I was favourably impressed by the first edition of How to Set Up and Maintain a Web Site, so I am pleased to see it updated and expanded. The basic structure of the original edition is retained: an introduction to the Web and how it works; a chapter on setting up a Web server (this edition covers Apache, WebSite, and WebSTAR) and another on making it secure; chapters on HTML, tools for creating and processing it, and HTML style; and chapters on using server scripts and writing them (using Perl). New to this edition are chapters on Javascript and Java and a CDROM with the examples from the book, an assortment of tools, and lists of useful sites on the Web itself.

No glitz, no glamour, no hype, no colour photos, no ornamental graphics — How to Set Up and Maintain a Web Site just has clear explanations, informative examples, accessible information, and good advice. With its technical detail and sophistication (and assumption of general operating system skills), it is not for the newcomer to the Web who simply wants to set up a home page. If you are faced with the task of setting up a Web site, however, and want one volume to guide you, then this is the one you should get. Server administrators and users doing sophisticated Web publishing will find it a handy volume to have around.

A very minor peeve is that the back cover is, for no obvious reason, folded in and — as seems to be invariably the case when this is done — folded too short, leaving the cover unable to carry out its primary duty of protecting the back pages of the book. Otherwise the layout and design of How to Set Up and Maintain a Web Site are up to the same standard as its content. (I do wonder whether it is worth printing books about something as rapidly changing as the Web on acid-free paper, though!)

January 1997

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Related reviews:

- books about computing
- books about publishing
- books published by Addison-Wesley