IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Professional Apache 2.0
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Peter Wainwright, Poornachandra, Dr. Sarang, Afrasiab Ahmad, Sean Chittneden, Vivek Chopra, Micheal Link, Stephen G. Wadlow, Mathew Antony
Rating: 5/5
Title: Professional Apache 2.0
Publisher: Wrox Press
Authors: Peter Wainwright, Poornachandra, Dr. Sarang, Afrasiab Ahmad, Sean Chittneden, Vivek Chopra, Micheal Link, Stephen G. Wadlow, Mathew Antony
Rating: 5/5
This book was quite impressive. This book has helped me set up several Apache 2.0 servers, all in a very short peroid of time. Any problems I had, the book always had good troubleshooting tips. The section on mod_python, PHP, and mod_perl were brilliant and things compiled perfectly without any problems. Like I said, everything was up and running much faster with the book to my side.I tried installing mod_snake and it compiled and was built perfectly. I am glad that there was mod_snake mentioned in the book, as the project has been abandoned, and I have yet to see a book covering the project. Especially now.Overall, yes, it may seem this book was rushed, but everything you'll need as a systems administrator is mentioned in the book. Wainwright did a good job.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Essentials
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 3/5
Title: PHP Essentials
Publisher: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade
Authors: Julie C. Meloni
Rating: 3/5
I bought this book and I can't really use it as much of a reference. It deals with PHP3 completely and not PHP4. It takes you through the install and the syntax basics. However, unless you are new to programming languages and related installs, you don't need to know all of that stuff. There are absolutely no advanced lessons. The best thing about the book are the last few sections which talk about browser sessions and e-commerce apps.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Hugh E. Williams
Rating: 3/5
Title: Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL, 2nd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Hugh E. Williams
Rating: 3/5
I recently began a web database project and had to self-teach myself PHP and MySQL, therefore I bought several books from Amazon looking to cover the bases. I disagree with some other reviews posted here, the text IS AN INTRODUCTION but this is not obvious from the title or the editorial reviews on Amazon. The review referring to editing errors I COULD NOT AGREE WITH, I did not find "errors" or typos, maybe I'm not very observant or don't know the subject well enough yet.Anyway ... the text does a good job at presenting the PHP language and how to operate on MySQL database back-ends, that is the purpose of the book. The sections on PHP are introductory, but well done. Comprehensive descriptions of string and reg-exp functions are provided. A good section for beginners is titled "Common Mistakes" that describe why you get a blank browser screen or what those darned header messages are about. The MySQL section is well done, providing ample samples of the different query types and advanced joins and keys. I also liked the portion that describes using PHP with other RDMS systems via ODBC and to Oracle. Linking PHP and MySQL is well handled and sections on authentication and session management are practical and real-world. The text ONLY includes one overall application system, a psuedo online winestore that includes a shopping cart and purchasing concept. The appendix include a really good treatise on HTTP and describing how Requests and Responses are handled and the status codes.I had great expectations for this O'Reilly text as many of their critter-adorned texts are in my library. I expected the text to be more advanced than it is. The lack of other sample applications is a weakness, for the price you can get other texts with more comprehensive samples. Afterall, many of us buy these books to try and help us quickly solve "Our Immediate Problem", more samples would have helped this effort better.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP Black Book
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Peter Moulding
Rating: 1/5
Title: PHP Black Book
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Peter Moulding
Rating: 1/5
This book belongs in the bargain shelf, which is where I found it recently at the local Borders. I paid ... for it brand new, drastically reduced from ....The largest problems I had were: missing example code, incorrect code, missing critical information, and too much author ballyhooing. Also, the included CD did not work, it was corrupt.In numerous instances, the author builds from one concept to the next, adding in more complex capabiilites. Unfortunately, the author often fails to provide the complete resultant code, leaving the reader to attempt at guessing at the correct code. Case in point...page 347...no print function is given. Thus the preceding code examples are useless if you do not have the experience to figure it out, which I didn't.Incorrect code...some of the stuff that is in here is just plain wrong. Copied verbatim from the pages, the code just flat out does not work.Missing Information: The chapters explain about 75% of what you need to know to be successful. Missing info, for example, in the email and form sections makes the chapters incomprehensible. There is nothing to bring them together to use forms and emailing together. I had to go online to get these concepts and required code and config changes to make it work.Lastly, the author spends a lot of time making jokes, which is fine, if your work is absolutely complete