If you’re a web designer or developer, chances are high that you’ve heard of Jeremy Keith‘s HTML5 for Web Designers. If you’re a web designer or developer, chances are fairly high that you’ve ordered it.

According to Jeffrey Zeldman, the book sold 5000 copies during the first 24 hours of pre-sales. All the personnel involved with its production are well-respected members of the design community, and so I didn’t falter in placing an order.

A Book Apart handle the delivery, so it’ll take a while longer than a next day Amazon shipment, but the delay only served to fuel my anticipation for the little book.

I’m only thought the first third of the book, but I’m already finding it incredibly well-written and it feels quite special. The $27 I paid for it is expensive, but the book’s such a great overall little package, that it might just be worth it.

The success of Firefox over recent years can be partly attributed to the extensions that beef up what’s already a great browser into something truly amazing. Firebug’s one of the most popular extensions, and for good reason. I’ve used it for editing CSS, viewing AJAX requests, DOM manipulation and debugging JavaScript. To say it’s been helpful is a large understatement, and it’s why I use Firefox as my main browser for web development.

Packt Publishing’s lengthily titled ‘Firebug 1.5 : Editing, Debugging, and Monitoring Web Pages’ starts the reader off gently with a ‘Getting Started’ chapter, discussing Firebug’s history, installation and Firebug Lite, a JavaScript version for non-Firefox browsers. In cases where a particular problem occurs on Safari, for example, the lite version can be extremely useful. Chapter 2 introduces the various Firebug tabs and gives a good overview of Firebug’s main capabilities. Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6 expand on the HTML, CSS and DOM functionality, and provide a great, in-depth examination of what’s possible.

Chapter 7 – ‘Performance Tuning Our Web Application’ – looks at the Net panel, and once again, the discussion is thorough and well-written. Not only does it give information about Firebug, but by its very nature, delves into HTTP headers and XMLHttpRequest monitoring.

Chapter 8 – ‘AJAX Development’ explains the console.debug call that I’ve made on several occasions, as well the (new to me) console.assert for for assertions and the useful console.dir(object) for giving a DOM tab style object dump for the supplied object parameter.

Chapter 9 – ‘Tips and Tricks for Firebug’ also had something new for me, console.group() and console.groupEnd(), which are functions that group ouput in the output console. When there are lots of debug statements being fired out to the console window, it can be useful to group them, and I’ve already used this to my benefit since reading the book.

Chapter 10 – ‘Necessary Firebug Extensions’ takes a look at ways of making Firebug even better by using 8 extensions that empower their users to more accurately diagnose and fix performance issues, manage cookies and improve SEO.

Chapter 11 – ‘Extending Firebug’ builds on Chapter 10′s introduced extensions by describing how to build your own. To keep things in proportion, it’s a fairly small chapter, building a small ‘Hello World’ extension, but it does give food for thought.

The book closes with an Appendix detailing Firebug’s API, and a look ahead at Firebug 1.7

Overall, this is a well-written and descriptive book, and although it is probably more suitable for a new to intermediate Firebug user, I found quite a few ‘ooh – I didn’t know that’ moments throughout that make it worthwhile for any reader who designs and develops websites.

WordPress has gone from strength to strength since it was released in 2003, and much of its success is due to the open source community’s commitment to plugin development. Take a look at the WordPress Plugin Directory, and you’ll see thousands of plugins that extend the WordPress core to do almost anything you can imagine.

Packt Publishing‘s WordPress Plugin Development is written by Vladimir Prelovac, a WordPress expert and developer of WordPress plug-ins such as Smart YouTube and Plugin Central. Part of Packt’s Beginners Guide series, the book focuses more on experimentation and learning by doing, and develops 6 real-world plugins throughout its 270 or so pages.

Chapter Overview

1. Preparing for WordPress Development
2. Social Bookmarking
3. Live Blogroll
4. The Wall
5. Snazzy Archives
6. Insights for WordPress
7. Post Types
8. Development Goodies

Aimed at developers who are familiar with PHP, the book wastes little time getting straight into coding. Chapter 1 gives an overview of plugin development, and details the six plugins that are developed throughout the course of the book.

