5 comments about Mastering COM and COM+.

1. If you want to learn COM and understand COM+ simply read this book. I am not a VC++ developer but got as much value from reading the VC++ chapters as I did from the VB chapters. This book made me smarter :)



2. As a COM developer I enjoyed the style and explanation of the topics. This is by far the best COM+ tutorial I have read. The mix of VB and C++ was very interesting. As a VB developer I enjoyed the VC++ examples as well. Great job. Note: Understanding COM+ is also a good high-level book that you should read before jumping into this book if you are new to COM+.



3. This book is great for VB COM/COM+ developer but not VC++ developer. The bright side of this book is that is explains from COM/DCOM to COM+ in both VB and VC++. It provides examples for some hard chewing stuff and it explains the COM+ services such as CRM, Roles Based Security, Queue Component and etc...

   But the dark side is that those tips provided in this book is not accurate, which decrease a star from perfect. For example, the author recommended to use CreateInstance for object creation. This is fine with MTS but not COM+. In COM+, there are no separate runtime as in COM/MTS environment. Instead of the CreateInstance (which is MTS way of implementation) we should use the New operator to create object (which is the COM+ way of implementation).

   But overall, this is a great book to grab the COM+ in action with VB and VC++.

   TQ:-)




4. The author should not be writing any books but some spend time learning something themselves. I use his earlier book as a foot rest. It is one thing to glean ideas from other books and re-writing the sentences and another thing to copy ideas that one does not understand.



5. After spending over $100.00 on other COM+ books (no need to mention names here) I have finally found a book with the right balance of code and information. I can now claim to know COM+ and be able to prove it. Thank you for not ripping me off TB.

4 comments about Dynamic WAP Application Development.

1. My development team is just beginning to work with mobile applications, and I've looked through many of the books on the topic that are available -- this is the best by far. Especially nice is that this book covers a lot of topics *beyond* WAP -- particularly useful is the section on HDML, the markup language the preceded WAP but is still found everywhere. It even includes a section on Voice XML (which has nothing to do with WAP at all) but it was a nice addition.

   My only nit-pick is that in some cases the authors tried too hard to be beginner-friendly (is it really necessary to inform the reader that a variable is "a container that holds a piece of information that can change." In spite of this one complaint, the book is useful for beginners and experienced developers alike, has a lot of screen shots and code examples, and provides a broad scope of information.




2. This is the ONLY book I've been able to find that covers all aspects of mobile development. That it covers HDML and voiceXML is quite nice. There are sections on migrating HDML to WML, and on designing mobile applications, also very helpful.

   For my money, this is the WAP book to own. The cover certainly is goofy, though :-).




3. A nice book, pretty thorough. Examples were consistent across sections, lots of images and code are helpful. Covers database access and ASP/Java through WAP. Probably the one to keep on the shelf if you are like me and are one of the few actually doing WAP development.



4. Although I basically agree with the other review of this book, I wanted to point out that the index could use some work. For example, I wanted to find a particular WML tag in the index and couldn't find it. Finally, I noticed that there was an index entry called "WML elements" and the tag I needed was *subindexed* under that.

   I think that each tag needs to have a separate entry if the index is going to be seriously useful. In a reference book like this one, it's important.

5 comments about Nokia Smartphone Hacks: Tips & Tools for Your Smallest Computer (Hacks).

1. I don't own a Nokia, but I've been brainstorming/daydreaming about "the next killer app" for cell phones. I picked up this book to gain some insight into the workings and capabilities of what is basically a portable always-on computer/communicator. I was particularly excited by the section on blogs, RSS feeds, and - best of all - the "mobile photo blog". I may end up getting a Nokia just to try out some of the features described here! Well written and illustrated. Certainly worth the price.



2. Who knew there was so much to do with a smartphone? This book presents 75 hacks on a wide variety of topics around the cellphone. You can find out how to use your phone as a remote control for presentations. Running your own scripts, creating your own themes, reading blogs, sendmail mail through gmail and much more. Definitely a must have for Nokia Smartphone owners.



