2 comments about Visio 2007 For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)).

1. As usual the Dummies series is pretty good and gives you a general intro and easy to build on concepts and how the product works and how to work it as you need it.



2. I recommend against buying this book. I read only about a third of it and found two errors on fundamental points. On p. 67, there is a glaring misstatement about the use of Wizards that suggests that the authors never even tried the feature they are "explaining." And on page 98 there is a section on "Nudging" shapes where in half a page of text the authors do not reveal the one thing that one must do in order to "nudge" a shape -- namely, hold down the Shift key while using the up and down arrow keys. It appears that nobody bothered to proofread this book after it was written.

5 comments about Filthy Rich Clients: Developing Animated and Graphical Effects for Desktop Java Applications (The Java Series).

1. Libraries that cater to Java programmers will find an excellent guide in FILTHY RICH CLIENTS, which refers to rich applications that teach how to build better, more effective desktop applications that enhance user experiences. Graphical and animated effects are the focus here, with a bow to performance: chapters teach how to create, customize and translate special effects with Filthy Rich Clients and come from a client architect of a Java group at Sun Microsystems. Any advanced programming collection needs this.



2. This book is fantastic - so many tips and tricks that I was unaware of. I want more!! I hope a sequel is in the making!! Check it out!! You won't be disappointed!!



3. I want client-side java very much to succeed, especially now that it is open source, but the java.com site itself uses flash instead of applets, and the first author of this book no longer even works for Sun on java stuff - he now works on Adobe Flex:
   http://graphics-geek.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-hello-world.html



4. To push java's ui capabilities has in the past been a bit of a struggle due to the many ways of dealing with Swing, repaints, events, animation etc. This book is an absolute life saver in terms of presenting a unified best practice strategy for everything a ui developer would wish to do in java. It creates very simple applications with solid explanations of what the code is doing, from the low level to the high level. It is also written in a very personable style and the book moves easily and logically through the related material. I wish I had read this book 4 years ago.



5. I have also enjoyed this book very much. Many of these techniques, such as using of intermediate images, were known to me, but numerous details escaped my attention. For example, using of 'compatible images.' I had no idea that this notion exists. I also enjoyed the timing experiments with wait and disclosure of its granularity. Their description of Animators is probably the best and most comprehensive of everything what I saw so far, its a real value-add for me.
   
   I will not repeat the positive accolade summarized here by others, I have one very substantial objection, which is really well summarized in the title used by someone else's comment:
   
   "Practice what you preach."
   
   The book preaches performance, efficiency and style, and yet the authors implement some enormous convoluted scheme around their own code sniplets!
   
   Of course, interested in all the timings and performance of the examples, I wanted to run and watch them. And... I failed at first. I have spend, or wasted rather if you so want, a lot of time in an attempt to achieve this goal.
   
   This sounds so easy nowadays to provide Webstart Java, or merely to deliver some *.java or *.class files, separate or in a *.jar archive.
   
   Not so for Chet and Romain: Their own web page claims that you can download a plugin for Net-Beans and run the examples. Net Beans has proven to be a product, a specific development environment, with which you may or may not be familiar. I never used it and I cannot operate it. Nor am I interested in learning it, being perfectly happy with my own Java setup. But be it as it may, I installed it in the hope to run these demos. It flooded my disk with some 125Mbytes and thousands of files, the usual mayhem, but we have now Terabytes at home, don't we? I also downloaded the plugin, and started to click around to get anything running. Lost in unfamiliar windows and menus I found nothing, no way to start any demo.
   
   I must be getting old. My rusty PhD Dr.Evil brain is too stubborn to crack usage of NetBeans, I failed the IQ test. All right than, I give up. Lets download the source code, run javac and be happy. What can be so difficult, wouldn't you think Minime?
   
   Nope! The adventure has just begun!!
   
