5 comments about Learn Access 2003 VBA With The Smart Method.

1. Pros - The book offers the opportunity to build an enterprise level application where it can be modified to suit individual needs. I like the fact that it takes you through an entire project so each lesson builds on the previous one, there is no disconnect. Other material teaches in pockets not correlating skills or lessons with one another, this one does an excellent job at interweaving them all.
   
   Cons - It is advertised as a beginner's book but it immediately dives into showing you a skill once and then expecting for you to replicate it under a different scenario almost immediately. If you are not comfortable with access from a database development standpoint this can prove to be frustrating. I would recommend starting with something else like "Access VBA Programming for the absolute beginner" ISBN 1-59200-723-6.
   
   Otherwise the book is a good all around training tool that will help you further knowledge on VBA for applications.
   
   Luis



2. This is a great learning tool with downloadable databases and instructions. There is nothing better than hands on learning when it comes to VBA.



3. I own lots of Access books, some good and some not so good. This book is outstanding. I feel as if I am in a classroom taking a step by step course from an excellent teacher.
   
   The only minor problem I have found is that the database that you download from the internet has a couple of minor differences from what is described in the book, but it was not a big problem. The real joy of this book is that it so clearly and easily explains what you are doing and why. I wish more books were written in this format and with such clear, informative instruction.
   
   This book is best suited to those who know the basics of Access and want to move on to more professional programming. It's also good for people like me who know VBA programming to some extent but want a more solid foundation or wish to fill in the gaps.



4. The layout, the sequence, and the reason I purchased the book was well worth the money. All of the items to keep in mind when creating an Access Application were well laid out and easy to read. I have just a couple of nit-picky things to comment on...
   In the preface it mentions that the book was written in England, but uses American English Yet in a variety of places in the book, I would read "colour" instead of color, and yet it had the spelling "color" as well. There was another example of British spelling and American mix as well, but I can't recall it off-hand (I think "realised" / "realized"). I don't mind the British spelling, but it just should be consistent throughout the book.
   Another nit-picky thing: Throughout the book concatenation was done like this: [DirectorLastName] & "," & [DirectorFirstName]. This will put the Last Name, comma, and First Name right next to each other like so: Brooks,Mel. It should have been [DirectorLastName] & ", " & [DirectorFirstName]. Then the director would have looked like so: Brooks, Mel. Yes, I know this is minor... but it is consistent :-)
   One final rant, that is not so minor. The index is not well cross-referenced. Here's an example: there is a nice exercise about what to do when data entry does not match an item in the "one side of the relationship." This is known as a "NotInList" event. But the index does not show "NotInList" (maybe that is appropriate, since "NotInList" should not be in the index list, or something like that), but I found the index to be lacking in other cross-reference as well. I don't have the book with me right now, but I could find other examples of lackadaisical indexing.
   Overall it has the information that I bought the book for (I'm an Access instructor), but I think it could have gone through a bit of polishing before publishing... therefore four stars, not five stars.



5. Excellent Book. First time I ever saw such an excellent book. I wish I had similar books for other products.

5 comments about Foundations of Microsoft Expression Web: The Basics and Beyond.

1. The format of the tutorials are not consistant throughout the book, but I have been able to follow them and complete them. I do like the definitions and tips in this book.



2. One of the few times I wished I could return a book after reading it.
   
   I found no direction or vision about the product. The largest part of the book seemed to be simply going over the menu items one by one and giving a brief description of their function. No Imagination from the author here. The CSS section seemed worthwhile, but again it was a dictionary. The author did not tie the principls into design.
   
   I really felt like the author "phoned" this one in.
   Kerry



3. If you are using expression web for the first time, this book is overwhelming. Way too many words. Now that I have been using expression web for a couple months, I am able to make use of this book and expand my knowledge base but it is not a book to get you up & running right away.



4. Overburdened technical manual - not a user-friendly guide for Microsoft's Expression Web that was released to replace Frontpage. Laborious, tedious, and difficult to wade through - if you're looking for a book to actually help you design websites using Expression Web SKIP THIS ONE. If you want something that you can flip through to answer specific questions regarding CSS and other technical questions regarding Expression Web's design and functions then this would probably be it... considering the author is one of the utmost expert's on Expression Web and answers questions on Microsoft's Expression Web help site.
   
