IT programming books related reviews
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 7.0
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Ron Soukup, Kalen Delaney
Rating: 5/5
Title: Inside Microsoft SQL Server 7.0
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Ron Soukup, Kalen Delaney
Rating: 5/5
Trying to get your mind around OLAP Server? Guess we'll have to wait for an OLAP book. MDX? Not even in the index! Will DTS suffice for your ETL problems? No help here. English Query? Nope. These are classified as tools that ship with SQL Server, and when they are mentioned, the reader is pointed towards Books Online.The book appears to be a straight revision of the 6.5 edition - you might get by with that edition and the documentation that ships with SQL Server 7.0. I'd give it five stars for describing the core product in detail - its stated mission - but leaving out the new toys???
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Transact-SQL in 21 Days (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Lowell Mauer
Rating: 1/5
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Transact-SQL in 21 Days (2nd Edition)
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Lowell Mauer
Rating: 1/5
This book spends 500 pages exploring what's already covered quite adequately in the Books Online. Why would anyone write a book that does this? Also, there are several glaring ommissions. As a beginner, I found this book to add little to what's already provided with the product.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Notification Services
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Shyam Pather
Rating: 5/5
Title: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Notification Services
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Shyam Pather
Rating: 5/5
Suppose you're in charge of inventory at a store. Wouldn't it be nice of your computer system could notify you immediately that you're selling a lot of something that normally sells very slowly?
This is exactly the situation that Micro SQL Server 2000 Notification Services is designed to handle. It is a platform that includes a notification engine to tell selected individuals about selected changes in the information in the database. Computer systems normally work in a pull oriented architecture i.e. you go to the web and ask for the sales figures for each inventory item to see if there is an anomoly. Notification services changes this model to a push orientation. You subscribe (we don't want to be doing SPAM) and based on the criteria you select you are automatically notified of changes in the underlying data structure.
This book, is a complete guide to Notification Services written by the head of the development team. It's the usual giant computer software book, complete with lots of code samples and a CD-ROM. It's everything you need to know, and surprisingly well written.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: SQL Server 7 Developer's Guide
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Michael Otey, Paul Conte
Rating: 5/5
Title: SQL Server 7 Developer's Guide
Publisher: Osborne Publishing
Authors: Michael Otey, Paul Conte
Rating: 5/5
I'm a recent college graduate and this book is teaching me a lot. This book is very usefull for me becuase I work for a small startup e-commerce company (12 employees, 4 IT/Graphics) and I function as both a DBA and an ASP webdeveloper. This book gives a lot conceptual teaching with very good example support. It is one of the best teaching books i have bought.I learned the microsoft proprietary exensions in T-SQL for doing Stored proceedures and Triggers so I can tranform some of the SQL intensive ASP code into stored proceedure/triggers, Database replication that will hopefully make me not have to use DTS quite so much, learned how to link access to SQL server so I can use access's automated featurers to program the website admin capabilities much faster and make it more user-friendly, and handle SQL server security so all the employees can at least read from the database without having to give it a password, but only the website or the admin pages can write to the database and Me and one other person can do the admin and backup stuff to the SQL server.This book does not teach database design (It teaches some stuff on the relational model for pruposes of SQL programming, but not for proper design and normaliztion), so if you want to learn how to design and normalize databases, look for an extra book, like O'reilly's Access Database design and programming (Nearly half of the book is database design, and it is very good in conceptual teaching so you can easily transfer the knowledge to other platforms - SQL Server, Oracle, etc..) This book does do an exceptional job in what it does teach though - database integration programming and SQL Server admin / programming. Also, beign a hybrid admin/programming book , don't expect to to appease hardcore programmers, or veteran DBAs, but if you are a recent college graduate, or only been in the industry for a few years, and you do a lot of database oriented programming (E-Commerce, etc..), and especially if you have a role over the administration or programming (Stored procedures, triggers, etc..) of the SQL server for the website, GET THIS BOOK!
Product: Book Hardcover
Title: OCP Introduction to Oracle9i: SQL Exam Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Jason Couchman
Rating: 1/5
Title: OCP Introduction to Oracle9i: SQL Exam Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Jason Couchman
Rating: 1/5
Book is good But Only if you are also using any other book.
