IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft Access Developer's Guide to SQL Server
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Andy Baron, Mary Chipman
Rating: 5/5
Title: Microsoft Access Developer's Guide to SQL Server
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Andy Baron, Mary Chipman
Rating: 5/5
If you are an Access developer and you want to start writing professional database programs with SQL Server then this is the book to get. Even if you're already writing programs with SQL Server as your database, believe me, you need this book, too. You are sure to learn enough in the first 15 minutes to justify the price.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Essentials
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP Essentials
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 4/5
I read the reviews of the Professional PHP Programming book, and noted a lot of people said there were typos in that book, even though it was very good otherwise. As a PHP novice, I cannot afford to muddle through a typo-ridden book. So I looked at Web Applications With PHP 4, and that book was so advanced that the *first* chapter is titled "Advanced PHP" -- no install guide or anything else.This book, PHP Essentials, is geared toward not only PHP newbies, but also people who have never programmed anything in any language. That's a little bit basic even for me, as I do at least know Perl and JavaScript. But it looked better that the first two books I tried, so I bought it.I don't regret buying it. It is written in such a simple, friendly manner, that I was able to breeze through the first half in about an hour. If you're good at HTML, and you're looking to get into programming, this may be just what you need. This book will teach you, in basic terms, how to create if-else statements, what the proper syntax is for PHP code, how it integrates into the HTML page, what variables are, how to capture form data and write it to a file or database, how to send email from a Web page, how to send HTTP headers (so you can set cookies and do redirects), and it will step you through building a shopping cart system.Now, if that were it, this book would be a five star book. However, being that I do have some programming background, and did have some idea of what PHP could do, let me tell you why I gave it four stars instead of five. First, there are some technical inaccuracies, such as the statement that Netscape 3+ supports style sheets (Netscape 3 has zero support, it's only Netscape 4+). But that's not bad. Second, nowhere does she address the "gasp, mixing HTML and code" programming debate. And finally, as another reviewer said, this book really is just the essentials, and I think it's not even that. Because there is a whopping omission: how to create a file that pulls in other files, like Server Side Includes. While the book covers how to open a file and read/write to it, the book never goes into detail about just linking in a file. This is important, because it's a fundamental feature. In fact, PHP has two commands for doing it, and neither one is mentioned, not even in the commands listed in the appendix.So, if you're new to PHP and new to programming in general, this is a good -- great -- introductory book. You could learn the basics of programming with this book, and put yourself into a better paying job! But if you have some programming background, or even some PHP background, this book isn't going to feel very thorough.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Transact-SQL in 21 Days (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Lowell Mauer
Rating: 1/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Transact-SQL in 21 Days (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Lowell Mauer
Rating: 1/5
I regret wasting my money on this book. It is simultaneously pretentious and banal -- its lone accomplishment as a book. You will not learn Transact-SQL in 21 days or 21 months using this text. It is mostly a reproduction of the vendor documents. You would be much better served to get Inside SQL Server or the Guru's Guide to T-SQL if you want to get your feet wet with Transact-SQL
Product: Book Textbook Binding
Title: MCSE Training Guide: SQL Server 6.5 Administration (Covers Exam #70-026)
Publisher: New Riders Pub
Authors: Brad McGehee, Chris Miller, Wayne Smith, Deanna Townsend, Stephen Wynkoop
Rating: 4/5
Title: MCSE Training Guide: SQL Server 6.5 Administration (Covers Exam #70-026)
Publisher: New Riders Pub
Authors: Brad McGehee, Chris Miller, Wayne Smith, Deanna Townsend, Stephen Wynkoop
Rating: 4/5
Never used Sql before this book. Easy to follow and the exercises were easy to understand and do. Used it with the On-line books and passed in 11 weeks. Few corrections needed (memory allocation). Found the answers in the On'line server books. This was a good resource. The test questions were good. Do not under estimate this test.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Teradata SQL: Unleash the Power
Publisher: Coffing Data Warehousing
Authors: Tom Coffing, Mike Larkins
Rating: 4/5
Title: Teradata SQL: Unleash the Power
Publisher: Coffing Data Warehousing
Authors: Tom Coffing, Mike Larkins
Rating: 4/5
This is an excellent resource that will teach you most of what you need to know to be successful in your Teradata environment. These guys communicate in a very easy to read, easy to understand way. I utilize my copy almost every single day to answer questions as they come up. If you use Teradata on a regular basis, this book should sit beside your computer.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Bible
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Alex Kriegel, Boris M. Trukhnov
Rating: 4/5
Title: SQL Bible
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Alex Kriegel, Boris M. Trukhnov
Rating: 4/5
So far the book itself looks good, but the trial version of IBM DB2 on the CD-ROM expired in Nov of 2004 according to page 611 (conveniently not mentioned on the book cover). The artwork on the CD-ROM itself claims that the CD-ROM has a trial version of MS SQL Server 2000 but if it is on there I can't find it.
