2 comments about Professional Oracle Programming (Programmer to Programmer).

1. This is an intermediate level book. It is intended for the application developer who already has some knowledge of SQL (which implies some knowledge of what databases do) and of programming (particularly Java). For instance, the first chapter of this book is on the internal structure of Oracle. That's a long ways from the standard beginning of this is what a database does.
   
   A thing this book is not for is the database administrator. There's very little on things like set-up, assigning users, security (there's a little on this); those kinds of administrative details. This book is, as I said at first, for developers.
   
   The book does go heavily into programming techniques like triggers, regular expressions, object types, XML, defining your own functions -- things like that.
   
   The authors all have extensive experience with Oracle, most of them work for or have worked for Oracle. As this series of books proclaims, this is a book written at the programmer to programmer level.



2. I have read all the books on Oracle and most seem pretty fluffy - lots of pages but the content is on a pretty basic level. This is the first book I have seen that really delves into the guts of Oracle - how it works, and how to program applications effectively for it. Just what I have been looking for!!!

3 comments about Strategic Management of Technological Innovation.

1. Schilling has prepared a great book to be be used in any strategic management class. As a student using this book within a strategic management class at Southern Polytechnic State University, I enjoyed the short chapters that were introduced with practical real-word case studies. Her end-of-chapter summaries were also appreciated.
   
   Students at a technical university will enjoy the case studies relating to the PalmOne, Dell, Nokia, etc.
   
   Despite the fact that chapters were short in no way implies that her content was ineffective. On the contrary, her ability to concisely write the content was very much appreciated. No fluff; just the facts.
   
   I believe students will appreciate this approach and enjoy using a book of this nature in any strategic management class.



2. This is an excellent book which is a class text for a paper toward my Professional Masters degree in ICT here in New Zealand at lincoln University.
   It is interesting and I find it very relevent for my job as director of Lab-tek International ltd. Melissa Schilling has made a tremendous contribution to our education by compiling and writing this book.



3. I have studied the subject at postgraduate level and read several books on this topic but this one is the handiest and the one with more usable tools.
   I would suggest it to anyone interested in the pratical aspects of technology management.

5 comments about Building Secure Software: How to Avoid Security Problems the Right Way (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series).

1. One of the authors here. John Viega and I were very pleased with this book, which seems to have ignited an entire field. Now that we have a few more years under our belts, I recommend that you check out Software Security: Building Security In for a treatment of how to put the software security philosophy in this book into practice.
   
   It's time to DO software security.



2. Accurate, to-the-point, and proper coverage of main topics. Good job on part of authors.
   Unfortunately, the book's accompanying website (www.buildingsecuresoftware.com/) at the time of this writing is not responding.



3. When I read this, I was like oh my gosh, how could I ever code like that.
   
   This book is so, so very important if you care about secure coding.



4. It is a good book but with the exception of the chapter on buffer overflows, my perception of the book is that it focus mainly on the theory of software security. As someone who has an engineer formation, I have a preference for books more pratical with more concrete examples. For this reason, I did prefer Hunting Security Bugs



5. Nutshell review - This is a very good book covering all the basics of secure software design and then some. Clearly Viega and McGraw are required reading if you are in the business of software.

5 comments about Pro ASP.NET 2.0 E-Commerce in C# 2005 (Expert's Voice in .Net).

1. Overall a pretty good book that covers design and implementation concepts that can be used for nearly any type of ASP.NET application. Although I understand why the author chose to exclusively use Stored Procedures to implement database access, I do wish he implemented some functionality that didn't use stored procedures in order to futher demonstrate the use of Microsoft Data Access Application Blocks.
   
   I would absolutely recommend reading ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming: Problem - Design - Solution (Programmer to Programmer) in addition to this book in order to get a more complete coverage of architecting a multi-layered application.



2. I like the book's approach and organization. It really has a easy to follow order, and I like how the author ties everything up at the end of a chapter or section. I'm new to ASP.NET but I've picked up what he's teaching because I understood his approach. I also liked his use of multi-tier approach to application development (which others might simply expect on a "Pro" book, but I find it quite insightful as a beginner). I also like its visual diagrams of tables and classes which made it easy to go back to from later chapters. And the code formatting is easy to read.
   
