5 comments about Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Step by Step (Step By Step (Microsoft)).

1. It was very disappointing to purchase a book with a cd that could not be loaded on my computer. Something is wrong with it. Unfortunately, I have been very busy - too busy to bother with the lengthy process of attempting to get it replaced!



2. Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Step by Step
   
   This book is perfect for the new user of Outlook 2003 and also provides the ideal reference and reminder for existing users.



3. I was having a hard time understanding all the things I could do with Outlook 2003 so I stayed with Outlook Express. Because of this book, I am now an avid user of Outlook 2003. If your new to Outlook and want to learn all about it, I recommend this book.



4. This book tells you exactly what you need to know for the exam. I was able to concentrate on the proper information without worry. I passed the exam first time :D



5. I bought the book for a training that I was conducting. It was an excellent resource. In fact, I am now using the entire series of Step by Step for all the Office products that I am training. Very simple to use as a teaching tool and even better as a desktop resource for looking up something on your own.

5 comments about C Programming: A Modern Approach, 2nd Edition.

1. This is the second of King's books I have purchased. It is also the second that I am very very pleased with.
   
   This book presents a quick systematic clear way of learning to program in C period. This has to be the easiest programming book I have ever read that goes beyond absolute basics.
   
   Frankly I don't understand the few negative reviews others have given the book. Yes it would have been nice to have answers to the exercises. However this is a programming book, you get the answers yourself by doing the work. Mistakes are readily apparent, simply because it won't work!
   
   In terms of difficulty, the exercises are doable. There have been a few that did stump me.....for a little while. With a bit of rereading and some experimenting, I have managed to answer all that I have attempted.
   
   Do yourself a favor if you are learning C and buy the book either as a stand alone or as a supplement to another book.



2. This is definitely the best book on C that I have ever read. King presents just about everything there is on the language in a clear and easily understandable way. One thing that I loved about this was King's mentioning the %g format specifier, which is something that has been very useful and that I haven't seen mentioned too frequently.



3. in order to really understand what was going on you need to intently read every single word. There are no solutions for the excercises which i thought were too difficult, and many times the means to find the answer could not be found in the chapter.



4. This book was an excellent complement to the professor I had for basic C programming. I'd venture to say that even someone with little to no computer experience could learn from it. One really nice feature is the Q & A section where obvious questions about the material are asked and then answered by the author such as: "Why is the C language so terse?" There is not an excess of information, but it gives a great deal of examples and even source code so you can see how the system compiles it. If I were teaching myself the C language, this would probably be the first book I went to.



5. I ordered K.N. King's ``C Programming: A Modern Approach (Second Edition)'' from Amazon for my recent birthday. Having had more birthdays than I care to admit, this gift to myself is right up there with a Lionel train set I got for my eighth birthday (not from Amazon, of course -- it didn't exist that long ago but passengers trains sure did :)).
   
   In this second edition, I think that KNK is now the logical heir to K&R. That's not meant as blasphemy -- Kernighan and Ritchie's still great volume is around 20 years of age and it's unlikely they'll be getting together for K&R3. The C language has undergone enough changes (with the amendment of 1994) and C99, that a ``Modern Approach'' really is needed.
   
   There's another author familiar to readers of the comp.lang.c newsgroup for his approachable, engaging writing style. That author is a wonderful writer but doesn't let the truth get in the way of good narrative. King, though, is an equally engaging writer but is obviously passionate about correctness and adhering to the C standard. He's also meticulous about portability so that the examples are written in pure C and not some platform-specific variant.
   
   I've the entire book and can find hardly anything even nitpick. Aside from a minor style difference about using parentheses with the ``sizeof'' operator, which King explains his rationale for doing so, that's about it.
   
   His explanation of C99 (and the differences from C90 are clearly indicated) made me aware of some really nice features of the current standard for the language (and makes me wonder why one very notable compiler implementer hasn't yet supported C99).
   
