HTML5: Up and Running

Author: Mark Pilgrim
Format: Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (August 25, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0596806027
ISBN-13: 978-0596806026

I became impatient with the history lesson in Chapter 1 and wanted to test drive HTML 5. What's different? What's new? Guess I'll have to work to find out. As the blurb I found at Amazon said of HTML5, It’s not one big thing. It's not a matter of learning a new markup language from scratch, which is both a good and bad thing. In fact, again to quote the author's blurb, “Upgrading” to HTML5 can be as simple as changing your doctype...In HTML5, there is only one doctype: !DOCTYPE html. That's encouraging, but just how easy is it to learn HTML5 and how easily can you learn it from Pilgrim's book? I went in search of the answers.

The first place I went was the book's Preface to see where I could find a link to the source code. I was pointed to the author's site Dive Into HTML5, which is the original book on which the book I'm reviewing is based, but it didn't have a clear cut link to anything called "source code". Maybe this is where It’s not one big thing comes back to bite me.

Chapter 2: Detecting HTML5 Features introduced me to Modernizr (yes, I spelled it right), which is a nifty JavaScript library that detects the HTML5 and CSS3 features your browser will support. It also creates a self-titled global JavaScript object containing the properties for each such feature. However, if your browser doesn't support certain HTML5 features, Modernizr won't fix it. But what about learning HTML5? We kind of got away from that.

Oh wait! Chapter 3: What Does It All Mean? helps. I found the link to a set of code examples which got me started. Then, as I progressed through the book and through the author's site, which runs in parallel and often in duplicate, I realized how the book was organized. This is no small feat, but maybe it was my expectations that made the task difficult. I was expecting a front-to-back guide to getting started with HTML5 and what I discovered was a collection of loose pieces in a box.

Learning HTML5 from Pilgrim's book is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. When you first open the box, all you can see are a collection of jumbled pieces that, taken at a glance, don't make a lot of sense. If you had never encountered a jigsaw puzzle before, you might look, become confused as to what these pieces mean lying in such disarray, close the lid, and walk away looking for something more comprehensible.

One missing pieces of the puzzle, so to speak, is a knowledge for HTML4. Imagine the raw code of an HTML4 web page. Now imagine that you are presented with a list of tags and other markup elements you're not familiar with. What are you supposed to do with them? How do they work? What do they replace (if anything)? Using Chapter 3 on his web site for an example, I tried to navigate around until I could find something I could sink my teeth into.

Got a lesson on DOCTYPE, history lessons on the root and head elements, lots of other stuff to scan past, a section called A Long Digression Into How Browser Handle Unknown Elements, more stuff...more stuff...then it began to register. I started to hit spots on the pages that said stuff like, this is how we used to do things (add example of old code) and this is how you do it in HTML5 (add example of new code). The information is there, it's just not organized and called out the way I wanted it.

I went back to the book, compared it to the same pages on the author's site and "got" the organization. It may be a matter of how I think vs. how the author thinks, but from that point on, it was easier to tease what I wanted to know out of the book's pages.

I think HTML5 is fabulous but I'm not sure that HTML5: Up and Running is the best book to use as an introduction. It most definitely is not the best book to use for an introduction if you aren't familiar with HTML in general. I'd recommend navigating the author's website before buying the book. If you "get" the website, you'll "get" the book. They're pretty much the same thing.

Using GIMP: Kindle Edition

It bothered me that all of my other books were available through Amazon except this one. Amazon is a nice place to point folks when they want to get a quick idea of my professionally published works. Finally, Amazon released the Kindle Edition of Using GIMP (July 2010). Now all the Amazon page lacks are a few reviews (sigh).

Coming in November: MCTS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Configuration Study Guide

I hate keeping secrets, mainly because I'm no good at it, but when you sign an NDA with a publisher, you can't tell people what book you're writing until the publisher starts marketing it. Finally this one showed up at Amazon (I'm doing the copy edits now) so I can talk about it.

Need to know the ins and outs of SharePoint Server 2010? Considering taking (and passing) the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Configuration (70-667) certification exam? That's why I wrote this book: MCTS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Configuration Study Guide (70-667).

Expect to see it available November 22, 2010 or pre-order now and avoid the rush.

It's Alive! Using GIMP is Now Available!

There were times when I thought I'd never see this day come, but my new book and my first eBook, Using GIMP is now available online.