   Although I found out that some codes in the book are incorrect (eg, in Chapter 13, the construct for ProductSelectByIDDataParameters is assigning to a public property--perhaps a re-formatting typo error; and there is a few also I noticed in other chapters). So it is a good idea to download the sample codes from the publisher's website.
   
   But aside from that, I really think this book is a good knowledge accelerator on ASP.NET and E-Commerce (especially for someone who's just started on ASP.NET). And good that the author mentioned also about (Data Access) Application Blocks, as now I know it exist (and it is now, in fact, a part of the wider Enterprise Library). Quite useful to know and have on your projects.



3. I wanted to get up to speed quickly on ASP web apps and e-commerce so I bought this book for it's tutorial value.
   
   It's a very easy read; succinct and well organized. No goofy jokes or silly icon symbols. Treatments of requirements gathering and UML are so light they're nearly useless. However, the book is a case study and tutorial, not a treatise on a particular discipline.
   
   I rate it 4, because it's BLOATED with HTML and C# code. But, no need to type it, since it's available on-line. OTOH, its inclusion is a quicker reference than digging around on disc.
   
   Looks like a very good choice for following a complete project and learing the essentials of ASP.NET 2.0 E-commerce.



4. Picked up this book and was rather excited to build a function, sample, website that I could use as a baseline e-commerce site for practical use and as a demonstration site. While Paul Sarknas's book demonstrates good design concepts, the document is fundamentally flawed in execution. The code in the book is buggy, and in fact does not match the code that can be downloaded (for free) from Apress. I've spent more time debugging the code that I have reading the book. To add to the problems getting this web site running the code in the book, evening including the downloaded code, is incomplete. One must write a couple of SQL stored procedures from scratch without any clear clue as to what they are supposed to do.
   
   As a side note here, don't deploy this code in a production environment without some significant code hardening. There is virtually no input validation and as written is vulnerable to cross site scripting (XXS) attacks.
   
   Overall I appreciate the attempt here, but recommend that you wait for version 1.1 (perhaps an update for VS 2008?) before buying this book. Simply stated this book is not for beginners and will not result in an operable web site in its current form.



5. The content is well-presented in a logical fashion, it's examples are useful and re-usable. The author doesn't makes use of a few things that are beyond the scope of in-depth discussion within the book (such as MS DB Helper) but he gives sufficient information to use and understand these elements.
   The code is occasionally illogical (to me) in its layout. For example the declaration of public class variables being left to the end of a file may lead a total novice to wonder why intelisense is having difficulty with their code. I suspect this is a quite likely occurence as the book comes across as a learn-as-you-go affair.
   
   Some development steps are occasionally overlooked, such as instructing the reader to add certain references to their class libraries (done at some points but not others), and the book has some fairly serious coding typos. I shan't hold these points against it too heavily as it makes the reader think more carefully about what they're doing rather than letting them copy verbatim and switch off.
   
   I especially like the "How it works" paragraphs on pretty much every bit of code. Most of it's pretty obvious, but as with any coding project (especially 3-tier architecture) there are times when it becomes complicated enough to overwhelm the reader, I found these sections really hold the book together and keep me on track with what's going on and why.
   
   Also worth a mention is the use of the Paypal API. I haven't the cause to make use of it myself, but having read through it, I'd thoroughly recommend this book to anyone considering using Paypal services on any level.
   
   Lastly, I'm also the the not-so-proud owner of "Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 in C# 2005: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: From Novice to Professional)" by Matthew MacDonald. If you have any intentions of making a working commerce website, and you're thinking, "which of these titles is best for me, I'm only a novice?": Go for Sarkansas. He will make you a professional. If you take the MacDonald option you will be a novice forever.

5 comments about Essential ASP.NET With Examples in C# (Microsoft .NET Development Series).