   Still waiting on a decent book on developing websites in Microsoft Expression Web - not the technical definitions and aspects of CSS, ASP, etc.



5. I bought this book to help me transition from FP 2003 to Expression web. The book is a big disappointment. She explains everything in code... I want simple explanations, like most people moving from Front page would...She assumes that you will be writing your own code I guess...very sorry that I bought it...The book covers very little and the examples that she wants you to download are ridiculous. I'm not sure who this book will help, definitely not me. If I could give it a "0" star rating I would.

5 comments about Microsoft Windows Scripting Self-Paced Learning Guide (Pro-Other).

1. This book had everything I was looking for and is a good source of information.



2. I've found this book with excellent content and very helpful for my clients ( I Work in a Technical Support Group for VIP Customers). The author drives you through with very clear language and at the same time funny and keeps you hooked to it.
   
   Highly Recommended! Specially for those deep into Thechnical stuff.



3. I use the book all the time to help groups of customers learn scripting. It jumps into useful examples early in the book. You build on those examples until you get to the point where you are combining the technologies to build useful scripts, like using Active Directory to create a list of computers which you then analyze and configure using Windows Management Instrumentation ( set of extensions to the Windows Driver Model that provides an operating system interface through which instrumented components can provide information and notification ). If you read only to chapter 15 you get a solid background of how WMI exposes a collection of COM scriptable objects that allow various applications to take advantage of the management information, including information about how Active Directory can be manipulated with VB Script.



4. I admit I avoided purchasing this book as I felt I was beyond it since I know Perl. I ran into it again when I purchased Microsoft Windows Administrator's Automation Toolkit (Pro-One-Offs). On the CD there is a e-book form of the book.
   
   I figured why not read it? One possible drawback exists if you pick up the automation toolkit book. You will not get a copy of the scripts. It's not an issue if you don't mind typing. Which for me is better as making mistakes and debugging helped me more then simply watching a script run.
   
   I noticed that the e-book might be an earlier version of the printed book as the scripting style changes for a copy of the scripts.
   
   As to the claims of the scripts not working; I ran into that as well but they are easy to solve. Well except one. You look for computers in AD, the scripting didn't know how to handle a Linux Samba entry.
   
   Overall the book is decent. I was looking for something to give me an introduction to vbscript. Something more then a beginning "howto" script book.
   
   There is not much discussion about the WSH engine. However, for me that was not an issue as I am still in the beginning stages of vbscript. This might be more of an issue as I get more advanced. But, this will probably get solved by an advanced book or looking on the Net.
   
   The book does some basic stuff in the beginning. Loops, if/then, Arrays. Part 2 of the book introduces basic administration. There you will be introduced to file system objects, WMI, and WMI queries. Part 3, takes more advanced administration issues with and introduction to LDAP, ADSI, Searching AD, Configuring Network components, logon scripts, working with registry, and working with printers. Part 4, deals with other apps such as IIS6 and exchange 2003.
   
   The appendix has some info on ADSI, and WMI. It's ok if you are starting out but I think it will grow past it's usefulness.
   
   The scripts in book are simple and straightforward. They don't have a great deal of intelligence built in to deal with unknowns. Probably, not needed as this is an introduction book.
   
   Overall I am happy with the book. It gave me an idea as to some possibilities and it helped me understand better on where to look for stuff.



5. I got this as a freebie ebook when I bought the WMI scripting book.
   What a total waste. I am new to Widows scripting but an old hack at *Nix shell scripting and perl. I needed to do some scripting for a client that doesn't have perl installed universally, but wants scripts to run universally on their windows servers.
   
   I wasted a couple of days beating my head against the wall because I used this book. I finally bought "Windows 2000 Scripting Guide" and got my scripts working.
   
   In addition to the complaints others have left indicating the the author does not explain the programming model, I found myself with a large hole in my foot because this author directed me to point a gun at my boot before pulling the trigger.
   
   I used the sample scripts in the book as a starting point in my scripts, but unwittingly injected really bad practices into my programs.
   
   The author states in Chapter 1:
   "So 'On Error Resume Next' tells the computer that when something is messed up (causing an error), you want the computer to just skip that line and try the next line in the script. This process is called error handling,"
   
   Actually, this is called ERROR HIDING (not handling) and it causes things that are messed up (causing an error) to be hidden from your view so you CAN'T find or fix them.
   