   In short, get this book. The Q&A sections at the end of each chapter are very well done. The exercises and programming projects help to amplify the material presented. And King's examples will teach you more about barcodes and ISBN numbers than you ever thought possible.
   
   If you can appreciate the work of a fine craftsman in film such as Martin Scorsese, you'll find that King is of that caliber in the realm of lucidly dealing with this technical subject.

5 comments about Oracle Automatic Storage Management: Under-the-Hood & Practical Deployment Guide (Oracle).

1. Someone recenlty mentioned that Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM) is probably the best thing ever happened to Oracle next to SQL*Plus. I would second that. However there was no definitive text available in the market and Nitin & co perfectly filled the gap with this classic one.
   
   This book starts with the basics of the storage technology and moves towards the center of the ASM with deep discussions on ASM data structures, ASM in operation and ASM troubleshooting. Nitin probably probably knows more about ASM than anyone I know and excels in explaining the complex technologies in easy to understand manner. You will immensely benefit from his wisdom and real life experience.
   
   A must read for Oracle Storage Administrators and DBAs working with RAC/ASM.



2. One of the authors of this book is the director of development for ASM. Who would know more about it than the developers? The other 2 implement it in many different environments. Lastly, the technical reviewer Charles Kim wrote the 11g new features book for Apress. There could not be a better group of people to write a book about ASM and review it than these individuals.
   
   I would highly recommend this book for any DBA that will be working with ASM and / or RAC. The high performance, ease of use, and low cost make it a very attractive solution. This book will teach you everything you need to know about ASM (that's why it's called an "Under-the-Hood" guide). It also makes an excellent reference.



3. Oracle Automatic Storage Management Under-the-Hood & Practical Deployment Guide.This is a must have book for those who are working on ASM or who are planning to implement ASM.Chapters like "ASM Space Allocation and Rebalance","ASMLIB Concepts and Overview","Managing Database in ASM" and "ASM and Storage Array Configuration" gives you in detail information.
   
   After reading the book I can say that now I know what actually is ASM/How it works/How to Implement ASM and I don't need any more training on ASM.
   
   
   -MOHAMMED MOINUDDIN UMAIR
   Senior Tuning Consultant,LEHMAN BROTHERS,NEW JERSEY



4. Other than Oracle documentation, this is the only ASM source of information that I know of. This book is a relatively fast read and comes in at under 300 pages.
   
   The first chapter is very helpful and I learned some information about disk storage that I did not know. I am more comfortable talking with SAN and system administrators now. They also get the feel that I know what I am talking about. After the first chapter, the book dives right into ASM architecture and management. Each chapter is well written and easy to understand. This book also covers the new features in Oracle 11 and you can see that Oracle is dedicated to maturing ASM. ASM is here to stay and it will gain in popularity.
   
   One of the areas that I thought could have been better is the discussion and explanation of RAC, ASM and how the cluster registry is affected. It would have been nice to have a chapter on OCFS just as a supplement. Some shops will utilize both OCFS and ASM. OCFS will host the OCR and voting file as ASM can not be used.
   
   If you are new to ASM or you are an expert, this book is a good read. If you are new to ASM will get more out of it (obviously) since it covers everything you need to know to install and maintain ASM. Fortunately since this is the only ASM book (as of today) and it is great source of information you will not be wasting your time. This book comes highly recommended.
   
   George Loewenthal
   Denver, Colorado



5. This is a essential book for beginners and advanced users. DBAs can have good references to implement ASM without problems. There are many information not found in conventional forums.

No comments about JavaScript: The Missing Manual.

5 comments about Dungeons and Desktops: The History of Computer Role-playing Games.

