IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional PHP Programming
Publisher:
Authors: Jesus Castagnetto, Sascha Schumann, Harish Rawat, Chris Scollo, Deepak T. Veliath
Rating: 5/5
Title: Professional PHP Programming
Publisher:
Authors: Jesus Castagnetto, Sascha Schumann, Harish Rawat, Chris Scollo, Deepak T. Veliath
Rating: 5/5
You people are crazy giving this book only 4 stars. To those who complain about the extremely brief function reference: it's better not to include it. Why? Because the book would have been too huge. If you want a good function reference printed out, it would have to be a second book. They did something better: they organized the functions by category and left the alphabetical and example listing to the easy-to-find html version on the web which they apparently assumed the reader would be intelligent enough to save to their hard drive and use "find" in the edit menu when they need the info. It's easier than lugging a book around and many times faster. Just bookmark the PHP reference you should have already saved to your hard drive.The Environment variables listing and web browser compatibility sections were much needed.OK, OK a good function reference would have been nice. But how often are complete ones included? When they are included, they aren't very impressive. A better formatted version than that enormously-space-wasting web function reference would have been nice. It could have replaced the verbose sections that detailed specific PHP applications. Those should have been left out.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Instant SQL Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Joe Celko
Rating: 4/5
Title: Instant SQL Programming
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Joe Celko
Rating: 4/5
This book is a great basic reference tool. As a SQL professional, however,it is too basic to be used as a problem-solving reference (it is mechanics-based). "SQL For Smarties" is Celko's next level up.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: MCDBA SQL Server 7 Test Yourself Practice Exams (Exams 70-028 & 70-029)
Publisher: Osborne Publishing Rating: 1/5
Title: MCDBA SQL Server 7 Test Yourself Practice Exams (Exams 70-028 & 70-029)
Publisher: Osborne Publishing Rating: 1/5
Don't waste your time or money on this one. I went through the MS MOC classes, read Inside SQL (a must have for anyone studing for the MCDBA cert.) and then bought this book. I also read the Troy Techs. This book was way off of both tests, 70-28 and 70-29. To get it done, study the MOC materials, read Inside SQL, and work with the product as much as possible. But don't buy this book.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: McSe SQL Server 2000 Administration: Study Guide
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Lance Mortensen, Rick Sawtell, Joseph L. Jorden
Rating: 3/5
Title: McSe SQL Server 2000 Administration: Study Guide
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Lance Mortensen, Rick Sawtell, Joseph L. Jorden
Rating: 3/5
I feel I deserve my money back. Including taxes I spent $85.44 on this book. You would think for that price, you would get quality. Unfortunately that is not the case.The syntax in this book is all wrong! Exercise 4.18 instructs me to make a stored procedure called PRINT, then it tells me to run the stored procedure called PRINT, but it doesn't understand it because PRINT is already a command. I had to find out how to do this on my own using []'s. Most of the Exercises (eg. 4.10) refer to the install directory C:\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL. The install directory is C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL. Creating Views. Exercise 4.22 is totally incorrect. Again, I had to search on the Internet to find the *Correct* way to do it. Why did I pay for this book? Is it all wrong? How do they expect me to learn SQL Server, let alone pass Microsoft exam 70-228 when all the material is incorrect? I am afraid to go on in this book. Being a student, I cannot afford to 'waste' my money. I had planned on purchasing another Sybex book on SQL Design, but I am thinking differently now. Is it full of errors too?Unsatisfied,Murray HacheyPs. More errors. Exercise 6.5 refers to an MSSQL7\Backup folder. That would be fine and dandy if the book were about MSSQL7, but it is about SQL 2000, and there is no such folder.Exercise 7.1 instructs you BULK COPY to a file called DatabcpOrdDet.txt, and in exercise 7.2 you are supposed to do a BULK INSERT from a file called bcpOrdDet.txt. There is no file called bcpOrdDet.txt so the operation fails. You must do the BULK INSERT from DatabcpOrdDet.txt(the file that you did the copy to).
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Oracle8i Certified Professional SQL & PL/SQL Exam Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Jason S. Couchman
Rating: 2/5
Title: Oracle8i Certified Professional SQL & PL/SQL Exam Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Jason S. Couchman
Rating: 2/5
I do not know why but most (have not read all) of Couchman's books are filled with errors, have very poor indexes and in many areas the material covered is also very poor. The rest of this review was edited by Amazon!
