“That plane wouldn’t fly.”

Oh yes … so it wouldn’t. In choosing a child’s toy for the cover, the aerodynamics of said toy would guarantee that the plane depicted would never take off (judging by the top wing, at least)! Thankfully, the same can’t be said about the book. So it’s with great pleasure that I unveil just a slight hint of the forthcoming second edition. And look! No dodgy aerodynamics this time! Just a set of very useful tools with which to ply your trade.

So, I said that I didn’t know if I ever wanted to write a book again. Apparently I lied.

As the image at the top of this post suggests (assuming that you are looking at the blog version and not a feed), I’ve been working on something new for SitePoint – what they are calling ‘The Ultimate HTML Reference’. I couldn’t possibly use the word ‘ultimate’ without getting all terribly uncomfortable and just so darned British and bashful about it. But hey ho, that’s what it’s called, and it has taken enough evenings for it to be getting close to ultimate – and it’s definitely been an ultimate pain the arse to put together! Please, if anyone ever asks me to write a reference book again – that’s to say one where you have a formula to follow and templates to complete rather than writing free-form as you would with a normal book – be sure to stop me signing on the dotted line ;-)

Writing a reference is not an easy task – this has taken about 5 months on and off, mostly late in the evening when my wife is asleep, the dog has (mostly) calmed down and I can concentrate on the task in hand, but only for as long as I can physically stay awake. And you can forget about such frivolities as playing Nintendo Wii! But now that the job is pretty much done, excepting a few minor amendments that may be passed my way to address, it feels pretty good to see the end result on SitePoint.com, all searchable and just waiting for the likes of Google and co to start indexing it. Once the initial rough edges are all smoothed out and all the in-house editing has taken place, it’ll then be printed in (their words) a ‘sexy hardcover’. Yay! A hard-cover author, no more of that second-class ‘trade paperback’ malarkey for me, I tells yer! For the next one I want to gilt edge, embossed and with some kind of fancy lazer-cut emblem on it, no less. Which is fine, because there will be no ‘next one’, or at least not a book of this format (ie, the reference kind).

In recent days, as I’ve been telling people at SXSW Interactive about the work I did on this, I used the analogy of having a child. When a mother has her first child, sure it’s hard work – and for a long time, too – but in most cases once the child arrives, the stresses and hardships get quickly forgotten because the baby is here, so never mind all that. And later, the parents think “Let’s have another child”, conveniently forgetting the hardships they faced before. But before long, the memories come flooding back. And so it was with this book. I’d mentally blanked any of the difficult moments from writing the first book, forgot that it can take over your free time when deadlines come around and technically this was a much more challenging book than the first one. But, like I said, the baby has arrived and I feel a bit like a doting father.

So, please do have a poke around the HTML reference and feel free to add comments (need to be a SitePoint member to add comments to any topic file). But if you feel like leaving a comment here, then that’s all good too.

Now, as I’ve no longer got to write about stuff, I’m going to settle back down and watch a nice film. And it’s bliss!

• Would it fill up a bus?
• A double decker?
• Would it fill up the space in my office?
• What about my whole house?

I tried working out the volumes but couldn’t believe the figure that was staring back at me, so I gave up on calculating volumes and assumed I’d made a mistake; instead I went for the old ‘how big would it stretch if … " routine. What I discovered was:

• If I were to stack each and every copy of the book that was sold up until June of this year, one on top of each other, it would reach a height of 393 metres.

So, naturally I then went searching for something that was about that height and discovered that my tower of books would be just 20 metres taller than the Empire State Building (actually the Empire State’s top floor tower – there’s another 230 feet from the top floor to the top of the lightning rod).

Now I just need to go to New York to see for myself what that really means. And as for that JK Rowling, I think hers would basically equal the volume of all of downtown Manhattan!

A little while ago I received the sales figures for the book covering the March-December period. I won’t say what the figures are, as I’m not sure if it’s something I’m allowed to state publicly, but at the time I wasn’t sure if the figure was average/good/excellent (I was later informed by on person that what I’d sold with this book was more than what they had sold with two different books, so that was encouraging). Because the book is a beginner’s book, it comes with a lower retail sale price than others published by SitePoint and as such I just missed out on making enough in sales to cover the advance but we don’t do this for profit, right?

I do actually enjoy the writing process and have since contributed to other books (Pro CSS Techniques and Web Standards Creativity), but there’s still nothing quite like having one all of your own and be able to say “I did that”. I’d definitely be interested in doing another complete book at some point, although right now it’s nice not to have to worry about deadlines and have to put other stuff (general life things) aside when there’s a chapter due!

Read Setting & Retrieving Accesskeys with JavaScript and DOM on Think Vitamin, and please do add a comment if you have some suggestions for improvements on this idea

[tags]javascript, DOM, accessibility, accesskeys, tutorial, vitamin, think vitamin[/tags]

Maybe you do, and maybe you don’t – or at least not as well as you thought you did. Paul Haine is certainly hoping that you don’t feel in any shame in putting yourself in the latter category otherwise his hard work on HTML Mastery will be for nothing. The book, which is due out in January (but you can pre-order on Amazon), goes beyond the simple basics that many of use on a day-to-day basis, looks at some of the lesser-known HTML elements and their uses (and, indeed, the lesser-known ones that deserve to stay lesser-known!). It’s a great refresher for people who think they know HTML pretty well but would like to really master the craft, a task that is helped greatly by the chapters on Microformats and a look at the development of XHTML 2.0 and Web Applications 1.0. But what really makes this book a great read is Paul’s writing style – if you’ve ever read any of his blog entries you’ll know he has a great sense of humour, and this has translated well to the topic at hand, a topic that, in the hands of others, could have been a very stuffy affair.

