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Rating: 
Summary: Sherry Bishop killed Jiminy Cricket before writing this book
Review: **A tongue in cheek review by a severely disappointed graphic designer.**Jiminy Cricket: "But Sherry, that's just repackaging Macromedia's information and then asking people to pay for something they already have." Sherry: "Quiet, you! There's money to be made!" *stomp* Seriously though, the author should have a guilty conscience for putting this book together. Here are 3 guidelines that should be met before purchasing this book becomes a good idea: 1. You don't have the books that came with the programs. 2. Out of the millions of CD roms Macromedia made, you, the tortured soul that you are, inexplicably got the only ones missing the built-in help manuals and tutorials. 3. Rewarding lazy opportunists by wasting your hard-earned cash is one of your hobbies. (That's okay if it is, I'm not here to judge you.) If you can read through the manuals and help documents that came with the programs, do the tutorials, maybe do a few Google searches if you get stuck, and simply experiment a little with the programs, you've got all the information that's in this book. The book is this same information regurgitated into a pretty package. "All right Mr. Smartypants," you're saying to yourself "if you and your pants are so brilliant, why did you buy this book?" Well, since you asked, I got suckered in by the whole "as well as the integration of all three applications" mentioned in the editorial review. I've got a pretty decent handle on the programs by themselves but I was looking for some good tips on streamlining my workflow when using these 3 programs in conjunction. And hey, the thing is 584 pages long. There's got to be some useful information in there, right? I found that the integration chapter is probably the shortest chapter in the book. These are the main points of the integration chapter: (Brace yourself for these riveting insider tips!) -You can insert Flash movies into pages you create with Fireworks and Dreamweaver. -You can create images in Fireworks and Flash and insert them into Dreamweaver. -Whatever images or movies you insert can be edited. That's the kind of underwhelming stuff this book is chock-full of. I put it right back in the mail the same day I got it. If you have even a very basic understanding of the programs you will not learn anything beneficial from this book.
Rating:
Summary: Sherry Bishop killed Jiminy Cricket before writing this book
Review: **A tongue in cheek review by a severely disappointed graphic designer.** Jiminy Cricket: "But Sherry, that's just repackaging Macromedia's information and then asking people to pay for something they already have." Sherry: "Quiet, you! There's money to be made!" *stomp* Seriously though, the author should have a guilty conscience for putting this book together. Here are 3 guidelines that should be met before purchasing this book becomes a good idea: 1. You don't have the books that came with the programs. 2. Out of the millions of CD roms Macromedia made, you, the tortured soul that you are, inexplicably got the only ones missing the built-in help manuals and tutorials. 3. Rewarding lazy opportunists by wasting your hard-earned cash is one of your hobbies. (That's okay if it is, I'm not here to judge you.) If you can read through the manuals and help documents that came with the programs, do the tutorials, maybe do a few Google searches if you get stuck, and simply experiment a little with the programs, you've got all the information that's in this book. The book is this same information regurgitated into a pretty package. "All right Mr. Smartypants," you're saying to yourself "if you and your pants are so brilliant, why did you buy this book?" Well, since you asked, I got suckered in by the whole "as well as the integration of all three applications" mentioned in the editorial review. I've got a pretty decent handle on the programs by themselves but I was looking for some good tips on streamlining my workflow when using these 3 programs in conjunction. And hey, the thing is 584 pages long. There's got to be some useful information in there, right? I found that the integration chapter is probably the shortest chapter in the book. These are the main points of the integration chapter: (Brace yourself for these riveting insider tips!) -You can insert Flash movies into pages you create with Fireworks and Dreamweaver. -You can create images in Fireworks and Flash and insert them into Dreamweaver. -Whatever images or movies you insert can be edited. That's the kind of underwhelming stuff this book is chock-full of. I put it right back in the mail the same day I got it. If you have even a very basic understanding of the programs you will not learn anything beneficial from this book.
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Learning Tool!!
Review: I have never used a better learning tool! This book is fabulous - the color illustrations and excercises are a huge help. You immediately get into the programs and create dynamic Web pages integrating Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks. I would recommend this book to ANYONE who wants to learn these programs.
Rating: 
Summary: Anything but this
Review: This book is required for a class I am currently taking, and like most Course Technology books it's horrible. If you read the book cover to cover you might get something out of it, but if you forget how to do something forget it. Doing labs and studying for tests I find myself using the Macromedia help and other online sources rather than this book. It says its user level is "intermediate" but it has a lot of basic content. It looks pretty with all of the (expensive) colors and graphics, but the content is actually very lame. Greetz Purdue students/grads!
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