1. Dungeons & Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing games is an incredible tour-de-force of a recreational industry. Chapters cover early tabletop wargames such as "Chainmail" and its precursors, to the pencil-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons game, to the very first computer role-playing games programmed into university mainframe computers (and often deleted by administrators, making many of the first RPGs forever lost to history!). The saga continues with early classics like Wizardry, The Bard's Tale, Ultima, and Pool of Radiance; the rise of casual-friendly action RPGs like Diablo; and the success of massively multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs) such as the wildly popular World of Warcraft. Console RPGs are also mentioned briefly, most notably trailblazer console RPGs such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. What sets Dungeons & Desktops apart is its in-depth discussion of literally dozens of early CRPGs, many more that even the most avid gamer has likely ever heard of. From two paragraphs to several pages are devoted to each CRPG title, giving a crystal clear picture of what playing the game was like (including its highlights, flaws, and bugs), its commercial success (or failure), and sometimes notes as to what its development team may be doing today. Black-and-white computer screenshots and a handful of color plates illustrate this "must-have" history and resource for CRPG aficionados everywhere. "My advice to anyone who really wants to learn the history of CRPGs is to start with the newer classics and gradually work backwards. It's still relatively easy, for instance, to find copies of Baldur's Gate or [Might & Magic VI: The] Mandate of Heaven and get them running on a modern PC... I would recommend skipping the early Windows 95 or Windows 3.1 games though - these can be excruciatingly difficult to get running even for emulation experts. If you a little further back, though, to the DOS era, things get much easier thanks to DOSBox." Highly recommended.



2. The title tells it all: an ehaustive history of role playing computer games. Though I didn;t stop to check them, there are many URLs for more interesting history



3. 
   "Dungeons and Desktops" is a very comprehensive review of the history of computerized role-playing computer games. It's as if Matt Barton had built a museum for these games and is giving you a personal tour of each and every game, from the earliest text-based games to the latest massive-multi-user graphical adventures. It's amazing how many games he covers (one wonders how he found the time to write the book if he actually played each game - as it appears). At points, his attention to detail may seem a bit wearing but that's only because I'm not as much of a fanatic as Barton is.
   
   Readers should be warned that this is not a casual book - it's a very serious treatment of the genre and would make an excellent addition to any game-developer's curriculum, especially those interested in creating high fantasy and role playing games. Also, Barton writes very well, as his language is neither pretentious nor dim-witted. He clearly loves his subject and does an excellent job of sharing his enthusiasm and insights with his readers. A real pleasure to read.



4. Dungeons & Desktops is a comprehensive and thorough history of the Computer Role Playing Game genre. It's basically a more fleshed out version of the author's earlier four-part series on the Gamasutra website, maintaining the same format of dividing the games into different ages (Dark, Silver, Gold, Platinum) and devoting some time to each game, explaining key gameplay features, release information and sometimes the author's thoughts on the game's merits.
   
   The book's greatest strength is in cataloging both well-known and obscure games in the genre and explaining how each was innovative in some way or representative of a trend in the genre. In this way, the book gives a fairly good outline of the history of this wide-ranging genre. Even hardcore fans of the genre may be surprised by some of the very early examples Barton was able to unearth. As the book moves into the more familiar modern age, it becomes less interesting in this regard.
   
   Although the book covers an impressive number of titles, there were spots were I felt the writing was bogged down by the repetitive nature of looking at game after game, a result of being an expanded Web feature article. Although Barton pauses at times to discuss major trends, I thought this was inconsistent, and the bulk of the book reads like Mobygames summaries of dozens of games. At times, I wanted more about the people behind the games, and voices other than the author's to break up what amounted to a series of opinions on various games.
   
   This isn't helped by some questionable choices in organization and selection. A thorough look at console games like the Final Fantasy and Zelda series should have been reserved for another book, while Gothic, a well-known modern PC RPG series, gets nothing more than a few paragraphs as a footnote to the downfall of the Ultima series (ironically, the author states that the series has been unfairly overlooked). There are also issues that arise from attempts to lump the games into different "ages." Why one game is listed in one age and not another isn't always clear, and it leads to a confusing chronology.
   
   I spotted a number of minor errors in the text, mostly related to chronology. A few examples: Oblivion was not released simultaneously on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Also, Vampire the Masquerade was released before Half-Life 2, and was the first Source Engine game released. While these may be minor, it left me wondering how many more I didn't catch. Also, the printing quality of the screenshots leaves much to be desired. Most look like dark blotches.
   
