4 comments about Learn Oracle 8i.

1. This book is terrible. It doesn't read like a book - it is simply a list of terse definitions of various database topics.

   Based on the Table of Contents, I was really looking forward to learning about data blocks, segments, extents, tablespaces, views, indexes, triggers, constraints, cursors, etc., when I bought this book. Unfortunately, this book was too confusing and poorly written to learn anything.

   I mean no disrespect to Mr. Romalho, but the fact that English is not his primary language is probably why the book reads so choppy.

   If anyone can recommend a book to me that covers the topics I previously mentioned, please email me at: stevenardone@hotmail.com.




2. Learn Oracle 8i is a handy, fast-moving introduction to Oracle 8i database. This is a very visual approach to the material--the various components of Oracle are presented using screen shots at nearly every turn. This title is not an extensive presentation of the subject but rather an overview of the most important topics and the major components of the product. The easy-to-read language makes it quite a quick read and perfect for a speedy look at Oracle. The topics are well-presented, set in the correct context, and illustrated with real-world examples; however, this tutorial is aimed at the user rather than the administrator.



3. I have had a chance to study the "Learn Oracle 8i". I found it highly comprehensive and extremely easy to understand even though I am doing it on my own. It is better than any "Teach Yourself" series I have come across. This book is ideal for the beginner, not for the advanced user. With this book I had a complete overview of the product in a short period of time.



4. This book is just Ok for a beginner who wants to learn about Oracle Database for the first time. The title is misleading as it doesn't explain anything about Oracle Internet Features. Ideal title would have been 'Oracle for Beginners'

3 comments about Tru64 UNIX-Oracle9i Cluster Quick Reference (HP Technologies).

1. This reference guide covers everything from the installation of Unix to the installation of Oracle.
   No longer does the average system administrator have to search through numerous manuals, it is all included in this one book. The book walks you through the process of setting up storage, Unix installation, and Oracle with just the right amount of information to get the job done.
   I found it very easy to follow with real life examples of how to do everything.
   I would recommend this book to anyone that is in the planning stages or has a running Tru64 Oracle9i Cluster now.



2. Tim Donar has done a great job presenting a lot of complex detail in an easy to read, step by step format. Many abstract concepts are clarified by excellent illustrations which reduce the chance of misinterpretation. Highly recommend.



3. I am not even an Oracle admin, and I found this book to be one of my best resources. I am a Tru64 Unix admin, and this book is a super quick reference (as titled) for everything from disk controllers to system tuning. I love the clean, organized layout of the book, with a chart like summary of commands at the end of each chapter. One of the best computer books I own for sure.

3 comments about Oracle8¿ Developer's Guide.

1. This book has a very good balance of technical content, discussion and examples. I found the code samples very useful in helping me understand advanced techniques such as basing Forms blocks on stored program units.



2. 1000 words are not sufficient to write comment



3. This book was huge disappointment. Many items in the text are wrong, and Carol McCullough-Dieter obvious has no business writing Oracle books. There are so many wrong items, that it is not worth commenting on them. Avoid this bad apple at all costs.

5 comments about Oracle8 Certified Professional DBA Certification Exam Guide.

1. The book is ok. Not great but certainly useful. Wish the author and publisher would have read the book atleast once before printing it. Way too many silly mistakes in the book and discrebencies even between the book and CD that comes along with it.



2. The Oracle 8 exams are being replaced by the Oracle 8i exams. Although the book contains details on the upgrade exam, readers would be better served getting details on the current exam if they haven't already started the process.



3. Though I have a background and schooling in databases, I have never used Oracle (any version). This book and the selftest practice tests (I have to agree that the practice questions were poor -- but then all cert books have poor exam questions) were all that I needed to pass 4 of 5 of the OCP exams. I failed the Perf Tune exam by only ONE point though, and it was probably more my fault than the book.

   So, if I can do it, you can too. This is the best $100 I've spent on certification tests yet! (and I've spent plenty -- I'm a CCNA, CNA, MCSD, and CLP).




4. As an MS SQL Server DBA of 7 years, and an Oracle DBA for 6 months, I am halfway through the process of taking the OCP exams. This book has helped greatly in quickly learning the material covered in the exams. However, the questions and question format look nothing like the OCP exams. You should look elsewhere for practice exams.



