Once Upon a Bookshelf

The Story

Smashing Magazine is, imo, one of the best online magazines for web designers and developers. They have awesome articles, inspirational gallery posts, showcase great fonts and icons, and are just generally all-around useful and a fabulous resource. I’m subscribed to the RSS feed, and I go through the older posts on an almost daily basis for help with what I’m working on at that point in time.

The authors of Smashing Magazine decided (with the help of their readers) to put together a more in-depth book covering some of the big topics for successful websites. The book covers topics that anyone who is even remotely involved with website creation would find useful. The book covers user interface design, basic CSS layouts, typography, usability, colour, optimization, conversion rates and branding. It also has interviews with some of the better known web people, and the story behind Smashing Magazine.

The Review

First, the good: this book does go in depth into these topics. It’s not just some brief overview or a couple of pointers for great websites. It explains what things mean and why you should do things certain ways – for example, it explains that you don’t want to open links in new windows because it takes control away from the user, it makes the website operate in a way that they don’t expect, and it can basically make a user unhappy. And an unhappy user is a user who doesn’t stick around on your website. (I so want to lend this book to an old boss just for that chapter, as he has a bit of a penchant for opening every single link in a new window.)

Another good thing is that there are a lot of images involved to illustrate what they are talking about – especially helpful for the chapters on colour, conversion rates and branding. It’s especially nice that the images were high quality and that they were printed in colour &ndash not all books would do this, as it can be more expensive for printing, but it was definitely highly appreciated.

A fair amount of information I have read before, but it was a good refresher. And there were some things that I have marked off that I have already started putting into practice on my work’s website.

Now for the not-so-good: because the book was written by so many people it didn’t read all the same. Which wasn’t bad for a lot of it, but when there are multiple authors for certain chapters, and each section of the chapters read differently, it was a little distracting. For example, in the usability chapter the section on web forms gives stats on what is used how often, but the section on dropdown menus gave examples of why each option is good or bad. I would’ve liked to hear pros and cons for forms, or stats for dropdown menus, as well, just to keep it consistent.

The other not-so-good thing was that, while it’s awesome there were so many images, the images weren’t always near the text that was talking about it. In the chapter about branding, there were a number of times when the screencaps of websites described were a whole double page spread away from the text about it. Or, if the images couldn’t be closer, a URL to the website that was being spoken about would have been most helpful.

The Bottom Line

This book isn’t necessarily a must-have for web developers and designers – the majority, if not all, of the content covered in the book can be found online. That said, even if you’ve read the content before, it definitely is a good refresher, and there are parts that would come in handy if you prefer to get your info from a quick flip through to the right chapter as opposed to searching on the internet for what you’re looking for. Would recommend it as a read to those who are involved with creating websites – whether it’s the front end or the back end.

Other Reviews

Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.

The Story

Melissa Anelli is the webmistress of The Leaky Cauldron, the best Harry Potter news site on the web. She has been one of the central figures in the middle of the Harry Potter fandom and phenomenon for years, starting as your average fan to becoming webmistress of Leaky, and even having a chance to interview JKR. Harry, A History tells not only her journey through the HP fandom, but also talks about a lot of the different things that were around in fandom – from fanfiction and LJ communities and shipping wars, to fan conventions and wizard rock.

The Review

I can’t believe so much time has passed since the last HP book was released! Goodness time has gone by so quickly! I will fully admit that I wanted nothing to do with HP for the longest time. It wasn’t until some point between GoF and OotP that I actually even picked one of the books up – and I fell in love immediately. And then, to tide me over until the release of OotP, I discovered fandom.

I was only ever on the outskirts, but I still witnessed a lot of what was going on. And Harry, A History was like such a trip down memory lane. There was so much there that I remember discovering for the first time, and it was so wonderful to spend that time reminiscing. There was also so much that, surprisingly, I had completely forgotten about – like Laura Mallory’s attempts at getting the HP books banned (yes I remembered that people tried to ban them, but had forgotten all about Mallory herself).