   Barton's articles, from which much of this book comes from, are still a great read and catch nearly all the key games in the genre. I felt that this book did little more than add games that are of far less importance, and therefore of little interest to most readers. This book may be valuable for those who want a very comprehensive catalog of computer role playing games, but I would recommend that most readers stick with the free online articles.



5. I would hesitate to call this book a history of CRPGs - a chronology would be more appropriate. Barton is comprehensive - every major CRPG from the inception of the computer is covered, but as another reviewer pointed out it is more of a collection of review summaries - I would liken it to Maltin's capsule reviews of films.
   
   The organization into the different ages is intriguing, and aside from the nostalgic look at games I had forgotten about, it the best part of the book. The author does not do enough to flesh out the trends, technologies, people and other aspects that may have gone in to the different ages. They are all covered piecemeal with the review capsules, and this hurts the coherence.
   
   The jumping from capsule review summaries to personal opinion is a bit awkward as well. I would have liked to have read more of the author's opinions - they were the on the whole more interesting than the reviews themselves.
   
   The decision to include a bit on console RPGs without deviating from the spirit of the book was a good one.
   
   All that said, for those of us who lived through the entire period and remember seeking out judgment day, getting eaten by a grue, or fighting vorpal bunnies it is a trip down memory lane and a nice reference volume, just not the most coherent read-through.

4 comments about Professional Windows PowerShell for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (Programmer to Programmer).

1. It's about time this book was written and published. If you own one or more of the half-dozen E2k7 books that have been written and published in the past year, you have just one more to pick up - this one. This book is written to be exactly what E2k7 administrators need after their initial installation of Exchange. Nearly all E2k7 books focus on the management of E2k7 but primarily from the Exchange Management Console perspective. (Actually, a book that does a very good job on command shell topics is the "Mastering Exchange Server 2007" book by Gerber and McBee. It's very good.)
   
   Also covered in the book are topics of Troubleshooting, SCC and CR high-availability shell strategies. These three topics alone are worth the price of the book - to have all the PowerShell cmdlets in one place is truly convenient.
   
   If you are looking for a excellent book on Exchange Command Shell from A to Z - and NOT generic Powershell coverage and Exchange-absent ramblings - then pick this book up. It's a resource for us messaging consultants and admins. who don't want to be Powershell gurus - just real good at Exchange Command Shell.



2. This is a good book for Exchange Administrators. i have quite a few E2K7 books including the MS Press E2K7 Admin Companion and some of the earlier PowerShell books to include MONAD. this is a very easy read/reference book that gives you solid examples of how to use PowerShell. what i would have liked was a comprehensive listing of ALL options and a good reference is technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124413%28EXCHG.80%29.aspx it breaks down cmdlets by role so you can choose exactly what you want with specifics.
   Bottom line, good book for both novices and experts.



3. But they left out a big section regarding migrations. Having just completed migrating 2000 mailboxes, I found this book to be rather useless in that task. It may be good for day to day admin, and it may be good at creating 1000 mailboxes automatically, but it had little to no information on scripts and recommendations for automating a migration.



4. This book is a must for any Exchange 2007
   admin! Great read. No other book like it!

No comments about Essential SQLAlchemy.

5 comments about Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition.

1. This book takes a hypothetical device driver and explains the concepts nicely. It provides various fundamentals one needs to know before writing linux device drivers, and valuable information like concurrent and race conditions, and gives ideas for debugging problems in real drivers. It is worth read and I liked it. I had already some experience in kernel programming before reading this book, and it filled holes in my kernel knowledge. This book is also available online[...] and you may check yourself before buying this.
   
   The objections made by other reviewers fall into the following two classes. Once you are a experienced hacker, all you need is kernel sources (books are for fundamentals only and become obsolete as new kernel constructs are added). If you are looking for cut and paste template code to add new driver for another device, again use kernel source of an existing driver.



