IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Instant SQL Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Joe Celko
Rating: 5/5
Title: Instant SQL Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Joe Celko
Rating: 5/5
I have used SQL for a couple years and thought I knew all I needed to know. This book shows you everything! You learn all aspects of SQL including designing and creating databases right down to finding out if your doing an inner or outer join. An excellent book I would recommend to anyone needing to learn SQL for any reason. You can learn as much or as little as you need. And the knowledge will stick with you. It does need a few more code examples but the logic is there explaining anything you need to understand. I started using the things I learned in this book immediately in my job. Great book!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: MCSE SQL 2000 Administration Exam Cram (Exam: 70-228)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Kalani Kirk Hausman
Rating: 2/5
Title: MCSE SQL 2000 Administration Exam Cram (Exam: 70-228)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Kalani Kirk Hausman
Rating: 2/5
This is my 12th exam cram book. What a disapointment this book is. Way too much space wasted telling us how to click our way through the Enterprise Manager. The exam does not test you on clicking your way through the EM. I went back to my old SQL 7 Exam Cram which is much better. And please...for god's sake, what's the deal with Modal? Does the author work with SQL Server? With their proficiency using the Enterprise Manager, one would think you could clearly see it's called Model! Please...
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes, Third Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ben Forta
Rating: 5/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes, Third Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ben Forta
Rating: 5/5
This book is a gem for those who want to use SQL for reading, writing, and otherwise working with data. The author himself points out that there are many good books on relational database design, database administration, etc., and sets his sights on explaining the fundamental but very frequently used syntax of working with records. The book is concise and lucid with many brief, helpful examples. I have to admit that I tend to "cheat" in writing SQL: I use the design view in Access first and edit the SQL from there. The problem was that I never really got a good active understanding of SQL and was too passively dependent on Access. Before reading this book, I had only a vague notion of the difference between "group by" and "where" and when to use them. This is one topic among many that he explains well. For a book of this brevity and level, there is a lot of good information.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle8 Pl/SQL Black Book (Black Book (Coriolis Group Books Paperback))
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Mark Gokman, Jonathn Ingram, Jonathan W. Ingram
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle8 Pl/SQL Black Book (Black Book (Coriolis Group Books Paperback))
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Mark Gokman, Jonathn Ingram, Jonathan W. Ingram
Rating: 5/5
This book is very well structured and easy to learn from. The content is easy to read, good examples and very referenceable.I highly recommend this book. The only issue is its availability, I find it hard to believe that the publishers have not cashed in on this book (did n't republish - currently out of print) as it is a real winner and a gem to have. Listed below are the chapters. 1. PL/SQL At A Glance
2. Writing Simple Routines
3. Program Flow Control
4. Accessing the Database
5. Complex Datatypes
6. Creating Programs
7. Using Object Types
8. PL/SQL In Different Environments
9. PL/SQL And Application Performance
10. PL/SQL Fundamentals
11. Blocks, Stored Programs, Packages, Database Triggers And Stored Types
12. Declarations
13. Procedural Constructs
14. Built In Functions
15. Oracle 8 Supplied Packages
16. Extended SQL And PL/SQL Support
17. External File I/O And Background Job Control
18. Support of LOB Datatypes
19. Event Notification And Intersession Communication Support
20. Advanced Queuing Support
21. Miscellaneous Packages
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Google Hacking for Penetration Testers
Publisher: Syngress
Authors: Johnny Long
Rating: 5/5
Title: Google Hacking for Penetration Testers
Publisher: Syngress
Authors: Johnny Long
Rating: 5/5
Rather than reiterate what other reviewers have said, I'll focus on a few other things worth a mention.
The first two chapters provide a solid foundation for Google use. They can be read and understood by anyone. The knowledge presented in these two chapters alone can make your queries much more efficient. Usage for each operator and searching technique is explained in detail, so that the fundamentals can be applied to any search. These two chapters comprise the best Google tutorial available anywhere!
The rest of the book focuses on techniques relevant to security testing. There so many ways to use Google to enumerate information. The author walks your through each of the techniques and the principles behind them. The examples expand upon and reinforce the techniques discussed in the first two chapters.
