No comments about ANDROID A PROGRAMMERS GUIDE.

4 comments about Beginning VB.NET Databases.

1. I am a novice Visual Basic programmer. I learned VB6 several years ago while I was still in college, but during the last six years working as a consultant, I haven't done any coding. Then a project came along where I was going to have to begin coding again. So, I looked into the latest version of Visual Basic, which is Visual Basic.Net 2003 or 1.1. What I didn't realize is that VB6 and Visual Basic.Net are not very similar at all. The biggest difference that I found was that VB.Net is truly object oriented while VB6 is not. Anyway, I needed to learn VB.NET quickly in order to develop an application that generated reports for my client. As a result, I also needed to learn ADO.NET in order to work with the database, which stored all of the data.
   
   I bought a ton of books on both VB.NET and ADO.NET and most of them were terrible. The other books that I purchased provided either no coverage on VB.NET and ADO.NET or it contained code examples didn't work correctly when I created them. The biggest reason that most of the code samples didn't work correctly was because a lot of the books on these subjects, especially ADO.NET were written using the first release of this development tool, which was Visual Studio.NET 2002 or 1.0. Therefore, I found that I kept buying books trying to find something that would provide me with an introduction to VB.NET with a significant emphasis on ADO.NET.
   
   Finally, I came across this book. While I am only about half way through it, I can honestly say that it's the best book I've found so far. Now, as I said initially, I would consider myself a novice VB.NET programmer, so I did need a book that would allow me to refresh my programming skills as well as introduce me to database programming with ADO.NET, since I had no experience with ADO, DAO, etc. This book is great because while it is geared toward newbies, it's not overly simple. The examples are all real world scenarios that you would use if you were in my current predicament. If you have no VB experience whatsoever, then you may want to choose a simpler book that focuses solely on VB. But, if you have some experience with VB6 and need to learn VB.NET and ADO.NET, this is an excellent starting point. The best part about this book is that it was written in 2004, which made me believe that the author used this in conjunction with VB.NET and ADO.NET 1.1 and so far, everything has worked perfectly. So, if you're in a similar situation, then please take my advice and buy this book first rather than spend hundreds of dollars on other books that won't help you at all.



2. Very good book for beginners but the drawback of this book can be summarized in 2 points:
   
   1) ASP.NET 2.0 beta release had been announced and it fly with coding to the next level where you can get rid of 70% your code lines (according to Microsoft !, and this includes database classes and objects which changed dramatically in ASP.NET 2.0 . So, why to learn an old version ;).
   
   2) I rated this book "4" stars, because some of the examples in this book are very long where you get bored before you see your result.



3. This book is exceptional. I have been programming for quite a while, so some of these are old hat, but the presentation is well thought out, easy to follow, quick to learn. Just an exceptional book for this topic.
   
   Not only do you get to use ADO.NET on Access, but SQL Server and/or Oracle, as well as ASP.NET and Web Services. All without breaking into a sweat.
   
   I had a question about one thing and I posted on the Wrox forum for the book. The author himself responded very quickly and we got it straightened out (it was on my end, not the book). I printed out the errata, but there are few errors in the book. Just an all around excellent book.
   
   p.s., oh, yeah, I bought two copies -- one for work and one for home.



4. If you want info now, don't buy this book. To get anything useful you have to read the whole the whole thing and do all the exercises. I prefer books that have many good clear examples that you can work through and learn from. I don't have time to use this type of book.

5 comments about SAP R/3 System Administration: The Official SAP Guide.

1. I passed the SAP Certification exam with the help of this book. All information you need as far as basic SAP Basis administration is simply explained in this book. Easy to read and very well organized. I wish I had that book at the beginning of my first SAP project. Also it is a great reference book for experienced Basis Admins. It just does not cover Change Management, Performance Tuning, Database Administration and User Administration in detail. I bought Sap R/3 Change and Transport Management : The Official Sap Guide (Official Sap Guide) and Sap R/3 Performance Tuning : The Official Sap Guide (Official Sap Guide).

   Good Luck!

   ...




2. SAP R/3 Administration itself is a vast subject and it is really
   foolish if one expects that a book will provide reference to every aspects of it.I have been working with SAP for the past 6 years and worked practically with all versions of the ERP. I find this book very handy as it tries to address the basics (4.x version) and has given structured and correct info. The author has not tried an impossible task of providing info about everything which eventually ends up in a mess . For a starter this book is a must .



3. SAP BASIS is very much a "where the rubber meets the road" art, and is subtly different from shop-to-shop. The craft of BASIS is almost always learned at the feet of a self-proclaimed guru, whose credentials may or may not equal what they are advertised to be.
   
   Why is this so? The entry barriers (into SAP) are high, and the audience small. No company realistically wants to hand over multi-million dollar systems to beginners; they will instead seek out seasoned professionals and quickly task those veterans with training the next generation.
   