   This is the worst bad practice that can be taught
   
   Here is an example of how bad it is:
   while using this directive your code that looks like:
   IF condition THEN
   positive_action
   ELSE
   negative_action
   END IF
   
   will, when an error is encountered in evaluating the condition, get transmogrified into simply:
   
   positive_action
   
   The "condition" that includes an error ALWAYS evaluates to true.
   I can't think of a worse logic bomb to inject into your code or a better reason to skip this book.

5 comments about Build Your Own ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site Using C# & VB.

1. Examples, insights, and even code samples pack a reference for programmers working in C# and VB in an updated second edition to a popular step-by-step guide. Here's all the information you need to get up and running with ASP.NET, from how to build a first web site to applying the free code samples within to more advanced projects. It's a top pick programmers - especially newcomers to ASP.NET - won't want to be without.



2. The Book overall is good, but there are some mis-types in the code that, if you follow along, will screw you up. Its also vague about some things, but if you have some basic knowledge of visual studio and/or asp, it is a good reinforcement.



3. I am an asp programmer. And I would like to transform myself into asp.net. after trying one title after another by reading the PDF files that I found on the net, I thought I found the right book ASP.NET 2.0 Unleashed from Stephen Walther. I bought the book and learned from it. But I got stuck somewhere after the basic controls. The author assumes that the reader is either intermediate or advanced level with the .NET programming skill. I am not at that level yet. Again I went back to find other PDF files and I found this one and I knew this was the perfect fit for me. I bought the book and I am very happy with this book. it teaches asp.net 2.0 from beginning level. It explains in details all the basic knowleges that an asp.net programmer needs to know. Then it moves on to ado.net. But all these are just basics only. not going too far into advanced level. One thing that I like is that I build the project while learning. There are minor wording error. If you don't know programming, then this is the problem. If you already know programming (VB,C#), then you can see the wording error and correct yourself.
   If you are looking for a book that set you up from start with .NET, this one is the right one. If you already have the basic of asp.net and would like to get to the advanced level, then you may be disappointed.



4. i got into dot net when it first came out, when sample codes on how do things you take for granted were scarce or non existent. I was converting an ASP app to dot net. was ahead of my time, ran into too many mundane issues, cancelled my project after 5 months. Now I want to try ASP.NET for real.
   
   I've found this book to be very helpful in connecting the dots. The samples are good enough . Highly recommend it.



5. I have read many technical books and this is so far the best. I know my way around computers and the basics of programming and wanted to learn some more of ASP.NET. This book has been an excellent tutorial. Even the basics of object oriented programming and SQL are explained. Loved it.
   
   There is one caveat. The book was written for Windows XP and IIS 6. If you are using Windows Vista and IIS 7 like me, be prepared to search for some stuff yourself. Do not worry though, some Googling will help you along the way.

4 comments about Visual Basic 2008 For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)).

1. I am sure there is some worthwhile information between the covers of this book - I just couldn't find it. I would recommend to people that have the basics already, spend your money on a real VB book.



2. Try as hard as I can, I cannot find anything positive to say about this "book". Don't be fooled by the table of content, it might sound "juicy" but it's as illusory as a politicians promises ... There 's no substance in this text, and the whole teaching strategy is flawed. If you begin your programming journey here you will probably conclude programming is not an art, an intellectual challenge, or an intriguing game, but a boring routine to help visual studio write boring useless applications. You might have heard Edsger Dijkstra quote:
   "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." This might not be necessarily true for VB.NET, but it will if you start your study with this text.



3. This book is designed to get you going quickly in Microsoft Visual Basic 2008. It's not a reference, it's probably not for the complete beginner, and true dummies probably won't be up to this level. Rather it is an entertaining tour for those with some modest programming experience on how to get going quickly in VB 2008. If you are a self-starter, this is the book for you!
   
   The author packs the book full of useful "how to's." Rather than trying to answer every question you could possibly ask about VB 2008, the author focuses on the most essential tools you will need. Once you get the basic idea of how a given tool or approach works from the book, you have what you need to apply these tools and/or approaches to other problems you encounter in VB 2008.



4. If I received my order (14 May 2008) I would be able to post a review - but as of 4 June 2008 nothing! ETA 19 May 2008.

5 comments about Visual Basic 2005 Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer).

