IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes, Third Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ben Forta
Rating: 5/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes, Third Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ben Forta
Rating: 5/5
This little manual has all the information you need to get started quickly with SQL. It's also a great quick reference book for those brain failure moments when you know there is a way to .... but you just can't think of it. It's presented in logical order and has great tips and comments. For a technical book about a subject as dry as SQL, it's VERY easy to read and understand. I'd recommend this book to anyone starting out with or interested in SQL.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Practical SQL Handbook: Using Structured Query Language (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Judith S. Bowman, Sandra L. Emerson, Marcy Darnovsky
Rating: 5/5
Title: The Practical SQL Handbook: Using Structured Query Language (3rd Edition)
Publisher: Pearson Education
Authors: Judith S. Bowman, Sandra L. Emerson, Marcy Darnovsky
Rating: 5/5
Trying to find a good book on SQL is really tough. One test is whether the author can explain normalization in a way that is (a) understandable to the book's lay audience, (b) mostly accurate, and (c) mostly devoid of references to relational formalism (which is "relatively" hard even for C.S. majors to grok). The Practical SQL Handbook passes that test. Many don't. (I venture to say that most don't.)The Practical SQL Handbook is a good tutorial and "cookbook" of--as advertised--very practically oriented SQL. It won't turn you into a database designer. But on the other hand it won't severely mislead you either. It will certainly give you every opportunity to learn the basics of SQL and a bit more, and it does so with a friendly and straightforward style.I don't think this is a brilliant book, but many competing books are awful. I'd give it 4 stars on an absolute scale, but for its relative merit, it gets a full 5.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes, Third Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ben Forta
Rating: 5/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes, Third Edition
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Ben Forta
Rating: 5/5
Easy to understand for the beginner, and a powerful reference for the SQL pro.
Product: Book Textbook Binding
Title: SQL Server System Administration (The Landmark Series)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Chris Miller, Sean Baird, John Lynn, Michael Hotek, Denis Darveau
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server System Administration (The Landmark Series)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Chris Miller, Sean Baird, John Lynn, Michael Hotek, Denis Darveau
Rating: 5/5
This book is great for configuring your SQL Server out of the box or cleaning up an installation setup by someone who is less than knowledgable. It walks you around the common pitfalls and security gotchas. It does all of this with minimal fluff. Great for the people thrown to the DBA wolves without training.
Product: Book Mass Market Paperback
Title: McSe Exam Notes: SQL Server 6.5 Administration (Certificaiton Study Guide)
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Rick Sawtell, Lance Mortensen
Rating: 5/5
Title: McSe Exam Notes: SQL Server 6.5 Administration (Certificaiton Study Guide)
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Rick Sawtell, Lance Mortensen
Rating: 5/5
This book is extremely well written and a must for anyone preparing to take the Microsoft 70-026 Certification Exam!As an MCT who is certified to deliver the Microsoft 867 (SQL 6.5 Admin) course, I reccomend this book to my students preparing to take the exam to supplement the courseware. I met Rick Sawtell several months ago when he came to teach a VB class at the training center I work for. We got to discussing the books that we suggest our students should read to supplement the courseware in preparation for the SQL exams. Rick told me to check out his book, and I have to admit I was quite impressed!The book is very well organized and loaded with exam tips. In defense of the authors, the sample questions do seem to be rather simplistic, but that's actually how they are on the exam. Unlike the server and workstation exams, the SQL exam is actually very straight forward. And as far as tips on real world administration, these are good to know,as the Real World isn't as straight forward as Microsoft may want us to believe. Also, they help to further illustrate the exam objectives by example.Great job guys! I look forward to any future titles!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Graphics Handbook
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Jason E. Sweat, Allan Kent, Mitja Slenc
Rating: 1/5
Title: PHP Graphics Handbook
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Jason E. Sweat, Allan Kent, Mitja Slenc
Rating: 1/5
