5 comments about Schaum's Outline of Mathematica.

1. This is an excellent introductory book on Mathematica. If you need to learn some basic features of this language, it is the best tool.
   
   The author did not spend too much time on theory. The rules and syntax are explained very clearly with illustrative examples. Of course, the theory may first sound very dry and dull, but once you follow the examples, you will see that things will settle in your mind easily. Clear, concise and effective discussion of the topics makes your job easy and enjoyable.
   
   The best way to learn and explore various features is to try to modify the parameters in the examples. Make use of your own creativity to discover new features. In many examples, the same outcome can be obtained by several different ways.
   
   This book, in general, covers the fundamentals of the language, but it is sufficient to use differentiation, integration, 2D and 3D graphics, differential equations, linear algebra, etc. Mathematica, certainly, is quite a sophisticated language, there are many more intricate features.
   
   For more advanced features, please try "Mastering Mathematica" by John W. Gray.



2. This is typical of the Schaum's outline series: a decent, no-frills introduction to Mathematica at a reasonable price. When you look at the other books on the subject, they cost 8 to 10 times as much. Get this one, work hard and save some long bucks. The others may be pretty but are they really worth it?



3. I have another Shaum's Outlines book. I was expecting to get jump started in Mathematica but I found the book overtaxing and tedious. I found a better (free) website to help me.



4. although there remains useful information in this work, it is largely outdated, and offers techniques and methods incompatible with more recent incarnations of mathematica.
   
   it can still offer effective instruction if you are willing to tread the interminable help pages in mathematica for the appropriate syntax and parameters, but to a new user even that is a forbidding task. strongly recommend you look elsewhere, until the current edition is updated.



5. I could write a lot about this guide if I knew more about mathematics. First of all, if you want to make the most of this guide you should be fluent with calculus. Next, note that it is, IMHO written in a somewhat scatterbrained fashion. While there is a TOC and the book follows that format, the contents seem to be a stream-of-consciousness format. Finally, it is 2 versions out of date! A lot of commands that are graphics don't work properly and many new commands are not included. Still, Mathematica is pretty backwards compatible so you'll learn a lot. The worst thing is that (a) NO VERSION 6 docs exist or will be printed by Wolfram; (b) NO VERSION 6 docs exist by anyone else. This is one of the few books that cover math material lower than calculus! On top of that, it isn't in the cost stratosphere! For that reason, its one of the few reasonable options.

5 comments about Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 Administrator's Companion: Administrator's Companion (Administrators Companion).

1. As you probably realize there is not a large selection of books that cover SMS 2003. This book is probably an acceptable book for an SMS 2003 beginner or an admin who doesn't typically use all of SMS's functionality. The primary benefit this book provides is that it helps you to more clearly understand the poorly written documentation that Microsoft provides with SMS. It shows the reader in a logical well-ordered way how to setup SMS from the 1st SMS server through configuration of each of the major components of SMS as well as adding additional servers and sites into SMS. It also provides step by steps for each activity and simplified examples of how to use the major components and perform common SMS tasks. While step by steps are provided the authors could really haved used more and different types of examples in many cases.
   
   The areas where this book could use significant improvement are in "real world" troubleshooting, design, and ongoing maintenance activities. It could also use more detailed information on configuring SQL for SMS usage as well important activities such as creating and setting container permissions in Adsiedit or ADUC. It also needs to be updated to include SP2 and the available feature packs that are out for SMS.
   
   Over all this book is probably a tad overpriced for the information it provides since most, if not all, of the book information is in the SMS docs. I think this book should be no more than $40 but since there are so few other books I guess they can get away with the $60 price.



2. I am new to SMS and I must say that I now love it because of its power. This book made it easier for me to understand the ins and outs of the product. It will help you out a lot to know your windows environment well enough as well as your AD, after a couple of service packs SMS gets into deep waters. I would like to see the future editions of the book include chapters regarding free add ons such as the OSD Pack and ITMU, it would make it even better at least for admins looking for implementing it into a windows shop.