2. Un must per chi si avvicina alla programmazione di moduli del kernel, per chi e' esperto ma ha bisogno di un reference e per chi ne vuole sapere di piu'.
   
   Il libro ha un'alta valenza didattica ed e' scritto in un linguaggio comprensibile e corretto. Gli esempi sono abbondanti e coprono bene gli argomenti trattati.



3. Used this to write my first linux driver on my own with no help. Great book, great layout, very well written. I have not read all of the 3rd Edition, since I am now working on Solaris, and did not work on the 2.6 kernel, but would assume thats good as well.



4. As a newbie it makes driver writing not so scary.
   Technical masterpiece yet not over my head.



5. This books must be the top priority for ever developer who wants to develop emebedded systems, based on Linux OS.

5 comments about Eclipse Rich Client Platform: Designing, Coding, and Packaging Java(TM) Applications (The Eclipse Series).

1. This book is a very detailed and at the same time hands on treatement of what the RCP paradigm is all about. It begins with how to create using Eclipse a very functional and easy to do Chat application. As it is this
   application shows the most generic and neccessary aspects of how to start an RCP application all the way to branding and packaging within it's first serveral chapters. Its' full of suggestions and tips of why you're doing various things to what not to do and why.
   
   This book is for anyone from someone just wanting to know how it's done up to a professional Eclipse developer level. The chapters are nice and short which helps when you want to read it between work and home.
   
   It does read as though there was thorough thought and planning from a number of sources in the layout and planning of this book.
   
   it also will satisfy anyone wanting to know the deeper meanings of why they had to do what they did in the first several chapters further on into this material.
   
   To me the total material ranges from easy-do-it-yourself application build kit material to A-1 college material that could be used in a semester course of RCP and eclipse.
   
   It also offers at the end several references to things like the OSGI model that eclipse is modeled on now as well as other interesting items you never knew but form the basis of this wonderful platform called eclipse.
   
   Once you read this book and look at the references of what people have done with Eclipse (specifcally RCP) from Nasa to the banking industry,
   you'll realize that Eclipse RCP is to Windows, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Linux and MacOSX as VisualStudio is to .NET



2. I stumbled into Eclipse when researching OSGI as a framework for a system I was designing. I was not looking forward to the drudgery and complexity of building all the required infrastructure over OSGI to build an actual product - what a wonderful discovery to see this gleaming system with smoothly integrated parts ready to do my bidding!
   The authors make the apt analogy of launching a payload into space - so much of the work goes into the launch vehicle and ground control,etc, whereas to the payload designer the only interesting work is at the very tip of the rocket. As software developers we love generating the cool idea (the payload) and are not so excited about the other 90% which makes the real product - complex UI workflows, help, update, packaging, etc. Eclipse provides all the mechanisms and plenty of automated assistance for putting together your total system.
   Perhaps you will find some disparities between the book and your downloaded version of Eclipse (I haven't yet) but this is not Visual Basic, this is a relatively deep but elegantly designed system which does require a certain level of understanding before you really get cooking with it, but this book does an excellent job with that. Once you get going, it's like having a team of 10 great programmers at your command.



3. I couldn't do my RCP application without this book. its example application goes growing showing everything we need to learn to make an RCP application.



4. I purchased 8 copies and distributed them to our team. Several team members went through each chapter, building the sample application on top of the Eclipse RCP. Each of us, whether or not we built the application, have learned a great deal about using Eclipse. I highly recommend this book to any software team that is starting a new product or that is in the throes of refactoring / recasting an old one. The book will jump-start your Eclipse experience.



5. If you have a current installation of Eclipse and you are using JPA (ex: Hibernate), don't even think about using the book's update site. It will totally hose up your entire Eclipse installation and you are looking at a complete re-installation.
   
   It's a shame, because otherwise the book seems to be very helpful. Rumor is that they are planning an update sometime late 2008, but none of the bookstores have a publication date on it yet.