   There is, however, little incentive for the seasoned BASIS guru to share knowledge. This small, highly technical club remains exclusive because the members of that club wish it to remain so.
   
   But this grim situation may be changing. The doors may be opening, light may be shining on these arcane subjects. Liane's book is a step in that direction.
   
   BASIS covers every point where the SAP VM touches the underlying OS and RDB. That's a huge amount of real estate; no single book could cover it all. But Liane Will's text does a good job, and provides pointers for where to look when the answers you need are not in his book.
   
   If you are learning BASIS or are working with SAP and want to know a little more about it, this well-written, understandable book is for you.
   
   Highly recommended!



4. This handbook cover the most of daily problems of managing a SAP environment, however some particular and not so usual problems (like for example E-mail integration ) are not covered at all.



5. Lots of basic info in this book, but no advanced topics that you will be faced with in SAP administration. Would love to see something more advanced from SAPPress

4 comments about Testing Applications on the Web: Test Planning for Mobile and Internet-Based Systems, Second Edition.

1. This is more than a minor update of the first edition of this highly regarded book - it's a major rewrite with added material on mobile web testing.

   As in the earlier book, this one clearly shows the differences between traditional testing and web testing, which will provide QA professionals who are moving from older environments into web-based systems an orientation and direction. For new QA professionals the chapters on software testing basics, networking and web application components provide a solid foundation. The chapter on mobile web application platforms is unique to this book, and adds true value. Other core material includes test planning, and a sample application and test plan to add realistic scenarios to the material.

   Web-specific test advice encompasses UI, functional, server-side, database, help, installation, compatibility, security and performance testing. These cover all facets of the test process and associated procedures in a web-centric environment. Additional chapters include using test scripts, testing mobile web applications, and web testing tools.

   While the core content is on the mark and accurate, the appendices are as invaluable. These include a test plan template, weekly status report template, error analysis checklist (with error examples), UI test-case design guidelines (common keyboard navigation/shortcut matrix and mouse action matrix web), test-case design guideline: input boundary and validation matrix, display compatibility test matrix, and browser/OS configuration matrix.

   If you test web systems this is the most complete book you can read, and it is destined to attain the same 'classic' status as the first edition.




2. Great book - everything you need to know about web testing



3. I am a software developer that had to create an automated performance web testing system. This book (along with two others) provided my with a good overview on best practices for creating my "Internet Macros" for performance web testing.



4. I borrowed this book's first version and liked it very much. Since I can't find the first version anywhere, I have to buy this new version. I wanted to buy at Amazon in order to save my time driving to bookstore, plus it is cheaper here. I was worried if this book has the sections I need which were in first version. This --Search inside this book-- is superb!! At first, I did not realize it has the whole "contents" list. Then I realized if I click on "next", it will show you the complete "contents". I saw the chapter that I need and ready to buy it. Very happy with this feature--Search inside this book. There is no doubt this book is superb for QA engineer.

1 comments about Foundation Flash CS3 Video (Foundation).

1. FriendsOfEd Foundation Flash CS3 Video is an excellent book, with a lot of solid detail. It covers a lot of territory, as far as techniques that someone can use. Other Flash video books cover a lot more video production and encoding than this book does. But if you are doing any video with alpha channel production, fullscreen, mp4, or cameras, this is the right book for you. That's where this book shines.

No comments about Apple Training Series: AppleScript 1-2-3.

No comments about Introduction to Programming Using Microsoft Visual Basic.Net.

5 comments about Memory as a Programming Concept in C and C++.

1. I agree with the other reviewers. In general this is good book. It bridges the gaps between many computer science disciplines. Especially OS and programming language. It also touched a little bit on computer architecture and linking process. The text was written in a a very clear way. However, I do have two complains. The author didn't spend enough effort on the relatively more complex and advanced topics. Eg, linking process for C++, advanced topics in memory leakage detection and prevention. On the other hand, author spent too much energy describing linked data structure in terms of serialization. I personally don't think its relevance is higher than the advanced memory leakage issues. For seasoned profressionals, this book can be used to refresh your knowledge. It is a beginner level to intermediate level book.



2. An older book that could be helpful to readers interested in this book is "Inside the C++ Object Model" by Stanley B. Lippman. It was written in 1996. It shows things such as the layout of C++'s organization of (pointers to) virtual and inherited methods.



3. as a C programmer for 3 years now i'm still learning and as you go along you realize how much C is really about memory. This book only served to reinforce that. the examples were great and even the example code he has in there, the only reason i gave it four stars is because the book wasn't bigger. I loved this book and gladly recommend this to any C programmer, budding or veteran.



4. First I would like to state the reason I gave it 4 stars. In my opinion, 5 stars should be very hard to reach. Maybe I would give this 4.5 stars if it was possible. Anyway, I'm a self taught VB 6 programmer with a working knowledge of the Windows API. First year CS student, though I've read many a book on C and a few on assembly. I have a large CS library and this is the first book of it's kind that I've found. It is a little pricey if you compare book size to other, larger CS books, but I don't think it is overpriced. The material is great, though I wouldn't say it is a beginner level book. I had trouble grasping enough of the material that it causes me to think either I've still got a long ways to go in learning (more so than I thought at least), or it is just not for the beginner.
   
