Web Design in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Preface

In the beginning, the Web was simple. When I first encountered it in early 1993 (working for O’Reilly’s Global Network Navigator), there was only one browser for viewing web pages, and it ran exclusively on the Unix platform. There were only about a dozen tags that did anything interesting. Designing a web page was a relatively simple task.

It didn’t stay simple for long. With the explosion of the Web came an avalanche of new technologies, proprietary tags, and acronyms. Even for someone who is immersed in the terminology and environment on a professional basis, it can be truly overwhelming. You just can’t keep all this stuff in your head anymore.

Since leaving O’Reilly’s Cambridge, MA offices for a freelance career, I never feel more alone than when I get stuck—whether it’s because I don’t know what audio format to use for a project, or I just can’t remember what tag uses that MARGINWIDTH attribute. And I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve been reduced to tears after battling a table that mysteriously refused to behave, despite my meticulous and earnest efforts.

It’s at times like these that I wish I could walk down the hall and get advice from an expert co-worker. Without that luxury at my home office, I do the best I can with the volumes of web design information available online (on the Internet, no one knows you have red, puffy eyes). Unfortunately, finding the answer to a specific question is a time-consuming and sometimes equally frustrating process in itself. Deadlines ...