Rating: 
Summary: Inexpensive Training
Review: .... The book focuses on procedures, rather than providing information on the process of designing a page or artwork. It covers the most common tasks that users are likely to want to do, chunking this information into easy-to-follow, bite-sized pieces. The book's attractive, color layout mimics an online demo, with drawings underneath each procedure indicating the needed mouse movements.
Rating: 
Summary: concise intro overview to DW4 & FW4
Review: As a professional web developer, the commodity I have least of is time! Besides fulltime work on our site, I also have to keep up with learning the never-ending parade of new technologies. This book, while simple enough for beginners, offers a quick and thorough overview of DW4/FW4. Personally, I found this a great resource for discovering all the new features in version 4 in a speedy way. Admittedly, one of the "big books" will be needed for reference on the finer points, and for the inevitable troubleshooting.
Rating: 
Summary: Good overview, but lacks important explainations.
Review: I found Mr. Coley's book good for a quick read, but there were several important areas that really annoyed me.First the good:
Did a nice job of hitting on the key areas of Dreamweaver & Fireworks. Now the bad:
1)There was no common thread, ie no project to tie everything together. It's all presented in disjointed bits and pieces.
2) Sometimes a later topic (tasks as Coley refers to them) builds upon an ealier Task that he assumes the reader has saved. But he does not tell the reader that they should save them for later!
3) Does a very poor job explaining the important Dreamweaver Layers concept(layers, layout cells, layout tables). Does not tie them together or clearly explain how the user should or should not, use all three of these elements together in the designing of a webpage. This book badly needs to have an underlying webpage project in it so that the author can use it to tie all the important elements together.
Rating:
Summary: Good overview, but lacks important explainations.
Review: I found Mr. Coley's book good for a quick read, but there were several important areas that really annoyed me. First the good:
Did a nice job of hitting on the key areas of Dreamweaver & Fireworks. Now the bad:
1)There was no common thread, ie no project to tie everything together. It's all presented in disjointed bits and pieces.
2) Sometimes a later topic (tasks as Coley refers to them) builds upon an ealier Task that he assumes the reader has saved. But he does not tell the reader that they should save them for later!
3) Does a very poor job explaining the important Dreamweaver Layers concept(layers, layout cells, layout tables). Does not tie them together or clearly explain how the user should or should not, use all three of these elements together in the designing of a webpage. This book badly needs to have an underlying webpage project in it so that the author can use it to tie all the important elements together.
Rating:
Summary: Good Jump Start
Review: I had never used Dreamweaver or Firewrks until I got this book, and used it with the trial version of the software. I may not turn you into an expert, but you will certainly understand how it all works and be able to make great sites without too much hard work. I liked the pictures in the book and th fact that you can do stuff in any order, not just start at the beginning. I wish there was a book just for Fireworks like this one.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific book
Review: I have purchased just about every book on Dreamweaver and this one is head and shoulders about all the others! It is terrific. Anyone who wants to learn Dreamweaver should have this book, and if you already know Dreamweaver, it is a great reference tool.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book and waay easy to use
Review: I really loved this book, having had a bad experience with another Dreamweaver book I opened this feeling really worried, but there was no need. The book is sold as a beginners book and I am just that, so I found the approach to the tasks really simple and noice to follow. Within a couple of hours I was calling my frinds to tell them I had a website. Okay it was a simple one, but it was mine. The book explained getting started and where to find things in a way that really suited me. The Fireworks part of the book is not as in depth as I would have liked, so I mailed the author for help with something and got a helpful and informative personal reply really quickly. I liked the way that I could do things in the order I wanted to and that I didn't need to work through the book from beginning to the end, I just did what I wanted when I wanted, it was cool, and I will be looking for more book by the same author
Rating:
Summary: Great reference and tutorial
Review: I thought this was a wonderful reference for using both Dreamweaver and Fireworks. They're so complementary to each other that it helps to have one book that incorporates both pieces. I would definitely recommend this book to people who are getting started into web design. It's an easy book to read and follow, which is unusal for most technical books I've come across.
Rating:
Summary: Weird organization and disjointed exercises
Review: Maybe I missed something, but a few pages into the book, the "hands on" exercise was refering to a page I had not created. Then the book continues to refer to this page, and others. This makes the book not completely hands on, in my mind. This is not what I was expecting based on other Sams books. Also, the organization of the book in a bit odd. Each page is quartered which may look graphically interesting, but seemed to make it harder to follow. Additionally, in a couple of minor places, the book did not deal with differences in the Mac version of Dreamweaver very well. If this were my only choice, I would buy it, and make use of it. It's not, so I'm going to return it and go with something else.
Rating:
Summary: Beginners only
Review: The Fireworks content is very marginal. The format is good for beginners and easy to follow. Others should find another option.
| 