I also own the O'Reilly "Google Hacks" book. It's a good book mostly consisting of tips geared towards coders looking harness Google's power for miscellaneous purposes. Although Johnny Long's book does present plenty of code and techniques for automation, its primary focus is using Google's relevance to security testing. Defensive techniques (how to limit what googlebot crawls) are also discussed. "Google Hacking" makes a better starting point for those interested in security testing.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 (Microsoft Programming Series)
Publisher: Microsoft Pr
Authors: Ron Soukup
Rating: 5/5
Title: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 (Microsoft Programming Series)
Publisher: Microsoft Pr
Authors: Ron Soukup
Rating: 5/5
I bought this book based on the good reviews it received here,but I was severely disapointed. Soukup claims that installingSQLServer is easy. "I'm proud to say that even a novice can comfortably install SQLServer in less than 10 minutes", he writes in the book. But nothing could be further from the truth. I've installed databases on UNIX (Linux and SolarisX86) and personal Oracle for Win95, without any problems, but SQLServer stubbornly refused to install on my WinNT 4 Server. In spite of numerous problem reports Soukup doesn't even mention that you might not be able to install SQLServer on your machine, let alone give you any guidance about what to do if you do have problems. In addition to these problems I found that the rest of the book is bloated with advocacy and fluff. I've worked with one SQLServer installation that crashed several times a day. Yet there is no entry for "reliability" in the index. Soukup was general manager for SQLServer and this book appears to be an advocacy job instead of an attempt to address the problems that people have encountered with his "child". Interestingly, he notes the frustrations that some customers have had with SQLServer, but apparently feels no obligation to try and provide fixes or a work around for them. This will be the first book that I've been forced to return for a refund in a long time. And it definitely does not deserve the good reviews it has received.
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 came to this book with a very basic working knowledge of SQL, hoping to round out my knowledge of more complex operations and get a better grasp of transactional operations. I came away with little more than I started with.The authors take such a broad approach, attempting to do the impossible - teach readers how to use ANSI-compliant SQL. Problem is, no RDBMS (Database platform) is truly ANSI-compliant. When it gets specific it's generally to show how MySQL does not do what Oracle does, yet for some strange reason they instruct the reader to use MySQL for exercises. Even funnier, something like 20% of the exercises cannot be done on MySQL, so they actually suggest that you get out a piece of paper and write them out! Why not just write a book called "Oracle SQL" and offer some comparisons with other implementations? The "see your implementation documentation for details" disclaimer occurs 2-3 times per chapter. So, why am I reading this again? Why not just read my RDBMS help files?In the same vein, the data provided to learn with is exemplary of "toy" code, with tables of 5-10 records each. Most chapters consist of run-downs of the various functions, sometimes with good examples, often without. The typos are rampant, with whole blocks of text sometimes being misplaced. Even the source data contains egregious errors. Obviously, this book was slammed out (in "24 hours" I bet), was not proofread, and forgotten. Third edition?!? Was the first edition just a bunch of garbled text??I could go on, but in summary, don't bother. Buy something else. Anything else. Most likely either a book aimed at a particular implementation (e.g. MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, PostgresSQL etc), or one of the many books aimed at giving a working knowledge of SQL for web development (e.g. PHP and MySQL Web Development, etc). Good luck.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Unleashed (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ray Rankins, Paul Jensen, Paul Bertucci
Rating: 5/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Unleashed (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ray Rankins, Paul Jensen, Paul Bertucci
Rating: 5/5
Finally a book that does more than just explain string functions and other basic stuff
Product: Book Paperback
Title: DB2 SQL Procedural Language for Linux, Unix and Windows
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Paul Yip, Drew Bradstock, Hana Curtis, Michael Gao, Zamil Janmohamed, Clara Liu, Fraser McArthur
Rating: 5/5
Title: DB2 SQL Procedural Language for Linux, Unix and Windows
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Paul Yip, Drew Bradstock, Hana Curtis, Michael Gao, Zamil Janmohamed, Clara Liu, Fraser McArthur
Rating: 5/5
Conversational in tone, interesting to follow, this book reads more like a novel that keeps you turning pages with avid interest rather than another dry "technical" resource. As someone who deals with SQL PL on an almost daily basis, I was pleasantly surprised to find I learned many things going through this book. The authors don't try to cover every tangent on the subject, and end up with an excellent resource with specific examples that deal with the topic it covers well: DB2 UDB SQL PL.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: MCSE Database Design on SQL Server 7 Exam Prep (Exam: 70-029)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Brad Schulz, Greg Woody, Jose Amado-Blanco, Pam Barker, Christopher Leonard, Christopher A. Leonard, Pamela Barker
Rating: 4/5
Title: MCSE Database Design on SQL Server 7 Exam Prep (Exam: 70-029)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Brad Schulz, Greg Woody, Jose Amado-Blanco, Pam Barker, Christopher Leonard, Christopher A. Leonard, Pamela Barker
Rating: 4/5
Very well written and very useful in real world. However, test questions in the CD are no where near the real test. The real test questions are long and require understandings and relationship of almost all features of SQL Server 7. Read this book to get guidelines along with using the Transcender exam should be sufficient to get you pass the exam.