3. If you're a Nokia smartphone user, then you know by now that hacks are especially useful. Author Michael Yuan, has done an outstanding job of writing a great book that brings all of those powerful hacks to all Nokia smartphone users.
   
   Yuan begins by showing you how to use hacks to understand the basic characteristics of your smartphone and its related mobile network services. Next, the author shows you how to connect your smartphone to the Internet and to nearby computers. Then, he covers how to use , manage, and even develop smartphone software. The author continues by dealing with how to prevent malicious programs from infecting your phone, and how to recover from them if they do. In addition, the author next covers interesting hacks such as speed dialing, recording phone conversations to digital files, and using calling cards. He also discusses everything you'd want to know about data exchange and synchronization between smartphones and PCs. Next, the author covers how to use a smartphone as a data modem to provide Internet access to computers anytime, anywhere. Then, you will learn innovative hacks to use the profile, ring tones, and graphics and fonts on the phone display. The author continues by showing you how to develop your own mobile web site, use mobile portals and search engines, and post to mobile photo blogs from your smartphone. In addition, the author covers various ways to set up e-mail and instant messaging on your smartphone. Finally, you will learn how to take good photos and video clips with your phone camera, and share them with friends across the world.
   
   So, if you do not have a Nokia smartphone already, the author of this excellent book will show you how to use some of the hacks as a nice buyers guide to help you choose from hundreds of combinations of devices and service plans. With that in mind, read on "dude" and start this most excellent adventure!



4. If you have a Nokia series 40 or series 60 phone, this book is indispensable. Every chapter has something even a old hand with Nokia phones will not know. Codes to find the phones version and address information, ways to customize the menus, and alternative programming and settings. In all, this book is "the manual that didn't come in the box."



5. The book calls them hacks but they are nothing more than excerpts from the manual. Most tips are about the data packages you can buy. Nothing about accessing programming codes, creating your own applications, using alternate gateways, toothing, etc. Skimmed it and straight to the garage sale. I usually expect better from O'Reilly.

No comments about P.S. to Operating Systems.

4 comments about The Unicode Standard, Version 3.0.

1. Although the Internet and web commerce is still very much an American phenomena, there are many signs that it is about to change. After many years of explosive growth, the curve of new Internet users in the United States is leveling off. Recent articles point to other countries, Brazil in particular, where there could be an explosion of new users. Argentina, India and China also show signs of being poised to enter the only true global market.
   To compete in this arena, it is necessary to understand how to display the characters of the "local" language, and for that, you need Unicode. This book is absolutely the best reference on Unicode that currently exists. Often overused, the word definitive is an understatement. Created by the members of the Unicode consortium, it is difficult to conceive of an aspect of Unicode that is not covered in this book.
   However, Unicode is more than just characters in spoken languages. With significant sections devoted to mathematical and other commonly used symbols, this is a reference for all who wish to communicate effectively. In every area, there are some references that are essential, and this is one of them.



2. This book is basically a manual for Unicode 3.0. It is not a light read but well worth the price and then some just for the glyphs from all of the various scripts that Unicode supports.

   At 1040 large (8.5 x 11) pages it is the ultimate guide to unicode. With information on scripts and glyphs I had no idea even existed.

   However if you are just getting started with Unicode I would recomend you get Unicode a Primer written by Tony Graham from M&T books. If you understand or feel you are starting to understand Unicode then The Unicode Standard Version 3.0 is the best comprehensive reference on the subject out today.




3. This is not just a reference for computer people, but for anyone interested in alphabets, symbols and character sets.

   Central to the book, taking up the larger part of it, are the tables of the characters themselves, printed large with annotations and cross-references. If you enjoy the lure of strange symbols and curious writing systems then browsing these will occupy delightful hours.

   For the Latin alphabet alone there are pages of accented letters and extended Latin alphabet characters used in particular languages or places or traditions: Pan-Turkic "oi", African clicks and other African sounds, obsolete letters from Old English and Old Norse, an "ou" digraph used only in Huron/Algonquin languages in Quebec, and many others, particularly those used for phonetic/phonemic transcriptions.

