Book Reviews

Smashing Node.JS Review

October 7, 2012
Book Reviews
Book reviews, node.js, nodejs

The short review would be “what a brilliant book”. I had tinkered with Node.js before but in a bit of an unstructured fashion. Reading the table of contents had me impressed then seeing the price for the Kindle version confirmed the deal. There is a lot of information here for very little money, around £7.50. The book begins with an introduction to Node and setting it up. There are also some details about the difference between browser JavaScript and some APIs used by node. ...

Designing For Emotion by Aarron Walter review

December 28, 2011
Book Reviews
Book reviews

Designing For Emotion by Aarron Walter and published by A Book Apart was a great read with some compelling case studies and examples and on how and when to use emotional design elements. All release by A Book Apart and short, sharp and too the point. This release is no exception and once I began reading I was hooked and finished it off within a couple of days. The writing style is enjoyable and educational with a sprinkle of dry wit where appropriate. ...

Mobile First by Luke Wroblewski review

December 22, 2011
Book Reviews
Book reviews

Do web developers really take holidays? Or are our breaks from the day job just an opportunity to catch up on some reading and tinker with some side projects? We haven’t even hit Christmas Day and I’ve managed to finish off two books I’ve had on the go, this one and PHP Master: Write Cutting-Edge Code from SitePoint. On to business, I love the A Book Apart releases and this one is no different. ...

PHP Master: Write Cutting-Edge Code review

December 22, 2011
Book Reviews
Book reviews

SitePoint’s latest PHP book is aimed at taking your skills to the next level. Looking through the contents there was several tools and techniques I was already using but also lots of others that I would like to start using. Each of the sections provides a general good introduction with some examples and links to similar tools or further reading. The book finishes by recommending that you implement the techniques / tools over a period of time, e. ...

Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte review

June 25, 2011
Book Reviews
Book reviews

I’ve just finished reading Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte and really enjoyed it. The book is published by A Book Apart who specialise in “the emerging and essential topics in web design and development with style, clarity, and, above all, brevity”. This made the book ideal for a holiday read. Ethan lays the foundations for responsive design and then goes through each of the principles Flexible grids Flexible images and media Media queries I really enjoyed the flexible grids chapter and found the equation target / context = result formula very useful for calculating fluid width. ...