5. I purchased this book when I decided to study for Oracle certification and have been using it for over three months now. The book covers all of the subject material for the exams, and in enough detail to adequately prepare you for the exams.

   My one annoyance with this book is the omission of the chapters for the last test (Oracle Networking). If this were included in print form, this book would be complete.

   The bottom line is, this book achieves its goal, and doubles as an excellent reference. There's almost always room for improvement in any technical resource and this is no exception, but all in all I think Mr Couchman did a very good job in putting together one book to prepare you for five very challenging exams.

5 comments about Oracle Web Applications 101.

1. I'm totally new to Oracle, and this book was just what I needed. It led me through every step of installing and configuring Oracle Database, the Oracle Internet Application Server, plus all the tools needed to develop Oracle applications. Then it gave a separate chapter on 5 different methods of writing the applications, including Java, Pl/SQL, Portals, Forms Designer, and Oracle Developer. Everything was clearly laid out, step by step, so that by following the instructions given, I had working examples of all the methods. I especially appreciated chapter 5, Designing an HTML Application, where the author showed an excellent method for designing a web application, starting with storyboards, proceeding to flow diagrams, then writing the code, and then separating the business logic from the presentation code. Using easy to follow examples that lead you from start to finish, the author teaches good programming practices as well as the "how-to's". I'm also used to most books having many errors in them, so you have to troubleshoot to figure out what's supposed to happen. This book was very accurate and complete, and the code actually works. The code examples are also available for download from the website, so you don't have to do a lot of typing. I appreciated the author's clear, easy to understand language. His extensive knowledge of Oracle is evident in the way he made things simple for the beginner. I'll be looking for more books by this author.



2. I couldn't sing enough praises of this book! To be sure, the "beginner" that this is book is aimed at has some oracle development experience, but little - or as in my case - no web development experience. Having some pl/sql programming background, and wanting now to learn how to write web-enabled interfaces for my oracle apps, i couldn't have asked for a better-designed book.

   First of all, it takes you through all the web-related jargon (for instance, the difference between a servlet and a server page), and explains how web and database apps fit in the overall scheme of things. Then it clearly demarcates the different approaches one could take to developing oracle web applications, and then - best of all - develops the same little app using each of those approaches.

   Of course, there will be a lot more to learn, but this book will start you off right!




3. Book is good as a tool for beginners and as a review of technology. It is for those who are in Windows world only. Presumption is that both database and application server are installed on the same PC, which is not always true.



4. Before I buy this book , I only knew little knowladge for oracle web development. But after read this book , I find this book is perfect for beginer !



5. I should have rated this 3+ stars, but it doesn't look like Amazon.com is going to let me change the rating.
   
   This book will give you a good intro to Oracle's PL/SQL Web Toolkit as well as the numerous other options that Oracle offers for developing web-based applications. Its examples promote a number of good techniques for segmenting business and presentation logic, but break down a bit when illustrating how application logic should be segmented into procedures.
   
   Use this as a good place to get started, then follow-up with individuals who have built larger scale PL/SQL Web Toolkit applications (via Oracle user groups, OTN, or newgroups) for additional insight on good application architecture. I would also recommend getting a good book on DHTML, CSS, and JavaScript to round out the picture (such as Danny Goodman's Dynamic HTML from O'Reilly).

5 comments about Oracle8 Administration and Management.

1. It is hard to read and difficult to understand. Please avoid this author's book. He maybe a good Oracle DBA. But not a good instructor. Don't waste your money.

   Steve




2. Each time I pick up this book I put it down feeling stupid and less confident for having read it. Since I'm an honors university grad, have a doctorate and have 7 successful Oracle consulting jobs at Fortune 500 companies under my belt, I don't think my failure to get good information out of this book is my fault.

   If you already know the topics in this book, you might say, "Yup, he's covered it."

   But people who are out to learn a topic will find it's similar to wanting to learn to drive and having someone say, "Oh it's easy, just press the gas to go and use the wheel to steer." Sorry, but there's more to it, as anyone who's learned to drive will recall. People who are reading this book to learn will feel frustrated because the explanations don't contain all the information they need.

