Beginning HTML5 and CSS3: Next Generation Web Standards, by Christopher Murphy
Filed under: CSS, CSS3, HTML5, Non-fiction, book review, web design
This is a new and very exciting book on modern use
of HTML5 and the new CSS3 techniques. If you are a web developer, then Beginning HTML5 and CSS3 is a great introduction to the new features and elements of HTML5; all the leaner, cleaner, and more efficient code you’ve hoped for is available now with HTML5. Aslo, you will find new tools that will allow you to create more meaningful and richer content. For everyone involved in web design, this book also introduces the new structural integrity and styling flexibility of CSS 3. This means better-looking pages and smarter content in your website projects with less work than before.
Beginning HTML-5 and CSS3 provides an in-depth look the new capabilities—including audio and video—that are new to web standards. It also addresses the new HTML5 structural sections, plus HTML5 and CSS3 layouts. You see how to create transitions and animations with new technologies.
- Cutting-edge web development techniques with HTML5 and CSS3
- The new features of HTML5 and how to work with HTML5 and CSS3
- The new web standards being implemented by all the major web browsers
- How to work with the new HTML5 structural sections
- How to create HTML5 and CSS3 layouts
- How to create transitions and animations without using Flash
- New web typography solutions
- A new vision of web development with HTML5 and CSS3
This book is for web developers and anyone involved in web design who wants to embrace the new web standards and cutting-edge features of HTML5 and CSS3. With a practical, accessible approach, this book is for anyone who wants to push their websites forwards with the latest technologies.
Judas Unchained, by Peter Hamilton
Filed under: Peter F. Hamilton, Science Fiction, bestseller, book review
Set in the 24th century, bestseller Hamilton’s richly satisfying space opera is both a sequel to Pandora’s Star (2004) and the second half of one dauntingly complicated,

wonderfully imagined novel. In the far future, mankind has prospered under the control of the hegemonic Commonwealth, led by the charismatic Nigel Sheldon. Part of the reason for this prosperity is the adaptation of a new wormhole technology developed by Sheldon. Wormholes are generated iteratively and used to create a series of intergalactic railway tunnels linking distant planets with a simple train network.
When Pandora’s Star ended, the worlds of the Commonwealth were under devastating attack by the alien race called Prime. The Prime are a hive-mind organism that was freed by accident from a force field that had been placed around their star by an unknown race.
In the war that followed, twenty-three inhabited Commonwealth-worlds were lost. Millions of people died and millions refugees. In Judas Unchained, we meet again the major players of the Commonwealth as they seek to come to grasp with the treath and mobilize against it. But a second enemy, another mystical alien force, is appearing on the radar of some of the actors in the plot as well – the Starflyer. The Starflyer may potentially be even more dangerous to the human race.
The Guardians, a splinter group believed to be a terrorist organization, have for a long time expressed their belief in the Starflyer’s existence. Now more and more others are being convinced that what they say is true. The Starflyer, argue the Guardians, deliberately manipulated humanity into war with the Prime, so that both species would be weakened. The Starflyer apparently has agents – humans that it controls – all over the Commonwealth.
Once again, Peter F. Hamilton proves himself capable of writing large scale space opera. In a multitude of subplots, Hamilton adroitly leaps from the struggles of one engaging, quirky character to another. Meanwhile, the main action expands and the super-scientific weapons become increasingly terrible.
Hamilton writes excellent action sequences, and his characters are interesting. For any fan of science fiction, Judas Unchained is one to read!
Lars Kepler – the pseudonym that aspires to be the next Stieg Larsson
The Hypnotist (Hypnotisören) is the latest huge crime novel in Sweden. The first novel by a new and unknown author, Lars Kepler. Big hype, huge expectations about a new series of novels featuring a new interesting heroine, Detective Inspector Joona Linna. The book was an instant best seller in Sweden. The rights to the book has been sold internationally to more than 30 countries worldwide, including the U.S.
The plot is interesting. A father, wife and daughter are all brutally murdered as part of an attempt to wipe out an entire family. The police have to race against time to find the one surviving daughter before the killer does. The only way they can achieve this, is to convince a doctor, against his better judgment, to hypnotize the son who barely survived the killer’s attack.
Then it was revealed by the media that there is no Lars Kepler. Lars Kepler does not exist. Huge sensation. Lars Kepler turned out to be a pseudonym for two literary authors, husband-and-wife Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril, now writing under the pseudonym Lars Kepler. They have so far barely been able to sustain themselves economically by their writing. Now they wanted to make money. And in Sweden, crime fiction writers make big money. And, of course, when in Sweden, do as the Swedes. So they decided to write crime fiction, using a cool name.
According to Jan Guillou, they have achieved their goal already: the book and rights have so far netted them 15-20 million SKR. Not bad. Or?