   Click on Chapter 2, Swing Rendering Fundamentals. You will get an archive frc-chapter2.zip, in which root directory is no Java code at all. I see merely two folders and two empty files with the same name. On a hunch, step down into the directory SwingRenderingFundamentals, only to find another set of folders and a set of empty files, each with the same name like one of the directories. On a hunch lets step down into HighlightedButton, where we find a bunch of alien looking files and 3 more directories, with you guessed it, 3 more empty files carrying the names of these directories.
   
   Among them is build.xml. XML eh? Hmm... what do I do with that? None of my systems can do anything with XML, this book is not about XML, I do not need to use XML, do I? It's a practitioners book about a specific aspect of Java. I would be happy to stay with "javac" and "java" only, please.
   
   On several places I see a directory called CVS, this may or may not be a name of some source code managing tool. For example, a CVS directory (accompanied again by an empty file with the same name) contains 3 files. Each seem to have some generated content, like this file called Entries: /HighlightedButton.java/1.1/Tue May 01 22:48:46 2007/-ko/
   Hm... It most probably serves a project tool of a sort. But how this relate to the book and to the task at hand?
   
   But one directory name is "src". Source, hurray, the treasury hunt might be close to an end! Indeed, this is how you can 'fish' for Java files, best done with a script of a sort to copy all java files into one single place. You will be fine, most of them do not has any package specification corresponding to the directory they were found in. Once you get these files filtered out, you will even find among them Java files containing mere 2-3 lines of code, accompanied by the monster 30-lines Sun copyright node. Vive la lawyers!
   
   Equally convoluted is the way to access these files on Java.net. In a hope for an easy one-click demo, boy I am a lazy spoiled individual, and not willing to give up just yet, I registered an account with Java.net and dived into filthyrichclients.dev.java.net, only to find the same convoluted way of keeping here and there a Java file among a forest of directories and sidecar files. Here however, I got finally educated that CVS is a repository system, and the web pages provide some comprehensive help in its use.
   
   Please do not take me wrong: I do not want dismiss usability of any tool, like NetBeans or CVS, but pardon me, I was happy with my setup. "If it isn't broken, do not fix it," I do not need to get hundreds of megabytes of some unrelated software in order to find a few demo lines of Java, do I?
   
   Authors of a book teaching practitioners in minimality of algorithmic and best application of a graphical API, claiming to provide code examples of merit, should be focussed strictly on the implementation of just such philosophy, and not on their tools. A use of a language like Java can be explained and demo'ed using strictly the Java compiler and its own Java Virtual Machine. Compare this convoluted delivery with other Sun Java tutorials and their one-click demos. I hope that the authors would use "find" of their vast repositories of files to make a tiny set of *.java files, maybe even of class files. That would be all what a reader would need.

5 comments about Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual.

1. I admit I'm biased because I've had Dave as a teacher and he's a great one, but his book is like his teaching -- clear, comprehensible, practical and most importantly, funny. Who wouldn't want to work on the National Exasperator pages? His tutorials are excellent, easy to use and fun.



2. I have read this book cover to cover. You can read it in front of your computer and perform the tutorials or you can simple read an look at the illustrations. Both provide you with a very accurate experience. The online web site allows you to download all of the necessary files to perform your labs if you desire. It is simple, elegant, and well thought out book. You can't walk away from this book and not say that you did not truely learn to use Dreamweaver MX 2004. I struggled to learn this program, after reading the book, I have built several complex websites, complete with dynamic database integration. This book is that good!



3. So many software books are so confusing and difficult to understand, I really appreciateone that is clear and truly helpful, which this one is.



4. Better than Dreamweaver MX 2004 "Training From the Source". This is a step by step book for beginners thru experts. I found it easy to follow and understand. It is also a good reference book for the experienced, which I am not. Why Macromedia could not furnish a book like this with there software I will never understand. The same goes for the new Dreamweaver 8. They want you to buy there product but not show you how to use it. This is a good buy.



