Building a Web Site for Dummies Review

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Building a Web Site for Dummies ReviewWhen the "Dummies" series books first came out, they were truly for "dummies". Apparently not so anymore. Right on the cover of this book is the phrase "Go from Web surfer to site developer". Well, web surfer I am, and what I was looking for was a book to give me the ABSOLUTE BASICS about creating a web site. This book assumes that you as the reader, already know how to create a web site!! HELLO!! If I knew how to create a web site, I wouldn't need the book, thanks. Page 2 "Foolish Assumptions": "We figure that you have some kind of experience with creating web pages." WHAT?! I thought this book was going to turn me from a surfer to a developer. Page 27: the first line of chapter 3 reads "This chapter's here just in case you need a refresher on basic web page building before..." CHAPTER 3! Refresher! This book obviously should be titled "Enhancing Your Web Site for Dummies". This book does not even explain to a "Dummy" how to create the file necessary to create a web page. What a waste of twenty bucks.Building a Web Site for Dummies Overview

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Web Project Management: Delivering Successful Commercial Web Sites Review

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Web Project Management: Delivering Successful Commercial Web Sites ReviewThis book is not about project management. In fact, someone versed in the Project Management Institute's Project Management Body of Knowledge will cringe at some of the statements made in the book (more about that below). It is, however, about delivering successful commercial web sites and it provides the best approach I have ever seen.
Here are some of the things that make this not only unique, but the most authoritative book I have read on the subject:
(1) It is not an IT centric book that focuses on technical issues. The author brings to the forefront the real critical success factors in the form of four equal sets of requirements: commercial, creative, content and technical. In 2000 I was a member of a multi-million dollar dot com project team for a large international company, and from that experience I totally agree with the author's view.
(2)The author manages to balance the time-to-market pressures that permeate commercial web projects with the by-the-numbers method imposed by IT. As such, this book addresses the development life cycle from inception to production by aligning implementation to development life cycle stages. It manages to accomplish this and still cut the project's cycle time by removing any fluff. What is fluff? The tons of non-essential paperwork produced by some of the larger consulting companies. What is not missing are the essentials, as evidenced by the repeated emphasis on testing, the attention given to configuration and change management, and the realities of post-implementation support. These are extremely important and are too often overlooked.
(3) The project controls that are proposed in this book are exceptional. While the author muddles through stuff like the proper definition of critical path, he shows how to effectively control a project by managing to deliverables. Contrast this with the common mistake of managing to a schedule and you will see the real effectiveness of his methods. So, while he misses the mark on some project management fundamentals, he sure makes up for it in pragmatism. He also makes up for his "transgressions" by laying out a project roadmap that, if followed, will guarantee success. If we project management "purists" lighten up a bit while reading this stuff we might learn a trick or two.
The big surprise is the author is not an IT professional - his background is TV producer! Or, perhaps it's not a surprise at all considering the fact that there is no room for failure or missed production schedules in the TV industry, while the IT profession is notorious for massive schedule and cost overruns. What impressed me greatly is the wide range of technical issues that are addressed: browser compatibility, content formats, scripting languages, etc. For someone without an IT background the author demonstrates a solid grasp of real-life issues and gotchas.
Those of us in IT need to carefully read the parts that address creative and content management. We are used to working with technical peers from vendors - working with copywriters and artists requires a wholly different way of interacting and communicating. Moreover, content needs to be treated in an entirely different matter than data, and it also comes with an array of legal issues that we are not trained to think about.
What I discovered , despite my previous involvement with a commercial web project, is there are so many factors I had never considered prior to reading this book that most projects are flying blind. As such, this book should be read by every team member, creative, content (artists and copywriters), technical, legal and commercial (marketing)*before* undertaking such a project. This will ensure that the entire team sees the big picture and understands the complex interrelationships, and all issues and factors are addressed. Mr. Friedlein deserves the highest accolades for making what I believe to be the most significant contribution to this field. My only regret is that I am limited to 5 stars.Web Project Management: Delivering Successful Commercial Web Sites Overview

