You might not want to do this right now. But sooner or later you'll probably want (or need) to know a lot more about how to really code a web page. When that time comes, there's an excellent free e-book that will walk you through everything you need to know about doing one up from scratch.
It's called (appropriately enough)
The Web Book, and you can download a free copy here:
www.the-web-book.comAt 355 pages, this book isn't something you'll be able to skim through over a rainy weekend and completely digest. The author suggests it will take two focused weeks of effort to absorb everything that's in it. He may well be right.
I popped a copy over to an employee of one my clients when I first learned about it. (She got handed the responsibility of staying on top of her company's web presence after a technical debacle caused by the people who do their web design.) In two weeks she went from knowing
zero to having a very decent competency in web technology. Now she's hooked. She told me she plans on sticking with it until she "knows as much as the people we're paying
beaucoup bucks to."
There's ambition for ya!
And who knows? This could be the start of a new career path for her.
About The Web Book
If you want to know how to create web sites, there are hundreds of books and web pages that
claim to show you how. Some of them are very good indeed. But this book isn’t like all those
other books and web pages, for a number of important reasons:
1. The Web Book is an electronic, or e-book. You simply download it as a PDF file from
www.the-web-book.com and print it yourself.
2. The Web Book covers all of the technologies that you need to know in order to create Web
sites, both using static html pages and database-driven sites.
3. Unlike many books on the subject that were written some years ago, The Web Book
teaches you up-to-date methods. Follow the instructions here and you can be confident
that you’re doing things in the right way, rather than using old-fashioned techniques that
are now frowned upon.
4. The Web Book is written for people with an interest in creating web sites. Whether you
want a couple of pages for your personal site, or perhaps a site for your school, college or
club, this book will tell you what you need to know. If you want a full-blown site for your
small company, perhaps with added features such as a customer mailing list or a picture
gallery, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve tried my hardest to keep everything non-
technical. If you’re "into" computers, you should be able to follow everything just fine.
You certainly don’t need to be a professional techie. In fact, if you are, you’ll probably
take offence at the way I’ve simplified things. For which I apologise.
5. If you already look after a web site, perhaps for your school or college, or the department
you work for, you may be itching to take your web development skills to the next level. Or
maybe you didn’t actually get much training when you took on the responsibility, and you
don’t really understand how everything fits together. In which case, this book is perfect
for you. We don’t just tell you to press buttons. We explain what those buttons do, and
why you need to press (or not press!) them.
6. Here’s the best bit. The Web Book is free of charge, for non-commercial use. Yes,
completely free. So if you want to teach yourself how to do Web stuff, just grab a copy of
the PDF file, print out the book, and away you go.
You can always download the latest version of this book from www.the-web-book.com
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One word of warning, though. Creating a web site and doing it properly isn’t a simple task that
can be done in an afternoon. Yes, we’ve all seen 2-page magazine articles that like to imply
otherwise, but sadly it’s just not true. Even at 355 pages, this book is only a basic introduction to
some of the more complex topics. It’s quite possible to buy books on HTML, CSS, PHP and
MySQL which each run to 800 pages. I wouldn’t recommend it, however, unless you have
trouble sleeping.
Too bad this book wasn't around back when I bought a few of those 800-page web design books (@ approx. $55 each!) you find at Borders.
Worth a look.