and accurate. The humor becomes more droll as the mistakes and errors pile up.Lastly, Coriolis is apparently no longer in business. When I found out the CD was corrupt, I immediately emailed the "email address" in the book for assistance, possibly to get a new CD. In short order I got an email error message back stating the email address ... did not exist. I then browsed to ... Nothing. After a Google search on "Coriolis Group", I finally found the news that this company no longer exists, and is now under the control of some cheezy-named publishing company, supposedly the original two guys are now back in charge. I don't know the gory details about the company politics, but their "new" website is beyond boring, and offered no help for us trying to make heads nor tails over this book.To make a long story short, don't buy this book. There are too many other great resources out there.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Database Implementation Online Training Kit: McSe Training for Exam 70-029 (It-Online Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Press Rating: 2/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Database Implementation Online Training Kit: McSe Training for Exam 70-029 (It-Online Training Kit)
Publisher: Microsoft Press Rating: 2/5
I wrote the exam, using this book as a primary guide, and failed.The exam was a shock, used language I had never heard of before (e.g. 'surrogate primary keys'), and the questions were of a practical, 'exercise' nature. Without use of practice tests, this book is dismally insufficient.Make sure you know what 'OLTP' and 'DECISION-SUPPORT' mean. Perhaps I'm an ignoramus, but I don't remember these terms being highlighted in the book.jp
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle PL/SQL 101
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Christopher Allen
Rating: 5/5
Title: Oracle PL/SQL 101
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Christopher Allen
Rating: 5/5
After wading through lots of poorly-written clunkers that expect you to be a programming expert already, I was overjoyed when I started reading this book. It starts at the beginning. Explains stuff in an understandable way. Uses real-life examples. Walks you through exercises to practice what you learned. Keeps doing this until you know about procedures, functions, triggers, and the pile of command-line SQL that's underneath it all.Perfect.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: MCDBA SQL Server 7 Test Yourself Practice Exams (Exams 70-028 & 70-029)
Publisher: Osborne Publishing Rating: 4/5
Title: MCDBA SQL Server 7 Test Yourself Practice Exams (Exams 70-028 & 70-029)
Publisher: Osborne Publishing Rating: 4/5
I thought that this books was wonderful, between this book and the transcenders I fell very prepared for these tests. However, I not only feel better prepared for the tests I genuinely learned a lot about SQL Server 7 that I did not know, especially about optimizing the database with indexes.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 with ASP, ColdFusion, and PHP : Training from the Source
Publisher: Macromedia Press
Authors: Jeffrey Bardzell
Rating: 3/5
Title: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 with ASP, ColdFusion, and PHP : Training from the Source
Publisher: Macromedia Press
Authors: Jeffrey Bardzell
Rating: 3/5
This review is directed to those who are newcomers to dynamic websites/and or mac users. Get Joe Kissel's book, 50 techniques for the Mac. It shows you how to turn on PHP. Skip the unix stuff written for the mac. Unless you already know unix, it is a huge project to do so.
Product: Book
Title: Start to Finish Guide to SQL Server Performance Monitoring
Publisher:
Authors: K. Brian Kelley
Rating: 5/5
Title: Start to Finish Guide to SQL Server Performance Monitoring
Publisher:
Authors: K. Brian Kelley
Rating: 5/5
This is really the best book I have come across regarding Performance tuning .Brian Kelley has come out with real time examples and Scenarios and it also takes you all through the Hardware and software tunning . It includes the SQL Profiler and how it can be used in real time tracing the probelms which includes the counter which are to be looked at .I am impressed by the content and the topics covered .
It is really a good book and a must for all DBA's who are more hungry and want to fine tune their systems .Good stuff Brian!!
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 7 Data Warehousing
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Michael J. Corey, Michael Abbey, Ian Abramson, Larry Barnes, Benjamin Taub, Rajan Venkitachalam
Rating: 1/5
Title: SQL Server 7 Data Warehousing
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Michael J. Corey, Michael Abbey, Ian Abramson, Larry Barnes, Benjamin Taub, Rajan Venkitachalam
Rating: 1/5
I'm the lead developer for a software development and training firm. My boss had me buy this book, for an upcoming SQL Server data warehousing project. One problem though. This book doesn't tell you anything about how to build a data warehouse, it tells you why you would want one, but not what to do after you know you want it. Further more, it is the exact same book, word for word, with a few exceptions, as the Oracle 8 Data warehousing book, also written by Corey, Abbey, Abramson, and Taub. All they did differently, was they wrote about 10 pages on SQL Server, pulled out all of the information on UNIX, and did a find an replace for ORACLE and OEM. Other than that it's exactly the same book, they even left the chapter titles in the same order. I'm sorry, but letting the guy that made microsoft bob write two chapters doesn't make it a SQL Server book.