1. Digg This

   The first plugin simply shows a Digg button in blog posts. It’s a good first plugin, since it shows the reader the fundamental Plugin concepts such as the WordPress API, filters and actions.

2. Live Blogrool

   This plugin works at making the basic Blogroll a little bit more exciting. I enjoyed this chapter since it talked about integrating jQuery and AJAX into plugins.

3. The Wall

   The Wall is a plugin that creates a shoutbox on your blog’s sidebar, where users can leave comments and shouts. This chapter introduces widgets and the WordPress database.

4. Snazzy Archives

   This plugin beautifies blog archives, and hooks into posts and the administration panel.

5. Insights

   The insights plugin increases blog post writing productivity by offering quick access to common information in the Write Post screen.

6. Post Types

   This plugin works closely with the WordPress back-end, and extends the platform’s CMS capabilities. Despite WordPress 3.0′s core functionality being extended in this area, it’s still a useful chapter.

As fantastic as WordPress is, a real sense of power can be gained from extending it. I particularly enjoyed this book, since it got straight ‘down to business’ and focused on the core concepts and practices that enable developers to create reliable, useful plugins.

Packt Publishing’s WordPress 2.7 Cookbook has been out for while now, but I still thought I’d pick up a copy and give it the once-over. Rather than being a reference guide, Jean-Baptiste Jung‘s book is very much like his very own WpRecipes.com website.

The book is organised into 11 Chapters:

1. Getting Ready to Cook with WordPress
2. Finding and Installing Themes
3. Get the most out of your WordPress Theme
4. Doing anything with Plugins and Widgets
5. Displaying Posts
6. Managing and Enhancing Multi-Author Blogs
7. Securing your WordPress Blog
8. SEO Tips and Tricks to Get More Visits
9. Making Money with WordPress
10. Enhancing User Experience
11. Make your Blog stand out

Some of the recipes include integrating twitter on your theme using the Twitter Tools plugin, accessing post data outside the WordPress loop and securing your plugins directory. The recipes are generally between 1 and 4 pages in length, and there is lots of useful information in the book’s 280 or so pages of content, but it’s just the sort of thing that’s freely available on the WpRecipes.com website and other popular sites such as Smashing Magazine.

If you are after a large collection of recipes in a single package, this is the book for you, but if you’re happy reading WordPress blogs about WordPress such as WpRecipes.com website, you may feel a little short-changed.

One thing I didn’t mention in the review is that when you buy it, you’re entitled to free PDF updates for life. Perhaps I left out this because I thought it would amount to the odd grammar correction and so on. Worthwhile, but not that exciting. How wrong I was, because as co-author Chris Coyier announces on the Digging into WordPress site, version 2.0 has been released and it promises an extra chapter dedicated to WordPress 2.9, as well as one called ‘Bonus Tricks’, which focuses on ‘some cool new tricks for your themes’. Included with the download are six WordPress themes too! I’ve only skimmed through the new pages, but the high quality writing and content is preserved.

If you haven’t already grabbed yourself a copy, you should do yourself a favour and buy it!

Unless they’ve been living in a cave for the last couple of years, web developers will be familiar with jQuery. Due to its speed, power and ubiquity, it’s become the de facto JavaScript library for anybody wishing to create cross-browser behaviour.

jQuery version 1.4 was released on January 14, 2009, and hot on the heels of that release is the accompanying ‘jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide‘ book from Packt. The book is nudging at 300 pages in length, and covers the API in a similar way to the excellent online documentation. This isn’t the book for readers with no JavaScript experience, but should be easy to pick up with somebody with at least a limited knowledge.