1. This is must-have for all VB programmers whether you are a novice programmer like me or the serious developer.
   
   This is the one of the two (the other book is Programming Microsoft Visual Basic 2005) that I would recommend buying. Visual Basic 2005 Programmer Reference is not the kind of books where you read it, learn something, and then throw the book to one corner. If this is the case, I would just recommend borrowing the book from a local library. But it is the kind of book where you will frequently refer to.
   
   1000 pages of information neatly organized into 18 chapters and 18 appendices. The organization of content, especially the appendices is what makes me feel worthwhile to own this book; it provides you quick and easy lookup of information.
   
   There is a chapter that offers a very good introduction to Windows Form Controls and a dedicated appendix that houses the related materials. This chapter-appendix buddy is easily one of highest frequency lookup because one just cannot remember so many controls with their vast amount of methods and properties.
   
   Another worth mentioning is the Graphics Category which spans from Chapter 19 to 24, my favorite of the book. this is where you will get impressed by Mr Stephens 's expertise in coding drawing related applications. Through these chapters, I had learned lots of tips and hence, leading to the birth of my own custom graphing and painting applications.
   
   Apart from supplying all the how-to information, Mr Stephens also packed some very useful code examples sprinkled across the book that will definitely enlighten readers. While the book provides tons of information like introducing the IDE, the Visual Basic Language, Object-Oriented Programming, Windows Forms, Drawing and Printing to File Handling..., I am a bit disappointed with the lack of contents for the more advanced topics like Regular Expressions and Threading. However, Mr Stephens do make it a point to mention these advanced topics and had provided some links for further read up. For these advanced topics , I recommend Programming Visual Basic: The Language by Francesco Balena which I used in conjunction with the reference book.
   
   Finally, the purchase of this book also gave me an extra bonus. Whenever I encounter any problem, I just post it on Mr Stephen's site or at the Wrox forums, and Mr Stephens or other programmers will provide the help.



2. The book is very nice and very reach, but it is writen in a brief language whitch is unsuitable for beginners.



3. I have found, Visual Basic 2005 Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer) to be a very good reference source. The book offers both Visual Basic references, and .net framework references side by side. I as a newer programmer (novice - intermediate ), and have been looking for a bridge, that goes between beginner and advanced. Visual Basic 2005 Programmer's Reference, has done just that!
   
   The gap that existed for me, was filled in quite nicely. I have been struggling with more advanced concepts and now, I have begun to make the progress that seemed to elude me.
   If there is anyone out there looking for the same "bridge", I would recommend this book without hesitation.



4. I was somewhat frustrated that the chapter dealing with structures and classes said that... Classes are faster when dealing with arrays... Yet there was no example of how to use classes with arrays... And for me, I don't see any other way I would want to use classes.
   
   For example... I was trying to make a layer system for an image manipulation program.
   
   Code such as:
   DIM layers(10) as new bitmap
   So in order to get layers I had to resort to 3, 3dimensional arrays.
   RED(x,y,layer number) etc.
   
   I am sure the book is only frustrating to me because I used it mostly for the graphics section and for code tailored to manipulation of graphics.
   
   I am sure this book is all fine and dandy if you are reading it with no particular focus in mind. But, if you are reading a chapter and then immediately try to apply it to a specific situation, you may come into problems that the book does not address.
   
   But I guess that is how programming works. Even if you know what you are doing you still run into problems when you take your idea from... idea to actual programming.



5. I had not used Visual Basic for several years before purchasing this book. I had forgotten a lot, and lots of things have changed. As I worked my way through this book, I found the actual content to be extremely useful. There is a good overview of a wide range of topics. The example programs are excellent starting points for understanding the various topics, and most proved easy for me to expand upon.
   
   As I progressed through the book, I would frequently have the desire to use syntax, functionality, examples, etc. that I was sure that I had already read about. Unfortunately, it was not very long before I realized that the index was very underdeveloped for a book containing this much information. The index is a very important part of any good reference book, and is a big weakness of this otherwise good text.

No comments about Simply Visual Basic 2008 (3rd Edition) (Simply).

5 comments about VBA Developer's Handbook, 2nd Edition.

1. Good reference book... help you find tricks to do automation and to maximize the output of your VBA code. Not for newbies.



