Acknowledgments

Like all we will do in life, the road toward a body of work starts long before any book comes hot off the press. Looking back, I'd say my road toward writing this book started from two directions. There is one path that built the body of knowledge needed to fill a book, and there is another path that led to the process of communicating with a publisher and having this book actually materialize.

For the first path, I am indebted to numerous people through my life that have allowed me to develop my web authoring skills. I could go further back, but my direct curiosity of the Web began as a teenager living in Vermont. In 1996 I built a website for Rainbow Organic Fiber Mill, an organic cotton fabric company started in North Bennington, Vermont, by Bryant Rayngay. And although it never went live, it was the first time I hand-coded a complete website from scratch, and my interest was forever piqued. In the years after my skills developed, particularly with the help of Sean Murphy, webmaster at College of the Atlantic. I owe many thanks to Sean, who during my undergraduate college years allowed me tremendous opportunity and free reign to explore and develop my skills as his assistant webmaster on http://coa.edu and eventually opened the door that allowed me to design and implement the appearance of the site for many years. Thanks also to Jared Vorkavich and Taeil Kim, who allowed me space to develop my visual design, interactive, and web authoring knowledge during my time in graduate school. These people and more indirectly and directly created the steps that allowed me to build my web knowledge to what it is today.

The other path that brought this book into existence began many years ago when I lost the opportunity to be a technical editor on a book to my adept friend Eric Kramer, who scooped up the position we both applied for. But as the project got underway, another editor was needed, and on Eric's recommendation I was brought into the project as well. This was a book by Rich Shupe for O'Reilly Media, and since that first book, I edited two more books by Rich, who requested me as reviewer. Thanks to Eric and Rich, because without them I likely wouldn't have become involved in publishing as much as I have. Reviewing technology books with a discerning eye and seeing the process of producing a book gave me the confidence that I could do it myself. These projects also led to book editing opportunities with Peachpit Press and last but not least, Apress.

Thanks goes to Ben Renow-Clarke of friends of ED, who got the ball rolling on this book, and Jennifer Blackwell and the rest of the Apress team for their patience and guidance as this book got underway. Thanks to my technical reviewer, Jeffrey Sambells, who pleasantly surprised me with his astute error-finding skills. Also, thanks to Paul Haine for laying the groundwork for this book with his authorship of HTML Mastery.

Thanks to my colleagues at AUT University, who created the opportunities for me to both further develop my web skills and write about it at the same time. Specifically Gudrun Frommherz, who helped structure my teaching schedule to give me more time to write, and Abhi Kala, who kept the Digital Media department alive during many nights of writing (also thanks to Abhi for shooting my author photo for this book). Thanks also go to the numerous people behind the helpful pseudonyms that popped up on the WHATWG IRC channel and answered questions when I was confused about something in the HTML specification.

Special thanks goes to Whitney Traylor for putting up with my distraction and preoccupation as I began writing this book, and, lastly, thanks to my brother, Orson, for always being enthusiastically interested in talking about and sharing web development knowledge.

—Anselm Bradford