3. This book is wriiten with the expectation that you have working experience with SMS.



4. This book has helped me a lot with this horrible product from Microsoft. Needless to say, I've sold the book and I no longer bother with junky SMS. Still, a good book.



5. If you are new to SMS and you want to start working with this technology then this is not the right book. NOT because it is to complicated - more because it is way to detailed. But the book is great as a reference. I think it is even a must for a SMS admin. The topics are explained very clear and so far I found all the information I was looking for.
   
   If you are new to SMS and you want to start working with it I recommend use the SMS 2003 CBT Nugget and work additional with this book to get deeper into specific topics.
   
   But again - as a reference for you daily work this book is great.

5 comments about ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts in Action: Building Dynamic Web Portals (In Action).

1. An all in one great introduction to web parts and even to some advanced techniques.
   
   Web parts are a strong web UI element and this book has done a great job of talking about ALL the things that are necessary for proper web parts development.



2. A must buy book if your working with webparts. Darren (The author) is also extremely helpful if you post web part related questions on his forum. The book is clear, concise and well organised. You will not be disapointed!
   
   Ps. I have bought many many tech reference books from Amazon over the years. This is the first time I have ever posted a review. This book has been an invaluable reference for a large project I am currently working on.
   
   Paul Hale (Domainscanners)



3. This a very thorough and complete guide to ASP 2.0 Web Parts. After reading this book, I gained more knowledge than reading countless internet articles, numerous blogs and a few cumbersome books on subject. This book is a MUST Buy for anyone who needs to understand and/ or implement ASP 2.0 Web Parts. One added new value is the concepts outlined
   in his book also work on ASP 3.5.



4. When I began to work on a web portal using .NET 2.0 in mid-2006, I found out about this book and anxiously awaited it's publishing. I wasn't disappointed. The material covered in this book goes into such great detail and is so full of great ideas that I recommended the re-writing of our portal using Darren's book as a basis of our new design. This was money well spent.



5. When I first started looking at Web Parts I couldn't quite grasp how they were different from other web technology. Darren was able to clearly describe how individual parts are created, and how to integrate them into a cohesive whole and helped me enormously in building modern websites.

5 comments about Perl for Dummies (Fourth Edition).

1. I bought this book to 'fill in the gaps' after several years of perl programming. It is providing valuable insights into new areas as well as being easy to learn from. This is particularly true in the area of databases and what different language versions can do. Highly recommend.



2. This was my first book for PERL and let me tell you, it was the worst written piece of garbage I have ever read. This book lives up to its name - it makes you feel like a dumbass. This is due to the authors approach in showing you PERL. Rather than breaking down the structure and powerful commands (telling you what they are and what they can do), he instead takes the approach of just showing you countless examples of complex code that the reader hasn't been properly introduced to. To show an example of how to use the chomp command, he buries it within examples along with other commands that he hasn't even talked about. That is confusing for a beginner. If you knew how to read his code, you wouldn't need this book in the first place.
   
   I recommend going with O'Reilly books instead. They tend to take a systematic approach, discussing and breaking down the structure and use of specific commands and then showing you small examples using only the code and commands they already discussed. Believe me, it is better than dummies approach of making you try to read a 50 line code example to see what a specific command can do.
   
   Stay away from the dumies series. All these books do is make you feel like a dummy.



3. I BOUGHT PERL FOR MY GRANDSON AND HE WAS VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS BOOK. AMAZON WAS VERY CHEAP COMPARED TO OTHER COMPANIES. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE BETTY WEEKS



4. This was the first book that I used to learn Perl. I would agree with some of the other reviews that it would be tough to learn Perl with just this book. I ended up filling in some of the gaps with "Learning Perl" by Randal L. Schwartz.
   
   The book is an overview of the language and its different uses. It uses a lot of small snippets of useful code for examples which is great when you need that snippet. However, chapter 4 is the only example of a fully written out program and is only used to illustrate what a program would look like. You will not find a fully written out solutions or examples here.
   