5. Fantastic, really simple tutorials and suggested websites for further info. Deals with the basics to get an extemely powerful website online.
   
   There are many more aspects to web design but anyone from the total beginner to intermediate should find this book helpful.

5 comments about Linux iptables Pocket Reference.

1. This book is written for linux/unix sysadmins, not programmers. The topic of iptables is intimately related to guarding a network against intruders. A sysadmin task. Plus, the compact, pocketbook size lends itself to a common scenario.
   
   You're a harried sysadmin in the machine room of your company, surrounded by racks of computers and cabling. Equipment everywhere and little room for you to prop up a regular sized text on intrusion detection. Quite possibly, the master console is some cheezy old monitor that you got stuck with. Or even worse, it is just a terminal. If the latter, it's really awkward to do a man on iptables and also run it, especially if you're in real time mode against an active intruder. In other words, what this book is ideal for.



2. 'Linux iptables Pocket Reference' is an important and sorely needed reference to iptables, the interface to the Linux packetfilter used by System Admins to create firewalls, NAT routers, transparent proxies, and other 'magical' network devices. While not a tutorial, it offers good advice for those with a grasp of basic networking concepts, and a good notion of what a firewall is and what it is used for, in a dense and concise format. Sufficiently detailed information about the protocols involved obviate the need to keep additional references at hand, and make the work relatively self-contained. This should not be the first book you read about firewalls or tcp/ip, but if you are a networking professional, a technically oriented user, or just interested in creating special purpose network devices, this book belongs in your library. Those familiar with iptables will especially appreciate the lucid description of packet flow through the tables and chains, and the supporting diagrams ... they alone are worth the price of purchase.
   
   If you have need for a book on the topic, you will not be disappointed with this one.



3. Linux iptables Pocket Reference is a great book.
   
   there is a dearth of info on Linux iptables, and this pocket reference is a great book!!



4. Concise and very handy. Guides like these aren't meant to be a complete reference on iptables. Yet, the author managed to pack quite a bit into such a small book. 82pages from page 1 to beginning of index.
   
   21 pages to theory and operation -- connection tracking, accounting, NAT, SNAT, DNAT, Transparent Proxying, load balancing, and stateless/stateful firewalls.
   
   The next 61 pages are a command reference to iptables. It is in the command reference that you shall find interesting little nuggets like:
   
   1) How to rate limit incoming traffic. Specific examples provide for allowing only 10 pings per second.
   
   2) How to setup IP pools to match source and/or destination addresses. Instead of writing a line for each IP or netblock, throw the addresses into a pool and write a line for each pool.
   
   3) How to match multiple ports on the same line.
   
   and so on.
   
   Worth every penny. Lives up to O'Reilly name. Would recommend for every Linux sysadmin.



5. Last year, I was forced to become a fly-by-night system administrator. I worked for a small, local startup as its web developer, but was thrust into a sysadmin role when my boss decided to host a website on a server in our office. I was developing the site on our Ubuntu server, but was learning how to secure the server on the fly. This reference, out of all the other books I read and sites I visited, had the most bang for the buck.
   
   It's short and sweet. It describes what you should know, and gives you a reference for dealing with iptables syntax, and that's it. No flowery text, no colored pictures. Just simple "This is how to do X."
   
   If you're a sysadmin, especially if you're just getting your feet wet, get this book. It's cheap, it tells you what you need to know, and it fits in your pocket. What's not to like?

4 comments about Flash + After Effects.

1. This book is excellent and I highly recommend it for all animators! There are many tips, examples, and workflows that show exactly how to bridge Flash and After Effects. There is a nice balance of web and video examples and how to properly prep and animate assets for each. I found the chapters on character animation and visual effects most helpful. The examples clearly show how to get the most out of parenting, puppet tools and fractals. I found the examples fun and inspiring. Unlike many books out there, the artwork and examples are well thought out and look great! The book is also well written. All examples were very easy to follow. I commend the author for this wonderful book!



