Book Review: HTML5 Media

By Shelley Powers
Paperback: 138 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (August 17, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1449304451
ISBN-13: 978-1449304454

I understand that O'Reilly is publishing a series of hardcopy and ebooks that sport a rather modest page count in order to get the material to market very quickly. Shelley Powers' HTML5 Media is one of them. Please keep in mind this book isn't intended to teach you everything you want to know about HTML5 but rather, to show web developers how to insert HTML5 media elements into web pages using the new video and audio elements.

The book's front matter states that the target audience is web developers, authors, and designers who need to ramp up to using HTML5 video and audio elements fast. Hence the size of the book. No one wants to read through 800 pages when they need to do anything fast. Powers' book, with its scant 138 page count, is guaranteed to be a fast read...maybe. Actually, that depends on how much you already know. While the book doesn't require you have a lot of experience with actual video and audio files, you will need a background in CSS and JavaScript for this to make the most sense to you. Of course, if you are a designer or developer, that should go without saying.

While sample code is available, sample video and audio files are not. It's sort of a BYO...F (for files) affair. This is to keep the size of the downloadables manageable, so be prepared to have video and audio material of your own available (if you don't have much on hand, don't worry. Powers provides a number of resources where you'll be able to access what you need).

It's not just about the HTML...it's about the browsers. You can be fabulous HTML5 designer but if your browser (or your customer's browser) doesn't support the audio and video elements, you might as well not bother. IE9 or later is required, but you can also work with Firefox 3.5 or Chrome 6 and do just fine. If you keep your browsers current, you have nothing to worry about.

I got to work right away with what I learned on page 2, creating a basic audio page and, by adding the controls attribute to the audio element, I could play a sample mp3 I had on my computer (Sleep Away by Bob Acri using Chrome 9.0 on Windows 7, in case you wanted to know).

With my first minor success completed, I decided to download the sample files for the book and went back to the preface to look for the link...and didn't find it. I found the usual boilerplate text under "Using Code Examples" and while Powers says in the "Examples" section that there is a downloadable, I couldn't see where she provided the URL. Fortunately, I had already looked up the book's site at oreilly.com and easily found the correct zip file (and remember, when you try to work with these files, you'll need to provide your own video and audio material and change the default names to the names of the files you're working with in the sample code).

The book presents its content in four chapters which covers the default use of the video and audio elements, customizing the media elements (this is where CSS and JavaScript experience starts to come in handy), and other, more advanced material, including media elements in SVG documents.

Frankly, I found working with this book to be a blast. It's short enough to not be overwhelming to the reader and to impart a real sense of accomplishment very quickly, but dense enough to provide practical information that can be leveraged into actual, real-world web projects (not all books do this). Doing a bit of research, I took a look at some of the other books Powers has written including Learning JavaScript, 2nd Edition and JavaScript Cookbook. HTML5 Media is another fine example of her writing and another fine book from O'Reilly.

If working with media files in HTML5 sounds like something you want or need to do, I'd recommend picking up a copy of this book.

Sams Teach Yourself PHP and MySQL: Video Learning Starter Kit

Author: Sams Publishing
Format: Paperback: 80 pages/ DVD
Publisher: Sams; 1st Paperback/DVD edition (March 6, 2009)
ISBN-10: 067233027X
ISBN-13: 978-0672330278

Frankly, I'd prefer to work with a book or in a classroom setting. I can read faster than a person can speak in a video. OK, that contradicts my preference for the classroom, but in a class context, I can also directly interact with the instructor and the students. I can't exactly do that using a video. I know I keep telling everyone that I'm a visual learner, so you'd think that a DVD would be just about perfect, but I've always found them something of a problem. This isn't to say that video learning is bad in general or that this product is bad in particular. I'm just expressing my personal opinion before I move on.

I was initially excited to discover that I could use the DVD on any Windows, Mac, or Linux computer with a DVD drive. I've had problems with previous video tutorials that included movie files only readable on Windows. The Quick Start Guide reassured me that I wouldn't have a problem using Linux. Then, as I was about to rip open the packaging around the disc itself, I saw a piece of contradictory information. Specifically, the text on the packaging read, All the contents of the PHP and MySQL Video Learning Starter Kit are accessible on any DVD-equipped Windows or Mac OS X computer (emphasis mine). What?