Also If you are experienced Oracle user then it is OK to use this Book.I found Book from Sybex corporation much better than this Book.It contains scenario based questions which are new in OCP-9i
Oracle press should add more scenario based questions and material should be more detailed and real Exam types questions should be present in Book. Book contains only mulitple chioce questions which nowdays do not appear in OCP9i.
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
This book helped me in preparing and clearing OCP exam for Oracle PL/SQL.This book is really good and adheres to the specifics.Although i have experience in Oracle programming i think it should help even others with very little exposure to Oracle's PL/SQL.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: PHP 4 Developer's Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Blake Schwendiman
Rating: 4/5
Title: PHP 4 Developer's Guide
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Authors: Blake Schwendiman
Rating: 4/5
If you are a serious PHP4 developer you will get plenty of long term benefit from this book. The author is really clear with complex topics and his generous samples of code examples are well written. Although the book is 775 pages, the developers guide chapters are all covered in the first 342 pages. There is a 391 page appendix of alphabetically listed and defined PHP functions which can come in handy, a listing of predefined variables and constants, and an appendix on build options. I found the chapters on code reuse and separating html from php quite useful. More database coverage would have been nice, and, like a lot of technical books theses days, I thought it was a little over priced. Overall, this is one of the better books on the subject that is available, and I do highly recommend it.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Oracle8 DBA: SQL and PL/SQL Exam Cram (Exam: 1Z0-001)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Michael R. Ault, Michael L. Ault
Rating: 3/5
Title: Oracle8 DBA: SQL and PL/SQL Exam Cram (Exam: 1Z0-001)
Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
Authors: Michael R. Ault, Michael L. Ault
Rating: 3/5
When I firsted reviewed the book, I would have given it a dismal "1" rating. However, I took a look at it again during the home stretch before the actual exam and found this book was beneficial for the test questions. The sample test questions are good at simulating the type of questions you will encounter on the OCP exam. Going through the book exams will help train you to take OCP exams, making you sensitive to the types of tricks you will encounter.Similar to other reviewers, I was disturbed at the many errors in the book. However, if you use this book only for the test questions, you may not be disappointed.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: Teach Yourself Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 in 21 Days
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Lance Mortensen
Rating: 1/5
Title: Teach Yourself Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 in 21 Days
Publisher: Sams
Authors: Lance Mortensen
Rating: 1/5
The opening page of this book states, "This book assumes no prior SQL Server knowledge." And yet, many of the concepts and terms used are either used before they are defined, or not defined at all. For example, what's the difference between "char" and "varchar"? This is one question which is not answered anywhere in this book. Would it have killed them to produce a chart with int, float, char, varchar, etc down the left and a description of each down the right? Where is a detailed description of the "Count" function? "Count" is mentioned on page 463, but it is never officially defined or introduced. Worse yet, the most common usage of the command, "Count(*)", is never mentioned at all!The book is confusingly-laid-out, constantly referring to subjects which haven't been covered yet. The note "See chapter x", where x is further along in the book, appears everywhere.The book is badly edited and dif! ficult to read. Many parts I could make sense out of only after reading other books on SQL.There is a lot of good information in this book, but finding it is difficult, and once you do find it, it tends to fall just short of telling you everything you need to know.This book is definitely NOT for beginners. If you've never worked with SQL before, this book will not help you get started.
Product: Book Paperback
Title: A Guide to SQL Featuring Oracle
Publisher: Course Technology
Authors: Phillip J. Pratt
Rating: 5/5
Title: A Guide to SQL Featuring Oracle
Publisher: Course Technology
Authors: Phillip J. Pratt
Rating: 5/5
I would definitely recommend this book to any beginer who has no idea what SQL is really all about. It starts off by introducing a fairly simple database and then builds on various queries and aspects of the database. I found it helpful making a copy of the database layout page which I then placed next to my monitor for constant referals. In just a few days I was confidently tackling our Oracle database at work and now no longer have that 'unknown' fear when facing any SQL related problems. Though for complex SQL scripts I would recommend a more advanced book.
