IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Google Hacks
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Tara Calishain, Rael Dornfest
Rating: 5/5
Title: Google Hacks
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Tara Calishain, Rael Dornfest
Rating: 5/5
In a smoke-filled darkened room the faceless, nameless young man sits silently pouring over screens and screens of data. Reading the scrolling text that flies across the screen searching for that one magic phrase. Is it day or night? Is it Monday or Wednesday? He hasn't a clue; all he cares about is one thing -- hacking.If this is what you expect the newly released O'Reilly book Google Hacks to be about, well, I am afraid that you need to mosey on over to the fiction section. This book is a collection of tips, trips, workaround and "not-so-secret" techniques that you can use to enrich your Google experience.Now, I know what most of you are saying -- it's JUST a search engine. I type in what I want to find and see what it spits out. If this is your attitude about Google, then this book is one of the must have's you should add to your library. You will never think of Google as "just a search engine" again.Through step-by-step examples, and visual examples, the author takes you through how to use Google to its full extent. He shows you how to narrow searches and get those 2,500,000 results page down to something more manageable and more relevant to you. In essence, he shows you how to make Google work for your benefit.There is also considerable coverage given to third-party Google tools and toys -- such as Google Whacking, Google Blogging and many others. He shows you how others have taken what Google provides and expanded upon it to make games, research tools and interactive applications. You will find yourself immersed in the world of Google Whacking -- the search for the magic combination of search words that give you one, precise result!This book is geared towards those who use Google for searching and research purposes as well as those who want to incorporate Google's tools into their own sites. The author goes into detail about the newly released Google API for incorporating content into your site and other programs. Novice users should not be afraid of the technical complexity this book has in some places; they can simply skip over the more technical parts without fear of missing out on the important details.Overall, this is the perfect companion book for those who find themselves using Google as their main research tool. It will help you become a better Google user, and help you to use the power of Google to further your research along and give you the precise information you need.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL 101
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Christopher Allen
Rating: 4/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL 101
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Christopher Allen
Rating: 4/5
Great book for new Oracle DBAs learning how to write SQL statements and queries. I worked through the book chapter by chapter. The first two sections ("Database Basics" and "Advanced SQL") are very strong, with clear instructions and a logical progress from simple to more complex steps. However, the third section, "Creating Programs using PL/SQL", falls short. Here the material gets too complex too quickly.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle SQL*Plus Pocket Reference (2nd Edition)
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Jonathan Gennick
Rating: 4/5
Title: Oracle SQL*Plus Pocket Reference (2nd Edition)
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Jonathan Gennick
Rating: 4/5
After 7 years solid experience within the ORACLE toolset I find that books like this not only teach us a few new things but are also great revision guides giving new thought to commands, formats,functions etc not used or thought of for some time.In my opinion, even though a small book, it was well worth the money and one that all Oracle users of whatever standard will appreciate. I suggest any purchser write their name in it.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 7.0
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Ron Soukup, Kalen Delaney
Rating: 4/5
Title: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 7.0
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Ron Soukup, Kalen Delaney
Rating: 4/5
This is a good book. There are no errors, and things are explained well. Obviously the author is in love with SQL Server. I Used it to study for 70-029 exam. While it was a good book, it is not an exam material. No tests, no exercizes, and all topics not fully covered.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Black Book
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Peter Moulding
Rating: 2/5
Title: PHP Black Book
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Peter Moulding
Rating: 2/5
Had I not learned the basics of PHP elsewhere, I would not have learned them from this book. It is poorly layed out. Instead of systematic description of the language and its design issues, you get someone skittering around, mixing important details with unimportant fluff. I recommend Welling and Thomson's PHP and MySQL over this title just in the PHP department. To add insult to injury, the author is quite egotistical and thinks you will be amused by his practice of using himself in his sample code. Puleaze!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional SQL Server 7.0 Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Rob Vieira
Rating: 5/5
Title: Professional SQL Server 7.0 Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Rob Vieira
Rating: 5/5
Since it covers "SQL Server 7.0 Programming", this text can't be all things to all SQL people, but it does provide clear, logical explanations of things DBA's need to know in the real world. Some theory, but it doens't bog down in that area, and provides useful solutions for working SQL Server admins / developers.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Transact-SQL Cookbook (O'Reilly Windows)
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Ales Spetic, Jonathan Gennick
Rating: 3/5
Title: Transact-SQL Cookbook (O'Reilly Windows)
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Ales Spetic, Jonathan Gennick
Rating: 3/5
Rather than a real-world "cookbook", ostensibly targeted to database professionals who want to avoid reinventing the wheel, this book would be better positioned as a companion to an introductory text on SQL (e.g. for a class on SQL, where the class laboratory work employs SQL Server).One or two of the chapters do cover problems which baffle a lot of experienced SQL programmers with whom I have worked; a good example is the chapter on the implementation of hierarchical data models.There is some minimal attention paid to performance implications of alternative query formulations, but very little useful information on practical database and query tuning.The practical examples are generally good for building the necessary context for the various implementations, but there are some clear gaps in the authors' understanding of the underlying business problems and the conceptual solution techniques. Also, there are some flat-out errors: for example, the explanation (and the implementation) of exponential averaging (more commonly referred to as smoothing) is simply incorrect.All in all, I would recommend this to someone who is just learning SQL, and is having trouble "getting their head" around how it would be used in practice. For someone already working in the field, an online subscription to SQL Server magazine (giving access to all of the source code for the articles) would be a better investment.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: How to Do Everything with Google
