoblue.com. With over 6 years of experience working on the Web, Dave is a leader of the new generation of Web designers that believe in responsible Web design.

An author, instructor, and Web designer, Molly E. Holzschlag has written over 27 books related to Web design and development. She's been coined "one of the greatest digerati" and deemed one of the Top 25 Most Influential Women on the Web. There is little doubt that in the world of Web design and development, Molly is one of the most fun and vibrant Web characters around. As a steering committee member for the Web Standards Project (WaSP), Molly works along with a group of other dedicated Web developers and designers to promote W3C recommendations. For more about Molly, check out www.molly.com.

You're not alone. At any given moment, somewhere in the world someone struggles with the same software design problems you have. You know you don't want to reinvent the wheel (or worse, a flat tire), so you look to Design Patterns--the lessons learned by those who've faced the same problems. With Design Patterns, you get to take advantage of the best practices and experience of others, so that you can spend your time on...something else. Something more challenging. Something more complex. Something more fun. You want to learn about the patterns that matter--why to use them, when to use them, how to use them (and when NOT to use them). But you don't just want to see how patterns look in a book, you want to know how they look "in the wild". In their native environment. In other words, in real world applications. You also want to learn how patterns are used in the Java API, and how to exploit Java's built-in pattern support in your own code. You want to learn the real OO design principles and why everything your boss told you about inheritance might be wrong (and what to do instead). You want to learn how those principles will help the next time you're up a creek without a design paddle pattern. Most importantly, you want to learn the "secret language" of Design Patterns so that you can hold your own with your co-worker (and impress cocktail party guests) when he casually mentions his stunningly clever use of Command, Facade, Proxy, and Factory in between sips of a martini. You'll easily counter with your deep understanding of why Singleton isn't as simple as it sounds, how the Factory is so often misunderstood, or on the real relationship between Decorator, Facade and Adapter. With Head First Design Patterns, you'll avoid the embarrassment of thinking Decorator is something from the "Trading Spaces" show. Best of all, in a way that won't put you to sleep! We think your time is too important (and too short) to spend it struggling with academic texts. If you've read a Head First book, you know what to expect--a visually-rich format designed for the way your brain works. Using the latest research in neurobiology, cognitive science, and learning theory, Head First Design Patterns will load patterns into your brain in a way that sticks. In a way that lets you put them to work immediately. In a way that makes you better at solving software design problems, and better at speaking the language of patterns with others on your team.

Macromedia's Dreamweaver MX 2004 is the leading software tool for the creation of Web sites and other HTML interfaces. It's remarkably capable, able to deal intelligently with everything from fonts and images to JavaScript for client-side data validation and embedded Java applets. In most cases, Dreamweaver will save you time over hand-coding--and yield better-looking pages to boot. The program's learning curve, though, isn't trivial. That's why Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual is worth having on hand as you learn to use Dreamweaver, and worth keeping within reach as you tackle increasingly difficult Web development work.

David McFarland wrote this book, but the influence of esteemed series editor David Pogue is obvious in the careful coverage of features and frequent touches of humor (books about applications can be whangingly dull; the books in Pogue's Missing Manual series consistently manage to avoid this problem while maintaining comprehensiveness). The two men treat Dreamweaver's numerous features (and the even more numerous ways of putting them to use) cleverly, with a combination of procedures and side information that clarifies many oddball situations as well as straightforward conditions. --David Wall

Topics covered: How to create HTML (XHTML and CSS, strictly speaking) documents using Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004. In addition to the basic stuff (text, images, links, and frames), the book shows you how to build forms for data submission and embed Flash movies and Java applets. There's also a lot of helpful emphasis on Dreamweaver's productivity features, like snippet libraries and file transfer utilities. A special section shows you how to do some server-side work with databases.

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A tutorial style book for absolute beginner's that walks readers through an introduction to databases and programming concepts and then shows them how to build an intranet, e-commerce store, shopping cart and more using Microsoft technology. Build Your Own ASP.NET Website Using C# & VB.NET walks readers step-by-step in obtaining, installing and configuring all the necessary software to develop dynamic Websites. Then, ittakes readers step-by-step through the process of creating full-blown, practical applications including an Intranet, shopping cart with Paypal credit card processing and more. The book teaches best-practice code, ensuring application security and creating professional error handling routines. Unlike most beginner books, SitePoint allow readers to choose between VB.NET or C#, by providing code examples in both languages.

In September 2003, Macromedia released Flash MX 2004, and with it, ActionScript 2.0, a dramatically improved version of Flash's programming language. ActionScript 2.0 introduces a formal object-oriented programming syntax and methodology for creating Flash applications. From a developer's perspective, the new OOP-based techniques in ActionScript 2.0 make applications more natural to plan and conceptualize, more stable, more reusable across projects, easier to maintain, change, and expand upon, and much more. In short, they enhance the entire development process. In Essential ActionScript 2.0, bestselling author Colin Moock--one of the most universally respected developers in the Flash community--covers everything you'll need to know about the new ActionScript language and its methodologies for producing movies, animation, and applications on the web. Moock guides readers through this important new territory with his trademark easy-to-understand style and expertise. Moock's goal throughout the book is not just to get you to use object-oriented programming in your daily Flash work: he wants you to reap the benefits of OOP; he wants you to understand ActionScript 2.0 completely. And without question, Moock is the author who can make this happen. Essential ActionScript 2.0 begins with a tour of the language, including the fundamentals of object-oriented concepts, syntax, and usage. Those who are new to OOP will learn the basics and how to apply their understanding. Those who are familiar with OOP will leverage their prior experience to learn about Flash-based OOP. The next part of the book shows how to structure entire applications with ActionScript 2.0, teaching you best practices and techniques to build scalable, extensible, stable apps. Next, you'll explore a variety of approaches to various programming situations by applying object-oriented programming strategies, known as design patterns, to Flash. Experienced Flash developers and programmers coming from other languages will enjoy the sheer depth of Moocks's coverage and expertise in Essential ActionScript 2.0. Novice programmers will appreciate the frequent, low-jargon explanations that are often glossed over by advanced programming books. As usual, Moock guarantees quality and accuracy by working closely with Macromedia Flash engineers, including Rebecca Sun, lead developer of ActionScript 2.0. Whether you're ready to make the move to ActionScript 2.0 now or simply assessing it for the future, you'll find everything you need to know within this book. Essential ActionScript 2.0 is the one book every ActionScript coder must own.

Web Standards, created and enforced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), make sure that web designers and browser manufacturers use the same technology syntax, no matter what language they script in. Web Standards ensure the net stays neat, preventing the chaos that would emerge with inconsistent code. These standards also increase content compatibility among varying viewing devices, from screen readers for people with vision impairments, to cell phones, PDAs and more. Web standards are applied to code in HTML, XML and CSS.

Cederholm’s book explains how to create markup and style, exploring multiple techniques for handling situations when building with Web Standards. In this easy-to-read book, each chapter provides "extra credit" sections, giving you bonus tips and tricks, and empowering you to make better decisions based with well-rounded information.

About the Author
Dan Cederholm is a web designer and independent web author currently living in Salem, MA. His CSS redesigns of Fast Company and Inc. magazines' web sites have gained him the respect of web designers all over the world as an advocate of building clean, accessible sites with Web Standards. Dan also publishes markup and style tips and techniques on SimpleBits, his personal web site.

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