My bookshelf
I have a few books I keep on my desk because they are written in way I find easy to understand. With respect to publishing on the web or general programming, there are two publishers I find I can turn to most of the time: Sitepoint and Murach. If you find others helpful, you will soon have a chance to share your thoughts here.
There are a good number of sites I visit for information and inspiration. I will have the links listed here as well.
I could begin with the mechanics of HTML or argue the benefits of dynamic content as compared to static. The fact of the matter is that packaging sells and if the site looks dull, people will not not visit or use the site. That said, CSS lets you make your pages look as professional or personal as you wish [ data files from the book HTML XHTML CSS].
People will not return to your site if the content
does not change. A content management system (CMS)
allows authorized people to create, update, or delete
content as desired - all without having to know any
programming. Think of how easy it is to use Facebook
, and you're thinking about a CMS.
The book I used to learn how to develop a CMS is Kevin Yank's
Build Your Own Database Driven
Web Site Using PHP & MySQL. I'm developing this on a Mac and it seems Apple is not
supporting MySQL any longer, so I had to
translate all the MySQL commands to PostgreSQL.
Additionally, my web server service is running a
very old version of PostgreSQL, so I had find and
utilize old logic and commands. This demonstrates
that in "theory" you can do most anything; in
"application" you must take what you have and make it
work. This site fills the gap between theory and application.
Good for you - a bit of work for me.
Not to sound like a purist, but if you don't have a
CMS built, the rest of the site is not likely to be
built. This is because it is so very labor intensive
to write and edit all content in the development
environment. Please trust me when I say to you
"Start here." Click the link on the left to
use a working example; click the link on the right
to see the files from the book.
A web site using a CMS is great as long as you have access to a network and the server. If there is a chance you may not have network connectivity, a secure network connection, or you want to have some control over the amount of data flying across the network, you can use extensible markup language (XML) to send or receive data that can stay with the machine holding the file (think of it as being like a shopping list you take with you to the store - rather than having someone at home on the phone talking to you as you shop).
Data is really just a set of facts that have little to no context. Information on the other hand is an asset that helps you make well informed decisions. Business intelligence (BI) and data mining are the subjects addressing how to give you the information you need without having to wade through all the useless data that often clutters your screen.
Information visualization is the art of presenting information in a way that instantly conveys the significance of the information (think of how an airplane's artificial horizon tells the pilot the plane's orientation relative to the planet rather than the pilot having to read roll, pitch, and yaw values some place).