Which IT/Design learning books are the best?
 

Which ones were the easiest for you to use and which did you learn the most from?

The Sams Teach Yourself? For Dummies? O'reilly? Wiley publishing's "The Bible" books?

I'm learning some new skills in my free time and I'm wondering which books I should buy.
I've used the Sams books before....they're ok. Some people have said great things about O'reilly books, but I'm afraid they'll be over my head...more like reference books for people who already know what they're doing as opposed to books for beginners.

Please share your experience.

plskthx

I buy used books from Barnes and Noble online for less than $5.00 - I've picked up everything from PHP books to Cold Fusion... great resource if you're going to be purchasing soon... the books look like they've never been touched most of the time.

O'reilly for the win

also no starch press does good books

http://www.amazon.com/Information-Da.../dp/0596100167

http://gettingreal.37signals.com/

ORA. Always.

I use google.

By ORA do you mean O'reilly?

Also, do you think those are good for beginners? Some of them seem a bit complicated to me.

I'm gonna bump this one last time. I'm sure there are a ton of self taught geeks who post and/or lurk here who could point me in the right direction.

I use O'Reilly, but I tend to agree with you they are a bit advanced and tend to specialize.
Why don't you post the skills you are trying to pick up and maybe people can recommend books on that subject? Generally I create a shortlist, then go down to the book store and browse the books and see which one I feel more comfortable with rather than stick with just one publisher.

The bookstores here really suck, so I'm gonna have to order online.

For a project that I may get an opportunity to work on later this year, I was told that I should learn all of CS3, and javascript and xml would be useful.
I have SAMS Teach Yourself CS3 all in one and I'm working my way through it, but it's not going to be enough....it's really more of an overview of each program without really getting to journeyman status on any single one. I'm gonna need a much bigger book OR I'll have to get separate books for each program.

There's also a custom program they use that there are no books for....but it works mostly by using logic statements, like else if, do while, etc....so some sort of beginning programming book is probably in my future as well.

PHP seems to be a really good skill to have these days...although I'm thinking, the more important thing may be to learn how to use logic statements and stuff like that...and after that you can use almost any programming language if you learn the specific syntax.
I may be wrong about that so don't flame me if I am...just point me in the right direction.


Anyways, what I'm getting at is that I've wasted a shitload of money on computer books in the past. I bought a "teach yourself red hat linux in 10 minutes" years ago and still don't know shit about red hat linux.
So many books are way over my head and they're probably written more for people who are just learning the new version of program X....not people who have never used program X.
On the other hand, I've had books on photoshop that were 300 pages long but the only thing they taught you to do was import pictures from a camera or scanner and use the crop tool.

I really need to find the middle ground. :helpme

best way to find a good book is to hit up amazon and just look at the reviews

only way i pick up books now :)

I like OReilly's and Wrox and Sitepoint.

I agree with ticals suggestion to look up reviews, but I still like to visit the bookstoore if I get the chance.

Also have you looked up online resources/tutorials? W3Schools is great to begin with. I picked up whatever CSS/Javascript and XML knowledge that I have online.

thats great!!!!!!!!!!

www.vtc.com or www.lynda.com I find it better the monkey see monkey do method.