Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book for a quick entry into Dreamweaver
Review: Dreamweaver is a very powerful software and jam-packed with tons of features and benefits. J. Tarin Towers does a great job at getting to the jist of understanding how it works, organizes the topics for easy reference and is very clear about what he is writing about. Great job!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for a quick entry into Dreamweaver
Review: Dreamweaver is a very powerful software and jam-packed with tons of features and benefits. J. Tarin Towers does a great job at getting to the jist of understanding how it works, organizes the topics for easy reference and is very clear about what he is writing about. Great job!
Rating: 
Summary: This book is good but it left some important steps out.
Review: first of all, this book is not for beginners. if you have given this book more than 3 stars, then you probably had some background in web design.it does introduce comprehensively on what's available in DW and how certain tasks are done, but does not explain the HOWS and WHYS; the underlying logic. and many terminology is thrown at you in which you will have no idea... what i mean by this is the techical jargon that a total beginner will not know about; so, basically, the author DOES ASSUME you know somewhat about web design.. which shouldn't be the case to make it worse, random comments within a section is thrown at you; making you think..."huh?" and leaving you frustrated b/c the book isn't organized in an efficiently readable format.
it's fundamental - anything, whether it be an work place/office, bedroom, or BOOK, it needs to be organized well for you to do what you need... if there are random matters around, it will slow you down.. confusion... etc THE BOTTOM LINE, the positive aspect about this book is that it's pretty comprehensive - but a beginner book doesn't need to be comprehensive as this book; it should introduce you to dw and get you on your way... it's an ok intermediate book; not a beginner book. the downside is that the book will take you longer to read than it should be for a 600 page book.. b/c too many random comments... not much info will be retained.
BELIEVE ME.. I've read many web design books... i had to go back to this book so many times whereas in other books, having read it carefully once did the job of knowledge retainment.
TIME IS IMPORTANT TO ME!!! LIFE IS AN ECONOMIC BATTLE AGAINST COMPETITORS AND TIME... my definitive suggestions to novices to the web design field:
Please consider what i say carefully.. b/c i had to go thru the struggles and time to come to the knowledge i have now.
Rating:
Summary: not a visual quickstart
Review: first of all, this book is not for beginners. if you have given this book more than 3 stars, then you probably had some background in web design. it does introduce comprehensively on what's available in DW and how certain tasks are done, but does not explain the HOWS and WHYS; the underlying logic. and many terminology is thrown at you in which you will have no idea... what i mean by this is the techical jargon that a total beginner will not know about; so, basically, the author DOES ASSUME you know somewhat about web design.. which shouldn't be the case to make it worse, random comments within a section is thrown at you; making you think..."huh?" and leaving you frustrated b/c the book isn't organized in an efficiently readable format.
it's fundamental - anything, whether it be an work place/office, bedroom, or BOOK, it needs to be organized well for you to do what you need... if there are random matters around, it will slow you down.. confusion... etc THE BOTTOM LINE, the positive aspect about this book is that it's pretty comprehensive - but a beginner book doesn't need to be comprehensive as this book; it should introduce you to dw and get you on your way... it's an ok intermediate book; not a beginner book. the downside is that the book will take you longer to read than it should be for a 600 page book.. b/c too many random comments... not much info will be retained.
BELIEVE ME.. I've read many web design books... i had to go back to this book so many times whereas in other books, having read it carefully once did the job of knowledge retainment.
TIME IS IMPORTANT TO ME!!! LIFE IS AN ECONOMIC BATTLE AGAINST COMPETITORS AND TIME... my definitive suggestions to novices to the web design field:
Please consider what i say carefully.. b/c i had to go thru the struggles and time to come to the knowledge i have now.
Rating: 
Summary: Visual SlowedDown Guide
Review: For years I counted on a concise, logically organized manual from the Visual QuickStart series. No more. A 600 page book can hardly qualify as "quick". There is no comprehensible order or organization to this "geekSpew". I found it useless as a tutorial or a reference manual.
Rating:
Summary: This book is good but it left some important steps out.