   The Greek character set includes archaic letters and additional letters used in Coptic.

   Character sets carried over from previous editions with additions and corrections are Cyrillic (with many national characters), Armenian, Georgian, Hebrew, Arabic (again many national and dialect characters), the most common Hindu scripts (Devanagari, Bengali, Gurmukhi, Gujarati, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam), Tibetan, Thai, Lao, Hangul, Bopomofo, Japanese Katakana and Hiragana, capped by the enormous Han character set containing over 27,000 of the most commonly used ideographs in Chinese/Japanese/Korean writing. Then there are the symbols: mathematical/logical (including lots of arrows), technical, geometrical, and pictographic. You'll find astrological/zodiacal signs, chess pieces, I-Ching trigrams, Roman numerals not commonly known, and much more.

   Scripts appearing for the first time this release are Syriac, Ethiopic, Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, Cherookee, Runes, Ogham, Yi, Mongolian, Sinhala, Thaana, Khmer, Myanmar, complete Braille patterns, and keyboard character sets. And yes, there are public domain/shareware fonts available on the web that support these with their new Unicode values.

   There are very good (and not always brief) descriptions of the various scripts and of the special symbol sets. Rounding out the book are some involved, turgid (necessarily so) technical articles on composition, character properties, implementation guidelines, and combining characters, providing rules to use the character properties tables on the CD that accompanies the book. After all, this is the complete official, definitive Unicode standard.

   Of course this version, 3.0, is already out-of-date. But updates and corrections are easily available from the official Unicode website where data for 3.1 Beta appears as I write this. My book bulges with interleaved additions and changes. And that's very good. Many standards have died or been superceded because the organizations behind them did not keep up with users' needs or the information was not easily accessible.

   Caveats?

   The notes on actual uses of the characters could be more extensive, particularly on Latin extended characters. More variants of some glyphs should be shown, as in previous editions, if only in the notations.

   Some character names are clumsy or inaccurate (occasionly noted in the book), because of necessity to be compatible with ISO/IEC 10646 and with earlier versions of the Unicode standard. For example, many character names begin with "LEFT" rather than "OPENING" or "RIGHT" rather than "CLOSING" though the same character code is to be used for a mirrored version of the character in right-to-left scripts where "LEFT" and "RIGHT" then become incorrect. And sample this humorous quotation from page 298: "Despite its name, U+0043 SCRIPT CAPITAL LETTER P is neither script nor capital--it is uniquely the Weierstrass elliptic function derived from a calligraphic lowercase p."




4. Consider it an overview of the developing UNICODE standard. As such, it will serve the engineer working on software in English and many other European countries rather well. It will be a good _starting_ _point_ for engineers developing software for other languages.

   This book is essential for software engineers, at least for the next ten years or so. All programmers should understand characters, and UNICODE is the best we have for now. Even if you don't need it in your personal library, you need it in your company or school library.

   The standard is flawed, as all real standards are, but it is a functioning standard, and it should be sufficient for many purposes for the near future.

   The book itself is fairly well laid out, contains an introduction to character handling problems and methods for most of the major languages in use in our present world as well as tables of basic images for all code points. Be aware that these are _only_ basic images. For most internationalization purposes, be prepared for more research. (And please share your results.)

   **** Finally, UNICODE is _not_ a 16 bit code. ****

   (This is well explained in the book.) It just turned out that there really are over 50,000 Han characters. (Mojikyo records more than 90,000.) UNICODE can be encoded in an eight-bit or 16-bit expanding method or a 32-bit non-expanding method. The expanding methods can be _cleanly_ parsed, frontwards, backwards, and from the middle, which is a significant improvement over previous methods.

   Some of the material in the book is available at the UNICODE consortium's site, but the book is easier to read anyway. One complaint I have about the included CD is that the music track gets in the way of reading the transform files on my iBook.

No comments about Advanced Windows: The Developer's Guide to the Win32 Api for Windows Nt 3.5 and Windows 95.

