IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle Utilities: Using Hidden Programs, Import/Export, SQL*Loader, Oradebug, Dbverify, Tkprof and More
Publisher: Rampant TechPress
Authors: Dave Moore
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle Utilities: Using Hidden Programs, Import/Export, SQL*Loader, Oradebug, Dbverify, Tkprof and More
Publisher: Rampant TechPress
Authors: Dave Moore
Rating: 5/5
I have hraed Dave Moore speak at Oracle conferences, and I expected this book to be very technical. I was not disappointed. The text is packed with useful tips about Oracle utilities that are not in the Oracle documentation, and it also contains useful tidbits like how to speed-up the import and export utilities.If you are a guru-level Oracle person, you will probably enjoy this one as much as I did.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PC Annoyances, Second Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steve Bass
Rating: 4/5
Title: PC Annoyances, Second Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Steve Bass
Rating: 4/5
Even after being into computers for 18 years, I can say that I really enjoyed Steve Bass's book. Definitely not the kind of book you read from cover to cover, but each page stands by itself and is another little pleasant surprise, most of which I didn't know about my PCs. Steve is knowledgeable and his book is well written.
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Data Mining with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Technical Reference
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Claude Seidman
Rating: 5/5
Title: Data Mining with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Technical Reference
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Claude Seidman
Rating: 5/5
I always look for Seidman's contributions in SQL magazines and at conferences since he always has something interesting and innovative to say that is fuelled by his depth of knowledge of the subject. What's more he has a great knack of presenting complicated (and sometimes, let's face it, not very exciting) concepts in a way that makes them easy to understand and in contexts that anyone can relate to. In particular his style is reminiscient of Roger Sessions (Com+ and the Battle for the Middle Tier, etc) minus the cynicism but with equal enthusiasm. No book can be all things to all people, but this is an excellent introduction to the world of Data mining and the power behind SQL200's implementation of it. I would recommend it to anyone looking to discover those hidden trends and patterns in their data, exploit them and become their CFO's best friend.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 4/5
Title: The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Ken Henderson
Rating: 4/5
I have over ten years of experience in the database profession. I bought all three of Henderson's books a few months ago and have been studying them ever since. This book was the third book I have bought to try to learn how to use XML with Sql Server. The other two are Malcom's book and Viera's general Sql Server programming book. Neither of those other two books covers Sql-Xml in the depth that this book does. Neither provides the kind of expert advice I have come to expect in these Guru Guides. And neither provides solutions to common problems you run into when building production Sql-Xml applications. This book gives you all of that and more.What I really like about the book is the way it covers everything from start to finish on XML. It starts off wtih a chapter on the XML language itself. For those who don't already know the language, this is a great start. I haven't seen a more concise intro to the language itself. The next chapters cover all of the Sql-Xml pieces one by one. There must be hundreds of sample XML documents and Sql-Xml queries. Every feature - FOR XML, sp_xmlpreparedocument, templates, XML bulk load, HTTP queries, style sheets, etc., is covered in detail. Approximately a third of the book is dedicated to covering these subjects. The chapters on Sql-Xml in this book are worth their weight in gold.I also like how the book builds on the first Guru Guide for Transact-Sql. Take the Undocumented features chapter... It adds to the wealth of undocumented features discussed in the Transact-Sql book. Rather than merely repeating this info, I found a whole host of new undocumented features and tools discussed. Worth the cost alone.Couldn't give this a higher recommendation. If you need to learn what the experts know about Sql-Xml in Sql Server this is the right book.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: MCSE Database Design on SQL Server 7 Exam Cram (Exam: 70-029)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Jeffrey Garbus, David Pacuzzi, Alvin Chang, David Pascuzzi
Rating: 4/5
Title: MCSE Database Design on SQL Server 7 Exam Cram (Exam: 70-029)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Jeffrey Garbus, David Pacuzzi, Alvin Chang, David Pascuzzi
Rating: 4/5
I bought this book, and a few others, while studying for the 029 exam. I found it as good and as relevant as any exam guide, and on a page for page "useful information density" basis, by far the best. It's many months later now. All of the other exam centered books I bought and read for that exam are now collecting dust on my shelf while this one gets referenced again and again. The examples which demonstrated test objective principles are amazingly relevant for real projects as well. The index is also outstanding. If you have a background in an earlier version of SQL Server, Access or another DB, then this book probably has just the right depth and pace. If you are completely new to databases, this is probably not the best place to start. If you don't intend to ever use SQL Server and just want a list of certification exam questions and answers ... why are you bothering?