1. I just finished reading this book, I'd say it's the best ASP.NET book! I highly recommend it!



2. Essential ASP.NET is 100% to-the-point containing very useful information with no fluff included. I particularly enjoyed the HTTP pipeline chapter. The entire book contains info that every ASP.NET developer should know.



3. Clearly this is the best ASP.NET book I have ever read.



4. This is a good book, easy to understand and covers a lot of material.



5. I enjoyed this book. It is definitely not for beginners - the high-level treatment suited my style very well. His initial exposition is especially clear and precise. Mr. Onion did not go into too great detail about aspects that I could look up on my own, choosing to focus more on theoretical details/implementation recommendations which are hard to figure out if you are a beginning ASP.NET programmer such as myself.
   
   The snag: He refers to original ASP programming all the time. Why? This is clearly horrible style. I don't know ASP, so I have to skip over the sections which he begins with "Traditional ASP only supported blah blah blah." Then, I become confused because he said something pertinent to the rest of his explanation, so I have to go back, think about Traditional ASP (which is a clear waste of time), figure out his point, and go on.
   
   A great book if you are already an experienced programmer with knowledge of .NET, web programming, etc.

5 comments about Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (Expert's Voice in Open Source).

1. If you are using a Bourne-type shell, and BASH in particular then you will find a lot of valuable information in this book. Author Chris F. A. Johnson provides an extensive education on scripting including scripts for viewing, editing, and manipulating files, manipulating strings, altering the path variable, monitoring the file system, filtering spam, backing up, archiving, deleting, and many other common tasks. How far can you go with a shell script? He even gives a working example of a database application written completely in script. On the other hand if you just want to have some fun there are even scripts for creating anagrams, fitting words into a crossword, or finding words that contain a given set of characters.
   
   While the book is really written for the technically oriented reader, even the very basics that most users should already know are still covered. The format is more typical of what computer technicians want - this is the item to be discussed, this is how it works, this is an example, move on to the next one. When I am looking for answers this is the format I prefer and I found this book extremely useful. It will be on my bookshelf as one of the first to grab when I want to do scripting in Linux. Advanced and powerful, a real resource for the power user of the Bourne shell, Shell Scripting Recipes is highly recommended.



2. Shell Scripting Recipes provides the reader with a handy reference for shell tasks that range from the common (how do I extract a portion of a string?) to the complex but sometimes entertaining (find words that fit together on a grid aka make your own crossword). The author does a great job in his layout by presenting the problem, listing the solution and then explaining how it works. The script solutions and examples are broken down by topic and each chapter is indexed on the side of the book for easy reference by the reader.
   
   The book was written for those who have had some Unix/Linux experience under their belt and now want to explore some of the power of the shell itself. Seasoned BASH shell users know that one of the most powerful aspects of the system is the ability to create applications that perform necessary tasks or functions just by using shell scripting. This book would be ideal for anyone who wants to get more out of their system that just using the GUI-interface that has become so common.
   
   Most of all, it covers a lot of problems that occur everyday and that we sometime spend hours looking for a solution for. Things such as removing excess linefeeds from a file, reformatting text, retrieving data automatically and other related tasks -- things that shell scripting excels at providing a mechanism to solve.
   
   Not for the beginner, but a must-have for the experienced Unix (particularly BASH shell) user.



3. This book was kind of an epiphany for me. I've been writing shell scripts for nearly as long as I've been writing programs, but I've always drawn a mental distinction between the two. There was programming, and then there was scripting.
   
   After coding in languages like Perl and then Ruby, the distinction has become increasingly blurred. Many of my "scripts" have proven far, far more useful than anything I've written in a "proper" programming language! They back up my servers, they keep me informed of problems, they've saved me a minute here, a minute there, for perhaps ten years now! So what, really, is the distinction?
   
   I think, to some extent, a shell script is ultimately just limited by a lack of any libraries of code. It lends itself well to simple tasks, but if you do anything even moderately complex, you have to stop and switch to Perl or Ruby. But now Mr. Johnson has written a book that more or less creates a library in your shell script. And the tasks he writes about are so incredibly common, and his recipes so well organized, that you can just flip to a chapter like "Backing Up the Drive" or "Good Housekeeping," and find a dozen solutions to questions you're guaranteed to run into when writing your shell scripts. This book also does an excellent job of showing examples that rely on as few external programs as possible - making them perfectly portable.
   