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Product: Book Hardcover
Title: MCSE: SQL Server 7 Administration Study Guide
Publisher:
Authors: Lance Mortensen, Rick Sawtell
Rating: 3/5
Title: MCSE: SQL Server 7 Administration Study Guide
Publisher:
Authors: Lance Mortensen, Rick Sawtell
Rating: 3/5
I have read this book from cover to cover and performed all the exercises in it. Found the usual amount of errors: exercises that fail, wrong figures, etc. It is still better than most. You will learn a great deal about SQL Server 7. The one error most annoying is the fact the authors wrote the book with SQL installed on a domain controller, not on a member server per Microsoft's installation instructions/recommendations. Once I figured out what they had done then Chapter 5 and parts of Chapter 8 worked since my install was on a member server. Remember the SAM on the member server never receives a copy of the SAM on the PDC so you have to tell the member server about domain accounts by logging onto the member server itself and placing them there via user manager. However this book does not do much for the test. I have taken both the Beta Exam and the Live Exam and passed. The chapter review questions are extremely easy. Compared to the real exam this book lacks the scenario type questions you will see that are given to you from the perspective of "you're the consultant on site. How would you do this...". While this book did cover traces and replaying them it was a very light run. It did not cover how to modify them and then replay them. Also not covered were issues with NT that could cause SQL to halt/fail.If you plan on taking the test I recommend the following strategy:Use this book Use Transcender (I was a Beta tester and it is excellent)Use Books Online or better yet buy the actual documentation set.Good LuckSteven C. Grigsby, MCSE, MCT, MCP+I
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sair Linux and GNU Certification(r) Level II, Apache and Web Servers
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Authors: Tobin Maginnis
Rating: 3/5
Title: Sair Linux and GNU Certification(r) Level II, Apache and Web Servers
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Authors: Tobin Maginnis
Rating: 3/5
If you've had very little experience with Apache web servers, you may have some trouble following the book. If you feel pretty confident administrating Apache then you might find the information pretty useful in preparing for the exam. Overall, the information is good but this book is terribly edited, if edited at all. I've noticed subheadings presented before the relevant paragraphs began, incorrect spacing when presenting directory names and commands, a few misspellings and a rather scattered train of thought. It is very apparent that several authors were involved but the editors should have done a much better job bring things together.
My recommendation would be to find someone to borrow this from or check it out of a library. I don't find it useful as a reference, it's simply a study guide for the exam.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Visual Basic Developer's Guide to E-Commerce with ASP and SQL Server
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Noel Jerke
Rating: 3/5
Title: Visual Basic Developer's Guide to E-Commerce with ASP and SQL Server
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Noel Jerke
Rating: 3/5
This book is simply nice, not more, not less, to those one-man show people that creates the Internet.This book is defining one approach, using the Microsoft tools (those before the 2k series (Win2k, Exchange 2k, SQL 2k, etc.). It will show you how to set up a general development environment for both ASP, VB, and SQL. It also shows how they created from scratch all of those like what was the thinking for the SQL part, how it interacts with VB components & ASP files.Good reading for beginners to intermediate web people. For the other one, it will be a light read since I see that the author's coding is somewhat not much optimized.
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
I have the second edition. I have used it off and on over the last year or so.I wish I had never bought it.Much of the code examples are either incomplete or flat out wrong.Obviously none of the code was actually tested to see if it worked. The two primary examples of this are the sections on PostgreSQL and file upload. Neither of that code is correct. File upload especially.I do not recommend this book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional PHP Programming
Publisher:
Authors: Jesus Castagnetto, Sascha Schumann, Harish Rawat, Chris Scollo, Deepak T. Veliath
Rating: 5/5
Title: Professional PHP Programming
Publisher:
Authors: Jesus Castagnetto, Sascha Schumann, Harish Rawat, Chris Scollo, Deepak T. Veliath
Rating: 5/5
This is a fantastic book. It talks the reader through installation and configuration in a very effective manner, this has been a stopping block to many of the open-source books that I've read. Although, I would like another page or two explaining how Apache does some of the things it does...but, I guess that is the job of an apache book, not of this already meaty 850 page book.The book is also has a good balance that fits very neatly between the "for dummies" and the "nutshell" books.