Anyway! This book is partially Anelli’s memoir, but it is also so much more than that. Anelli goes into what HP means for her, where she was when certain events happened, how the HP fandom changed her life. But then it is also so much a commemorative look at the fandom. Hearing about Anelli’s growth in the HP fandom was only part of the charm of the book. HP fans will be able to see themselves in parts of this book – will be able to go, yeah! I remember that! I was a part of that! I was a part of this awesome phenomenon that took over the world and changed so many things! (Because yes, the HP phenomenon DID change things – it brought together all sorts of people who would never meet to do such amazing things. Like, who would ever think to have a rock show in a library before?)

So definitely a thoroughly enjoyable book, and now I am so wanting to go back and reread all of the HP books.

The Bottom Line

This is a must-read for people who were involved in the Harry Potter fandom – even if it was on the outskirts like I was. It’s a good tribute to everything we were a part of, and reminded me completely of why I loved both the series and the fandom. Highly recommended.

Other Reviews

Shooting Stars Mag, The Zen Leaf, A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy, Sassymonkey Reads, Bart’s Bookshelf. Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.

And this is why I don’t join challenges. The Eco Reading challenge was to read 5 books between May 1 and September 1 … and here’s it mid-August and this is the second one I’ve read. Go me? Obviously I’m not going to get finished, but there are a couple of other non-fiction green-related books that I’m hoping to read over the next 6-12 months…. but it may be longer.

Anyway! Wake Up and Smell the Planet was put together by the people who do the Grist online magazine (a website devoted to environmental news and commentary). It’s a snarky and yet practical way to look at green living, containing both tips and information about how and why to make changes to your life to make it more green.

I definitely enjoyed this more than the first book for the Eco Reading Challenge That I Won’t Finish. (Green Greener Greenest) They covered a lot of similar stuff, but this one did it in a manner that was a lot more enjoyable. There were quite a few parts that were both rather humorous and somewhat out there. For example:

Babies. So cutesy-wutesy, itty-bitty, eensy-weensy—and kinda helpless, really. Which means there are at least two things they’re no good at: bowling, and coping with toxic substances.

Bowling? Well, I thought that was a given, but it certainly got my attention there.

Then there were the little asides, sometimes in list format. We all know I’m a sucker for lists. At least I thought it was quite obvious as I’ve been making lists of stuff every week for the past couple of months. And the lists in here were definitely enjoyable:

If nothing else convinces you of the importance of water conservation, consider this: Hollywood has proven that aliens, mutants, and other evil-doers are notoriously vulnerable in the face of water. Plain old water! (Okay, sometimes it’s holy water or seawater, but you get the point.) Check out these movies where water saves the day:

• Signs (2002) Mel Gibson defeats aliens with H2O
• Alien Nation (1988) Salt water sizzles spotty-headed aliens
• The Lost Boys (1987) Teen vampires bitten by holy water
• The Day of the Triffids (1962) Alien plants are no match for water straight from the hose
• The Wizard of Oz (1939) Two words: “I’m melting!”

The moral? Save water: You never know when you might need it.

It also had a lot of information that really makes you consider which of your alternatives is better. For example – is it more environmentally friendly to toss food in the trash or down the garbage disposal if you can’t compost it? (The trash – garbage disposal is bad for septic tanks, use a lot of water and sewage systems aren’t always able to handle large capacity of food waste). Or, is it better to drink beer out of a can or a bottle? (Depends on how far the packaging materials would have been shipped – if you can get bottles that come from close by, that’s best, but if not then go for the aluminum cans.) Interesting, eh?

There were two things that drew away from my pleasure of this book. The first was that the images weren’t always the greatest quality. The other is that the at times the tracking was so tight that you could barely see the spaces between words – so it looked like one whole long giant word taking up a whole line.

The Bottom Line: Overall, this was definitely an interesting and informative read. I learned a lot from it, but it was also quite entertaining, which isn’t something I always find from non-fiction books.