   This is the most useful book on shell scripting out there, and I wish I could have picked it up ten years ago. If I had, it would still be on my shelf today.



4. While the Bourne shell is listed as a full fledged programming language, few people use it like that. Some of it is that they prefer more commonly acknowledged languages like Perl, Python or the like. However, with a book like Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach, they'll want to thin twice about it.
   
   I remember my first forays into shell scripting. I didn't want to learn Perl (then the clearly dominant scripting language), and worked hard to learn shell, awk, and sed so that I could do the things I needed to do and automate as much as possible. It paid off, and even impressed a few die hard Perl fans. Less code to do simple tasks, faster to write, and always present. While I don't do nearly as much shell scripting as I used to, I still enjoy seeing someone do neat things in /bin/sh, ksh, or bash.
   
   Chris Johnson's book is in the traditional line of a reference book, much like the O'Reilly cookbook series or, more accurately, the old tome, UNIX Power Tools. It's got a couple of non-recipe chapters, and the rest of it is a lot of fun, useful shell scripting.
   
   Chapter 1 is an invaluable reference to large portions of the POSIX shell language. Johnson covers things like built in commands and program flow, special variables, and variable expansion. He also clearly covers the differences between the Bourne shell and the POSIX shell where they differ. If you're worried, using Bash will almost always work with the examples, I think.
   
   At this point it's easy to think, "I can call out to external commands for a good chunk of the functions he develops." You can, but Johnson makes a compelling argument that shows the impact of a fraction of a second can add up quickly in loops. At this point, you're either agreeing with him and seeing the joy of a direct language like shell or you soon will.
   
   Chapter 20 is a small set of recipes but they serve a different function, namely helping you manage all of these new shell scripts and functions. You can copy, instantiate new shell scripts more easily (by automating the redundant bits), or package them up with simple scripts. Handy tools, and a decent approach.
   
   The recipes run the gamut from the simple to the uncommon, but they all illustrate how do accomplish useful tasks in a shell script. They include file conversion (DOS, UNIX, and Mac), string handling bits, filename management, complex date calculations, screen control capabilities, and even HTML processing. Some of my favorite recipes include the Postscript generation tools (!) and the database management tools. While some people have done these in shell scripts, I've usually seen them done using sloppy or confusing approaches. Johnson's code is clear, direct, and applicable.
   
   That's probably the biggest strength to the book, Johnson's clear writing and examples. Some programming and scripting books try and show you neat tools to accomplish a task, but they don't do a good job of showing you how to translate it to your specific task. In Shell Scripting Recipes, Johnson chooses his code carefully, articulates how it works, and continually builds on a theme. If you pick a few scripts and study them, you'll see tips and tools you can use in your own shell scripts. He also has nicely abstracted scripts that let you recycle his functions in your own scripts with ease.
   
   Overall I quite like Shell Scripting Recipes, I think that while it's easy to think less of the Bourne shell as a language, Johnson has done a good job of writing a concise set of examples, usable code, and in a format that is continually useful and clear. If you've been thinking about improving your shell prowess, this is the book for you.



5. Useful. Good examples (but not for the absolute beginner). Korn shell users might want to also consider "Korn Shell: Programs for Your Survival at Work" by Larry L. Smith. Bash users might want to consider "Bash Shell: Programs for Your Survival at Work."

3 comments about The Definitive Guide to the Microsoft Enterprise Library (Expert's Voice in .Net).

1. When I saw a book on Microsoft Enterprise Library I was excited to buy it but I am very disappointed with this book, it looks like a copy of the help provided by Microsoft Enterprise Library. Author is assuming that you already know the Microsoft Enterprise library. In order to setup the examples first you need to google on the web to search where to download the required components and set them up. I feel like I wasted my money. Please do not buy this book if you are trying to learn Microsoft Enterprise Library. I hope I can find a decent book that can explain Microsoft Enterprise Library in an organized way. I do not like books when they copy the help.



