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Acknowledgements

The HTML Sourcebook, Third Edition

No book (particularly one as comprehensive as this) is written in a vacuum, and I have many friends to thank for their role in keeping the vacuum populated and the content accurate. First, I must thank Norman Wilson, both for designing the programs listen.c and backtalk.c, and also for his helpful reviews of chapters from previous editions. John Bradley and Sian Meikle were kind enough to review Chapter 3 -- their feedback and insights helped improve the chapter enormously. In the same vein, I must thank Steve Rapaport, who proofread the graphics sections of Chapter 10 and helped clarify some of the stickier points. Kelly Peters, my co-author for Chapter 12, helped enormously in making this a succesful section, and in particular added the valuable perspective of a Webmaster working in a commercial environment. And, of course, I must thank all my friends and coworkers at the Information Commons and University of Toronto Computing, whose kind words during the most trying moments helped make the whole task seem less impossible.

Most of all, I thank my wife, Ann, for here love and support throughout the long writing process. Ann edited most of the book, and at the same time kept me healthy and sane--not an easy task, I assure you! I owe her more than I can ever put into words.

Dedication (Extended with respect to Printed Version)

This book is dedicated to my friend, Mike Kibbee. Mike died on the eighth of March, 1997 after a six year battle with Hodgkin's disease. He was 33 years old.

In the last years of his life, Mike took up an active interest in the Internet and the Web (he was by training a civil engineer). He was quick to grasp the great changes this new technology were bringing, and found in this virtual world a way to stay socially active, when his body no longer let him participate actively in the physical one. Consequently, Mike was active in many cancer-related newsgroups, looking for answers, debunking those who offered false cures and hopes, and providing advice and comfort for those in need.

During this time he also developed the World Wide Web Cemetery, available at the URL http://www.cemetery.org/ He felt that, as the Web had become so much a part of his life, he wanted a way to make a permanent contribution to this community. The World Wide Web Cemetery is in this sense his legacy to the world.

Mike was a great friend -- a good listener, a good conversationalist, and a person who exuded enthusiasm and verve even in the last months when he knew his death was imminent. Mike and I used to spend hours talking about the latest in Web technologies, new things that would be "in the next edition", and about the future of it all. Even in the last painful months, Mike kept up an avid interest in my books, and was constantly asking how the writing was going, kindly reminding me that it was all worth it when I had the audacity to complain about the workload. Unfortunately, he died before I was able to show him the first printings of the third edition, and the dedication to him.

I miss him greatly.


Ian Graham The HTML Sourcebook, Third Edition
16 March 1996