The eleven chapters cover the following:

1. Anatomy of a jQuery script
2. Selector Expressions
3. DOM Traversal Methods
4. DOM Manipulation Methods
5. Event Methods
6. Effect Methods
7. AJAX Methods
8. Miscellaneous Methods
9. jQuery Properties
10. The Plug-in API
11. Alphabetical Quick Reference

The first chapter gently introduces the reader to the jQuery framework, as it quickly but clearly dissects an example that dynamically extracts headings from an HTML document and assembles them into a table of contents. My only criticism on this chapter is that it doesn’t mention the recommended practice of using Google’s jQuery CDN, preferring to link to a local, downloaded copy.

Subsequent chapters get into the swing of jQuery methods and techniques, using examples to complement their description. Reference guides are rarely the most exciting books, but this is actually quite easy to read, and the examples are well written and help push the reader through the content.

Chapter 10 focuses on plug-in development, and although short, does cover the essentials in a well-written overview of a simple print plugin.

Despite the quality of the online documentation, this is a worthwhile book for any jQuery developer, owing to its clear and direct content. Although the framework is evolving, the book is likely to be relevant for a long time to come.

I seem to be reading quite a few WordPress books of late, and there are certainly a few to choose from. Packt Publishing‘s WordPress 2.8 Theme Design‘s tagline is ‘Create flexible, powerful, and professional themes for your WordPress blogs and websites’.

WordPress themes are of interest to me since they fuse a visual aspect with PHP code, and there’s no doubt that they appeal to many other people too. In this review, I examine how appealing the book is to theme beginners and more advanced users.

Chapter Overview

1. Getting Started as a WordPress Theme Designer
2. Theme Design and Approach
3. Coding it Up
4. Debugging and Validation
5. Putting Your Theme into Action
6. WordPress Template Tag, Function, and CSS Reference
7. AJAX/Dynamic Content and Interactive Forms
8. Dynamic Menus and Interactive Elements
9. Design Tips for Working with WordPress

Book overview

The book’s author Tessa Blakely Silver starts very gently with an introduction to WordPress themes and why downloading a theme that’s already been coded and designed may not always be the best solution. Subsequently, the book develops a theme from scratch and examines core technologies such as WordPress, CSS, XHTML and PHP.

The second chapter starts with a discussion of theme design in general, followed by the beginnings of the theme that’s developed throughout the book. There are further discussions on semantic markup, typography, fonts and layout.

The following chapter focuses on the code aspect of theme design, and suggests a workflow strategy as well as template tags, hooks, and the WordPress loop. Comments are then discussed in some detail, the topic including pagination and threaded comments.

Chapter four examines the process of debugging and validating. A thorough chapter includes references to the W3C validation services, Firefox’s JavaScript/Error console, Firebug and some of the issues that the budding theme developer will face when dealing with IE6.

Chapter five looks at the style.css file, which provides descriptive information about a theme, together with packaging the theme into a ZIP for distribution and running test installations of the theme package.

Chapter six adopts a more reference based approach, with an in depth examination of WordPress template tags, the WordPress template hierarchy, the loop and shortcodes.

The following chapter looks at AJAX and JavaScript, as well as preparing your theme for plugins and widgets.

Chapter eight builds on Chapter 7′s JavaScript discussion by developing a drop-down menu for the theme. There is also a discussion of Flash and how that can be used with WordPress themes.

Chapter nine rounds off the book with a number of design tips that apply not just to WordPress theme design, but web design in general.

The book’s about 250 pages in length, and is generally well written. I did, however, notice a few errors in code samples (mostly misplaced quotes), and a couple of examples in the prose itself. Another minor niggle was that the author talks about semantic markup, and then introduces ‘sidebarLT’ (sidebar left) and ‘sidebarRT’ (sidebar right) IDs into the markup.

Who will get most out of the book?

The back of the book states:

This book can be used by WordPress users or visual designers (with no server-side scripting or programming experience) who are used to working with the common industry-standard tools such as Photoshop and Dreamweaver or other popular graphic, HTML, and text editors.
Regardless of your web development skill set or level, you’ll be walked through the clear, step-by-step instructions. But familiarity with a broad range of web development skills and WordPress know-how will allow you to gain maximum benefit from this book.

