An informal and personable writing tone is fine with me (in fact it's one of the reasons I appreciate some of my O'Reilly books), and in a web tutorial it's particularly acceptable. But for Pete's sake, do they really feel they need to try so hard to be cute and entertaining? The content's great, of course. I just was a little annoyed that, partway through, I had the sensation of being a kid posing for a photographer who kept waving a toy to keep my attention: "watch the birdie! watch the birdie!"

Yeah, it's probably the best rake tutorial I've seen but the cheesiness is more distracting than it is entertaining...