2 comments about The Programmer's PC Sourcebook: Reference Tables for IBM PCs and Compatibles, PS/2 Systems, EISA-based Systems, MS-DOS Operating System Through Version 5, Microsoft Windows Through Version 3.

1. I use this book whenever I need to look up details of software interrupts, cabling, connectors, backplane layout, data structures, and many more things. This book exceeds any other I have used for internals of software and hardware for the PC.



2. I had seen this book listed in the back of one of my MS-DOS books, and my employer happened to have a copy of it. I took it home for the weekend and was blown away. I IMMEDIATELY bought a copy. This is much more than your average book on interrupts. He goes into some serious detail. You want to know a HUGE list of interrupts and how to use them? Need the pinouts for a PS/2 power supply? How about the pinouts with a description of EACH PIN for the 8086 up to 80486 CPU's and co-processors? It's all in here. Exhaustive list of tables, pinouts, little known secrets, listing of ROM BIOS functions, all the referencing to it, and MUCH more. This is one COMPREHENSIVE book. It was written at the time of DOS 5 and Windows 3.0, so remember, it's not new (1991), however, a HUGE amount of information still applies. Anywhere from the XT to 486, from MDA to VGA, from hard disk tables to EMS, and from expansion slot pin outs to card sizes, this book has it all. He has taken the technical information from DOZENS of books and included it in one large volume.

3 comments about Operating System Fundamentals (Programming Series).

1. Was there an editor for this book? Enough said.



2. However, the content is great.
   
   The book provides a lot of information about the inner workings of operating systems. The chapters are well laid out; in a logical progression of topics. It provides examples from many operating systems, old and new (at the time of its writing).
   
   I gave it 4 out of 5 stars because the editing is a bit poor. That said, the content made it worth the read.



3. The quantity of information in this book is spectacular, but the quantity of factual errors induced by a poor translation or by poor english skills on the part of the author is staggering. I suspect that Mr. (Dr.?) Irtegov's works in Russian- there seems to be at least one listed on Amazon- are quite spectacular, as there's an obvious intellect at work on the book.. but I'd seriously recommend to steer clear of this particular text due to its rambling, incoherent, and widely divergent level of quality from page to page.
   
   Also- the publisher involved seems to have sanctioned one of their employees doing some dirty deeds to promote this book and others. This book is included in a list of "Best Engineering Books" in a recommendation list by a "Meg Dunkerley"- chock full of Charles River Media published titles.
   
   A simple google search as of the time of this writing will reveal that Ms. Dunkerley is or was recently a PR person for Charles River Media- there's a name and phone number affiliated with the publisher attached to press releases by Charles River, with her name attached.. This is the sort of behavior I'd expect out of a vanity press, or a quasi-legal operation, not out of an imprint that has aspirations to compete with known reliable technical book sources.
   
   There's nothing as of this writing at 11/14/07 at 10:05 Pacific Standard Time, to indicate that at any point Ms. Dunkerley disclosed her ties to the publisher anywhere here, or in the self-serving nature of the "recommendation" made by her list.
   
   I'd steer clear of any book published by a publisher with such slapdash editing and morally questionable practices around listing and promotion of their books.

No comments about QuickVerse PDA Deluxe for Pocket PC and Palm OS: Complete Bible Study Software for Your PDA.

1 comments about Novell's Guide to Troubleshooting NetWare® 5.

1. This book offers a tremendous amount of helpful content. However, that content is often blurred by bad attitude and poor writing. Throughout the book, the author makes remarks that can easily be seen as pot-shots at other Novell "experts". This attitude clouds the issues at hand, and in some places completely confuses the reader.

   Even worse than the attitude-filled prose are the many typos and poor editing in this book. In some places, these typos and misplaced words completely change the context of the sentence, and the user is left to make up his/her own decision on what was intended.

   Buy this book if you must, but don't rely on it as your sole source of info. Novell should take responsibility for technical books sold for its benefit. In the last 10 years, I've read a lot of technical documentation, and this qualifies as one of the top 5 worse books from an easy-of-reading standpoint.