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Maintaining and Evolving Successful Commercial Web Sites: Managing Change, Content, Customer Relationships, and Site Measurement (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) Review

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Maintaining and Evolving Successful Commercial Web Sites: Managing Change, Content, Customer Relationships, and Site Measurement (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) ReviewThis is the second book I've read by Mr. Friedlein that shows his extensive experience and ability to clearly impart realistic advice (his other book is "Web Project Management: Delivering Successful Commercial Web Sites", ISBN 1558606785).
What sets this book apart from others is the way he focuses on two critical aspects of web site maintenance, (1) change management, and (2) content management. Whereas there are a number of books that address content management, this is the first I've read that goes into detail about change management. Many books mix the two, and fail to emphasize the criticality of change management on site reliability and availability. These two parts of the book alone warrant reading it.
There are two additional parts of the book that provide unique insights into critical success factors of web site management and evolution, which are customer relationship management, and site measurement. Whereas the first two parts deal with behind-the-scenes maintenance, these deal with business aspects, which do need to continuously evolve if a commercial site is to provide revenue in a highly competitive environment.
The part on customer relationship management starts with a primer on CRM to assure that readers understand a much-hyped topic. It then goes into how to achieve success factors by addressing understanding your users, personalization, community building, and customer service.
Site measurement, the final part of the book, is also detailed and filled with advice. Topics include: an overview titled, "Promises and Challenges of Web Site Measurement" and chapters on evolution of E-intelligence, measurement approaches and techniques, and reporting and analysis. This part of the book wraps up with chapters on how to improve a web site and tackling a web site measurement project.
Like his first book (cited above and which I highly recommend), this one is essential reading for anyone working with commercial web sites. The author, in my opinion, is one of the most savvy experts who has unique insights in all aspects of web site project and management. This book is yet another achievement and contribution to the body of knowledge by Mr. Friedlein.Maintaining and Evolving Successful Commercial Web Sites: Managing Change, Content, Customer Relationships, and Site Measurement (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) Overview

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About.com Guide to Online Research: Navigate the Web—from RSS and the Invisible Web to Multimedia and the Blogosphere (About.com Guides) Review

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About.com Guide to Online Research: Navigate the Web—from RSS and the Invisible Web to Multimedia and the Blogosphere (About.com Guides) ReviewI thought I was pretty good when it came to getting around
on the Internet, but was I ever pleasantly surprised to learn
that I could still learn a great deal . . . and did by reading
THE ABOUT.COM GUIDE TO ONLINE RESEARCH by Wendy Boswell.
You'll also learn, too, regardless of your level of computer
sophistication . . . the material is very readable and
oh-so-informative . . . for example, to find the weather for
where you live, just go to the google website and type-in
weather: then your five-digit zip code . . . you immediately are
taken to a very visual listing that will provide all the information
you need by just looking at it (and not having to click further).
You'll get many tips that I've never seen elsewhere; e.g., this one
deals with how to deal with bibliographies:

There's EasyBib. a free automatic bibliography
composer; Cornell University Library's excellent in-depth article on how
to prepare an annotated bibliography; and writer Diana Hacker's informative how-to tutorial . . . all the specific web citations can be found in the book.
And you'll also find websites galore on such topics as finding crime
statistics, weird news, comparison shopping, job hunting, specific
diseases, and everybody's favorite, time wasting.
Lastly, if such terms as "blogs" and "RSS feeds" still throw you,
you'll no longer need to fear them if you just spend a little
time this most informative guide . . . I'd tell you more, but
it would take away from the time that I still want to spend
on trying just some of the things I've learned from Boswell's book.
About.com Guide to Online Research: Navigate the Web—from RSS and the Invisible Web to Multimedia and the Blogosphere (About.com Guides) Overview

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