I've never written a book like this before, so I'm a little nervous about how it'll be received. I'm sorry I don't have any "author's copies" to give out, but since everything is accessed online, QUE can't actually ship me any copies. Please give it a whirl and let me know what you think.

Review: Getting Started with Processing

Authors: Casey Reas & Ben Fry
Format: Paperback, 208 pages
Publisher: Make; 1st edition (June 17, 2010)
ISBN-10: 144937980X
ISBN-13: 978-1449379803

I return to the topic of "learning how to program" every now and again because I haven't found a truly painless way of teaching programming to people who aren't naturally wired for it. I don't know if Processing is the answer, but it sure seems to be in the running. It has the benefit of being an open source program written to appeal to graphic designers who need or want to learn programming. Let me explain.

I've reanimated my interest in drawing and graphics recently (a long story) and am doing most of my work in GIMP, with which I'm fairly familiar. GIMP has a lot of wonderful features and a few drawbacks. I've tried to augment with Inkscape, but I've got so many other projects going, it's hard to dedicate the time to really get familiar with Inkscape. Then I received an invitation to review Getting Started with Processing, written by the creators of the Processing program. I thought that was probably (hopefully) a good sign, so I jumped at it.

At only 208 pages, it seemed like this would be a quick read (and my stack of books to review is growing rapidly, so I need to work through a few). Quick reading, yes. Quick to get through, no. Not with the practice this requires. Processing is an interface that uses common programming syntax to create static, 3D, and animated graphics. It doesn't look like much when you install it, but the potential of Processing is amazing.

Installation though was the first of my concerns. If you have 32-bit Windows, it's probably your best bet, but the book said that trying to install Processing onto my 64-bit Windows 7 machine was chancy at best. Installing on Linux is fine if you are savvy enough to do the job manually and not with a package manager. While Processing is open source, you won't find it in the Ubuntu repositories so apt-get or aptitude aren't options. I only say this because more regular desktop users are gravitating to Ubuntu so the "average" Linux user may no longer be as comfortable in the shell. Oh, for the Mac users out there, there is an installation file for Processing that'll work for you.

In some ways, the basic process is fairly simple. Input the proper code into the main input pane, click Run and your graphic appears. Yowza! Just like that. There are plenty of exercises to try out in the book, but I really would have liked it if the authors would have made the location of the code samples for the book more explicit. I visited

You can find tutorials and code samples for Processing at Processing.org but I assumed the code samples would be included on the tutorials page. My fault. Click the image of the book's cover on the site's main page and go to the books page to find the zip file containing the sample code. Of course, the site tutorials have a lot more examples of really spectacular work, so beyond the book, you can really have fun.

Yes, along with creating some really cool images, you will learn programming basics, or at least how to copy the examples of for loops and such that are presented. Also, having some basic idea of how web graphics work helps, particularly understanding RGB color, as you have to manually enter these values as part of the code.

I know Processing has been around for awhile but I would have appreciated a little more automation in the interface. It would be nice to click File -> Save As -> and save an image as a png or a tif, but it's a little more complicated than that. It's easier (for me, anyway) to export an image so that it can be uploaded to a web server than to create and save a simple static graphic.

There are plenty of graphics engines out there, including open source solutions, but nothing is truly intuitive and everything requires quite a bit of practice to gain proficiency. Progressing is the pretty much identical, but the advantage is that you also learn programming basics at the same time. If you have even a little bit of a background in programming and algebra, you're that much further ahead.

Comparing the book to the possibilities I discovered on the Processing site told me that the book only covers the basics. You won't be a Processing guru by page 206, but you will have the essentials of the language (which is very simple) and the interface, enough to make your own static and animated designs. The interface itself has examples (File -> Examples, and then choose the desired submenu), so you can see the code and the result of specific effects.

I'm probably not doing the book or the program sufficient justice in my review, and while most graphic designers will probably want to stick with PhotoShop and Illustrator (though they're hideously expensive), there's a lot to be learned and to be accomplished using Processor. If you don't believe me, go to the Processor exhibition page and see some impressive examples of work done exclusively in Processor.

Other value added pieces on the Processor site include a wiki and an active forum, so if you decide to take up Processor, you're certainly not alone.

Visit their site, explore the resources, get the book. With computer generated graphics and animations entering their mature stage in film and other venues, learning Processing could be a first step to a life long adventure. Enjoy.