IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ryan Stephens, Ron Plew
Rating: 5/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ryan Stephens, Ron Plew
Rating: 5/5
I loved this book. The book is clear, easy to understand, no errors, provides good sample code. You can use code examples with any SQL based database with some modifications to fit your implementation. I used MS Access with this book. The largest portion of the book is devoted to Select statements, which is what the majority of users really need.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Core PHP Programming: Using PHP to Build Dynamic Web Sites (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Leon Atkinson
Rating: 3/5
Title: Core PHP Programming: Using PHP to Build Dynamic Web Sites (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Leon Atkinson
Rating: 3/5
I bought this book as an alternative to the online PHP documentation and found it to be much more readable than the online docs. The functions dealing with different databases are in large print and usually have a small example of code to illustrate the usage. The book spends a lot of time describing basic programming concepts such as functions and regular expressions, but not nearly enough time showing examples of web applications. All in all though, it was a decent way to get started with PHP and I was able to write a few scripts that involved retrieving/storing data from a web form after looking through the book a bit. The book would be good for someone who doesn't find the online documentation particularly helpful and is looking for a way to get started with PHP. I plan to buy another book or two on PHP to hopefully find better explanations and more examples.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7 for Dummies
Publisher: For Dummies
Authors: Anthony T. Mann
Rating: 5/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7 for Dummies
Publisher: For Dummies
Authors: Anthony T. Mann
Rating: 5/5
While this book maybe less than what a seasoned DBA maybe looking for it is non the less an excellent book. The author wrote the book using Beta 3 and I used it against RC-1 of SQL 7. There were some differences but not enough to interfere with the authors clear introduction to SQL 7.I believe you will find SQL Server 7 for Dummies to be a superb introduction to SQL 7 and as only one of two books on the subject in print at the time of this review it is the least expensive and most informative.Regards
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: MCDBA Administering SQL Server 2000 Study Guide (Exam 70-228)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Joyjit Mukherjee
Rating: 2/5
Title: MCDBA Administering SQL Server 2000 Study Guide (Exam 70-228)
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Joyjit Mukherjee
Rating: 2/5
If you are new to SQL server and want to know the basics of the application then this books if your you. If you want to pass the exam however then I suggest you look else where. The material is too simplistic and there are too much typo errors. I read the book twice before turning to other materials like the Transcenders and Self Test software and I must say had it not been for the other materials that I used I would have failed the exam.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Unleashed (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ray Rankins, Paul Jensen, Paul Bertucci
Rating: 1/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Unleashed (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ray Rankins, Paul Jensen, Paul Bertucci
Rating: 1/5
i didn't know whether to get this one or Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2000. i looked on amazon. this one had a table of contents that seemed to cover more of the admin stuff that i was looking for so i was very close to buying it but, having never bought a sams book, i decided to compare the two at the bookstore. it took very little time before i decided to get Inside. Unleashed has tons of admin dialog boxes with text that walks you through the dialog boxes and says "i really like this feature." just wasn't what i was looking for.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Unleashed
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Sharon Bjeletich, Greg Mable
Rating: 3/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Unleashed
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Sharon Bjeletich, Greg Mable
Rating: 3/5
Why is everyone giving this book such high marks? SQL 7.0 unleashed is a decent reference which covers the basics but not much else.The SQL unleashed series took a step back. I'm very disappointed that this incredible reference has now become simply average. Don't get rid of your SQL 6.5 unleashed...you'll still need it! The 6.5 edition was a masterful tome which included all kinds of wondeful info that couldn't be found anywhere else. The 7.0 book is sparse on the very details that made the 6.5 version so endearing.By the way...David Soloman is not an author on this book (as listed above). In fact this is an entirely different team of writers than were on 6.5. Two of the heros of 6.5 edition, Spenik and Sledge are the authors of the top SQL book on my desk: SQL 7.0 DBA Survival Guide.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft Access Developer's Guide to SQL Server
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Andy Baron, Mary Chipman
Rating: 4/5
Title: Microsoft Access Developer's Guide to SQL Server
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Andy Baron, Mary Chipman
Rating: 4/5
If anyone is stuck when porting applications from access to sql server, you are about to find the answers in this book. I recon if it is not in here, its probably to possible. The explanations are straight forward and conver sufficient depth to adapt it to everyday problems.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Hugh E. Williams
Rating: 4/5
Title: Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Hugh E. Williams
Rating: 4/5
This book, as most O'Reilly books I own, contains a wealth of information that has taken me from being a novice to being able to construct my own dynamic website. I recommend this book for both beginners and experience users as it is a great reference too. The authors have also been helpful when prompted for questions and help. The code in the book is available for download and also contains updated code for PHP 4.2. The only drawback is this version of the book does not address the changes in 4.2, but I would assume the next version will. In any case: I Highly Recommend!!!
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: SQL Server 2000 Web Application Developer's Guide
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Craig Utley
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server 2000 Web Application Developer's Guide
Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill
Authors: Craig Utley
Rating: 5/5
As someone who uses SQL Server, I needed to learn how to build some web applications. This book does a great job of taking you through the basics of how ASPs work and then building on that theme to build web sites that integrate with SQL Server data. The book spends short but quality time on SQL Server itself, instead focusing on ASPs and ADO. There are excellent chapters on ADO and building COM+ components. Utley's approach to teaching the basics and then progressing to the more complex topics is well done and logical, making the book easy to follow.Is the book perfect? No. I would have liked more on XML. But, overall, this is an excellent book that I would recommend for any SQL Server using building web apps with Active Server Pages. In fact, even if you aren't using SQL Server, this book has a lot to offer!