Review: I am new to dreamweaver and this book has quickly helped me become productive BUT it has a few problems. Sometimes there are crucial steps missing from detailed step-by-step procedures and these have left me in the proverbial. For example, when explaining how to make a link appear in a popup window that does not have any controls, I followed what the book said and I got two windows popping up instead of one! It did not say I would need to open the popup window on the mousedown event.I had to figure that out for myself. Surely they could have had somebody test the examples in the book before publishing it. Also,the book does not show you objectives and how to achieve them by tying together different parts of dreamweaver. This makes explanations of different dreameaver topics feel disjointed. For example, it discussed layers and tables seperately without much guidance on layout in general. As a beginner, I needed more guidance in what I should be aiming for with layout. I needed more than just a listing of the options available in dreamweaver. On the other hand, a lot of stuff in this book is very good.The explanations are clear and the illustrations are great. I have learned a lot about dreamweaver but I reckon I should have bought the HOT Dreamweaver book instead.It seems to be a better guide towards the whys and wherefores of building a site with dreamweaver. I am disappointed with this book.
Rating:
Summary: Worth any price!
Review: I teach Dreamweaver for an Apple Specialist, in a two day class and they recieve a book at the end of the class. I use to use a different book, but liked the other Visual Quickstart books, so I thought I'd try this one as well. WOW! It has EVERYTHING I wanted from a book and then some. The 602 actual pages (not including the index) was impressive. Each chapter explains everything perfectly, and of course better than the manual. It was the perfect choice for my students because it is such a great resource. Plus, once they have mastered the basics, there is enough information to take their sites to the next level. This book gives the most information I have seen on Dreamweaver 4. The chapters on CSS and Layers alone are worth the price of the book. I was also impressed on the amount of information on behaviors, automation and customizing.Best Dreamweaver book around for the beginning to intermediate user.
Rating:
Summary: A great reference
Review: I'm surprised at the feedback I've seen on this book because I truly enjoy the Quickstart series of computer books. They're informative, detailed and the content is easy to find. In fact, their books were used as my textbooks in college and I liked them so much I continue to use them. But I won't say that these books aren't for a specific type of person. I will explain. If you've ever picked up a Whatever-for-Dummies book, or the Idiot's-Guide-for-something or any kind of Textbooks-for-Morons you either like them or hate them. Why? Because they all seem to be written at the same level meaning they are real beginner books. If you are the type of person who doesn't know how to work a mouse, then I suggest that you stick to Dummy books. The Quickbooks are more geared towards people who like to play with programs to figure them out. They do give brief explanations of the basics, and I mean: "This is a pallet, this is a brush" but they only do it briefly. They are non-patronizing to the people out there who have a knack for figuring programs out. Quickbooks are also informative. If you need information on a specific topic, such as adjusting contrast, you'll usually find it within seconds through the glossary. Not only that, but there are a number of visual aids to reference and shows step-by-step what you're going to do or use. Sometimes, they even include URLs to pages on the web. The details are also worth their while to read. They give plenty of additional tips to use that you might not think of. It will usually be in a side box with a "did you know" kind of title. These have helped in my work plenty of times and given me ideas. Plus, these books are for Mac or PC which is a plus for me considering sometimes I have to work on one or the other platform and don't always know the keystrokes or commands which can be quite different from each other. Again, these are reference books. They are not tutorial books for the ultimate beginner. I continue to use these books with my work and enjoy them thoroughly. I recommend these books for people who like to play with programs and need something to look back on and research further.
Rating:
Summary: This is a WONDERFUL book
Review: If you are trying to develop a high-end website that is easily manageable and easily updateable then dreamweaver is your best bet. Better than GoLive and Frontpage, it easily creates dHTML pages with one click. This book helps you figure out how to use some of the more complex features that come with dreamweaver, such as the timeline (which isn't hard if you've ever used flash) and other new features that are Dreamweaver 4 specific. I recommend this book to anyone who just spend a good chunk of hard cash to buy dreamweaver and simply doesn't know how to utilize dreamwaever yet.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money.
Review: If you want to learn Dreamweaver, this is NOT a good choice. I bought this and Lynda Weinstein's Hands-On-Training (HOT) for Dreamweaver. Weinstein's HOT book is awesome and I highly recommend it. The QuickStart Guide is purely a reference manual and you might as well use the manual that comes with Dreamweaver (it's better).
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