Rating: 
Summary: Good concept
Review: I very much like the concept of teaching with examples and this book does that well. I think this is an excellent book for those who are new to css and html. It is too shallow for people at an intermediate level of either of those skills.If the author's intent was a beginners-only level book, then I should rate this as a 5-star product. If it was intended to bring the reader to an intermediate level, then my rating is correct. Good work, but it left me hungry before I got halfway through.
Rating: 
Summary: Learning by Example indeed
Review: I was inspired to pick up some quick lessons on CSS after years of HTML, Javascript, and ASP programming. I did not want to pick up a bible on CSS for lack of time, so I chose Mr. Steve Callihan's book simply because of its title. I am glad I did. I am not just learning from it. I was able to fly with CSS at work just after 2 weeks of learning and trying this book's examples. The author was quick to respond to my email too. His web site [website] contains is extremely resourcesful as well. This book is worth every penny of it and more.
Rating: 
Summary: Loads Of Information Missing - Don't Buy
Review: I'm surprised at the reviews this book is receiving here, I can only assume the exposure these people had to CSS prior to purchasing this book was minimal at best. The reason I say this is because the book falls well short of the mark as a competent CSS guide, why you ask??? Well there is SO MUCH information missing on CSS here it is unbelievable. The book will leave huge chunks of information missing from your knowledge. Another reviewer made the bold statement that 'this book can take you from beginning to expert level on CSS'; I almost choked when I read that, as nothing could be further from the truth. This book was a gift from my g/f who knows nothing about computers and thought I knew nothing about CSS, she was wrong but I was stuck with this book so I decided to read it just in case it could give me further insights into CSS, maybe a few gold nuggets, well it didn't, it just misses out so much important information that I just wanted to throw the book away. Numerous fully supported properties and CSS selectors have been omitted here. You may argue that the books age may have something to do with it, but no, I have books on CSS older than this by over a year or two and they still cover CSS far better than this book. I even have a book that covers CSS as a sideline to the books main subject, and it is still covered much better than this book. This makes things sound even worse when you consider that this book is less than a year old (at the time of writing this). I'd also add that the authors writing style is so dull the boredom almost killed me, reading this book felt more like a prison sentence. Note that the author does admit that the book was rushed to press; well that explains an awful lot about its failings. Others will argue here but they clearly don't have sufficient exposure to CSS to put a good and valid argument forward, I tell you the truth, I have extensive CSS knowledge and this book won't help you gain that kind of knowledge. It's true to say that no book has everything and that it always takes more than one book to get a good grasp of a language, but truthfully this book just misses out so much that I think it would be a bad purchase for anyone interested in CSS. For those who have already purchased and praised this book, well you just don't know how many gaps you have in your knowledge but you will one day.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good Book on CSS
Review: If you can buy only one book to learn about CSS. This should be the book. In one short weekend, this book can take you from beginning to expert level on CSS.
Rating:
Summary: Great for newbies!
Review: If you need a book that starts from the square one - this is it! Easy to understand and it takes you through the process step by step.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Book for Beginner or Intermedient CSS User
Review: If you want to learn about CSS and don't know where to start, start here. I can't tell you how pleasantly surprised I was when I worked thru this book. It is filled with explanations and examples to work and covers all the important topics of CSS. Best of all, the author has an outstanding website for reference and to download book examples. And if you run into problems, this author actually returns your email with answers in an extremely timely manner (always same day for me). Again, if you want to learn the latest web developing learning curve, buy this book!!! Bob Samac
Rating:
Summary: Wanna learn style sheets? This book is GOLDEN!
Review: So you know HTML, you've probably heard of styles sheets, and you want to know more. You want to actually learn them instead of having some confusing reference that assumes you know something already. Hands down, this is your book. Period. You can download example files and use them with the easy to understand exercises in the book. Unlike many computer books, this one is in ENGLISH and the examples actually WORK! Pretty nifty eh? Not only does Steve make style sheets easy to learn, he gives you a heads up as to what browsers may have trouble interpreting style sheets and what to do about it. I've tested these out, primarily in Opera and IE, with no problems whatsoever. (At least) basic knowledge of CSS will make design and presentation of web pages more fluid and easier to manage. It will also come in handy if you focus on search engine optimization. Do you need any special software to get the most out of this book? No. Has Microsoft taken any functionality out of their "consumer" operating systems that will prevent you from using this book? No, you can learn CSS on just about any platform or OS. What do you need besides this book to learn CSS? A plain text editor like notepad and a browser will do the trick. Buy this book if you want to learn style sheets from scratch. Don't even consider anything else. Great work Steve, Thanks!
Rating:
Summary: Learn CSS the easy way, by example.
Review: Steve Callihan's first book, "Create Your First Web Page in a Weekend" helped me create my own website when I literally didn't know the first thing about how to go about it. He has a teaching style that starts out simply, without assuming prior knowledge. He lays a foundation and then builds on that. It was a great way to learn HTML, and now the same teaching style is helping me learn Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). HTML lets you establish the content of your web pages, but gives you very little control over their presentation. It was never intended to do things like set margins and font sizes, and the TABLE tag wasn't intended as a page layout tool but that's what everyone does with it. However, in this book, Mr. Callihan shows how you can use CSS for page layout and accomplish the same thing, only with much greater control. In fact, CSS gives you the power to control everything about your web pages to achieve any look you want, and it's easy! Steve's book goes way beyond just giving you the properties and values you can use with CSS, but he shows you (by example) HOW and WHY to use them. A lot of work obviously went into this book. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn CSS the easy way. Five stars!
Rating:
Summary: Learn CSS the easy way, by example.
Review: Steve Callihan's first book, "Create Your First Web Page in a Weekend" helped me create my own website when I literally didn't know the first thing about how to go about it. He has a teaching style that starts out simply, without assuming prior knowledge. He lays a foundation and then builds on that. It was a great way to learn HTML, and now the same teaching style is helping me learn Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). HTML lets you establish the content of your web pages, but gives you very little control over their presentation. It was never intended to do things like set margins and font sizes, and the TABLE tag wasn't intended as a page layout tool but that's what everyone does with it. However, in this book, Mr. Callihan shows how you can use CSS for page layout and accomplish the same thing, only with much greater control. In fact, CSS gives you the power to control everything about your web pages to achieve any look you want, and it's easy! Steve's book goes way beyond just giving you the properties and values you can use with CSS, but he shows you (by example) HOW and WHY to use them. A lot of work obviously went into this book. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn CSS the easy way. Five stars!
Rating: 
Summary: A good solid foundation
Review: The first thing I do when buying any computer book is go to the inevitable corresponding website and look up the errata page. I did that here and, as with most such books, there were errors. I spend 20 minutes going through with a printout of the errata sheet and a pen making corrections before I even read it. That being done, this is an excellent introduction to CSS. I knew HTML very well, but knew nothing about CSS at all; and by the time I was done I was able to completely rewrite a 10xnested-tables/spacer gif/graphical text layout website (see 'realtymort' website if you're curious) into an entirely CSS-based site that works in every single browser I tested (gracefully degrading in the css-ignorant Netscape 4). Not a table nor unnecessary graphic to be found (except for some... ahem... tabular data that I dared to actually put in a table ;) Also, the new site was roughly 1/2 to 2/3 the size of the original and loads significantly faster and displays more consistently across browsers and platforms. This book gives a rock solid foundation in CSS. It is perhaps lacking in cutting-edge advanced topics, but it seems that such methods are not supported in too many major browser versions to be all that useful yet anyways. In terms of stuff you can actually _use_, _today_, well... I would definitely recommend this book.
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