Introducing HTML5

Posted in on 3 August 2010 | Comments

Introducing HTML5 HTML5 is quite a hot topic at the moment and it’s likely that you will be developing websites with this new version of HTML within a few years (if not sooner). HTML5 gives web developers a whole range of new capabilities that will change the way you build websites.

Introducing HTML5 by Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp is ideal if you are new to HTML5. It’s a practical book and if you want to learn about and develop with HTML5, I don’t think you will be disappointed. So far, I have only read the first few chapters but I’ve already learnt a lot. For example, you can build websites with HTML5 right now, you can have multiple <footer> elements in a web page, and the difference between <article> and <section>.

Even if HTML5 is not on your top priority list and you are happy with the current versions of (X)HTML, I still think you should put aside some time to get acquainted with HTML5. This book will help you do that.

Buy the book: Amazon UK and Amazon USA

Related: Think Vitamin Membership gives you access to a whole video tutorial course about HTML5. There’s also a free introductory video on the basics of HTML5

Getting started with information architecture

Posted in on 9 June 2010 | Comments

A Practical Guide to Information Architecture If you have developed websites for some time, you have probably organised the website navigation and content as sensibly as you can for your potential website visitors and to satisfy the website’s objectives. That’s great but in my own experience there have also been examples where I have struggled to organise everything in a way that I was 100% happy with. That’s why I decided to learn some more about Information Architecture (IA).

A Practical Guide to Information Architecture by Donna Spencer is the first book I have bought on the subject. It’s a book for web developers and designers without much Information Architecture knowledge. That’ll be me then.

The book is organised into five sections, each with five chapters, and it starts with a section introducing Information Architecture, moving on to sections about understanding people and content and subsequently designing IA and website navigation. So far it has been easy to read and I hope to post a review when I have finished.

Whether it’s organising content, providing clear descriptions or ways for people to get to them, this book is armed with practical advice and examples.

Microformats Made Simple

Posted in on 20 April 2010 by Clive Walker

Website: http://microformatsmadesimple.com/

Microformats Made Simple aims to teach you about microformats, what they are, the benefits of usage, and how they can be used in your website (X)HTML. The book starts with an introduction that includes a description of the history of microformats and their design patterns. Subsequently, each of the main microformats, and several draft microformats, are explained in their own chapters. Each section describes the advantages of using the microformat, its properties and syntax, the mark-up you might use, and how the microformat is applied to several (X)HTML examples. The book is clearly written in a conversational tone and it’s ideal if you are new to microfomats or even if you have dabbled with them (like me). After reading the book, I feel that I am much better equipped to identify and publish microformatted data in my websites.

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jQuery: Novice to Ninja from Sitepoint

Posted in on 11 March 2010 | Comments [1]

jQuery: Novice to Ninja I am reading a new jQuery book from Sitepoint at the moment. It’s called jQuery: Novice to Ninja and it promises to take you from beginner to expert. If you have copied and pasted jQuery code up to now without thinking or knowing how it works, this book could be for you! The book covers a whole range of examples so it’s also very good for intermediates. I have used some of the code from the first chapters already!

The book weighs in at just over 400 pages and is divided into nine chapters that start with the basics of jQuery, and its use for selecting, decorating and enhancing your HTML, and moving on to chapters about, for example, animations, images and slideshows, menus, tabs, and tooltips, and Ajax. The book also includes a final chapter on creating a jQuery plugin and advanced methods for extending jQuery.

I’ll post a more in depth review when I have read through the whole book.

Downloads: Get sample chapters from JQuery Novice to Ninja with this free download • The code archive from the book is also available.

How to write better website copy

Posted in on 12 November 2009 | Comments [2]

Would you like your website to perform better? Do you want people to buy more of your product from it? or attract a higher number of sales leads? Whatever the objectives that you have for your website, it would be unusual if you did not want it to be more effective.

One way that you can improve your website is to write better copy. There’s quite a skill to writing great website copy and it’s something that many businesses overlook. Effective copywriting can persuade people to buy from you, improve the readability of your website, and deliver more for your business. I must admit that I have not thought about this subject enough but I was persuaded that I should learn more by Relly Annett-Baker who gave a presentation at the Bamboo Juice web conference earlier this year.

Of course, if you have a responsibility for managing or writing website copy, you can hire a copywriter and I would enourage you to consider this. At the same time, as a freelancer, I would like to learn more about this area myself. That’s where Write To Sell: The Ultimate Guide to Great Copywriting by Andy Maslen will help. It’s a guide to better copywriting and it contains a wealth of tips and tricks that will start you on the road to better copywriting. I’m enjoying reading it at the moment (and it makes a nice change from the CSS books that I normally read!)

Thanks to Relly Annett-Baker on Twitter for suggesting the book to me.


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