2. If you are wanting to utilize the Microsoft Enterprise Library in your organization, this is the book you need. I have found it to be extremely useful - walking me through each application block clearly.
   
   The sample code is very useful and I have been able to get up to speed very quickly. Much more quickly than if I tried to navigate the offical Enterprise Library documentation.
   
   If you are a developer with some basic experience in .NET - this book will be very useful. If you are new to development or are at a junior level - this book may be a bit much for you - similar to the other reviewer that gave this book a single star.
   
   Good reading!



3. This book does a fairly good job of introducing the Enterprise Library. I found it to be a preferable alternative to the documentation that ships with the product, and it is the only book I could find that covered the newer libraries (3.0 and 3.1). The author chose to focus his attention on two things. Firstly, he does a pretty good job enumerating the API. I can't count the times I have looked into the product documentation only to find a blank skeleton with no help or description. He also does a very thorough job of putting together a comprehensive set of exercises for the reader to practice his / her new chops.
   
   My first criticism is more for the publisher than the author. I think the price is a little high for what you get. I am guessing that the hard cover contributes to the price. I would be very happy to trade in the hard cover for a cheaper price. I am happy to shell out for a premium binding of a Martin Fowler or Eric Evans book or other similar "timeless" books of the trade, but I might think twice next time about spending so much on a guide to a versioned release of a minor product.
   
   It took me a few chapters to figure out the author's method for organizing his thoughts. Each chapter describes a single application block. The first few pages jump right in to the API, describing most of the classes and highlighting important members. Then ... after that ... he describes a few ways (certainly not an exhaustive list) to put these ideas together. The last third of the chapter is a step-by-step guide through the practices. The end result for me was to do a lot of flipping back and forth in each chapter. I would:
   
   - skim over the first section
   - read the middle section, referring back to the first section
   - look at the product documentation for more information
   - find nothing of use
   - go back to the book
   - do my own sample code, completely bypassing the practices
   
   Thus, the greatest strength of this book is the sheer fact that it really doesn't have any viable competition. The author does an admirable job attempting to document a product that has no other good documentation and is in a pretty rapid state of flux. With Enterprise Library 4.0 on the horizon, I am sure that the second edition of this book will be a worthy resource if the author can convince the publisher to get rid of the hard cover and bring the price down.

5 comments about The Culturally Customized Web Site: Customizing Web Sites for the Global Marketplace.

1. I give these guys a 2 stars rating for being interested in some highly overseen theme.
   .
   As a way to explore a little bit the authors' presentation of this topic in 176 pages, which amazon "suggested" to me, I simply went to their web site (theculturallycustomizedwebsite.com) and clicked on "test your cultural IQ".
   .
   what did I get? a blank page "suggesting" to me download the flash plugin in order to watch some flash crud!!!
   .
   I wonder whose IQ (cultural, technical, ...) needs testing and I will stop now.



2. The Culturally Customized Web Site is a must have for all web designers. Whether you are a first-timer, or an old pro, The Culturally Customized Web Site will have what you need. All too often, we forget that our sites are not being viewed only by Americans, and The Culturally Customized Web Site reminds us of this. It gives us the cultural know-how needed to create an effective localized site. Praise to Singh and Pereira for showing us the way!



3. An enlightening book! To take advantage of a world that is "flat", businesses must comprehend the powerful role culture plays in shaping tastes and preferences. To start, check out www.theculturallycustomizedwebsite.com and do the Cultural IQ test!
   
   I found the following to be an eye-opener. When asked to visualize the following: "A lady dressed in white at a place of worship", a majority of westerners visualized a bride at the altar, whereas a majority of easterners visualized a widow in prayer!! White, it seems is worn by widows in many parts of asia, not by brides. Be careful of the choice of color and images on your web site!