It gets worse (from my point of view, at least). There are instructions on how to install PHP, Apache, and MySQL on both Windows and Mac but not on Linux. This seems rather mysterious considering we're talking about technologies that just thrive on Linux. Of course, if I have the need to install Apache/MySQL/PHP on Linux, I can just use XAMPP, but that's besides the point. I suppose Sams is playing to the majority desktop market, but that doesn't speak to those of us who spend the vast majority of our time using Linux for work and play. In fact, the vast majority of web developers and database people I work with in my "day job" use Linux on the desktop. Oh well. I still need to evaluate and review the content. Firing up one Windows XP computer.

I slipped the disc in my Windows PC and Adobe Flash Player 9 fired up flawlessly. The TOC is divided into Parts I through IV and each part contains various chapters or lessons. Part I for instance, contains the introductory lessons you'd expect, such as Getting to know PHP, Variables, Flow Control, and so on. Each lesson is divided into Lesson, Lab, and Quiz. I chose Flow Control to start with, just to get an idea of how things were presented.

The lesson on Flow Control honed in on conditional statements and loops. I'd recommend taking notes during the video lesson. I need to take notes, even when I read a book, because it's one of the ways I learn and remember the content, besides actually practicing the relevant tasks. The woman's voice reciting the lesson reminded me somewhat of those instructions airline attendants give when telling you, before your flight takes off, what to do in case the aircraft explodes or sinks into a lake. Actually, I felt fortunate that the visual content didn't include the author's appearance, which most of the time, is totally irrelevant. What I did see was pretty much a PowerPoint presentation.

Lesson 3 was fairly short, maybe five minutes or so long. This is another reason to take notes, since the content goes by very fast. To advance to the lab section, you are required to click the available link. This is also a slide show of sorts, but you click through manually, and there's no accompanying voice. Notes come in handy again since, unless you have a perfect memory, you'll need to refer to something as you're solving each problem. Once you complete each lab, you are able to click to see the output. At the end of a lab session, you can either click the link to repeat, or advance to the Quiz. In the quiz, you select an answer, but can't advance until you get the correct one. The quiz wasn't particularly extensive, which is good if you want to focus on material rather than tests, and bad if you need or want to test your memory of concepts and details.

The general formatting of the disc is good; that is, it's logical. I can see this content being used in the classroom to augment a standard curriculum, but I can't imagine learning these technologies using the DVD and Quick Start Guide (90 page mini-book) alone. I guess I'm old fashioned (which you must have guessed by now) in that I need to have access to more detailed content and/or something or someone I can query about what I'm trying to learn. That said, I can see the video answering questions I sometimes have about ambiguous content I've found in books. Having the same content presented in two different ways can fill occasional gaps. That means I'd need to have the full text book to accompany this DVD.

The content is appropriate for beginning students with little to no prior programming and database experience. For me at least, I'd need to have a platform running actual PHP and MySQL to practice on. Getting my hands dirty is the only way I'm able to learn this sort of material. I recommend setting up your system so you can do a little more than the labs suggest, but remember, the instructions for how to do that only cover Windows and Mac computers.

If you explore the disc, you'll find the eBook Teach Yourself PHP in 10 minutes by Chris Newman in PDF format. The book was published in 2005, but is still relevant to PHP 5.0. The eBook also includes some MySQL content, so it'll take you further than the flash material and the mini-book.

For the programming and database beginner, who may eventually want to get into putting together at least some basic web applications, this product should fit the bill. If you get to the point where you've become familiar with, if not mastered the content, I'm sure you'll want to pursue more advanced resources.

Review: Python Fundamentals (Video Training) (LiveLessons)

