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Books

The Twitter Book

Just finished reading The Twitter Book app for my iPhone. This was the first book that I had ever read on my iPhone, and overall I was very much impressed with it.

The book itself was great, and more than up to the high standards I expect from an O’Reilly book. It does an excellent job of detailing what Twitter is, why it’s grown so much in such a short period of time, and most importantly how best to make it work for you. Very easy to read, with many examples which conveniently are linked to the web since this version is digital and an app on my iPhone.

The app itself was very easy to use and reading on it was rather natural. I figured the screen might be too small or too dim, but it really wasn’t that much different than reading from print. Navigation was easy and natural. A bug plus for me was that I was able to just read at times I didn’t expect I’d be able to since my iPhone is always with me.

My only complaints with reading on my iPhone vs a traditional book were that it was a little tricky to jump around the book when compared to dealing with paper. Also, many of the illustrations were difficult to read as well.

Overall this was a great read and reading it on the iPhone turned out to be better than I had expected and would read more books this way. If you’re looking to learn more about Twitter I highly recommend, and if you have an iPhone you might want to give the app version a try too.

Categories
Books

Head First Web Design

Just got done reading through Head First Web Design by O’Reilly. Borders was having a 20% off deal going, and I always like to read through beginner books every now and then to reinforce the basics. This is a great book to read if you’re getting started working on the web.

I’ve always been a big fan of the Head First series, they do an excellent job of visually explaining tech topics. Most tech books are either way too basic or much too advanced, but the Head First series are a pretty solid read. You will need to have a pretty good understanding of XHTML and CSS to get through this one.

I thought the book did a great job of explaining the following:

  • design
  • dealing with a client
  • information architecture
  • designing for your audience
  • using the color wheel
  • navigation
  • writing for the web
  • accessibility

If you’re new to web design or just need a good read on current best practices, I highly recommend this book.