IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: MCDBA Administering SQL Server 2000 Study Guide (Exam 70-228)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Joyjit Mukherjee
Rating: 5/5
Title: MCDBA Administering SQL Server 2000 Study Guide (Exam 70-228)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Joyjit Mukherjee
Rating: 5/5
The questions in the CD are really good. The exam watch tips in the book helped me focus on the exam.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: MySQL/PHP Database Applications
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Jay Greenspan, Brad Bulger
Rating: 1/5
Title: MySQL/PHP Database Applications
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Jay Greenspan, Brad Bulger
Rating: 1/5
Unfortunately for me I spent the $40 for this book. What a mistake!
When I first opened it up I was exited by the project management example in chapter 17. I told my wife I must have it! After I got home and started reading through it I decided to load the sample data into the my htdocs directory in my local Apache install. The nightmare never ended in getting the code to work. And this wasn't because I didn't set up the user accounts in MySQL! After messing around with it all weekend I decided to pay my fried a visit who is an expert web developer (builds web-enabled databases for California lobyists with millions of records). He looked at the code and found constructs that are specific to PHP5. The readme didn't say that I must install PHP5 for the examples to work. Anyway, after changing the code to conform to PHP4 syntax the examples still didn't work.
I'm totally disappointed that I spent my hard earned dollars on this book. If the authors would be kind enough to post some code that works and is easy to follow, that would be a good step at repentance. Oh, one last thing, the authors make use of PEAR; that was a pain to install too. However, I got that working (with no instructions in the book) and the code still fails to work.
Two thumbs down for this book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server The Complete Reference
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Gayle Coffman
Rating: 4/5
Title: SQL Server The Complete Reference
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Gayle Coffman
Rating: 4/5
This appears to be the first book published on SQL Server 7.0, and the author does a suprisingly good job of covering the new features in the first 1/3 of the book. The remainder of the book is Transact SQL reference material, which is more easily referenced in Books-online, unless you enjoy reading that kind of stuff in bed at night. I am still looking forward to some other books (like SQL Server 7 Unleashed) that will take me under the hood and explain how it really works, and also cover the things that do NOT work as they should.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ryan Stephens, Ron Plew
Rating: 4/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ryan Stephens, Ron Plew
Rating: 4/5
This book was recommedned to me, and I would recommend this book to anyone wishing to learn SQL! One of my biggest problems in developing data driven ASP applications was requesting data from a relational database. In just a few short chapters, this book got me up and running fast!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Linux Apache Web Server Administration, Second Edition (Craig Hunt Linux Library)
Publisher: Sybex
Authors: Charles Aulds, Charles Aulds
Rating: 4/5
Title: Linux Apache Web Server Administration, Second Edition (Craig Hunt Linux Library)
Publisher: Sybex
Authors: Charles Aulds, Charles Aulds
Rating: 4/5
Excellent instructions, and an amazing companion to the O' Reiley book. Takes the guesswork out of Linux Apache admin, and is a handy tool for any other Unix folks as well.It's so nice to read a technical book that is accurate and in English not geek.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Beginning PHP, Apache, MySQL Web Development
Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Michael K. Glass, Yann Le Scouarnec, Elizabeth Naramore, Gary Mailer, Jeremy Stolz, Jason Gerner
Rating: 1/5
Title: Beginning PHP, Apache, MySQL Web Development
Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Michael K. Glass, Yann Le Scouarnec, Elizabeth Naramore, Gary Mailer, Jeremy Stolz, Jason Gerner
Rating: 1/5
Worst book of all time, sorry guys and gals but whoever wrote and edited this book should buy a book themselves "Learn to Write and Edit by DUMMIES". To many typo's and script errors which did not work!
Actually I would give the book a 5 star rating if they changed the name to Trouble Shooting Script Errors, Test Your Skills!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Php 4 Bible (Bible (Wiley))
Publisher: Hungry Minds
Authors: Tim Converse, Joyce Park
Rating: 2/5
Title: Php 4 Bible (Bible (Wiley))
Publisher: Hungry Minds
Authors: Tim Converse, Joyce Park
Rating: 2/5
I did not care for this book, which surprised me as I normally find the Bible series to be solid. I will always subtract a star when the author(s) consistently refer to material not yet presented. (down to 4) Another one gets subtracted by the too cute examples the purpose of which seem often enough just being clever instead of providing meaningful code. (down to 3). By the time I got through the first hundred pages I was totally sick of reading how the C programmer would do the same thing or how the C programmer should consider PHP. There is a appendix to cover that material but obviously the authors didn't trust the reader enough to believe that it would be read. (down to 2 stars). I could take off more stars for the obvious padding in the writing -Did they get paid by the word?- and in the examples which gave multiple pages of basic html, with little footnoting. I would even consider subtracting more for the clunky code, and refering to less than optimal functions for multiple pages then saying disregard that. Further there is the lack of any cohesion through the examples. But to give the authors their due, the book is adequate in its explanations. If this is your only choice it will suffice, if not, look elsewhere.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Optimizing Transact-SQL : Advanced Programming Techniques
Publisher: SQL Forum Press
Authors: David Rozenshtein, Anatoly Abramovich, Eugene Birger
Rating: 1/5
Title: Optimizing Transact-SQL : Advanced Programming Techniques
Publisher: SQL Forum Press
Authors: David Rozenshtein, Anatoly Abramovich, Eugene Birger
Rating: 1/5
This book is no book. It's just a series of magazine articles from SQL Forum that have be repackaged. The "chapters" even refer to themselves as articles. Moreover, the code presented doesn't perform well. These techniques are of academic interest only. They're hard to read and they don't perform well. A CROSS JOIN solution rarely works well with large tables, and most of these techniques require CROSS JOINs. Essentially, I don't think the book really adds that much value.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Apache: the Definitive Guide (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Ben Laurie, Peter Laurie
Rating: 5/5
Title: Apache: the Definitive Guide (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Ben Laurie, Peter Laurie
Rating: 5/5
I respectfully disagree with most of the reviews I've read in this book. As the back of
the book states it is designed primarily for those who are "new" to Apache (as I am). As such,
this book has been a great help to my understanding of how to set up and configure an Apache
webserver. It takes you through the evolution of a sample site and allows you to see and witness how the
Apache configuration changes to accomodate the web site. It teaches you by doing, not just by a
bunch of idle, technical words. I have not finished the book yet, but I have already set up Name-based,
IP-based, Mixed-based hosts etc... with great ease. I'm using Win32!!. This book is great for the Apache beginner,
Take it from me :)
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Core PHP Programming: Using PHP to Build Dynamic Web Sites (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Leon Atkinson
Rating: 1/5
Title: Core PHP Programming: Using PHP to Build Dynamic Web Sites (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Leon Atkinson
Rating: 1/5
Poor book for learning much of anything you need about PHP. Many errors in the code, alot of white space and big screen shots to make the book look larger. Just a very poor reference and I will skip this book for something better that (I hope) will come out shortly.