Author: Wesley Chun Format: Hardcover, 112 pages Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR; 1 DVD/Pap edition (January 2, 2009) ISBN-10: 0137143419 ISBN-13: 978-0137143412 Update: 2009/3/13 I finally tried out the suggestion from Pearson about getting the DVD to play on Ubuntu. Read the full update in the comments section for this blog post. Thanks. I've had bad experiences with training videos before, so I tend to shy away from them. Also, I can read much faster than a person can speak (that's not bragging, it's true of virtually anyone who can read normally) so in the same amount of time it takes to view a video training, I can read and (hopefully) absorb much more content. So what about Wesley Chun's Python Fundamentals videos? Let's have a look. As the list at the top of this blog attests, there is a book involved that's 112 pages long, but it only functions as an accompaniment to the DVD, which contains over 7 hours of video teaching by Chun. Actually, in a truer sense, the DVD should accompany Chun's book Core Python Programming (2nd Ed), also published by Prentice Hall. The DVD doesn't contain any new content but rather, presents the core concepts of the "Core" book in video, rather than text format. This is a matter of preferred learning style, not accessing video to access new information. In other words, if you have Chun's "Core" book (I do), then you have what's on this video. The blurb on the back of the DVD's packaging suggests that this video will work best with those who already have some Python experience. For you beginners, it does start with the fundamentals of Python syntax, standard types, and operations. The accompanying book is a distillation of the massive "Core" tome, formatted to fit the lesson plan on the DVD. Again, nothing new is presented. It's previously published content reworked to fit video. Frankly, after having gone through some of the lessons, I don't see why a person with virtually no Python experience wouldn't also be served by this product. Then again, keep reading to see if this video tutorial will work for you. Do I sound like I think Chun is "cheating" by recycling previously used content? In one way, it does involve only a little more work on the author's part, since all he has to do is adapt what he's already written. On the other hand, Chun has to shoot the live videos and the slides. I did this exactly once and I didn't think it was fun at all. Relating to a live class of real people is one thing, but talking to yourself as you're shooting little movies on your computer is (at least for me) darn awkward. Doing the "head shots" is the last step of making an instructional video (at least from the author's perspective), so don the neutral, short sleeved polo shirt, have a seat in the video studio, and start doing "takes". But enough of the process of making a video guide. How does this particular set of DVD lessons stack up? Some negatives immediately occurred when I slipped the DVD into my Ubuntu machine. It didn't play. Turns out that the disc is formatted to play on Windows and Mac only. Linux users need not try. Bummer, Prentice Hall. Fortunately, I keep a Windows computer around for just such an eventuality. The next "bummer" moment came when I was informed that the video plays best at a screen res much higher than is supported by the video card in my (older) Windows PC. It will still play, but you have to click past the prompt telling you to change the res to 1280 x 960. Ironically, Chun mentions towards the beginning of his lesson, that the student probably has Python on their computer if they have a Mac or UNIX-like machine such as Linux (though, he pronounces it "lee-nix" as opposed to "lin-ux"). There are 10 separate lessons contained on the DVD, but even the first or introductory lesson, is really made up of many, small movies that are only a few minutes long. You'll need to continue to click "next" after each small movie. This is probably a good idea if you plan on toggling back and forth between the video and practicing python. Of course, you can always pause the video to try something out. In my case, it would actually be better to run the video on my Windows machine and to practice on my Ubuntu (Linux) machine sitting next to it. In order to be understood by the maximum number of people, Chun was likely instructed to speak more slowly than he probably does in actuality, which gives his voice a slightly "unreal" presentation. It also makes everything go really, really slow...at least for me. Like I said, I can read much faster than a person can speak. While each lesson has an Exercises section in the accompanying book, there's nothing in the video that takes the student through the exercises. The video is pretty "static" in the sense that all it really offers the majority of the time is Chun's voice and a series of slides. It would be like watching a long series of small PowerPoint presentations while listening to the presenter on a speaker phone. Not quite what I was expecting. I was hoping to see Chun actually demonstrate using and developing with Python, which wouldn't be hard. All he'd have to do is take movies of his computer screen with him using the command line while explaining what he was doing. The DVD does contain an "Extras Folder" holding each chapter's sample code. so you don't have to write it all out yourself. Of course, most books have an accompanying website which usually holds sample code, so the only "value added piece" is that you don't have to download the code from the web. I know that one of the real markets for video training are classes given by companies who want to bring their staff up to speed on a particular topic. Such classes may or may not be used with a live instructor. I really didn't see why I'd use this DVD to learn Python as an individual if I had a good book at my side. I also don't see developers using this video in a classroom setting. For me, the only thing I'd like to add to learning Python from the "Core" book is the ability to either email or IM an instructor (Chun would be ideal, but I know he's busy) if I had a problem or question. Of course, there are plenty of programming discussion boards on the web available for this sort of "support". I like the people at Prentice Hall and their books. I like Chun, at least relative to his writing and knowledge of Python (I've never met him, so I can't say I "like" him as a personality, though I'm sure I would). I like Core Python Programming which I previously reviewed for Linux Magazine. I guess I'm not the kind of person who learns better using videos, at least not videos formatted as this one is. Unless you really hate using books and are completely addicted to video as your learning medium, you'll be better served learning Python from Chun's aforementioned text.