Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Expression Web 2 in 24 Hours

by Morten Rand-Hendriksen

In just 24 sessions of one hour or less, you'll learn how to build flexible, easy-to-maintain, standards-based websites with Microsoft Expression Web 2. Using this book's straightforward, step-by-step... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0672330296
• ISBN13: 9780672330292
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Sams Publishing
• Length: 465 Pages
• Weight: 1.61 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

EXCELLENT BOOK!!!!

Great, Great book for the non tech geek. All I wanted to learn was how to tweak my website and make it smoother, faster, learn a little about why things are the way they are and this book did exactly that! It dealt with standards issues and the best part was the Q and A which answered common questions that the other books just don't. Some complaints from others about it being too simple, but I'm not a web programmer, I want it slow! I'm not sure that I would want this book if I was going to be a full-time code writer, but for running a small business and making a few sites this is THE BOOK. EXCELLENT.

I've found this book very valuable

I bought 3 books on EW2 and this is the one I chose to keep. The one from Microsoft was in large font an many less pages than this one and seemed to basic. This one has been just right. I've worked through most of the book by now and I've learned a lot. I was looking for a 'tutorial' type book and this one is just that. It's also organized in such a way that I feel I will be able to use it to refer back too when I go to create my own website. I've built websites before with FrontPage 2000 and Expression Web 2 is a much more advanced tool and is 'standards based' as best as I can tell. A few hours of the book are dedicated teaching you CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and the tools to create them in EW2 which is great because I haven't used them before. All of the lessons files can be downloaded from the authors website and the site he has you build is very relevent to what he is teaching. Each chapter's files are set up in the files you download as 'start from here on this chapter' and 'here's the final files for this chapter' so review will be easy and he starts you fresh in each hour so that if you haven't done things exactly his way he has a way of saying 'start from here.' The only drawback to the book is the number of typos, mis-labeled screenshots, etc. However, I've been able to recognize these errors easily and move forward. These are why this book gets 4 stars instead of 5. That said, you will learn EW2 with this book.

Just the book I needed!

Starting out in Expression Web can be intimidating - certainly it was for me. I had very little experience in HTML, a fresh copy of the program on my screen, and a major project to accomplish. Rand-Hendriksen's text turned out to be just what I needed. The first chapter ("hour 1") provides the reader with a helpful orientation to the program's workspace. But starting with chapter 2 the real strength of the text comes through as the author leads the student through the development an actual practice website (and a few related side projects). I found this "learning by doing" to be very helpful. I worked through most of the chapters/hours, only skipping one or two of the most advanced that I knew were not applicable to my project. Throughout the author proves himself to be a good teacher using both descriptive text and relevant illustrations, and only in a few places do I wish he had added further explanation. After finishing the text I was able to build a 22 page web site, featuring CSS and drop down menus. As good as it is, the text could be strengthened in a few ways. First, it probably should include an annotated bibliography. Since the text is not a reference work, students should use it in tandem with a book of that type like Elizabeth Castro's HTML, XHTML, and CSS which I found helpful. Nor is it a book on web artistry, for which I can appreciate (but not emulate) Jason Beaird in his The Principles of Beautiful Web Design. Second, I would add a few pages at the end of the book that would function almost as checklist to help the student start out on their own project. That would make the transition seamless from practice to the real thing. Finally, with a book of this detail there are naturally some typos which I hope will be corrected in a new edition. The book was designed to help novice web designers really get off the ground. It succeeds admirably.

Thank You SAM! i.e Morten ;)

Out of frustration from a previous book that I was reading on "expression web 2" I ended up getting Sam's. In a nutshell, I like how everything is explained, the examples, the little quizes, and - overall - his teaching style. Very easy to understand and would definitely get you ready for bigger and better things. Thank you Sam - aka - Morten Rand-Hendriksen.