I knew nothing about html or css when I started. I found this "Visual QuickStart Guide" at a specialty reference bookstore in Australia. I spent 45min. that day, thumbing through beginner's web design books and nothing else even came close to this book for clarity and relevance. So off I went with my "QuickStart Guide" and for 2 weeks, I spent evenings & weekends reading this book and trying out code on my computer. Then voila! I had a website! Well... it worked well in different browsers on my PC but it took another 2 weeks to choose a host and get it all online. Still, that was pretty quick. If you haven't programmed at all before, it will probably take a little longer to get going (My previous experience: I did programming in c++ at university, years ago.) but I honestly don't think you'll find a better book for getting started. Once in a while I found a term in the book that wasn't super well explained. I was always able to figure out what it meant though, because the examples & such are so clear.