That's Dr. Nicholas Longo, the guy who founded CoffeeCup. The book is titled My Website is Better Than Yours and is just under 300 pages of web designy goodness. You can get it as a .pdf file from the online store; I predict it'll be one of the best $19 purchases you'll make.

Part 1 (first 5 chapters) is pretty basic stuff, but it's a good review if you know how to do basic HTML and it's critical if you don't. He doesn't assume you know a thing, and IMNSDHO he presents the material very understandably. You'll even get a primer on using FTP software to publish your site manually.

I'm just over a third of the way into the book and already I'm into forms, using scripts, and handling style sheets. I can only imagine how far he's going to go in the next 200 pages!

Definitely should purchase this book unless you're already a guru.

Thanks for the info. I will check it out.

I hope this is topical: I wanted a hard copy of the book so I can more conveniently read it. I just got a quote from my local Staples store for under US$30, spiral bound with a clear front cover and a black plastic back cover. I was able to e-mail them the file, and I expect to be able to pick it up on the way home from work today.

Just throwing that out there in case anyone is put off by not having a physical book in hand.

I like the deconstructions of various sites in the book.

I've been meaning to ask how current it is since it's dated quite a few years already. I was thinking of purchasing it myself a little while ago, but can't seem to find a whole lot of info on it on the site so I just keep putting it off. If you have some idea of how current the info is guys, I'd surely appreciated it

Well, at least the edition online at this site is copyright 2007, so it's not that old per se. It does show a lot of old tags but then also lets you know which ones are not supported in XHTML, deprecated in HTML 4.01, etc. It also includes how to format from style sheets instead of using those older tags.

There is work in progress to correct earlier mistakes, I don't know about updating.

Thanks guys, I'll give it some thought and see if it's something I really need to do or not yet

After having equired, I have learnt that there will be a 3rd edition of the book some time soon-'ish'. The current book is pretty mu ch up to date, though.

awesome, thanks Inger for checking on that