5 comments about XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer).

1. You won't easily find any other book on XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0. The reason is very simple: Michael Kay is the expert on the subject, he has been publishing xslt references for almost a decade now. Currently he is the editor of the XSLT 2.0 specification at W3C. He is also involved the XQuery and the XML Schema Working Groups, also at W3C. He has developed the Saxon XSLT processor. This book (like its predecessors were and its future versions will be) is the definitive reference on XSLT.
   
   The third edition was in two separate books, one on XSLT 2.0 (XSLT 2.0 Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer)) and one on XPath 2.0 (XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer)). If you are serious about XSLT 2.0, you also need the information on XPath 2.0, as it is a sub language of XSLT 2.0. So you would need both books at hand. The current book contains all of the material available in the two predecessors, and more.
   
   I could have survived on the two books, but tired of taking them from my office to my home and vice versa, I ordered the new edition and I am enjoying it very much. After using the new edition for a week or so I have come upon quite a few improvements, for instance the chapter on regular expressions contains more information and is better structured. Examples have been updated and as have been the appendices covering the processors. There is a new appendix on the Altova processor.
   
   I should also mention the quality of the paper, the binding and the price, they are much better than the two previous books together.
   
   As a reference, the book is complete. It contains a clear description of all the elements of the standards and lots of (tested) examples. There is also much material about the design backgrounds of both standards (and of others like XML Schema and XQuery).
   
   The book is extremely well written and a joy to read.
   
   The book is aimed at developers and should not be used as a first introduction to XML transformation technology (unless you are an experienced programmer). If you need an introduction to XSLT (in its context) check out one of the other Wrox books like Beginning XML, 4th Edition (Programmer to Programmer) or Professional XML (Programmer to Programmer). One could also try Beginning XSLT 2.0: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: from Novice to Professional), it has good reviews. In any case if you are seriously interested (even as a newbie) don't buy anything from before 2004, it will not include the 2.0 functionalities. If you buy something published after 2004 check that they really updated the book and not only the title.



2. This is an excellent update. The writing has improved. And as a reference,
   I am glad the previous 2 volumes are now compiled into this single volume.
   Also, I appreciate the hard cover to help reduce wear and tear. And I appreciate the thinner paper to keep the thickness/weight down.



3. Everyone working seriously with XSLT will want this book. The fourth edition is newly updated and improved. Not only has it been corrected to reflect the design of the current XSLT and XPath specifications (which were not final when the 3rd edition went to press), but also it has been redesigned for usability, with much better indexes and navigation apparatus. No more casting about to find things (although you may still not resist a few post-it notes here and there). XSLT and XPath are now in one volume (a big plus); the lighter pages and hard cover make the book serviceable as a reference text in regular use. It sits open and will wear well (provided you use it for its intended purpose and not as a coaster for your drink, which will be tempting since the book will be there open on your desk).
   
   But the book's strengths are unchanged. Complete and comprehensive, coherent, realistic, clear, with worked examples. No one knows this technology better than the author, who has served on the XSL Working Group and edited the XSLT 2.0 Recommendation. Long-time observers will also confirm that he is also one of the best in the business at explaining things.
   
   The only thing less than positive to say about this book is that beginners may find it intimidating. Don't. Just supplement it with a treatment aimed at you such as XSLT 1.0 Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) or anything by Jeni Tennison, and keep the Programmer's Reference ready for the summary comprehensive view, or when you need to go deep.
   
   I have seen many decrepit copies of earlier editions of this book used by industry professionals. This one looks to be good for a long time to come.



4. This is the definitive work on XSLT & XPath, in a new format that will stand the test of time. The 4th edition contains new background material about the development and history of XSLT & XPath.
   
   Some web content for the downloads was not present on the book download site, but this was addressed quickly when pointed out, by the author.
   
   My only wish is that Michael Kay would write a book on XQuery now...



5. Absolutely essential source of information for those who are serious about using XSLT in general and 2.0 in particular.
   Viktor Melekhine