So, congratulations on the book, Paul – it’s another great addition to the web standards armory.

Pre-order HTML Mastery from Amazon

• Amazon US
• Amazon UK
• Other Amazon locations

[Disclosure: I provided the technical editing on the book, in case you're wondering how I know what it's like before its proper release!]

I’ve had a lot of things on the go recently and I’ve been remiss in not doing a bit of self-promotion (and promotion for fellow authors Dan Rubin and Jeff Croft) for a certain CSS book. Pro CSS is the title and it does exactly what it says on the tin – it teaches professional CSS techniques for web developers/designers who already have a good basic understanding of CSS and want to refine their skills even further.

The book’s publication date (as far as Amazon is concerned) is the 27th November, so hopefully I’ll be getting my hands on my copies very soon (and I can tell you from experience that it’s a great feeling, although probably not quite as momentous as the first time, so to speak).

I’m looking forward to seeing Jeff and Dan at next year’s SXSW Interactive where we’ll get the chance to raise a (no doubt Yahoo or Google-sponsored) pint for a real celebration.

• Buy it from Amazon.com
• Buy it from Amazon.co.uk

Just over two years ago, I made a point of calling in to the offices of SitePoint in Melbourne , Australia . I was in town, passing through as part of my year-long world travels, and wanted to meet some of the people there who I’d emailed and written a few articles for in the past. We did lunch. We spoke about writing. And I said that I didn’t think that I was up to writing a book by myself but I’d like the chance to do something.

That something turned out to be a job of tech-editing a book by Shirley Kaiser. I got the offer to do it about a week after we did lunch and thought ‘why not?’. It was a job I could do while on the travels – all I’d need to do was call in at Internet Cafes from time to time to get chapters for review and send back my comments changes.

The travels ended, I got back to the UK , but there was no sign of Shirley’s book. Then, in February last year, I got an email from SitePoint entitled ‘Potential Writing Opportunity’. That was then, and this is now – the potential writing opportunity was fulfilled, but what happened to Shirley’s book?

I have just received my complimentary copy of her book Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists, after my own book which I began writing months after editing hers. It’s strange that it worked out like that, and I feel for Shirley having to wait that long for publication (I was just itching to get my hands on the printed copy of my own book!).

A peremptory scan through the book this morning suggests that it’s not that different a beast from the versions that I originally reviewed, but after a year and a half my mind is a little hazy on the fine details, so I could be wrong!

What this book does really well, if I’m allowed to pass comment on something that I had a hand in, is that it cuts out a lot of the waffle and gets to the point very quickly. I’m a fan of the checklist approach (especially if the person reading knows some background info and is not a total newbie) and with this book you can also download easily printable PDF checklists, rather than scribble on the pages themselves (or break the spine of the book by photocopying pages … which obviously you wouldn’t do for copyright reasons, nudge., nudge, wink?).

I’m looking forward to finding some time to re-read the book from start to finish. Who knows, I might even read it in the van and pretend that I’m somewhere exotic, just to take me back to where I was when I originally worked on it!

Just a quick note to say I’ve had a little bit of time off and have just come back from Prague, my second time there. In traditional fashion, I’ve spent far too much of my free time after the event documenting it before it all evaporates. Note: the design of this travelogue isn’t up to much (I simply grabbed an old one and re-purposed it), but it’s the content I was really interested in. So, if you’re interested in finding out about Prague, try one of the links below:

• Prague travel diary
• All the Prague photos
• The Bone Church – photo set
• Prague Metro stations – photo set

Ya no, Ian–

You should proofread your book and TEST
each section before you presume to get money
by publishing it.
The last half of chapter 5 is a total fiasco.
Where do the URLs refer to ??????

You assume toooooo much.
I’m angry with you.
Maybe I should shit can yhour book and gbet myh montyt back. and go lto another book!!!!!!

To which I replied:

You should proofread your book and TEST
each section before you presume to get money
by publishing it.

I can assure you that each and every chapter is proof-read at several different stages.

The last half of chapter 5 is a total fiasco.
Where do the URLs refer to ??????

The images – assuming you are referring to the background images with various effects – are relative to the document that refers to them. These are in the complete code archive in chapter 4 – examples > background images. As ***** at SitePoint confirmed the other day, those examples should have been titled so you know where to find them and this will be addressed in any revision.

You assume toooooo much.
I’m angry with you.
Maybe I should shit can yhour book and gbet myh montyt back. and go lto another book!!!!!!

And you apparently feel that the way to ask for feedback is to be downright rude. I have one message from you which I received this morning that I was going to respond to personally this evening and I have been nothing but personable and helpful. However, your attitude towards me I find frankly disgusting. I have written a book that has received very good feedback from other beginners and do not expect to have to deal with this.

Next time you have problems, ask nicely – you’ll get far better results.

Well, could I possibly have expected it to end there? Or nicely? Well, whaddyathink? ;-)

Well, if you’re put off by "rudeness" you’re in the wrong business.
Moreover, only homosexuals and women are "put off" by "rudeness".
Which are you?
Parenthetically, only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day heat.
How’s THAT for rudeness?
If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen and volunteer for Iraq.
How’s that for additional rudeness?

Nice, eh? I bet you’re all looking forward to the day that this fine gentleman learns the ropes of web design and starts pitching for work aren’t you. I wasn’t trying to feed the troll, honest – he just helped himself!

What would you do if you got a note like this – particularly after you offered to help said ‘gentleman’ with the issues he was having?