Others say...

"Not For Dummies...."
I am not new to computers and I am a good student, who is able to grasp materials. However this book is hard to follow, the writer uses a lot of expressions that are NOT for dummies, without real explanations. There are certain parts of the book that are well organized but in overall the writer doesn't seem focused. She keeps touching several subjects in one chapter, without really making a point, therefore it's confusing. I have no doubt that the writer does know Dreamweaver well, however this book seems to miss the concept and the thematics to be able to understand even for dummies.

"Pretty Good For A Dummie."
All in all this was a helpful book. I went from knowing nothing to knowing about 3/4 of the things I needed to know. Which was great. I mean, I built a website for my company by reading a book, so job accomplished. Right?

"So what was wrong with it?" you may be asking.

Well....

There were several areas where I would have liked a little more detail than she went into in the book. Her covering of FLASH could have been a little more in depth. To this day (4 months later) I still can't seem to make FLASH buttons show up on my web page, and I have NO idea why.

The other reviews I read of this mentioned Ms. Warner's penchant for talking to you as though you were her best girlfriend. Well, it's true. There was a little bit much of the Nudge, Nudge, Wink, Wink type conversation in it for my taste. I get that she wanted us to feel comfortable, but I would rather have felt comfortable in a corporate way... that is to say not so aware of her relationship with her husband.

But I still will recommend this book to anyone who needs help. It got me started and I used it as a reference throughout my website construction. The website I created is light years beyond the one we had and I have Ms. Warner to thank for that.

So like I said, ALL IN ALL A HELPFUL BOOK.


"Creating your web master piece"
What this book does in basic terms is walk you through the process of website conception to managing your website once it is on line and everything in between. It covers all of the information that you will need to get your site up and running. Some of the the subjects are covered very well like the use of CSS, adding graphics, flash animation, design elements, templates, HTML, Meta tags and the use of graphics. All subjects are covered in ample detail.

She has included helpful hints along that way with the use of side bar items that like "Tip" used to discuss a feature with in Dreamweaver that pertains to the subject that is being covered, "Technical stuff" used to describe technical aspect of the operation that you are preforming and "warning" that warn you of the consequences of you action or inaction to a Dreamweaver prompt.

Janine Warner writes in a nice easy writing style. The formatting of the book is excellent with the use of different font types and styles to help the reader. This helps greatly when skimming through a pages looking for a website reference or HTML coding examples. As Ms. Weaver explains this is not a cover to cover read but more reference material. It is also very well organized.

This book is a great starting point for Dreamweaver but I would recommend that while this book does a great job covering CSS you should go get a book dedicated to CSS because of the complexity of CSS.

The only prerequisite here is that you have to really want to learn Dreamweaver. When working with Dreamweaver it is important to know what you want your site to do before you start to use Deamweaver for the first time other wise you can get caught up in the many features that may or may not be helpful to you. There are so many things in Dreamweaver that do almost the same thing but not quite. This book provides some good insight into doing just that. Dreamweaver which is a great program but can be a daunting task at times. Thankfully this book takes the daunt out of daunting.

For the true beginner to Dreamweaver this is a five star book. For those with experience this is probably a 3 star book. The intended target audience is the beginner to intermediate user which is how I came up with my rating of 4 stars.

"Misses the mark."
I am new to web design but am pretty good with computers. I have been producing and editing music for fun for years. This book is dicey at best. There are good points, but overall it is hard to follow and gives a poor explaination of Dreamweaver's features. Hopefully, the author is better in the classroom than she is in this text or I feel sorry for her students.

"EASY READ"
I love this book!!! Very easy to use and follow, explanations are in english not tech words. I started to create my first website using dreamweaver 8, I read the book it came with, and didn't understand what I was doing. After reading the first two chapters of dreamweaver 8 for dummies, I was starting to create a website like a pro.