   I have some specific concerns too. Much of the 800 pages consists of railroad diagrams of commands and brief explanations of optional sub-commands -- information that is available in the Oracle manuals you already have if you've purchased Oracle. The authors of Oracle's manuals have better writing skills, so why anyone would want to read a rehash of the material here? I don't know.

   There is some duplication, too. The explanation of PCTFREE and PCTUSED takes up page 142. Then starting on page 208 the same material is presented again. It's a duplicate cut and paste -- the same full page of text appears twice.

   The Oracle manuals do a fine job of explaining PCTFREE and PCTUSED, so it's not clear to me why the author felt a need to devote any of the book to this. What people really need is help in determining what values these should be set to in their particular situation (90? 80? 40?). There's no guidence on this at all.

   A final note: There is a Suggested Reading section at the end of each chapter, but often the suggestions are articles that were handed out at various Oracle user conferences. How is a typical reader supposed to get these articles? Oh sure, I know, you can sometimes order a set of them after the conference is over, but they tend to be quite expensive and most of the "articles" are just PowerPoint slides, making it hard to justify the purchase. So is the author really being helpful in providing these references? Or is he just showing off by listing obscure references that 99% of readers will not have? And isn't this just a setup for making readers feel inadequate? (Suggesting they refer to an article, but knowing most of them won't have access to it....)




3. It is not necessarily a good training book. You need to read many books and manuals to get to the point where you can appreciate the contents. But if you treat this as a resource book you will not be disappointed. Anyway Oracle DBAs are pretty darn smart people.



4. This book remains one of the foremost Oracle reference books in the market. Mike is a GREAT script writer, and he has always had a reputation for digging into the bowels of Oracle.



5. Oracle8 Administration and Management is a good source of reference especially for experienced DBAs and those moving from earlier platforms. As an experienced DBA and an OCP in both Oracle7 and Oracle8, my opinion is that the book is targeted towards intermediate to senior DBAs.

No comments about Experiences With Oracle Database 10g on Z/os (IBM Redbooks).

No comments about Sunrise Europe: The Dynamics of Information Technology.

4 comments about Oracle DBA Automation Scripts.

1. This collection of scripts cover all of the major DBA functions. Since most experienced DBAs have already amassed their tools, this book is for the newer DBA. It will give you a ready made collection of the basic scripts, which you can modify and perfect as your experience grows.

   I like this collection because it allowed me and my team to bundle production ready scripts into an application that we developed for internal company use. Although me and most of my team were DBAs in the past out personal script collections were out of date. We bought this book, tailored the scripts we needed to production tasks to support our application and were able to release a turn key application to production. Since the scripts were provided on CD ROM and were relatively bug free this book saved us hundreds of development hours and allowed us to deliver a system that had a higher value than one that is tossed into production.

   If you're a new DBA this book and the scripts that come with it will kickstart your tool library. If you're a developer that is building an Oracle application and want to deliver a complete solution this book will save time and money.




2. I bought this book mostly out of curiosity - what a Principle Consultant and DBA with Oracle Corporation may have to offer. While the book is decent in terms of technical contents, it falls way short of the BIG claims made by the publisher. Many scripts are just too simple to be production-strength utilities. New DBAs may find the book helpful in getting started, though.



3. I bought this book as the author claims that it caters to the requirements of DBA's of different experience levels. I am involved in all phases of project developement. This book helped me in the tasks of the database creation,database maintenance and performance tuning. Automation scripts made my job much easier in database backups. With the help of this book I could
   configure new Oracle 9i database and made it fully functional in four hours. Its a great book if you are working on Oracle installed on windows or unix. I feel that it is really worth its price.



4. This is a superb book. It has a lot of escencial Oracle DBA scripts written for UNIX / NT environments. Some scripts have really nice value added; for example the backup script provided also creates a file for restoring files backed up. The UNIX section at the end has a lot of useful commands for AIX, Solaris and HP. This is not a book for teaching you how to write scripts (although it has a section devoted to it), but it's clear and simple style make it a really good help for your DBA needs.

No comments about CramSession's Oracle 8.0 SQL-PL/SQL : Certification Study Guide.