4. This work gets under the skin of the web site globalization industry. Highly recommended for students of international marketing, and extremely rich in references. Nitish Singh and Arun Pereira get down to the nitty-gritty of numbers, colors and other cultural aspects of web site globalization. They present an enormous wealth of well researched material, sprinkled with pearls of wisdom, in a very readable book.



5. Although interesting, I feel this book never gets past the "academic" label, so its importance to practioners is not that significant. John Yunker's book would be a better buy if you want to know about Web Globalization. Full reviews of both books are available on [...].
   
   Junker's Book is: Beyond Borders: Web Globalization Strategies (VOICES)

5 comments about XML Schema.

1. This book had potential to be a definitive guide to XML schema. This is not the kind of book you can pick up and read cover to cover (unless insomnia is a real condition for you, in which case this book may help). It is, by no means, a tutorial of XML schema - or even a reference. It's more of an exploratory academic walk of the W3C recommendation and all of its foibles and nuances. There is wealth of information in this book, if you can glean it out from inbetween the droning prose and historical diatribe.

   O'Reilly should be shamefully embarassed for ever letting this book go to print in the condition it is. It is replete with errata, typos, and slopped together examples. This book is destined to frustrate those new to XML schema. An uncharacteristicly poor level of quality for O'Reilly.




2. This book is very dry and terse. It has all of the required content but it doesn't provide much perspective of how it should be used. You could use it as a reference, but I recommend the XML Schema Companion before this one.



3. XML Schema is used almost everywhere (in connection with XML documents, Web Services, SOAP etc.). So I as other people needed to master XML Schema. There is not a great choice of XML Schema books. Specification is already quite getting old. The book is not easy to read. I read it sequentially chapter after chapter and I mastered a lot of basic rules. The main problem now I see is, XML Schema itself does not give you too much of design freedom. Sometimes you need to define a structure (data type) according value of other elements. So now I know mainly what is not possible to do in XML Schema.
   After all I have to recommend the book. You have to read it twice. So I have just bought another XML Schema book from Priscilla and I hope I will get to know XML Schema from other point of view.



4. This book tells you what you need to know. However, it is a bit of a hard slog because it doesn't tell you why you need to know it. It also throws in obscure acronyms and not only expects you to know what they stand for, but what those protocols/standards/programs imply. Yes, you can learn all you need to know about SQL schema, (and more than you need to know - without telling you why you need to know it, you don't know what to skip), but it is a little more painful than it has to be.



5. A real need for further editions on this book. As others have commented, it's very poorly constructed, poorly indexed and you'll be hard-pressed to quickly find accurate definitions. As other posters have suggested, O'Reilly should be worried that this one got published in this state.

2 comments about Pro EDI in BizTalk Server 2006 R2: Electronic Document Interchange Solutions (Pro).

1. While EDI is straight forward in concept to understand it can be difficult to implement. This book is targeted towards the developer and architect tasked with crafting a B2B EDI solution and does a great job at detailing what needs to happen to make this task possible on the BizTalk 2006 R2 platform.
   
   This book does not focus on the business specifics around EDI, but rather immediately jumps into detailed and concrete examples that can easily be extended into the real world. There are many EDI features with BizTalk 2006 R2 that can only be understood after working with the product across many projects. This book will reduce the time required experimenting with the tool just to understand the new features. I recommend this book to anyone working with EDI and BizTalk 2006 R2.



2. For understanding EDI processing in 2006 R2 this is a great material. It has all forms for processing like EDI, AS2 etc. The Book gives a brief description about all these Architectures and then comes the good part, the samples created and Tested which you can test at your machine.
   
   The samples are so easy to deploy with minimum pre-requisites and test them thoroughly along with a book to understand what we have done. We can download the samples from a web page directed in the Book.
   
   Even if you are newly introduced to EDI processing through Biztalk, there is no worry. All you need is a little hands on how Biztalk translates the EDI data. From there the book has all the techniques involved in resolving the data, retrieving and mapping the information and Orchestrate the message for processing as you wish.
   
   The Book also briefs about the deployment and production support considerations and reporting updates with the new Server. In a nutshell this is the perfect material for understanding EDI processing in 2006 R2 environment.