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Ocp: Oracle8I Dba SQL and Pl/SQL Study Guide : Exam 1Z0-001 (OCP Study Guide)
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Chip Dawes, Biju Thomas
Rating: 5/5
Title: Ocp: Oracle8I Dba SQL and Pl/SQL Study Guide : Exam 1Z0-001 (OCP Study Guide)
Publisher: Sybex Inc
Authors: Chip Dawes, Biju Thomas
Rating: 5/5
I bought this book and the Oracle Press book by Couchman to use in preparation for the SQL-PL/SQL OCP exam. This one was far better. There are a lot of sample exam questions, and some of the questions are tougher than what appeared the exam. I've been programming Oracle for about 1 year and wanted to get certified. This book definitely helped me pass the exam. The authors explain the concepts very well. Some of the explanations, like for why you would want to use a specific rollback segment or why permissions on procedures have to be granted directly are handled better than I've seen anywhere else. The examples that go along with these explanations are clear and not contrived like some other books. The best part of this book is actually the sample questions and answers. The 300+ sample questions (and answers with explanations) do as much teaching as the text. I'm strong at SQL and getting better at PL/SQL, this book's 150+ pages on PL/SQL really helped I also like the fact that the book came with an electronic version I could put on my notebook computer and not have to lug around the printed copy.Thanks to Sybex and the authors for helping me get certified.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: A Programmer's Introduction to PHP 4.0
Publisher: Apress
Authors: W. Jason Gilmore
Rating: 5/5
Title: A Programmer's Introduction to PHP 4.0
Publisher: Apress
Authors: W. Jason Gilmore
Rating: 5/5
Not for newbies to programming but if you know the basics
of html and javascript and basic database stuff but want the
heads up on PHP then this book is great !!!... Just the facts described short, sweet and to the point. Examples are perfect
without being overly complex. Good stuff.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Transact-SQL
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: William C. Amo
Rating: 2/5
Title: Transact-SQL
Publisher: Wiley
Authors: William C. Amo
Rating: 2/5
Amo's Transact-SQL can certainly be faulted for the amount of time that it spends trying to describe how to perform somewhat mundane tasks in Enterprise manager and other SQL 7 tools -- great if you have never used SQL Server before, but not particularly useful for programmer or DBA turned programmer trying to learn Transact-SQL. The books redeeming strength, however, comes from the clarity with which the author is able to deal with more advanced concepts such as cursors. His explanation makes the concept very accessible to a beginner. The books excellent index allows it to serve well as a reference book. All things considered, this is not the book to buy if a large portion of you work is with a database; but for a developer or DBA needing to write a little Transact-SQL and not wanting to spend three-weeks reading a book like Vieira's SQL Server Programming it could serve as a good intro book and/or quick reference.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Hitchhiker's Guide to SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services (Microsoft Windows Server System)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Peter Blackburn, William R. Vaughn
Rating: 5/5
Title: Hitchhiker's Guide to SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services (Microsoft Windows Server System)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Authors: Peter Blackburn, William R. Vaughn
Rating: 5/5
This is a complete book on reporting services for DBA, developers, managers written in fun style and very informative. Teaches you not just Reporting Services but some cool tricks you can use to increase your effeciency. Great Job Guys!!!!
This is my second best book after the one I read by Onion Fritz on Essential ASP.NET.
Some people might be very technical but they are not necessarily good authors.
Peter and William proved that you can be both.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Beginning E-Commerce with Visual Basic, ASP, SQL Server 7.0 and MTS
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Matthew Reynolds
Rating: 2/5
Title: Beginning E-Commerce with Visual Basic, ASP, SQL Server 7.0 and MTS
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Matthew Reynolds
Rating: 2/5
You need to read a few other books (preferably Wrox one's) before you get stuck into this, but nevertheless this is a very easy to follow book, and contains some great HTML and ASP tricks to make your e-commerce application more maintainable and scalable. I suggest reading "Beginning Components for ASP" and "Beginning ASP" from Wrox before reading this. What's more it's written by a Brit so it can't be bad (not that I'm biased at all ! ).