2. Chris Jackson is an excellent teacher. His classes in After Effects at the Rochester Institute of Technology featured notes that were far easier to understand than standard books on After Effects and Flash, and I always hoped he'd write a book incorporating some of the lessons taught in his classes.
   He has, and it's a winner. Most computer animation books are heavy going, but this one is easy and fun to read. There is no waste, no padding, no jargon, just solid information. It is easier to animate 'parented' puppets in After Effects and export in Flash than to work in Flash alone--the enjoyable exercises on the enclosed DVD will have you up and animating your own characters in no time at all.
   I can recommend this book to anyone who is interested in hand drawn computer animation.



3. I have been learning flash in school and am attempting to learn After Effects. Not only has it been easy to understand and helpful in learning AE, but i have learned useful Flash tips. The set up and pictures helps my "right brain" enjoy the studying process.



4. I was pleasantly surprised by this book and the included media!
   
   Chris Jackson has hit on the right amount of technical detail and practical content to make this book easy enough for a beginner to follow, while still keeping it interesting for intermediate users. My 11 year old son and I used this book and went through the projects together. We enjoyed it very much!
   
   Highly recommended!

5 comments about Flexible Rails: Flex 3 on Rails 2.

1. The author goes into great detail on how to efficiently get Rails and Flex working together. The book is updated for the latest version of Rails as well as the upcoming Flex 3 release. I've found the book easy to follow along with and enjoy the author's humor spread throughout the book.
   
   As a developer I'm often tasked with making "things talk to each other". Typically if I can I'll use a tool like Flex Builder for a project and if I have a choice I'll pick Java, .NET or Ruby for the server back end - whatever is the best fit. This book only backed up my belief that Rails and Flex really do work very well together. I've learned a lot going through the code both on Rails and Flex.
   
   I also liked how the author is continually refactoring the application (called "Pomodo"), that is where your learning kicks into overdrive. He uses the Cairngorm framework and even RubyAMF. I didn't have any experience in either up until this point. Now I can say I do and it all fits together nicely.



2. I wasn't sure whether a mixed-technologies book would be adequate for both reading and reference, especially with two technologies. As both a software engineer and a moonlighting instructor this book was an easy read from the start. Mr. Armstrong explores both Flex 3 and Rails 2 with enough background information on both technologies to get a reader ready to code--and that was just Chapter...err...Iteration 1. The second iteration begins with coding (Hello World) and it doesn't stop. This is a must for your coding library and makes a great textbook for students who enrolled in courses geared toward building web and Rich Internet Applications.



3. This is a great book. Peter is the #1 expert in Flex + Rails.



4. I have used Flex for about a year and I have only dabbled in Ruby/Rails development. I have been curious how I might back a Flex front end with a simple service layer that isn't hard to create, maintain or host. So far I have only worked with Java/Spring/Hibernate backend services which can take a little while to build and integrate (Grails is MUCH faster).
   
   After about 100 pages I'm in interation 4 building an interesting RIA with a Rails backend that I can host on relatively inexpensive server if I wanted to. My only struggles thus far was getting MySQL going properly. But that was only because I forgot a step in installing it.
   
   If you have little exposure to Rails and/or Flex and you feel at home on the command line as well as you do in an IDE like Eclipse, this is a great "project" book for you. I'd say you probably want a primer in Ruby, Rails and Flex before you get going but it is pretty easy follow and has a lot of free professional advice from someone that has obviously been around the block a few times. Peter is very upfront about some things that he has done in the book that should not be considered "best practice".
   
   I am hoping to get some good insight how I might do something similar for Flex and Grails. Regardless, I am confident this is going to be a fun journey!



5. I found it best technical book till date but you should know Flex & Ruby before you can jump into this..

5 comments about Beginning DirectX 10 Game Programming.

1. This is a very light introduction to DirectX10, especially to direct3d 10. Beginners should feel very comfortable with this book. The text, most of the time, is clear and the examples are very simple. The math and math explanations involved are kept to a minimum.
   