It seems as through Packt have tried to convince the potential reader that this is the book for them, regardless of whether they’re fairly inexperienced in some areas, or a a highly skilled developer. I’d say that the book covers a lot of ground, and that it does so at a pace that would be suitable for an inexperienced developer. Much of the content, however, would already be familiar to a skilled web developer, and so I feel that they’d think that the really useful content is a little thinly spread.

Verdict

Overall, it’s encouraging to see more books about WordPress; although the internet is a fantastic resource, books still have a very important role in my opinion. The content of this one is great for beginner-medium level web developers, but more experienced readers will be left wanting more.

There are a huge number of books out there for WordPress, but ‘Digging into WordPress’, written by WordPress ‘veterans’ Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr stands out for a number of reasons.

The book’s been in development for a while, and the finished 400 pages are very polished and generally well written. The book is available from the Digging into WordPress website, and the site features a PDF Sample and containing the contents and Chapter 3 – ‘Anatomy of a WordPress Theme’.

To reproduce here, the main chapters of the book are:

1. Welcome to WordPress – an introduction to WordPress, this chapter is suitable for absolute beginners to WordPress, so if you’ve never used it before, this chapter will get you up and running.
2. Setting up WordPress – installing, categories, tags, user administration, as well as an introduction to using themes and plugins.
3. Anatomy of a WordPress theme – a more detailed examination of WordPress themes, covering theme files, the header, the WordPress loop, comments, theme functions and other theme fundamentals.
4. Theme Design and Development – further examination of themes, including loop customisation, menus, styling and widgets.
5. Extending Functionality – a detailed look at plugins, including custom functions and using WordPress as a CMS.
6. Working with RSS Feeds – a comprehensive chapter featuring many facets of RSS, including using FeedBurner for feed devivery, and tracking and displaying of Feed Statistics.
7. Working with Comments – great chapter that examines one of the most important areas of WordPress.
8. Search Engine Optimisation – this is a great example of something that you wouldn’t normally find in a typical WordPress book, and features many items that are of great interest to many bloggers.
9. Maintaining a Healthy Site – reminds the reader that there are a few things that they can and should do to protect their WordPress installation against hacking and comment spam.

The book’s absolutely jam-packed with useful information, and I learned a few things, despite having used WordPress for a while myself. That said, it starts off very gently, and is suitable to WordPress beginners, too. The written style is very easy to read, and the prose is complemented beautifully by helpful diagrams, screenshots and sidenotes.

Much of the content is standard stuff, taking the reader through core WordPress concepts, but that’s not a criticism, it’s a necessary requirement for this type of book. It’s the additions to this that really make the difference; things like integrating your site with Twitter, FeedBurner and Delicious. It has a real-world feel about it, owing to Chris and Jeff’s experience and usage of WordPress. In fact, it’s a great advertisement for WordPress itself, since it gives a holistic view of using WordPress for real-world sites.

Initially the book was only available as a PDF download, but has recently been made available as a printed book. It looks fantastic, and its spiral-bounding means you can lay it flat on a desk. The only downside is that it is a little pricey, but might be worth considering if you crave a printed page version.

Overall, this is the best WordPress book that I’ve read, and will help you get more out of it, whether you’re a beginner or more seasoned user. Go get it!

With all the furore surrounding Ruby on Rails, you’d be forgiven for forgetting that any other web application framework ever existed. The fact is, of course, that there are many to choose from, and one leading PHP-based framework is MVC-based CodeIgniter.

The CodeIgniter website is a great place to start for newcomers and more experienced developers alike, but I still like a good book, that I can hold in my hand and digest. Wrox’s Professional CodeIgniter is such a book, and presents a good overview of the framework that’s getting deserved attention in the web development community.