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Fritz Schneider, Nancy Blachman, Eric Fredricksen, Fritz Schneider, Nancy Blachman, Eric Fredricksen
Rating: 4/5
Title: How to Do Everything with Google
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Fritz Schneider, Nancy Blachman, Eric Fredricksen, Fritz Schneider, Nancy Blachman, Eric Fredricksen
Rating: 4/5
I purchased this book at the recommendation of my grandson, our family's resident hacker and wiz. I have to say I learned quite a bit about google by reading this book. Although I would not call myself a google expert, I will say that I am now a "power user". This books is not only thorough but written well enough that a non technical person such as myself can read it. Excellent job. Well done!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Fundamentals
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Authors: John J. Patrick
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Fundamentals
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Authors: John J. Patrick
Rating: 5/5
Choosing one particular SQL book out of the dozens available was not an easy task. Here are the reasons that made me choose this one over the others:* Book organization - Chapters are very well structured with very descriptive sections, making it easy to find what you want. The first page of every chapter lists the contents by section* Ease of reading - Everything is explained and described with tables or diagrams. Chapters are summarized at the end with the most important points covered. SQL code is explained in detail using numeric references that are explained separately from the code. Other books clutter the code with explanations making them hard to read and follow* Oracle and Access code examples - Two of the most widely used DBs are covered, allowing the reader to see the slight, but nevertheless important differences in coding requirements for each platform. Command results are also presented for every example to allow the reader to compare them with their results* Topics covered - From What is SQL to How to use Oracle and Access, the book is detailed and specific without being overkill* CD - It contains all the examples in the book, plus all the tables and data. The CD is compatible with 98/ME/XP/2000 and NT. The Oracle code can be used with Unix and their flavorsSome examples could have been more realistic though, instead of using lunches, fruits and colors in many of them. But this is a very personal opinion that will not affect the evaluation.I have no regrets in choosing this book, it has made me understand the SQL virtues and also its limitations. The book was definitely created with a wide audience in mind, written with no silly jokes and no fancy graphics or fonts to show off. This is a very straight, solid SQL foundation book for people with not much time for distractions.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Beginning E-Commerce with Visual Basic, ASP, SQL Server 7.0 and MTS
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Matthew Reynolds
Rating: 5/5
Title: Beginning E-Commerce with Visual Basic, ASP, SQL Server 7.0 and MTS
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Matthew Reynolds
Rating: 5/5
A few months ago I decided to build a small e-commerce solution and picked ASP/SQL Server and IIS5 for the core technologies. Finding Matthew Reynolds's book definitely reduced development time and helped to quickly define a line of progress. I spent lots of time with this book, and got to know it in detail from the first pages to the last. A few negative aspects were:1) The book is plagued by code bugs and typos. Most are already included in the errata, and of the undocumented bugs. I didn't find any that was critical but still wasted some time with the less-obvious coding errors. The Wrox support/forums were useless, spending time using your IQ power to solve the problems will be more effective.
2) The interface/usability/visuals of the site are simply lousy. If you are thinking about using it for a real production site, you will have to do what I did... rewrite tons of HTML/ASP and spend some time in Photoshop/DreamWeaver or similar packages. And that is for the visuals alone.
3) Lots of coding details aren't brilliant. Usability is also mostly ignored except for a few minor and very basic ideas (The logo on the top left should link to the home page, etc). Reynolds could have made the shopping experience better with just a few little details. Visually and from the customer's point of view, the site is terrible.
4) There is some annoying redundancy. A few aspects are mentioned too often. Perhaps newbies will value that, but I felt the space would be better used with other things (More XML use, for instance)If you are thinking about using the project as an easy production site, beware. The site is fairly generic, but many aspects (like the order pipeline system) will require lots of work to be adapted. Most VB code will need to be rewritten (plus the visual aspect already mentioned).
I also did not perform any extensive load testing, but suspect significant changes will be necessary to scale properly. Security, input validation and error-checking is also very basic or non-existent (the search engine appears vulnerable to SQL injection exploits, for instance). All this however, was expected, and is not really a limitation of the book, just be warned you will not get a 100% trouble free solution. As for difficulty, If you know nothing of ASP, SQL and VB, you will feel lost and should read other titles first. But if you're the kind of reader that likes to buy books always a bit more advanced, and learn on-the-fly, then don't worry. It is perfectly possible in this case.This might sound negative so far, but I honestly can't give it less than 4.5/5 just because of the problems mentioned. Books like this one aren't very common. Reynolds basically created a really fat tutorial and will practically hold your hand from start to finish. You will get a fairly clear (but simplified) view of the whole process of implementing a Microsoft e-commerce solution - planning, coding, hosting, customer care, etc. In my particular case, I organized a few basic areas to cover based on Reynold's tips, used lots of his VB objects as the basis for mine, and collected ideas. After a few weeks adding "extras", rewriting stuff and gathering more details from other sources, I came up with a very acceptable small e-commerce site. Overall...I didn't like Reynold's site, but I like mine, and I saved a lot of time building it thanks to this title. I know his approach works, because I have followed it from start to finish. It is not the best way to do it, but it works, and it has considerable potential to help you learn while you're building it. I look forward to similar approaches from Wrox on other technologies (ASP.Net, PHP/MySQL/Apache, etc) and now I check Reynold's articles on ASP Today and C# Today more often than before. Not perfect, but not bad... not bad at all... 4.5/5
