IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Google: The Missing Manual
Publisher: O'Reilly Rating: 5/5
Title: Google: The Missing Manual
Publisher: O'Reilly Rating: 5/5
Who would buy or need a computer book on how to use a web search engine? Maybe a person who has ever been to Yahoo.com and is hit with a hundred or so choices of where to click to make an attempt to get what you need, but to write an entire book on how to use Google, the world's simplest and most accurate search engine. What a waste was my first thought?
I knew and use some of the features that lie in the menu above that search box like "Images" when I am looking for a certain picture or "News" for "Up to The Minute" stories but since the book was part of O'Reilly's "Missing Manual" series so I knew it would be well written and good so I figured it would be worthwhile reading. Google: The Missing Manual goes into detail about how this "magical" search engine works and some amazing (and scary) things it can do.
The book opens with a bit of history about Google, which was a concept of two Stanford College grad students in 1995 that had an idea to create a search engine that would rank search results not on data that could be manipulated by web masters but would return results based on the strength of the Internet itself.
The rest of the book is divided into four parts, "Search Techniques", "The Unknown Google", and "Google For Webmasters". Almost all computer users will learn something new from the "Search Techniques" part of the book while "The Unknown Google" goes into detail on Images, News Groups, Shopping and Directory searches. "Search Tools" is an excellent section on how to easily get the most out of your Google searches although much of the info offered relates to Windows users (not Mac) and I found "Google For Webmasters" most interesting since I dabble in webdesign as a hobby.
Overall the book is an interesting read and very informative for anyone who wants to save time and use their time online more efficiently or for a person who relies heavily on the Internet as a source of information. If you are person with a webpage or website, the book is worth the price of admission to increase your Google (and other search engine) rank.
Art Payne - Michigan Apple User Group
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Database Administrator's Guidebook
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Carl H. Speshock
Rating: 5/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Database Administrator's Guidebook
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Carl H. Speshock
Rating: 5/5
Carl is a working DBA. He has a deep grasp of the cluster environment and what it takes to keep SQL Server working. He is very interested in presenting the material in the clearest form. If you do not have this book buy it. The information is worth it.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Advanced Oracle PL/SQL Programming with Packages (Nutshell Handbook)
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 4/5
Title: Advanced Oracle PL/SQL Programming with Packages (Nutshell Handbook)
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steven Feuerstein
Rating: 4/5
I like this book but it could have been better if it dealt with PL/Vision alot less and about Oracle Package construction in general alot more. The book is more of a 30-70% split in favor of PL/Vision. It was very helpful, but it seemed like an ad for the writer's software at times.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ryan Stephens, Ron Plew
Rating: 2/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ryan Stephens, Ron Plew
Rating: 2/5
I have to believe that anyone who read this book and claimed that it was free of typos either doesn't know how to read or didn't learn a thing. This book is so filled with typos that I wouldn't have learned a thing if this weren't the second book that I have read on SQL and help from a friend of mine. The typos were not of the missing comma sort, they were entirely missing joins in statements that wouldn't work without them, wrong answers in the answer key, answers to questions that weren't even asked and a bucket full of missing semi-colons.This book is clearly a very beginner book it basically touches (and when I mean touches, I mean it lightly caresses) just about everything. Another thing that I couldn't understand is the way the author wouldn't tie the examples together. In one statment you create a new temp table in the next statment you are deleting a temp table but it has a different name and you never created that table to begin with.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Test Yourself MCDBA SQL Server TM 2000 Administration (Exam 70-228)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Stephen Giles, Glen Martin, Syngress Media Inc
Rating: 3/5
Title: Test Yourself MCDBA SQL Server TM 2000 Administration (Exam 70-228)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Stephen Giles, Glen Martin, Syngress Media Inc
Rating: 3/5
This book has some good information, but it's obvious that they skipped all the steps needed to locate the errors. It's supposed to have the correct answers for test questions. However, multiple times up to chapter 7, I'm finding that the answer key is off, obviously off by getting the numbers mixed up and so on. This book can still be helpful, but it's very disappointing to find this many errors after paying good money for the book. I'd consider going to other publishers before buying again from these people.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle SQL & PL/SQL Annotated Archives
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Kevin Loney, Rachel Carmichael
Rating: 4/5
Title: Oracle SQL & PL/SQL Annotated Archives
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Kevin Loney, Rachel Carmichael
Rating: 4/5
This was very useful for a DBA who wants to quickly snag some code to help manage the databases. Well worth the cash.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Bases de Datos y su Aplicacion con SQL: Manuales Users, en Español / Spanish (Manuales Users)
Publisher: M P Ediciones S.A.
Authors: Sergio Ezequiel Rozic
Rating: 5/5
Title: Bases de Datos y su Aplicacion con SQL: Manuales Users, en Español / Spanish (Manuales Users)
Publisher: M P Ediciones S.A.
Authors: Sergio Ezequiel Rozic
Rating: 5/5
El mejor libro de SQL, totalmente recomendable. No solamente trata temas particulares, sino que se abre en teor?de base de datos, fundamental para cualquier estudiante de la materia. He le? otras publicaciones del autor que tambi?resultaron interesantes, por lo que no me sorprende el contenido de este material.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Apache: the Definitive Guide (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Ben Laurie, Peter Laurie
Rating: 3/5
Title: Apache: the Definitive Guide (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Ben Laurie, Peter Laurie
Rating: 3/5
I grabbed this book and started the brain sucking upall the information I could. Whoops! Where is it? This book doesdiscuss a lot about Apache, but it sure falls short of "definitive guide".I have had to search the web to find out really useful information.<PIt did get me to thinking about what I wanted to do with my server.But, if you are looking for a book to get you started and up and running as an ISP --- FORGET this book. It just does not have the information needed.Sorry O'Reilly, I like most of your books, but this one does not make the grade
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 DBA Survival Guide, Second Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Mark Spenik, Orryn Sledge
Rating: 5/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 DBA Survival Guide, Second Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Mark Spenik, Orryn Sledge
Rating: 5/5
Last week I had to migrate from Oracle 8 to SQL Server 2000 and this book came in very handy. The chapters are well composed; especially about networking is easy to read and understand. The examples throughout the book are excellent and the case studies are good too. It could have more questions based on real life settings for prcatice. Anyway this is a great reference book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: MySQL/PHP Database Applications
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Jay Greenspan, Brad Bulger
Rating: 4/5
Title: MySQL/PHP Database Applications
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Jay Greenspan, Brad Bulger
Rating: 4/5
I liked this book a lot ?- succinct style and LOTS of medium size examples. A lot better than many of the others on the market.In particular I like the way that the topics follow on and are clearly more than just a collestion of essays (which I have found the Wrox books can have a tendency to be).Tom