   This, in addition to its spartan coverage on certain advance topics, can make parts of the book not very useful and confusing. Do not get this book if you want to learn about the following subjects as it covers them only briefly:
   -Object-oriented programming with Perl
   -Perl modules
   -CGI scripting or other involved server-side scripting
   -XML processing
   
   I basically use Perl for data munging and not for web purposes. I generally need to write a quick and dirty script to munge some legacy data. To this end this book is valuable to me. It is a good reference for remembering the quirky Perl syntax. I keep it handy when I need to remember how to write a section of code. I use it as a mini "Perl Cookbook".
   I would give it:
   4 stars for teaching the basic language
   3 stars for coverage of advance material
   5 stars for basic reference of regular expressions and data structures.



5. The book is well written and useful. I've a need to write scripts and
   do some coding in my job. I feel that this book will help me get past some of the disconnects, in my way of thinking, when it comes to programming. As a Hardware designer I can understand a piece of logic. But I've often struggled with interpretting or writing my own code.

4 comments about Pulling Strings with Puppet: Configuration Management Made Easy.

1. Puppet is an amazing configuration management tool. I'm a huge proponent and encourage every system administrator to give it a good, hard look. And this book is a great way to get started. It covers everything you'll need to know to get started and take you all the way through to having a nice Puppet infrastructure up and running.



2. Mr. Turnbull has done an excellent job introducing Puppet beginning and advanced concepts. As an experienced UNIX professional and Puppet user, I learned new things from his examples regarding modules and creating custom facts & providers which I intend to experiment with shortly.



3. Pulling Strings with Puppet is my third book from James Turnbull, and much like the others, this delivered.
   
   Writing a book on puppet at this stage is certainly a challenge. Puppet is growing and changing much faster than even the online documentation can keep up with. The author decided to worry about concepts and include future directions where possible. It was a good decision. The book gives a give overview of the puppet configuration tool and a few in-depth reviews of some concepts. I learned a number of things to improve my setup, even though I had been using puppet for over 6 months.
   
   Best practices and use cases are the areas I was most interested in. There are several small use-cases which build a nice foundation for using puppet including, using a version control system, using mongrel as the web server, writing your own modules, and external node storage. I would have liked to have then seen a wrap-up use case incorporating all of these ideas into an enterprise-type deployment, but it may have meant a lot of repeated material.
   
   If you're looking into puppet, I would recommend this book. It's rather inexpensive and gives a rookie a decent handle on where and how to start. The book also does a good job at providing links and direction toward the puppet community, which is needed, due to the speed at which puppet is currently changing.



4. This book is definitely a vital reference for anyone who's working with puppet; I picked it up after becoming frustrated with the current state of available information on puppet, and it turned my perspective around completely.
   
   I'm not sure that I would have managed to learn everything I needed to about puppet using only the docs on the website; often I got the familiar feeling when reading through the wiki that some crucial bit of information was being assumed, but this book always backed up its information with examples that I could use to grasp the idea being presented.
   
   On thing to note about the book -- It's really not structured to be a quick-start guide, but rather each chapter lays a foundation of knowledge that the next chapter builds upon. As such, I'd recommend setting aside a couple of afternoons to read through the book, ideally before you even begin to set up your puppet environment.

5 comments about VBA Programming for Microsoft Office Project Versions 98 through 2007 (Emp Learning).

1. What I like most about this book is there is something for everyone. The code examples are great for learning the tool. More experienced developers will put their minds to work and morph the examples into all sorts of useful and more robust applications.
   
   I go fishing for hints in the book almost daily when I am trying to get things done in Project via VBA.
   
   Since the approach Rod uses is "modular" it is very easy to expand and combine the knowledge. Beginning users can work at their own pace, more advanced users have a Microsoft Project Specific reference and hint book.
   
   This type of work was long over due and I'm glad I found the book; it will be a treasure. No way a shelf queen, this book is being used and recommended to many of my friends.



2. The book is a great reference guide of MS Project VBA Programming. Rod, the author is well known in the MS Project comunity and a Project MVP, which makes him the most qualified person to write this book. If you are a VBA starter or an advanced user, you will get very good usage out of the book.



3. Didn't learn much new stuff. Most is out on the Web but it is nice to have it in one place. I like the book format, good for older coders like me who's eyes aren't like they used to be.
   
