Texts and Tools
Texts
Required
Williams, R. & Tollett, J. (2005). The non-designer's Web book, third edition. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press. Available at the SDSU Campus Book Store in person, by mail, online or at your favorite book retailer.
Hoffman, B. (2006). Homer. Available to download free from this site in .pdf form (you'll need to print it yourself), or obtain a hard copy from SDSU Book Store in person or via Email.
Optional
Bruce, B. (2003). Sam's Teach Yourself Macromedia Dreamweaver MX in 24 Hours. The basics and beyond for those interested in a bit more depth than the QuickStart Guide. And it's authored by our own Betsy Bruce!
Towers, J. (2003). Macromedia Dreamweaver MX for Windows and Macintosh (Visual QuickStart Guide). An excellent introduction to how to use Macromedia Dreamweaver.
Lynch, P.J. & Horton, S. (1999). Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites. A sober companion to Williams & Tollet. A version of this text is available on-line.
Tufte, E. R. (1990). Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. Tufte is the person when it comes to displaying information. Read anything by him, but this is his latest.
Tools
See resources (on campus or on line participants) for links to downloading software. Youll need the latest versions of:
- Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. (While IE is the most commonly used browser, Firefox renders web pages more accurately. As a web designer you should have both.)
- QuickTime Player (free, but you may need to download it if you use Windows).
- Macromedia Flash Player (free download from Macromedia's website. If you're taking the course online, you need this plug-in to use Breeze).
- Microsoft Word
- On-line students: a microphone (internal or external) and headphones to speak during live WebCasts.
Recent versions of:
- Adobe Photoshop or some other image editing software (see Homer for some free alternatives).
- Macromedia Flash (free 30-day trial version is sufficient for this course, but don't download it until you need it, or it'll expire prematurely).
- Macromedia Dreamweaver (you'll need it throughout the entire course, so the 30-day free trial version probably won't be sufficient).
- Apple iMovie or Microsoft MovieMaker (both of these come free with their respective operating systems).
You'll also need:
- A stable and reliable e-mail account that handles attachments, filtering and storage.
- A free on campus e-mail account and web space is available on ROHAN. Please visit Student ROHAN Computer Account Procedure or ask your instructor for more detail.
- Most Internet service Providers (ISPs) offer mail accounts and web space. Yahoo offers free e-mail accounts that support attachments and filtering and free web space.
- A Web account to post your projects. Be sure you have an account that allows you to use FTP (File Transfer Protocol). For example, Yahoo/Geocities free accounts, which are fine for email, do not allow FTP. You have to pay extra for that. If in doubt, we recommend using a free SDSU Rohan account.
Note: America Online (AOL) is not an Internet Service Provider but an online service provider that indirectly offers access to the Internet. While you may use their browser to surf the Web, it is not what 80% of web surfers use and their email can cause problems with attachments. We recommend that you consider another ISP if you have AOL.
