IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle Database 10g PL/SQL Programming
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Scott Urman, Michael McLaughlin
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle Database 10g PL/SQL Programming
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Scott Urman, Michael McLaughlin
Rating: 5/5
I got the book for some of the new 10g features and have found it helpful. The examples were very great once I found them. After some digging I found the code for the examples online, but according to amazon there was supposed to be a cd...WHERE??
I recommend the book, but know that you need to download the examples (nice format for the code btw).
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP for the World Wide Web : Visual QuickStart Guide (2nd Edition) (Visual Quickstart Guides)
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Authors: Larry Ullman
Rating: 3/5
Title: PHP for the World Wide Web : Visual QuickStart Guide (2nd Edition) (Visual Quickstart Guides)
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Authors: Larry Ullman
Rating: 3/5
I've gotten about half-way through this book and have found several errors that a simple proof-read should have cought. Enough so that I went out and bought the O'Reilly /Programming PHP/ book.PHP for the WWW is certainly more suited for the beginning programmer (me) but such obvious errors leave me distrusting the book to a certain degree. Will I discard/sell this book because of the errors? Of course not, but I'm not comfortable relying on it.My other complaint with this book is that some of the graphics are too small. They've taken screen caps of Netscape's View HTML Source and with the combination of window background, font and text highlighting, it is difficult if not impossible to read many of these graphics. Again, I would attribute this to poor editing - this should have been noticed immediately and corrected.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Php 4 Bible (Bible (Wiley))
Publisher: Hungry Minds
Authors: Tim Converse, Joyce Park
Rating: 5/5
Title: Php 4 Bible (Bible (Wiley))
Publisher: Hungry Minds
Authors: Tim Converse, Joyce Park
Rating: 5/5
If you want to create a dynamic web site using PHP4 and the MySQL database, then this is the book for you and the only book you'll need.This is NOT one of those many computer books apparently thrown together at the last second to meet a deadline with lots of fluff and little useful content. This book answers real world questions like:How do I create and maintain sessions?
How do I create and utilize MySQL databases?
Where do I find a host for my web site?
What are some common gotchas in PHP4?
Why doesn't this page work?
How do I send email from a page?
How do I pass information from page to page?
How does PHP compare to other scripting languages?
How do I use string, math functions, and arrays?
How do I build and use functions and classes?
What are the differences between PHP3 and PHP4?The book has very useful example code. All this and very readable.There may be better books on this subject, but I wouldn't know as I haven't needed to buy additional books because this book has answered all my questions.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 2000 Administrator's Pocket Consultant (It-Administrator's Pocket Consultant)
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: William R. Stanek
Rating: 5/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 2000 Administrator's Pocket Consultant (It-Administrator's Pocket Consultant)
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: William R. Stanek
Rating: 5/5
As a web/dba I use sql server, IIS and windows 2000 server extensively. Last year when I was just getting started I discovered this little gem and it was what set me on the right path. I found this book to be utterly indispensible. I actually have two copies that one I use at home when I work in my own projects and one I use at work.Again in this book as with others in the series I have found single chapters that alone were worth the price of the book, and in a book filled with such chapters you cannot go wrong. The chapter I use the most is 2. In this chapter covers configuring and tuning the sql server database. The chapter starts by looking at guidelines you can use to choose server hardware covering memory, CPU, drives, and more then goes into tools, services and more that you can use to optimize the sql server. In addition to covering the graphical interface, the book covers command-line tools extensive and I found this to be invaluable. Mr. Stanek includes a best practice tip on page 35 that caused a light bulb to go off in my head and helped me resolve a problem with our databases. This tip covers memory usage in various situations and how you can optimize the memory configuration. The chapter goes on and on like this giving out secrets that other admins didn't want to share with someone like me who was just getting started. In short I think the chapter gave me the equivalent of several years worht of in the field knowledge and since I didn't have years to prove myself this was incredibly helpful.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Php 4 Bible (Bible (Wiley))
Publisher: Hungry Minds
Authors: Tim Converse, Joyce Park
Rating: 4/5
Title: Php 4 Bible (Bible (Wiley))
Publisher: Hungry Minds
Authors: Tim Converse, Joyce Park
Rating: 4/5
Of all the PHP books I've seen, this one and the Wrox "Professional PHP Programming" are the ones to get. This one's a little less dense than the Wrox, which is fine with me.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: McSe Readiness Review Exam 70-029: Designing and Implementing Databases With Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 (Mcse Readiness Review)
Publisher: Microsoft Pr
Authors: Robert Sheldon
Rating: 4/5
Title: McSe Readiness Review Exam 70-029: Designing and Implementing Databases With Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 (Mcse Readiness Review)
Publisher: Microsoft Pr
Authors: Robert Sheldon
Rating: 4/5
The CD that comes with this book is 90% of the value. It gives you a set of questions that help test what areas you may be weak in. I told myself that I would never take another test without the corresponding readiness review book. It is one of my "secrets". Unfortunately, the book for 70-19 (data warehousing) won't be out until a month after the next release of SQL Server - instant obsolesence.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Apache Server 2 Bible
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Mohammed J. Kabir
Rating: 3/5
Title: Apache Server 2 Bible
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Mohammed J. Kabir
Rating: 3/5
I've read about 3/4 of this book and found it easy to understand and helpful. But I wanted to mention another book, Professional Apache (Wrox, September 1999), which for some reason, doesn't show up on any amazon searches. I'm relatively new to programming, so I'm not able to evaluate all the details of Professional apache, but it is more up-to-date and (in my mind) easier to understand. And very comprehensive.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Database Implementation Training Kit (Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Press Rating: 2/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Database Implementation Training Kit (Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Press Rating: 2/5
I took the Microsoft Course and purchased the book and the new book by Lance Mortensen. I nearly passed. The problem is that the material required for the test is in many cases not covered in the books. The new Transender exam is available in beta form.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Cookbook
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: David Sklar, Adam Trachtenberg
Rating: 5/5
Title: PHP Cookbook
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: David Sklar, Adam Trachtenberg
Rating: 5/5
I ordered a copy of the "PHP Cookbook ORA", along with a copy of the "Professional PHP 4 web Development Solutions WROX". Upon reading both these books, i thought i should offer a honest review comparing the two:Both the books were informative in their own right o The ORA book had small snippets of code based solutions (very similar to the PHP Developers cookbook from Sterling and Andrei) that are very useful for programmers who are confounded with small to medium coding problems. However, there was nothing enterprising about the coverage, that one could not achieve from using a combination of the online docs + mailing lists. Another downside was that i could not find full solutions that i could re-use in my projects.On the Other hand, i found o The WROX book offered complete solutions to real world problems - a Simple/advanced CMS (the core of which you can plug into your site), a simple search engine, a classified ads board, and lots of cool creative case study solutions that i could extend to use in my hobby sites. The content was very enterprising and all of the solutions presented are the most popular one's amongst web developers these days. More interesting is that these solutions can be completely re-used and extended into your projects. However, the downside of this book is that you would need to have prior PHP knowledge either picked up from WROX' Professional PHP 4 (as is mentioned as a pre-requisite in the book) or from the Programming PHP ORA, or any another competent professional PHP programming books in the market.So the bottomline is:oCare for an appetiser - Pick up the ORA book.
oCare for a full meal - Pick up the Wrox book.I am posting this same review for both the books (so customers can benefit from it). However, i have ranked the Wrox book, a notch above this one, simply because i wanted a burp:-)
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 found this book both easy to read and packed with good SQL examples. As a VB & VC++ programmer, I ended up reading the book from cover to cover.
