IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Php Fast & Easy Web Development (Fast & Easy Web Development)
Publisher: Premier Press
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 5/5
Title: Php Fast & Easy Web Development (Fast & Easy Web Development)
Publisher: Premier Press
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 5/5
We need 100 more titles like this. It gets right to what you need to know to make things happen without the academic, arcane treatment...Also, I appreciated the cross-platform info and the CD with useful distros. Meloni's other book, PHP Essentials, has a Linux-centric approach and is also a good choice if you're using that platform. BTW, I'm looking forward to seeing the PHP Visual Quickstart Guide when that is released...this book takes the same kind of low-cost, functional no-b.s. approach that we've come to appreciate from that series. Anyway, thanks Julie for a real breakthrough in the PHP area, and also want to give a shout-out to the other reviewers who shared my enthusiasm for this title...
Product: Book
Title: PHP and MySQL For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Publisher:
Authors: Janet Valade
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP and MySQL For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Publisher:
Authors: Janet Valade
Rating: 4/5
I used this book to learn the fundamentals of PHP and mySQL. It has proven useful for that purpose. Once you start getting more serious about your PHP/mySQL programming, I suggest you buy a seperate book devoted to PHP. However, I do believe this book is adequate for most mySQL queries.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Hands On SQL Server 7 with VB6 (Hands on)
Publisher: Premier Press
Authors: Wayne S. Freeze
Rating: 1/5
Title: Hands On SQL Server 7 with VB6 (Hands on)
Publisher: Premier Press
Authors: Wayne S. Freeze
Rating: 1/5
Half way through the book I just gave up and was left feeling frustrated and angry for spending money on this book. Besides the many errors in the book, the author doesn't take the reader through the projects on a step by step basis. Yes, when I spend money on a computer book I like to be held by the hand and guided through the material in a logical, complete and unambiguous way. This book starts out that way, but very soon the author becomes lazy and just begins showing code snippets from the projects and stops guiding the reader through the steps required to build it. As a result, many steps are omitted and the reader really has to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what to do next. Yes, if you are willing to spend the time debugging the authors code and figuring out how to put the project together, you probably can get the project to work. The point is, all that burden shouldn't be placed on the reader. After all, the author is getting paid to teach the reader, not make the reader struggle through this technology on their own.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
Title: The Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
It's refreshing to find a technical book that reads so well. Too many times we get books written by a dozen different people with a dozen different writing styles. Not this one. The style of writing is superb and is consistent throughout. If you read this book cover to cover, you'll come away knowing a lot more about Transact-SQL than you started, I don't care who you are :)Sharon Ellis.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Rational Guide to: SQL Server Reporting Services (Rational Guides)
Publisher: Rational Press
Authors: Anthony T. Mann
Rating: 5/5
Title: The Rational Guide to: SQL Server Reporting Services (Rational Guides)
Publisher: Rational Press
Authors: Anthony T. Mann
Rating: 5/5
Its a very low cost, quick-to-market overview of the product, and so I applaud Mr. Mann and the folks at Rational Press for that. However, its nothing more than a rehash of the Microsoft marketing information and technical documentation freely available from www.microsoft.com/sql. If you don't have an internet connection, then by all means by the book. Otherwise, you won't be gaining much at all by picking up this guide.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server Security
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: David Litchfield
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server Security
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: David Litchfield
Rating: 5/5
"SQL Server Security" (SSS) is a great security book, free of the bloat the affects both operating systems and many technical volumes. Weighing in at 322 pages, it's packed with the detail needed to securely deploy Microsoft SQL servers. Although many people contributed to the text, it doesn't suffer from internal redundancy. I highly recommend anyone operating SQL servers devour this book.In the "Acknowledgements," lead author Chip Andrews writes "I wanted this book to give security and database professionals the same readability, reference ability, and red-eyed wonder that 'Hacking Exposed' gave me a few years back." My favorite aspect of the HE line was the material's ability to explain attack and defense concepts while illuminating the internal operation of victimized systems. SSS follows this lead by devoting entire chapters to SQL Server components, like Network-Libraries (ch. 4) and Authentication and Authorization (ch. 5). My favorite sections appear in chapter 7, where the authors describe novel ways to leverage SQL Server's "C-2 auditing" features for purposes of intrusion detection.