   The book delivers what it promises and should be taken as a base for further readings.



2. This is a good introduction to DirectX 10 if you haven't used DirectX before. If you're familiar with version 9 you can as well use the Microsoft documentation instead. In fact much of the code in the book seems to be taken without much modification from there. This is all right I think. When you purchase this book you essentially pay the author a finder's fee for helping you locate and use what you as a newbie would have to spend lots of time in frustration digging up yourself.
   
   For me as a newbie to DirectX the book was perfect with complete cut & paste runnable examples. It covers a lot of ground, but because it does this with so much detail it's not always as compete as you would like. For example lightning of 3D objects is covered but not the use of depth buffers. This means it tells you how to create the illusion of depth for single objects but not for many interacting objects. So I would say the book would benefit from being like 500 pages instead of just 350 in order to take it just a little bit further.
   
   But all in all it's worth every penny for a DirectX newbie. It's detailed and clearly written with working examples on a CD.



3. It truly is an introduction into D3D10. Tells you exactly how to get started. If your new to dX, this is actually a great book to start. She does a great job in telling you how things work and the way they do. Now i am not saying it will always be great and will always be easy to learn. If your not great at C++ then this book still is fine. It does not use advanced concepts. It just plainly does a great job in what it says.
   
   "BEGINNING DIRECTX 10"



4. Book gives some valuable info on DirectX techniques and apparatus, but practically no more than basic samples.



5. It is a good book for anyone interested in learning the basics of graphic programming. It is also a good basic introduction to DX10. There are a lot of things not cover however as a basic book it good.
   The examples do compile properly so that is a plus.

2 comments about Introducing 3ds Max 9: 3D for Beginners.

1. Its written in easy to follow directions, instructions and example pictures. I really enjoyed the student work section in the middle of the book.
   
   This book has greatly expanded my 3D modeling 'tool belt' and boosted my confidence for tackling difficult projects.



2. At first I thought to myself that this book was going to be your typical "BAD" computer book where you have to get up, look for people who know how to use 3Ds Max or you would either look for some written or video tutorials online to get you up and started running this software. So I honestly didn't bother buying the book at first until one day by coincidence my colleague happens to have the exact same book that I was looking at Amazon 5 days ago. He told me that the book is an easy read especially with the lingo that the author uses in this book. I didn't want to believe it however; as soon as I borrowed the book just 1 day I have literally completed 4 chapters of this AMAZING book! There was no question about it and I had to get hold of a copy of my own.
   
   One of the best things that the user will be introduced in this book is that the author will get the user feet wet into the realm of CG in Chapter 2 where the user will create a simple animation and from there the author then explain how the CG world works today and how a user should be well equipped.
   
   Honestly this is by far one of the best introductions to CG especially how to use a complex software as 3Ds Max 9. All I can say is that this book is only for the Novice and not for the semi or advanced users. However it still acts as a good reference book for the semi / advanced users.
   
   Oh and One last thing I should mention. This may not seem important to you but to me it is. I only believe that a good computer book has to have color throughout the whole book because it makes the book fun to read with colors. But now I am going to have to change my belief on that because this book is completely in black and white and STILL the book surprises me to how EASY it is to read and to follow along through the CD exercise that accompanies this book.

5 comments about SolidWorks For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)).

1. I love the dummies series, so I was greatly dissapointed by this book. I needed a solidworks tutorial because I found the help files and "basic" tutorials that come with solidworks to be too advanced. When this book is not tooting its own horn on how great solidworks is, then it is way too technical for the beginner. I am a designer, not an engineer. I am hired for the look of a product, not for how it is molded. This book assumes too much. I had to look up chamfer and fillet on Wikipedia, as this books skips the basics and launches into a thou-shalt-sketch-like-this. (again, I am NOT AN ENGINEER) I understand that engineers out there would find this book too basic because it takes half the book outlining anal-retentive ways of structuring workload before launching into actually making anything. [...].



