5 comments about Oracle8 Black Book: The Oracle Professional's Guide to Implementing the Object-Oriented Features of Oracle8.

1. I bought all of the Oracle Press junk, and they molder on the shelves. Ault is great at explaining Oracle8 DBA work, and I could not do my job without this reference. The scripts are especially useful, and the scripts alone are worth the cost of this book. I can't wait for his next one. . .



2. An excellent book on Pl/Sql, i am sure glad i bought it. Well done to the author!



3. The book is good, but I have one big question!! Where are the scripts on the CD? It says on the back cover that there are "200 scripts for use with Oracle8" on the CD. I can't find them. Are you expected to handjam them out of the book onto a disk?



4. I have no idea what the other reviewers of this book are thinking. I feel seriously mislead, and am returning the book for credit. This is shovelware at its worst, a random unedited pile of hacks, thinks, and yawns thrown together without thought, direction or inspiration. It should never have been published. Books like this are what keeps those Giant Computer Book Sale operations in business.



5. I am not an experienced DBA, but mainly a Java developer. However I thought this book would be a useful reference when doing any Oracle related development projects. I was greatly mistaken. Myself, or my colleagues have never found anything useful in it. So if you want a good Oracle reference, I'd look elsewhere!

No comments about Oracle PL/SQL for Dummies.

No comments about Alpha: A Strategic Review.

2 comments about Dream Machine: Exploring the Computer Age.

1. The Dream Machine provides a plethora of information to the reader. It gives specific detials of the evolution of the computer. Including: many people, companies (IBM, Remington Rand), the languages of programming, the personal computer and more...



2. This is the book that that spawned the PBS series "The Machine that Changed the World" airing in America around 1992. It was a five part series that closely matched this book, on which it was based. With this book you will gain an appreciation for the history of the modern computer and get an excellent historical perspective. The 5 part TV series with episodes taken from chapters of this book were titled:
   
   1) Great Brains
   2) Inventing the Future
   3) The Paperback Computer
   3) The Thinking Machine
   4) The World At Your Fingertips
   
   The book was written before the the invention of the internet and the world wide web, but you can see it coming. Industry giants such as the Alan Kay, Doug Lenat, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Alan Touring, Robert Noyce, Charles Babbage, George Boole, Jon Von Neumann and many others are all mentioned and their contributions are put into a modern (for the day) perspective.
   
   I would recommend this book to any student of computer science or computers as a hobby. Though the book is well over 15 years old, it has a timeless quality that takes you back to the beginning of the computer age and leads you gently into the modern era.

5 comments about Ocp Training Guide: Oracle Dba (Training Guides (New Riders)).

1. This book has good organization; yet lacks the delivery of the goods. Touches on the subjects briefly; sometimes confuses the issues completely and shrouds things in more mystery than necesarry. The test questions are riddled with mistakes. Obviously whoever wrote them did not read it or any other reference materials. In short, need more and better meat than this to pass.



2. The book is well written and provides the student with good working knowledge of Oracle 7/8. But the materials seem to be slightly out of sync with the exams. Some subject areas are covered in greater detail than necessary for the exam. A few of the exam question topics were not covered in the Training Guide. The book's review questions do not properly prepare the student for the complex type of questions on the exam.



3. This book gives an excellent summary of the OCP-required knowledge base. I read it, and then read the Coriolis Exam Crams and Oracle Performance Tuning (Gurry, Corrigan). My only (minor) criticisms are the confusing PL/SQL section and the lightweight treatment of Tuning. Overall though, a very worthwhile purchase.



4. I felt this book had the best exams and chapter review questions.

   Nonethless I recommend you read all the OCP books out there, and take all the sample exams you can get you hands on.




5. There are some small errors, but the book has good examples and covers most of the exam topics. It's easy to read and well organized. Since there aren't so many OCP study guides, you should give it a try.

No comments about Deconstructing the Computer: Report of a Symposium.

5 comments about Oracle8 DBA Handbook.

1. I purchased this text to be used in a class I was taking. I cannot begin to express my disappointment at the way the information was so poorly organized and how few truly good examples were provided. The index was large but was a poor tool in finding information, because the index can be only as good as the information it points to. If you can buy any other text, your money will be better spent. For your reference, I am an IT Infrastructure Manager in Silicon Valley.



2. This is a good addition to the Osborne collection. It goes over initial setup and maintanence of Oracle 8 and how the archetecture works. An Oracle DBA definitely needs this book in his or her library.



3. Any starting Oracle8 DBA should have this book. Any UNIX/Windows NT administrator who wants to have a clue on what the hell is installed on his machine and how to manage it should read this book. Good chapter on Database Tunning and managing large databases. Rather useless for DBAs with at least 1 year experience.



4. Like I said, this book is just a bunch of pages put together by this Oracle people to [take] your money. If anybody tells you is good , THEY ARE LYING!. The structure of it is very confused and is not organized making it a lousy reference book. Check out other alternatives



5. This book is good. It assists you in administrating your database. The books has information that helps you better manage your database efficiently. Some parts of the books are still relevant today.

5 comments about Oracle Unleashed.

1. There is a section in this book that claims that Oracle stops writing to datafiles while in hot backup mode. Although this is a common misconception, it is nevertheless false.



2. It's good only for bonfir



3. If you can't find at least 10 errors before you finish Chapter 1, you're just not paying attention. You'll find typos, incomplete or incoherent sentences, grammatical errors, punctuation errors, etc. If the authors are that careless during the inroduction, how can you trust their technical information? Thank goodness I didn't open the CD-ROM -- I'm returning this junk (2nd edition) asap. The authors should be ashamed of publishing such careless and sloppy work.



4. Don't waste your money ... trust me! This book tries to cover all areas of Oracle without providing much information on any single topic. It's basically one thick catalog of Oracle products.



5. I have never been disappointed in an Unleashed book before.

   I thumbed through this, and it seemed okay at a casual glance, so I bought it at the local bookstore. Since it was part of the overall excellent "Unleashed Series" I figured I couldn't go wrong!

   I have now scrapped that theory. This book is a real black eye to everyone involved in the process. I won't trust that just because it is an Unleashed book that it is going to be a good, in-depth and accurate discussion any longer.

   The best way I can describe this book is as follows. Did you ever take a class from someone who didn't really know the subject matter, and as a consequence made the class far more confusing than is should have been? Well, put that class in a book and this is what you end up with. It served to confuse and frustrate more than enlighten.

   I am sure this book contained technical errors as well, but my feedback is more about the flow and readability of the book. If you are looking to learn Oracle, this book would not be a wise selection for you.

   There are plenty of decent Oracle books out there to choose from.

   This just isn't one of them.

1 comments about Oracle Dba Handbook (Oracle Series).

1. This book can save you hours of frustration and techno-babbel. It gets to the heart of Oracle and provides the knowledge necessary to configure, troubleshoot and maintain an Oracle RDBMS. If you buy one book for Oracle this should be the one.

No comments about Developing Personal Oracle 7 Applications.