SSS dispenses an immense amount of useful advice, whether it's a whole chapter on secure installation (ch. 3), best practices found in most chapters, or the appendices on stored procedures and integration with other Microsoft technologies. The only downside I found appears in chapter 2, where SQL samurai David Litchfield uses language outside the realm of most readers' understanding. For example, "the import address entry for GetProcAddress() in sqlsort.dll shifts by 12. With no SQL Server service pack, the address of the entry is at 0x42AE1010, and on SP1 and SP2, it is at 0x42AE101C" (p. 29). The uninitiated should skim this chapter and trust the authors when they claim SQL Server can be attacked by multiple means.
SSS is a must-buy if you operate SQL Server. It's the manual Microsoft forgot to ship.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Introduction to SQL: Mastering the Relational Database Language (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Rick Van Der Lans
Rating: 2/5
Title: Introduction to SQL: Mastering the Relational Database Language (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Rick Van Der Lans
Rating: 2/5
I ordered this book through amazon.com when there where no reviews-- took a chance and did it ever pay off. So now i'm writing a review for the next guy who is looking for a good book to get HANDS-ON sql experience with. You should have some understanding of relational databases and a basic understanding of sql to get the maximum from this book, but that's not necessary, first time sql self-teachers stand to benefit greatly from it also. I definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to gain further understanding of SQL and relational databases.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
Title: The Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 5/5
This book covers everything I could have hoped for and more. There's a steep learning curve, but it's worth it. Before I knew it, I had learned more in two weeks with this book than I had learned in two years with the product. Some books can really enlighten you and show you fresh ways of doing things. This is one of those books.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Core PHP Programming, Third Edition
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Leon Atkinson, Zeev Suraski
Rating: 1/5
Title: Core PHP Programming, Third Edition
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Leon Atkinson, Zeev Suraski
Rating: 1/5
I have to agree with the negative reviews - this book just doesn't make any sense. First of all, why call it "Core" PHP? There's no core to this book. There's no syntax description, no documentation on arguments, returned values, or errors. There's very few examples of code, even the new version 5 code. This book should have been called "Addendum to a previous reference" instead of Core.Personally, I distaste the format and style of the book. The first chapter glorifies the history of PHP to make you think it's bigger than Jesus. Guess what, folks? PHP has a long way to go before it's deserving of such praise. If I wanted an editorial, I would've gone to the "fiction" section of my bookstore.Lastly, the positive reviews on this site are obviously written either by the authors or by people with affiliations with this publications. Come on, guys. Shouldn't you spend less time pumping up your diatribe novel, and more time writing a useful book on a fledgling programming language?
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Barney Google & Snuffy Smith: 75 Years of an American Legend
Publisher: Kitchen Sink Press
Authors: Billy De Beck, Brian Walker, Fred Lasswell
Rating: 5/5
Title: Barney Google & Snuffy Smith: 75 Years of an American Legend
Publisher: Kitchen Sink Press
Authors: Billy De Beck, Brian Walker, Fred Lasswell
Rating: 5/5
Billy DeBeck began,with Barney Google,a chronicle of American lifestyle in the 1920s-which was marked by daring,willingness to take risks and cheerful optomism.Barney Google had some times at the race track,with Sparky doing his best at races-and even winning them on occasion.There were some fascinating stories well-worth reprinting in their entirty.DeBeck's Bughouse Fables and Bunky are also represented.(Learn what OKMNX means.) As time went on,especialy during the Depression, the stories took a different slant.Barney speant much time out of America,either in the Mideast or in the Carribean.When he did return to America,it was to inherited property in the Ozarks.Then he befriended Snuffy Smith,who took center-stage more and more as time went on. Although Billy DeBeck never completely forgot Barney Google,his assistant and successor,country boy Fred Laswell,found it much easier to concentrate on Snuffy an' his kin an' pals.As a result Barney Google became an occasional visitor in what is now Snuffy's territory.Yet it is because of Laswell's own brand of country-charm that the strip has lasted this long. It is easy to think of Billy DeBeck's Barney Google(1919-1934),DeBeck and Laswell's Barney Google and Snuffy Smith(1935-1942)and Fred Laswell's Snuffy Smith(1943-present)as seperate strips unto themselves.
