Dreamweaver(R) 4 Fireworks(R) 4 Studio: A Beginner's Guide

Rating:
Summary: Excellent step-by-step guide for beginners!
Review: This is a great way to not only learn the technical sides of Dreamweaver and Fireworks 4, but also how to put your site together from start to finish. Most manuals that come with software only explain how to do individual tasks without pulling it all together...this one does. It is easy reading, with a sense of humor, and he often answers questions you think of while you go along. There were a couple of times that a step might be missing, like he'll say "then you should see this," forgetting that you might be in a different view, so just stay alert. This didn't happen often. Also, I did find that some of the Fireworks exercises were beyond what I initially needed to do, but I'll be coming back to those sections when I'm comfortable with my site and want to be more adventuresome...

Rating:
Summary: Great book, especially for beginners
Review: This is a very well structured book, and gives the novice some background on the web and HTML, which more experienced web designers may want to skim over. I am well versed in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and have been handcoding with Notepad and an HTML Editor for the past three years. I had read about Dreamweaver and Fireworks and decided to learn them. I've gone through the Dreamweaver section of the book so far and have gotten a pretty good feel for the program. I have already gone through two Fireworks books so I will probably go through that section pretty quickly.

The main strengths of this book are:

1. Well structured with a logical progression from one chapter to another.

2. Very few errors unlike some computer books I've worked with. Also I e-mailed the author and got a reply the next day, so he seems committed to helping readers of his book.

3. Little mini reviews and also chapter reviews to make sure you understand each module.

This book is among the best I have seen in the way the infomation is presented. It doesn't cover everything Dreamweaver has to offer but I can't imagine a better book to start out with.