2. This book is written by the Solidworks Customer Satisfaction Manager.
   
   He rehashes the same stuff as in the Solidworks Essentials manual that comes with the software.
   
   I found it virtually useless.
   I was seeking a different viewpoint in the hopes of gaining a better grasp of the many vague issues in the manual.



3. I am still busy with the book but have already started enjoying it. As for Amazone the book arrived one day after their estemated day of delivery Very good



4. This is a good task-based, issues-based overview of SolidWorks. Suitable for today's attention-deficit, info-overloaded, multi-tasked-maxed-out student or working stooge who wants to get a solid beginner's feel for this complex, cool 3D engineering tool--jus' the facts and not a heck of a lot of incomprehensible theorizing. (Of course a committed engineer will need to go somewhere else for the math & other CAD ideas). I'd venture a bold statement and say that this is THE starting point for people considering a career change to this field, and what I liked especially is that the book is pretty clear about being a starting point only. Near the end are the "Ten Tips" for new SW engineers; they make a lot of practical sense. I recommmend pairing this with another task-based product, a video tutorial by VTN, which is also good for the busy beginner who just needs to figure out how to become quickly productive with this tool. Learn SolidWorks by Video - Volume 1 and Learn SolidWorks by Video - Volume 2.



5. I bought this book hoping to learn some little known shortcuts, secrets, etc., but all I got from the book was a different writing of the help file.
   This might be a great book for someone just starting out.

5 comments about Foundations of GTK+ Development (Expert's Voice in Open Source).

1. A textview widget in python had me stumped, but no longer. Anyone wishing to tackle GTK+ programming should buy this well organized and excellent book. It is well worth it.



2. I got this book a few weeks ago and found it to be well written and to the point.



3. FINALLY... a great book on GTK+.
   Easy to follow and understand, great example, great explanations...
   
   Usually I dislike the writing styles in Apress publications, but this is a definite winner. For the first time I can say I actually understand and can effectively use GTK+.



4. I picked up this book to help me develop an application knowing absolutely nothing about GTK+ programming and it was beyond helpful. Excellently written, not to mention many code examples showing how to use the GTK+ library properly and efficiently. This book gives you the tools and the understanding for building your own applications and not just re-creating the examples given to you.
   I highly recommend this book to anyone programing in C and want to learn how to use the GTK+ library along with the GLib and Pango libraries. This is one book I'm not going to let go of.



5. I wanted to like this book, but unfortunately I cannot in good conscience give it 5 stars as the other reviewers have.
   
   I will say the book is well organized and is definitely useful as a starting point for studying GTK+ and the author clearly has a great deal of knowledge about the subject. But what should have been the main strength of the book that differentiates it from the mostly inadequate online tutorials is the author conveying to the reader straightforward explanations of important concepts and insider tips and tricks that can only come from extensive experience. He tries to do this, but I found many of his explanations ambiguous and confusing. Important terminology was left undefined or poorly defined which contributed to the confusion.
   
   The author dutifully plods through a presentation of most of the main widgets, providing essentially the same trivial example code each time with minor variations- basically just showing how to put the widget onscreen. But there was a frustrating lack of material devoted to how to use signals and events to perform any useful tasks. The vast majority of the functionality of any GUI application lies in its event handlers and callback functions. After reading this book, you will be able to prototype the GUI for your application, but you may be at a loss to make it actually do something.
   
   By Ch.3 and 4, the same example code has been replicated so many times that there is an increasing frequency of copy-paste errors that gradually becomes very annoying. Also, there are many typos in the text. The lack of editorial oversight and technical review on the part of the publisher combined with the author's lack of attention to detail and failures in exposition has created a book that I can only marginally recommend- mostly because all of the other books that have been published on GTK+ are either out of date or out of print, so this book seems to be the winner by default.