   The index is limited/sparce. Wish it had an appendix with the full MSP Object Model and other MSP specific references.
   
   Great start, just want more...



4. This book did enable me, a excel vba developer, to become able to develop VBA for Microsoft Project.
   
   It explore the integration between excel and vba as well.



5. I'm about 1/3 of the way through the book. I'm an experienced amateur at VBA and have learned several useful new techniques.
   
   The book is pretty well written, clear, with nicely worked out examples, and good explanations of why you would do something in the recommended way. Wish i'd bought it a year or two ago.

5 comments about Oracle Shell Scripting: Linux and UNIX Programming for Oracle (Oracle In-Focus series).

1. This book has helped me impress my colleagues and boss..I originally browsed through it at Border's (and found myself sitting on the ground with a notepad scrambling to copy as much as possible)..of course, then I realized I had to have it, so I bought it online..I knew the publisher was a trustworthy source because I'm always using Don Burleson's DBA tips online.. this author's approach is easy-to-follow and concise; yet it's a thorough guide that is like a catalyst for your own creativity...it has made me look forward to extracting the power of the shell.
   
   It's a lot better than parsing through thick UNIX encyclopedias or cycling through fragmented online material..as an OCP 10g/9i DBA, I still feel like there are not enough practical day-to-day guides like this one for junior/mid/senior-level administrators, since over half our work is directly/indirectly connected to the shell.



2. A well written book. A great way to learn shell scripting. Relevant and useful examples throughout the book (downloadable code).



3. Oracle administrators of all levels will find benefit in this book. The author has put together the basics in shell scripting and OS fundamentals in aid of maintaining and monitoring scalable production Oracle environments. Each example is easy to read and follow and leaves the reader with room to explore and extrapolate on their own with little effort. A great lookup source for old timers and "must have" for newbies,
   
   
   I highly recommend this book
   -Rat



4. My first impression of "Oracle Shell Scripting" was not a good one. After looking for the download site for the scripts in the book I was frustrated. The first chapters seemed a little rudimentary. This book is not a learn how to script book. The first five chapters give a scripting refresher. If you have no experience with korn, or bash scripting this is not the book to start with. If you have used Oracle on UNIX/Linux this books puts all those nuggets you have gathered over the years and some you have missed in one place. This book has scripts that you use in every day DBA work. This book deals with Oracle, sqlplus and UNIX/Linux scripting. I bought this book to help me transition from korn scripting in Solaris UNIX to bash scripting in Linux. I consider it worth the investment. Caution avoid the frustration of looking for the script download website. It is not in the book. You have to email the author to get the site. There is not enough information on using scripting with Oracle Application Server.



5. I found this to be a good book. It was a quick and easy read, I read the whole thing in about a week. The subject matter was a bit simpler then I had expected, yet it filled in some of the basic details that the more advanced books just skip over. This is was a great book for beginning unix shell scripting.

1 comments about Professional Windows Workflow Foundation.

1. This book has a really good workflow introduction, and the author does a really good job with hosting workflows in ASP.NET and using the workflow for page flowing. However, like all .NET framework 3.0 books currently available, they do not include Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas beta 2) improvements in hosting and external communications with Framework 3.5 send and receive activities.
   
   Update in March, 2008: The status of workflows for Microsoft is currently in transition between Framework 3.0 and 3.5. Framework 3.0 workflows are extremely complicated, and communications with a workflow host (e.g., WinForms, Webforms, or WCF services) and a client have dramatically changed with Framework 3.5. Unfortunately, even Microsoft MVPs admit that very little is known about the new methodology for local and remote communications and with the WF/WCF integrated send and receive activities.Currently, Microsoft has no consistent model for the amazing technology among the workflow implementations in BizTalk (Framework 3.0), SharePoint 3.0 (Framework 3.0), and Visual Studio 2008 (Framework 3.5).
   
   Until there is a unified, consistent, and well-documented paradigm for incorporating workflows into applications, this reviewer will not implement workflows to a large extent in production applications, but sparingly will use workflows in a minor way to provide experience only.

5 comments about Beginning Mac OS X Programming.