IBM does have a trial version of DB2 available for download from their website.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Beginning Php 4 (Programmer to Programmer)
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Chris Lea, Allan Kent, Ganesh Prasad, Chris Ullman
Rating: 4/5
Title: Beginning Php 4 (Programmer to Programmer)
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Chris Lea, Allan Kent, Ganesh Prasad, Chris Ullman
Rating: 4/5
I like this book and highly recommend it. It is good for people who are new to PHP but not so good for people who are new to programming. I've done a lot of programming in other languages and needed to learn PHP in a big hurry for a project that I was about to take on. This book got me up to speed fast. I'm inclined to think that a lot of the negative reviews are from people without any programming background. I agree this book is not the right place to start if you are a non-programmer. I've also done a fair amount of html prior to reading this book, I found that it's html section and php techniques for generating forms was really excellent, I learned some really great things!As far as depth goes, such as discussing details of the functions. Well, that's what the php manual is for (www.php.net). Initially I tried to learn the language from the php manual alone but didn't get very far, I couldn't see the forest because the trees were in the way, eg too much detail without a big picture. What this book does is to focus on the big picture of how and why to do something. It also shows multiple approachs to the same problem and compares them so that you get an idea of the alternatives and trade-offs.Starting from not knowing php to writing some very sophisticated programs... I learned it all with two books and the manual. The other book that I read is PHP Developers Cookbook. The two books are very complimentary, there is not that much overlap between them instead they fill each others gaps. Note that the "Cookbook" is more advanced and assumes that you already know a lot of php.Okay, the one big gripe that I have is their lack of proof reading. They must have really rushed this to press. There are literally hundreds of errors and the errata sheet is incomplete. However it is easy to get past the errors as long as you don't make the assumption that the text is always correct. In other words, if something doesn't make sense then you should be suspicious of an error instead of always assuming that it's your lack of understanding.The necessity of Rewriting the code examples is a little annoying, but the book can hardly be faulted for language changes that were made after the book was published. PHP is a rapidly moving target, no book will ever be current for very long. And besides, the best way to understand a program is to take it apart and rewrite it, that's why they are called "Examples". (most of the changes needed are trivial). Mostly what you need to do is to change $varname to $_REQUEST['varname'] and that will fix it. If you are having trouble finding the correct variable then use phpinfo();to get a list of all of the available variables, then you just pick what you need from the list and put a $ in front of it.
(...)By the way, the code examples can be downloaded from their website which can save a lot of typing...
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7 Administrator's Guide
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Ron Talmage
Rating: 2/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7 Administrator's Guide
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Ron Talmage
Rating: 2/5
Not a very good book...Indide SQL Server by Ron Soukup is much better. The index in the back doesn't have hardly anything in it; I can never find what I'm looking for. When I do find it, there is never very much content on the topic, just a little fluff and some screenshots.There's the occasional nugget, but I wouldn't search through all the junk to get to it.
Product: Book
Title: How to Use Google : The 30 Most Important Tips, Hacks and Tricks
Publisher:
Authors: Tod Sacerdoti
Rating: 1/5
Title: How to Use Google : The 30 Most Important Tips, Hacks and Tricks
Publisher:
Authors: Tod Sacerdoti
Rating: 1/5
I feel totally cheated by this ebook! About 95% of the information in this tiny 13 page publication can be easily found online right on Google's website. Just go to http://www.google.com/options/ where you can read all about the Google Tools mentioned in this ebook and then go to http://www.google.com/help/features.html where you can learn how to use all of the features listed in the book. I did not see one bit of information that I would consider to be either a "hack" or a "trick". If you just want to give away the $1.99, send it to your favorite charity.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 2000 Developer's Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Michael Otey, Paul Conte
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server 2000 Developer's Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Michael Otey, Paul Conte
Rating: 5/5
Excelent book. Clear explanations,cover all areas,full with examples,error free.This book is writen from developers for developers.Not for absoulte begginers,this book goes in advanced topics very fast.Before to notice, you will start to write advanced queries,triggers...DML and DDL are explainded so clear,they look so simple now,AFTER this book... Highly recomended!!
