IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server Developer's Guide to OLAP with Analysis Services
Publisher: Sybex
Authors: Mike Gunderloy, Tim Sneath
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server Developer's Guide to OLAP with Analysis Services
Publisher: Sybex
Authors: Mike Gunderloy, Tim Sneath
Rating: 5/5
I liked the book, but when I went to load the sample software called Proclarity, I got a message from Norton anti-virus that something was afoul in the install routine. Foolishly, I thought that Norton must be wrong. It turns out, I was wrong and the CD apparently had a virus or did something it shouldn't have done.Immediately after rebooting, my desktop disappeared after opening my first application. The mouse isn't working right either.So, the book is good. But don't load the sample software from Proclarity. Regarding the rest of the CD, I have not loaded it all, so I can't speak for whether it has any other viruses/problems. Just make sure you have your anti-virus software running. BTW, I'm running XP Pro.
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
Probably not the best book ever written for SQL, let alone for beginners. However, it is the one I used to learn SQL. It covers the basics in a fairly concise manner, enough so to be able to move on to a more advanced book. I read it cover-to-cover, and didn't agonize over the side-tracking or standards discussions. What I wanted was the details on the syntax of the language and an understanding of what the statements do, and that is what was provided along with some basic examples. By the end of the book, I was able to use SQL at a novice level. I'm not sure I'd use this book to teach a class on beginning SQL, but as a quick and dirty read to get a first taste of the language, it fits. P-)
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Black Book
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Peter Moulding
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP Black Book
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Peter Moulding
Rating: 4/5
I bought the book. I read the book and it is not to bad. The examples in there are good but not easy to read. When you look for a book with complete source code examples, then this is not the right book for you.
All in all it has everything in it, but as I said it could be easier to read. So for starting with PHP there should be an second source.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Apache: the Definitive Guide (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Ben Laurie, Peter Laurie
Rating: 2/5
Title: Apache: the Definitive Guide (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Ben Laurie, Peter Laurie
Rating: 2/5
I bought this book, but it turned out that I didn't really have to use much of it. The source program package from apache comes with a complete, up-to-date installation guide, online docs, pointers to FAQ and other info. If you are trying to set up Apache in the absense of any internet access (some kind of a boot-strapping process that someone might have to do in some special settings), this book might be useful. But that's usually not the case, and I wonder who would bother? For quick reference purposes, O'Reilley's Webmaster in a Nutshell would do a much better job for dollar.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP: Your Visual Blueprint for Creating Open Source, Server-Side Content
Publisher: Visual
Authors: Paul Whitehead, Joel Desamero
Rating: 5/5
Title: PHP: Your Visual Blueprint for Creating Open Source, Server-Side Content
Publisher: Visual
Authors: Paul Whitehead, Joel Desamero
Rating: 5/5
As an developer wanting to learn additional languages and distinguis between the syntax differences of web-coding languages, I was particularly happy to find a book that served as a true example-based reference guide. Ironically, I've not even "cracked" the CD packaging!Whether you need to install and configure Apache, install PHP or use it to code, install MySQL or use it in your PHP scripts, this book walks you through it all. There's even a handy comprehensive PHP functions reference in the back of the book. Personallly, I liked this book better than the one for dummies.I would definitely recommend this book for anyone wanting to know more about PHP.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Beginning Php 4 (Programmer to Programmer)
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Chris Lea, Allan Kent, Ganesh Prasad, Chris Ullman
Rating: 5/5
Title: Beginning Php 4 (Programmer to Programmer)
Publisher: Peer Information
Authors: Chris Lea, Allan Kent, Ganesh Prasad, Chris Ullman
Rating: 5/5
This is really a simple, very good book. ... My one issue is that the sample programs are way too complicated. The book relies too heavily on functions for its code. The problem being that if you want to embelish on their script, you will run into issues - like returning more than one variable from a function. So that bothered me, but the rest was great.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle High-Performance SQL Tuning
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Donald K. Burleson
Rating: 1/5
Title: Oracle High-Performance SQL Tuning
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Donald K. Burleson
Rating: 1/5
After having tuned our server, network, and database it was clear that the remaining slow performance was due to the SQL.
This led me to the purchase of this book which has not disapointed. This book goes into great detail about how sql statements effect database performance and how to correct it.
After just the first few chapters, I was able to quickly find 'hot' sql statements and see how they were causing bad performance due to full table scans, merge joins, slow index scans, hints, built in functions, sorting etc. This book gives a good explanation to the various table / index access methods and thus improved my ability to look at an explain plan and quickly see problem areas. With this book I have better understanding of the options to correct them without messing with the sql code. Infact, most all of these are correctable without changing the sql code - my favorite part.
There is of course a lot written on tuning to the code that can make great strides in performance as well, but as a dba and not a developer, I was more focused on things I could do to improve performance without changing the code.The scrips with the book are especially good - pull sql out of the library cache on the fly, or out of statspack tables for hisorical analysis - and get reports on full table scans, various index scan reports, etc. These alone make the usefulness of this book fast and easy - worth it.In short, I recomend this book to anyone wanting a better understanding of how sql code is affecting your DB performance as well as options to correct it. This is good if you have applications where you can't change the code (or just don't want to) but see improvements in performance need be made.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Learn Google
Publisher: Wordware Publishing, Inc.
Authors: Michael Busby
Rating: 5/5
Title: Learn Google
Publisher: Wordware Publishing, Inc.
Authors: Michael Busby
Rating: 5/5
This very well written book is a must for anybody wanting to learn more about Google. It goes beyond Google's Help section to provide all the pertinent information you need in a very organized way. Eliminate your search frustration and save time. The search challenge and search examples are great.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Apache: the Definitive Guide (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Ben Laurie, Peter Laurie
Rating: 3/5
Title: Apache: the Definitive Guide (With CD-ROM)
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Ben Laurie, Peter Laurie
Rating: 3/5
I would imagine that the book might be easier to follow if I had done exactly what the authors do, which is to install FreeBSD and then install Apache with the included CD-ROM. But that's not really an option in most cases unless you can afford to have a separate machine that doesn't have the standard Linux installation on it, just for following the book. I've learned a lot more about how to set up Apache to properly on Linux (Redhat 6.2) by searching around the web and reading the online documentation than from this book. This is so disappointing, because like others, I usually love anything that is published by O'Reilly. The only thing that stops me from giving it a lower rating is that some of the information is kind of useful. I have Professional Apache on order now, and I'm hoping for more from that.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Transact-SQL Desk Reference: For Microsoft SQL Server
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Deac Lancaster
Rating: 4/5
Title: Transact-SQL Desk Reference: For Microsoft SQL Server
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Deac Lancaster
Rating: 4/5
This book is exactly what it's title says, it's a reference book. If you need brief descriptions and syntax for T-SQL statements and functions, this is a great book to have on your book shelf. However, the index is very weak. It is essentially an alphabetical listing of functions, so you need to know the name of a function to find it. For example, if you wanted to add an INDEX to a table, you would probably look under "I" for "INDEX.". But, you wouldn't find what you were looking for. You would need to look under "C" because the function is "CREATE INDEX." But, if you know what you are looking for, you'll find it in this book.