   I would recommend this book to anyone who is serious about a programming career, regardless of the language. The book's relatively small size should not be a negative factor. It is not densely packed with information to the point where interpretation is needed, instead it explains in sufficient detail without dumbing it down by over-repetition and such used by some other CS books. It is aimed at C/C++ programmers, so being familiar with those is a prerequisite, obviously. Like another reviewer said, there seemed to be a little too much discussion on, say, serialization of linked data structures, an important topic with regards to memory yet I felt a little more emphasis could have been placed elsewhere.



5. I bought this book thinking I would get more insight about memory models in C and C++ languages. And how memory is a different resource. With its typed and untyped properties. With discussions about C++ RAII etc.
   I was very disappointed to find out that this book is actually an weak explanation of how compilers implement the object model.

5 comments about Java and XML.

1. This book was probably useful back in 2000. Unfortunately, a lot has changed since then, and some of the information in this book is now flat our wrong.
   
   For example the chapter about DOM objects was not updated to include information about recent api releases. So when the book says there is no simple way to serialize a DOM object, that simply is no longer true. You can now do it with the JAXP api.
   
   The book has other problems as well. For example, the section that describes the difference between XSL and XSLT is extremely misleading and not helpful at all.
   
   This is one of the few books that I intend to return



2. Are you developing with Java and need to use XML? If you are, then this book is for you. Authors Brett McLaughlin and Justin Edelson, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that that cuts through all of the hype about XML and put it to work.
   
   McLaughlin and Justin Edelson, begin with the basics of XML. Then, the authors cover three ways of defining the structure of XML documents. Next, they introduce the Simple API for XML (SAX). They also cover less-used, but still powerful items in the API. The authors continue by covering DOM basics. Then, they discuss the various Level 2 and Level 3 DOM modules like Traversal, Range, Events, Style, HTML, Load and Save, and Validation. Next, the authors examine the Java API for XML Processing. In addition, they also show you how to SAX and how it compares to both SAX and DOM. They continue by examining JDOM, a Java-specific object model API. Then, the authors examine another Java-specific object model API, dom4j. Next, they cover JAXB 1.0 and 2.0, as well as the general basics of data binding. Furthermore, the authors show you how to syndicate content. They continue by looking at a variety of techniques for using XML in the presentation, or visual portion of web applications. Finally, the authors provide some brief overview of technologies not covered in depth in this book.
   
   This most excellent book shows you how to use the APIs, tools, and tricks of XML to build real world applications. Perhaps more importantly, this book offers a new approach to managing information that touches everything from configuration files to web sites.



3. This edition was published in Dec. 2006, so when I bought it Jul. 2007 it was the freshest book on the topic that I found. There are a lot of different Java XML tools with overlapping funtions SAX, DOM, JAXP, JAXB, Castor, JDOM, dom4j . . . This really help sort them out.



4. I'm almost finished with this book, but have yet to determine what its purpose is. There is a lot of code about a lot of APIs, but it is not clear how one should approach Java & XML using this book. I think this book was a product of O'Reilly's "Rough Cuts" program, and it is true the book is very roughly written and all the good stuff got cut. Maybe all the material which would make this a good book is on the website.
   
   I must admit I'm very disappointed with O'Reilly as of late. Their books are going down hill rapidly, and I find I'm looking at other publishers (APress) much more often. I used to go to O'Reilly's website almost daily to see what is coming out next, but now I'm considering removing the Ora bookmark from my browser because of lack of use and to create space for other URLs.
   
   I really wish O'Reilly would get their act together and start publishing some well written and well edited books again.



5. Ho trovato questo libro molto interessante.
   
   Copre le varie API disponibili per JAVA per gestire file XML: SAX, DOM, JAXP, StAX, JDOM, dom4j. Inoltre vengono trattati anche alcuni argomenti avanzati, utili per apprendere al meglio l'uso di queste API.
   
   Il libro e' colmo di codice ed e' proprio il codice ad essere utilizzato come strumento didattico. Codice e diagrammi UML riempiono tutte le pagine.
   
   E' un libro molto pratico, rivolto ai programmatori. E' necessario avere una piccola infarinatura riguardo l'XML: viene trattato brevemente nei primi capitoli.
   
   E' consigliato a chi ama libri con un approccio pragmatico.
   
   mircha

1 comments about An Introduction to R.

1. This is an excellent and brief introduction to R. I don't mind having a printed copy. I don't mind having paid the 13 bucks, if the money raised will support free software development. But... I want to warn people who are thinking about getting it: If you use R you already have it. Select the help menu, Manuals, An Introduction to R.

   Another book worth considering is the one by Peter Dalgaard, Introductory Statistics with R.