1. This book should be named "Beginners Broad Overview of Mac OSX Programming Topics".
   
   If you have never even heard of Bash/C/Python/Perl/OOP/Cocoa/Frameworks - this book may be of some use.
   
   
   The first few chapters on Interface Builder/Xcode have you follow along with the simplest of instructions, creating Projects, and working with .c and .h files, and then into building and running a few simple applications. These high level concepts in themselves quite easy to grasp but the descent into actual cocoa programming/c language/frameworks/OOP in succeeding chapters is quite difficult and the authors take the same tone as many other 'how-to' books do in remaining quite technical about technically abstract concepts.
   
   Here you will find the going quite rough, and the 'why' factor (eg, why are we doing this) is definitively absent. I can see why I have a .c file but why do I need a .h file ? The mind's natural intuition is to say "why *ever* make things more complicated then they need to be.... so why not combine the content of .c and .h files together ? The mind wonders "did the programming guru's who created XCode/IB/Cocoa/C/OOP just create a huge mess (cause thats what this looks like), or did they formulate something elegant ?" How did they arrive at this overtly complicated scheme ? Why does it have to be so complicated just to multiply a few numbers together in a small window (the Calculator tutorial from ADC). One doesnt know when one is just starting out. There's no answer from the authors in these first few chapters, if ever. Perhaps there was some temerity at commenting 'in the margins'. This small example of a 'hey why are we doing that now ?' mental query, natural to process of learning, is just but one of many opportunities missed. Granted, nobody said programming was easy, but imparting an understanding being the ostensible goal of how-to books, the audience is definitely looking for clues about 'why' and not just the 'how'.
   
   As a result of so many omissions, grasping the 'why' of it all is decidedly difficult. The book if it were to be improved would need to dig into this 'why' aspect much more deeply than it now does. Am I learning a big huge mess, that nobody has ever bothered to truly rethink/streamline or does this XCode/IB/Cocoa stuff combine into something truly efficient ? If its efficient, show me why, Im here to learn and want to know...
   
   The languages chapters do a reasonable job of explaining to the never-heard-of-it-before audience the concepts of Bash, C, Perl, Python, and Applescript. The book provides decent examples and discussions as to their various capabilities and pro's and con's. The book also provides many "now you do it" type functions and you will find yourself wanting to launch a Terminal session and get going right away.
   
   The book does not necessarily bode well for the programming novice at "rung 2 or 3" who already has some knowledge of broad topics and wants to actually learn the how-to of programming- which would quite naturally be Cocoa, since Cocoa is the basis for all modern Mac programs that run with any GUI at final output. Unfortunately, I could only weakly recommend OReilly's "Learning Cocoa", itself quite technical and also very much missing the 'guide voice' or 'why factor'.
   
   Because I feel the 'why factor' and the 'voice of the guide' were so notably absent from this tome, Im only giving it 2 of 5 stars, there's lots of room for improvement imho. I also despise when authors provide aliases to explanations found on the internet...and this tome is also guilty of this phenomena. Hey, I paid for your book, *I expect a decent explanation* not a link to a website where I could read with little understanding until my eyeballs fall out.



2. I am new to MacOSX development and this is just hands down a great book to get started with. it lays down a great foundation for getting started. If you have done development or hand not it is a great way to get the ball rolling. Can't wait for the next edition.



3. I am a total programming newbie. I'm also fairly new to the Apple world, having bought my first Macintosh in April. I've really been excited about Macs, OSX, and all the stuff they offer.
   
   I mainly work in graphics programs such as Poser & DAZ|Studio. Over the years, I've created countless tutorials to help Graphics Newbies. I'm known for extensive use of screenshots, and good writing skills.
   
   I've been disappointed because there are no Macintosh versions of some very important Poser-related utilities. I thought it would be nice to learn programming, and make my own utilities.
   
   I browsed through the Amazon book collection, and this book seemed promising. Unfortunately I was wrong. Unfortunately, it appears no one proofread this book. I got as far as Chapter 3 before I gave up.
   
