Required: Young, Margaret Levine. Internet : The Complete Reference, Millennium Edition. Osborne, 2002. Second edition. 0072194154. $39.99. This will serve as a general reference for the entire Internet for you. When we're talking about FTP (File Transfer Protocol), for example, you can read more about it in the text. I've not seen anything more current that goes into this level of detail. The text is available at no charge through the university library electronic books collection.

Recommended: If you feel the need to brush up on e-mail, FTP and related skills, investigate resources at the Office of Information Technology (www.oit.utk.edu). There are tutorials there on a wide variety of topics.

Supplemental:

If you are a beginner, or want to review HTML, I'd get Elizabeth Freeman and Eric Freeman, Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML, O'Reilly, 2006. $34.95. It's very friendly with lots of pictures and exercises, and good sound advice on cross-platform and Universal Design issues. It really is brain-friendly and engaging. Another option is Jennifer Niederst, Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to HTML, Graphics, and Beyond. Cambridge, O'Reilly, 2001. It combines both HTML and design issues with excellent and easy to understand examples. It's well balanced on a variety of issues, and gives good solid tips on good design. Another good beginner text is Elizabeth Castro, Creating a Web Page with HTML. Penguin Press, 2005.

I reviewed the current stocks at Barnes and Noble and at Borders recently, about a dozen and a half titles. There was one that gleefully told the reader how to let visitors to your site upload files from their hard drives into your server, with no mention of the horrendous security issues. There were several with non-standard coding. I scanned Niederst and had no large issues with it.

A good intermediate text is Elizabeth Castro's HTML for the World Wide Web, 5th ed. Peachpit Press, 2003.

If you've mastered basic HTML, I'd choose one of the "programmer's guides" or "inventories" of at least 4.0 tagging (I use Deborah S. Ray and Eric J. Ray, Mastering HTML 4.0. Sybex, 1997) (and if you work out, you can also use it for step-ups). Since the HTML standard was signed in 1997, an older work is fine - and you can rely on the W3C Web site for the 4.01 updates. I'd combine that with one of the general design books below.

Another good reference looks like Thomas A. Powell, The Complete Reference: HTML and XHTML. Osborne, 2003. 4th Edition.

Advanced users should strongly consider Molly E. Holzschlag's 250 HTML and Web Design Secrets. Wiley, 2004. It contains excellent chapters on XML, XHTML, and designing for the disabled among us.

For general purposes, any book published by O'Reilly has turned out to be clear and reliable.

Some design texts:

Vincent Flanders and Michael Willis. Web Pages that Suck. Sybex, 1996. $39.00. (A personal favorite. Learn good design from bad design. As Norm Abram says, craftsmanship is timeless.) See also their website.

Jennifer Niederst. Learning Web Design. O'Reilly, 2nd edition.

Crystal Waters. Web Concept and Design. New Riders, 1996. $39.99. (A little funky, and spirited.)

Linda and William Weinman. Creative HTML Design. New Riders, 1998. $39.99. (Linda Weinman is a graphic design guru, and does great stuff. Please read the reviews at Amazon.com and note the frequent references to typos, however.)

Robin Williams. The Non-Designer's Design Book. Peachpit Press, 1994. $14.95 (Basic principles for typography in general. Excellent work.)

Robin Williams and John Tollett. The Non-Designer's Web Book. Peachpit Press, 1998. $29.95