IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL: The Complete Reference, Second Edition
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: James R Groff, Paul N. Weinberg
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL: The Complete Reference, Second Edition
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: James R Groff, Paul N. Weinberg
Rating: 5/5
Well written intro book. The CD has the demos of the above databases; first time I've ever seen that. The text is clean and well thought out.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional SQL Server 2000 XML
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Paul J. Burke, Sam Ferguson, Denise Gosnell, Paul Morris, Karli Watson, Darshan Singh, Brian Smith, Carvin Wilson, Warren Wiltsie, Jan Narkiewicz, J Michael Palermo, John Reid
Rating: 4/5
Title: Professional SQL Server 2000 XML
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Paul J. Burke, Sam Ferguson, Denise Gosnell, Paul Morris, Karli Watson, Darshan Singh, Brian Smith, Carvin Wilson, Warren Wiltsie, Jan Narkiewicz, J Michael Palermo, John Reid
Rating: 4/5
Wrox has always prided themselves on code intensive books, and this is no exception. Unfortunately, they are also getting a bit intensive in the area of adding authors to be the first one to market. This leads to a book that seems a bit disjointed. With as few chapters as this book has, I do not see the need for so many authors. I guess it is the length.Pluses in this book include the chapter on FOR XML and the chapter on OPENXML. I believe this is the area where most developers will like to spend the most of their time. I would have liked to see FOR XML EXPLICIT get a bit more coverage, as this is the bear, but the examples are workable, so I cannot complain too much.I also enjoyed the updategram chapter. This ability was highly touted in Microsoft marketing events, but took quite some time to surface. The case studies help put the technology in a real world light.The negatives are few. First, I believe far too much time is spent on XSD schemas, at least with the way it is presented. In a real world scenario, you are probably going to pull the schema from an existing database, which makes this material NULL and void. If you do get into writing XSD, you will find this material far too shallow.I also would have liked to see how this technology could blend with the direction Microsoft is pushing .NET. I realize this is not the topic of the book, so I have not hammered on this. Perhaps the next book will be SQL Server 2000 and .NET?
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Foundation PHP for Flash
Publisher: Friends of Ed
Authors: Steve Webster
Rating: 5/5
Title: Foundation PHP for Flash
Publisher: Friends of Ed
Authors: Steve Webster
Rating: 5/5
This book is the BEST resource on this subject to date, bar none that I have come across-and believe me when I tell you I have spent countless hours trying to teach myself PHP/Flash/MySql by reading books, searching tutorials on web sites, picking apart code and so on. The book contains valuable, working, practical examples that should find good use in any professional or budding professional's bag of tricks. Examples include a client updateable content management system, login/password, dynamic News, Refer-a-friend script, Flash message board with L/P, events calendar, how to set and retrieve cookies in Flash, mailing list and so much more.
The author, Steve Webster, does a great work of explaining how everything works, so that I was able to have most of the examples up and running within one hour of getting this book! He also responded to my emails promptly and answered all questions I had. Thank you Steve!
If you want to learn about Flash and the sever side of things--get this book. It will save you HOURS of frustration, and it will make you better looking too (just joking)! But seriously folks, this book is a gem. I give it 5 out of 5 stars!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Googles and the planet of Goo (A children's edutainment book)
Publisher: Googles Children's Workshop
Authors: Steven A Silvers
Rating: 5/5
Title: Googles and the planet of Goo (A children's edutainment book)
Publisher: Googles Children's Workshop
Authors: Steven A Silvers
Rating: 5/5
This is a wonderful read for children who have a creative mind and a keen sense of imagination. I am an elementary school teacher and very much enjoyed reading Googles and the Planet of Goo to my students. They really seemed to enjoy reading all about Googles' adventures as he leaves his planet called Goo and lands his GooShip on Earth. That's when the real action begins. The new words the child learns, in a fun-filled manor, is also refreshing. I guess the most rewarding gift of all this book suggests, is the fact that it's non-violent and offers an alternative to all of the wild stuff out there today. This book is a must for any parent's shopping cart. Would make a wonderful gift, too. Sincerely, Arie
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP 4 Developer's Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Blake Schwendiman
Rating: 5/5
Title: PHP 4 Developer's Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Blake Schwendiman
Rating: 5/5
I've been coding PHP for a few years now, and I find this book to be a very good reference to keep at the desk. It covers a broad range of topics, so if I need to brush up on something or need quick info on something, I turn to this book first. Recommended.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: MCDBA SQL Server 7 Administration Study Guide (Book/CD-ROM Set)
Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Syngress
Rating: 5/5
Title: MCDBA SQL Server 7 Administration Study Guide (Book/CD-ROM Set)
Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Syngress
Rating: 5/5
Good material on n-tier application strategy, and issues regarding Microsoft Transactions Server. the test was hard. I'm keeping this book as a resource. I used it yesterday to guide me thru installing a full text search service and full text search for specific colums and tables.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 7 Developer's Guide
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Michael Otey, Paul Conte
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server 7 Developer's Guide
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Michael Otey, Paul Conte
Rating: 5/5
This is an excellent book presenting an overview of the administration aspects of SQL Server 7.0. I myself am a developer and have just set up SBS 4.5 at home and am learning the intracasies of managing SQL Server 7.0 along with developing n tier Clinet/Server applications. This book is interesting to read (which I might add is rare among technical books) and holds my attention. I only wish more books were written this clear and concise. There are so many books out there which are rip off's and shouldn't even be allowed to be on the market. Hats off to the authors and the publishers for this book!!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Dreamweaver MX: PHP Web Development
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Bruno Mairlot, Gareth Downes-Powell, Tim Green
Rating: 5/5
Title: Dreamweaver MX: PHP Web Development
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Bruno Mairlot, Gareth Downes-Powell, Tim Green
Rating: 5/5
This is a great book. Having used the previous version of Dreamweaver for making static pages, I was keen to try out Dreamweaver MX's capability for making PHP sites. This book gave me all the info I needed to get going. While it doesn't have a comprehensive language reference section (if you're looking for that either buy one of the big PHP books, or just use the online manual at php.net), by the end of the book I was able to build my own dyhnamic PHP sites. I really liked the hotel example app that was built up in the book - very helpful to gain tips about how to use Dreamweaver to build real life projects.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle8i Advanced PL/SQL Programming
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Scott Urman
Rating: 3/5
Title: Oracle8i Advanced PL/SQL Programming
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Scott Urman
Rating: 3/5
I agree with the previous reviewer. If you own a copy of the version 8 book, you can definitely skip this one. The only new info included in this book is a survey of PL/SQL IDE's and their built-in debuggers (this might be the only added value to this edition), summary of Oracle8i PL/SQL new features, and Java external procedures. Other chapters are practically identical to those in the older edition. In fact, the chapter on the DBMS_LOB package has been removed from the printed version.If you need to learn Oracle8i's new PL/SQL capabilities, pick up Steven Feuerstein's Guide.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Apache Server 2 Bible
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Mohammed J. Kabir
Rating: 2/5
Title: Apache Server 2 Bible
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Mohammed J. Kabir
Rating: 2/5
Some good, some bad. Unfortunatly the mod_perl section (the main reason I bought the book) is one of the weakest. On the other hand the explaination of security and SSL is one of the better ones I have read. The book is neither a good referance book, nor a good "reader". The cover proudly claims to cover Windows - which would have raised a red flag had I seen it before purchase - but the book only devotes 12 pages to it. The Macintosh version is not mentioned at all.