The book weighs in at a fairly lightweight 336 pages, but covers various aspects of CodeIgniter development, together with a history of the Model View Controller Pattern and an examination of Agile Development that is often employed by modern web-centric development teams. Whilst these discussions are not completely necessary to experienced programmers looking at getting to grips with CodeIgniter, they may benefit others who are looking for a more rounded introduction to web development. Being familiar with MVC and agile-development, I skipped these sections and headed for some CodeIgniter code.

Chapter 3 satisfies my code craving, where an overview of CodeIgniter is presented, covering such topics as the default installation, configuration, CodeIgniter libraries, helpers, and models, views and controllers, the foundation of any CodeIgniter site.

Chapters 4-8 walks through the development of an e-commerce style website with a shopping cart, categories and products, and a dashboard for managing details of the site. Chapter 9 covers some security issues, and although the information is presented, it is not intended as an exhaustive coverage of PHP Security. There is never a one book fits all situation, and for PHP security, you’re likely to find Essential PHP Security of great use.

The book concludes with an brief examination of the site launch, though this adds little of any significant importance.

It’s good to see a CodeIgniter book, and the quality of the writing is generally high, with easy to follow code examples. The book is very thin on AJAX coverage, which is quite a negative. Used in conjunction with the excellent CodeIgniter forums and website, it’s likely to prove a great resource for learning the framework.

The book’s list of Chapters is as follows:

1. Welcome to the MVC World
2. Agile Methodologies and Approaches
3. A 10,000-Foot View of CodeIgniter
4. Creating the Main Website
5. Building a Shopping Cart
6. Creating a Dashboard
7. Improving the Dashboard
8. Last-minute Upgrades
9. Security and Performance
10. Launch

I picked up a paperback version and here I present my thoughts.

Until a couple of weeks ago, had someone mentioned Lulu, I’d have thought of the Scottish singer (pictured), but a post over at Zeldman.com introduced me to self-publishing site Lulu.com, where anyone can publish their content for a worldwide market. Cool – I thought, but didn’t expect to be purchasing something from the site any time soon. A couple of days later, and a visit to FreelanceSwitch revealed their new book about Freelancing, How to Be a Rockstar Freelancer was published on Lulu.

Having always loved books, I ignored the PDF version, and plumped straight for the ‘hard’ copy, perhaps ignoring the rather steep price of £19.29 for 216 pages. I’d banked on the book’s website heritage to produce something that could justify me spending that amount of money. I did have some reservations about the quality of the book itself, and I did draw some parallels with tip-style books that sometimes appear on gaming magazines.

Payment on the Lulu site was seamless, and within a few days, I received my copy of the book.

Initial impressions were good – although not ‘full-size’ when compared to traditional technical books I’m used to, it felt pleasing in the hand.

I approached the book from a beginner’s standpoint – I was hungry for knowledge and reassurance about my new freelancing lifestyle – and not surprisingly, I found the book’s writing style and content to be very similar to that of the website. I have seen some other reviews of the book that give the book criticism because it is a little too close to the website’s content, and that the book is merely a collation of the articles presented on the site. Although this might be a downside for some, I consider that good content is good content, and hey – I still like books.

A testimonial on the book says that freelancers of all experience will gain something from the book, but I feel that it is mostly suited to those with a minimal amount of experience. Freelancers who’ve been around for a while may feel cheated by the book’s price.

A positive point is that the book clearly explains not only how to succeed as a freelancer, but how to make the change from full-time job. Other areas of note include:

• Branding
• Choosing a place of work
• Getting off the ground by securing projects
• Project scope and timing
• Pricing your work
• Tracking hours and milestones
• Working with clients and dealing with disputes and problem clients
• Invoicing and getting paid
• Marketing your services as a freelancer
• Expanding your business

A preview of the book can be found on the Lulu website.

Overall, I feel that it is a worthwhile read and gave me lots of tips and confidence with my freelance ‘plan’.

Good points

• Friendly, informative writing style
• Good coverage of a wide range of topics
• Best suited for beginners

Bad points

• Price is too high for many
• Experienced freelancers may not gain much