That collection of books is a valuable resource for delving into the topics at depth (and at leisure). But when you need an answer fast, the dog-eared book you'll turn to again and again is the new third edition of "Webmaster in a Nutshell,"

This concise and portable quick reference distills an immense amount of information on several languages and technologies into one compact reference book. This is one book that will pay for itself a thousand times over in time saved and increased productivity.

"Webmaster in a Nutshell" puts a fast-paced introduction, detailed reference section, and quick reference guide to each technology all within easy reach. It's packed full of the genuinely useful information a webmaster needs daily, whatever the technology, including:

HTML

CSS

XML

CGI

JavaScript

HTTP

PHP

Apache

This thorough, clear, and accessible reference makes it easy to find the information you want about the technologies you use. You'll keep your other books on the shelf; you'll keep "Webmaster in a Nutshell" next to your keyboard.

This guide briefly tours the Web and covers basic HTML, tables, forms, and frames in a series of quick reads. (This discussion offers just enough information to jog the memory to proper HTML usage.) You'll get in-depth coverage of cascading style sheets (CSS), the Extensible Markup Language (XML), JavaScript, HTTP, CGI, and Perl. Stephen Spainhour and Robert Eckstein explore CSS in brief but do cover the pending W3C standard. They also provide a refreshingly quick overview of XML. To present JavaScript, the book makes excellent use of diagrams to illustrate the object hierarchy and the way the language works with windows and frames.

Webmaster takes on a decidedly public domain slant in its presentation of server configuration, primarily aimed at the freeware Apache server, and PHP, the freeware server-side scripting language. Even if you don't code with these tools, however, this book offers plenty of industry-standard reference. --Stephen Plain