   There are numerous problems with the Calculator project. The code you enter doesn't match the code listed later in the exercise. You're supposed to fix errors on code you never entered.
   
   The book was a problem from the start. The XCode installation information was incorrect. This problem cost me a couple hours of downtime. I eventually found the solution myself...
   
   In the book, we have some exercises that get you started, and then you're left hanging while the authors go on and on about related stuff. Should you save the project? Should you abandon it?
   
   In my own opinion, this book doesn't have enough screenshots. I'm left wondering exactly what item to click, or what my code should look like, etc.
   
   It's natural for a newbies to feel lost. It's the book author's responsibility to help the reader through this confusion and teach him something.
   
   Unfortunately, the errors in the Calculator exercise are too great an obstacle to overcome.
   
   The book will be placed on a shelf for now. Maybe one day I'll revisit it to see if the remaining chapters are better.



4. I have been unfortunate enough to pick this book up as a starting point for Mac programming. Very heavy on sample code that's either not explained at all for a few chapters or just glossed over after you're made to type, compile and run it. Explanations are in the line-by-line format with no explanation of the larger context of what you're actually doing.
   
   The book jumps around between new and legacy frameworks and environments as if a beginner needs to be confronted with more choices.
   
   Oh and 200 of the 620 odd pages of content is about scripting, which again is split into UNIX scripting, Python/Ruby and AppleScripting...
   
   I almost gave up on getting to grips with Mac programming until i thankfully threw this book in the bin and started again with something that's better structured.



5. Been a great book for learning Mac programming so far. Very hands on with examples aplenty.

3 comments about Macromedia Contribute 3 for Windows & Macintosh (Visual QuickStart Guide).

1. If you are going to use Contribute for anything more than the very basics, I highly recommend this book. As of this writing it is the only book I know of about Contribute 3 that is really written for version 3 and not a version 2 book with new graphics.
   
   Contribute has an excellent help system but it is essentially a separate program (HTML based) and you are forced to switch back and forth on screen. If you have any shortage of screen real estate you will spend a lot of time switching or eventually printing help pages. For the cost, the Visual Quick Start guide is a good investment.
   
   Normally the major shortcoming of the VQS series is that they do not provide the depth that most users need. This is not a problem with the Contribute guide because Contribute is not that deep of a program. At the same time, Contribute has some quirks in web creation that put a premium on doing things in the order the writers of the program intended. The guide does an excellent job of explaining these and therefore saving you time and aggravation.
   
   Highly recommended.



2. I have in the past eagerly bought books from the Visual Quickstart Guide series, but this one is a terrible disappointment. It has all the weaknesses of the series (such as tiny font in the screen snapshots), and none of the strength.
   
   The great strength of the series was the profuse use of screen snapshots with callbacks. This is absent here. The graphics are minimal, and the text sometimes refers to an unspecified picture ten pages earlier or to no picture at all that i can discover.
   
   My adivice is just to forget about this book.



3. I just created a website in Dreamweaver for a client with the end expectation that they would be able to use Contribute to edit their site without a lot of headache. Contribute proved to be absolutely simple to setup and use for this task after I read through this book.
   
   With a single reading, I fully understood how Contribute works for the end-user and what to anticipate in the way of questions, and how to setup and administer a Contribute-editable site for multiple users with multiple levels of permissions.
   
   I even learned from this book how to accomplish something I needed to do for the site as whole and had become tired of reading copious amounts of text looking for simple solutions. It was right there in Contribute's edit features, and as far as I can tell is nowhere to be found in Dreamweaver.
   
   As to another reviewer's comments on the size of the graphics, unlike other Visual Quickstart Guide's, this one covers a pretty straight-forward piece of software and the images in the book were there to show what you should see on the screen; from there being able to read the little bit of text on the menu, etc. in the book is unnecessary as you have on the screen...nothing so complex as 10-step photo editing process in Photoshop.
   
   To sum it all up: this book will answer all of your questions...it did mine.
   
   >>>>>>><<<<<<<
   
   A Guide to my Book Rating System:
   
   1 star = The wood pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper.
   2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead.
   3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted.
   4 stars = Good book, but not life altering.
   5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.