2. This book has gotten me out of many scrapes. It is a rare book that can be read from the beginning, while trying out the sample code, as a way to learn the language, or as a reference book, to look up how to use a certain function effectively while writing code. Don't let the title fool you, this book is for those coding in VB just as much as it is for those using VBA. If you are going to buy one book on Visual Basic, let this be the one. If you are going to buy one book on Visual Basic, and see one movie this year, then buy this book and see Amelie. ;)



3. In the introduction the authors state : "To make it possible to stuff as much code into this book, we've had to dispense with material specifically geared for beginners"
   
   I like that - a lot of 'reference' books I've purchased waste many chapters devoted to topics that I would expect to find in 'Inroduction' or 'Beginners' - titled books.
   
   This tome however (all 1073 pages of it!) is totally dedicated to useful code snippets and sound programming principles.
   
   Despite its size I find the book logically structured and very easy to locate the information I need, very quickly - the "Contents at a Glance" page helps immensly.
   
   I'd definitely recommend this book for any VBA developer as an essential resource.



4. This is really the best book i ever found. I have bought several books for Excel VBA. Non of them will explain as detail as this book. Besides, for those people who really interest in VBA, this is really a good book where you can start solve more complex problem.
   
   Non of the books so far i found will teach you how to create data structure using VBA e.g binary tree, linked list, queue and stack thru VBA implementation. it is worth while to keep this book for your future reference...



5. but I wanted to calculate an average cost per day. Obviously the number of days in a month depends on the month.
   
   No problem. Pop in the CD included ... copy ... paste into your VBA Module ...
   
   Locate your spreadsheet's cell ... type "=dhDaysInMonth(Month)" ... done.
   
   If you've written any macros at all or even recorded one ... you will appreciate the amount of work you're buying for a little over thirty bones.
   
   Highly recommended. As page 196 says, 'You'll get better performance (and fewer bugs) by taking advantage of the work that's already been done.'
   
   This book is a bargain.
   
   Mange Takk!

2 comments about Beginning VB 2008 Databases: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: from Novice to Professional).

1. Not what I expected. I was looking for a book to help me use the features of VB 2008 to create and use databases. While this book is very authorative, it does very little to ade me in my goal. The examples and descriptions are all based on using Console application forms in VB. While this gives you the technical information for manipulating databases, it does nothing to examine and instruct one in benifiting from the "high level" commands and form controls available in VB 2008. The title should just be Beginning Databases: From Novice to Professional, with very little emphasis on VB 2008!



2. This book was more than I expected. The layout of the book makes it very easy to grasp the concepts the author is presenting. He explains a topic and then there is a simple exercise to reinfoce the concept. It is basic and doesn't go very deeply into the topics, but that's what I liked. I liked having a few hundred page book instead of a 1000 or 1500 page monster. Eventually you may have to get another book that goes into more detail on the topics listed, but for starting out learning about database/application interaction I thought it was a very good book.

5 comments about Access 2003 Programming by Example with VBA, XML, and ASP.

1. As programming books this one did actually have something I could use and gave an example of how to use it. It even gave the code.......what a thought. Most programming books offer little more than lots of pages of "stuff" you cannot use. The book took you through the process of how to code a "Message" box. This one actually did have a few things one could use. Not a good beginner book, intermediate to advanced. This book coded you through modules.....good idea. The one thing I didn't like about the book was it did not go deep enough into data base design or normalization.



2. All you can learn to a program MsAccess, as a reference book.



3. This is not the book for beginners. But this is the book for users who have a good foundation with the basics of Access- forms, reports, and queries- and want to learn how to use VBA to improve their database. I'm working on a project where I need to reprogram many aspects of the database, and this book has been invaluable. I have plenty of Access books for reference, but this book is the secret weapon for Access programmers.



4. A book about Access that tells about the different aspects of the software as this book does is worth having on the book shelve. I recommend this book to anyone who needs as I do to have an available book to give examples as well as explain the details and tell about each area of Access databases. It's not a exhaustic concordance of Access but it has enough info to allow one to build some sophisticated databases. Not exactly for the beginning Access programmer but for the intermediate and advance programmer it would be an asset. I want go into detail but you need to read through the pages to understand the valuable resource it is. If you need reference material this book is for you.



5. I really like this book. We still use Access 2003 at work, so I wanted a book specifically for that version and specifically for VBA. I am already a fairly experienced Access user, but was not as experienced in VBA. As anyone who's used Access knows, you need VBA to make just about anything work. I'm very pleased and have gained a great deal of experience from this book. Very good examples and written well. I'm very happy and use it nearly every day.