As indicated by the title, this book was disappointing, and frustrating. For starters, like the previous reviewer stated, it contained several typos and other errors. It also contained extensive sections on only marginally related information, third-party, non-PHP software, and creating MySQL databases, issues which belong in appendices.This information actually ends up occupying a large portion of the book. This however, was not the real source of my frustrations and disappointment. The layout of the book is disconcertingly difficult to understand - the physical dimensions of the book are smaller than most other programming books, and though code is highlighted with a gray background, it is broken into little chunks by short explanations of what was being done. Large spaces are also taken for screen shots, which considering the size of the book, often took up at least a good 1/3 of the page. Also, the book's organization was decidedly counter-intuitive. Combined, these factors gave me an abysmal reading experience. Finally, the author's profiles were inappropriately placed before the table of contents, in addition to being merely frivolous commentaries that gave me little confidence in their qualifications for writing this book.Though I did glean some interesting techniques from the book (not all of them graphics related), in the future, will likely consult the online documentation of the GD imaging functions instead, and recommend the same for other programmers as well.I also found that some of the topics were too basic; considering the topic of the book, the audience could have been assumed to know much of these topics - and they could have been placed in appendices or sidebars, instead.I wish I could get a refund, or sell the book in good conscience ... as it is, this book is not recommended, and I must wait until O'Reilly comes out with a 'PHP Graphics in a Nutshell' or something similar, because I am unlikely to buy a book from Wrox ever again.
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
This is a great book for someone learning to use PHP and MySQL. It assumes the reader already knows basic HTML. The book is easy to read and understand. The topics it covers gives the reader a good grounding of the basics, enough to create a reasonably sophisticated web application. The stuff it leaves out is not essential to know, and can be left for when the reader steps up to more complicated applications. Information is well organised and easy to navigate. The two web application examples towards the back of the book are also excellent to learn from. They're very good at demonstrating techniques described in earlier chapters. One potential difficulty someone might have is with the explanation of relational database design. Someone without any past knowledge of relational databases might find the book's explanation a bit light. Designing relational databases isn't terribly complicated, but has its tricky bits. Another thing I liked about this book is how it helped me set up the appropriate software on my computer so it all worked cleanly together.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 2000 Backup and Recovery
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Anil Desai
Rating: 1/5
Title: SQL Server 2000 Backup and Recovery
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Anil Desai
Rating: 1/5
The Backup & Recovery techniques could have been put in less than one third the size of this book. But the book goes needlessly into many of the MS SQL Server 2000 features that have absolutely nothing to do with Backup/Recovery at all. For example, what does Profiler have to do with backup/recovery? Or step by step configuration of SQL Server? If you start at page 305 and stop at page 510, you have read all there is to know about backups and restores. Beyond page 510 are some interesting special purpose topics like Replication and Log shipping etc, which can come in handy for a high availability OLTP systems. However, first four chapters are unnecessary details about NT security and SQL Server 2000 Architecture. Wait for a more focused book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle Pl/SQL Programming (Oracle Series)
Publisher: Oracle Pr
Authors: Scott Urman, Tim Smith
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle Pl/SQL Programming (Oracle Series)
Publisher: Oracle Pr
Authors: Scott Urman, Tim Smith
Rating: 5/5
This book is excellent. The topics have discussed in detail and are made very easy even for a beginner.The book should come in a hard cover as it is one of those books that you would not like to give as a loaner to anyone.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Queries for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Michael J. Hernandez, John L. Viescas
Rating: 4/5
Title: SQL Queries for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Michael J. Hernandez, John L. Viescas
Rating: 4/5
I knew nothing of database design or SQL when i bought this book. This book is a great way to get up to speed with SQL and to learn the fundamentals of relational databases. I've been working on databases for years without having to create my own queries but needed to get up to speed fast (one weekend). Its a little long winded in the first few chapters but once you get into the writing SQL code you'll find the book loaded with practical examples that you can try on your sample databases (cd-rom). one note: be certain to read the readme.txt file on the cdrom or you'll end up 'wasting' alot of time with, like i did :-P
