5 comments about Data Warehousing for Dummies.

1. Look, this look isn't for experienced DW people. However, it wouldn't hurt some of the DW "experts" I know to read it.

   The author gived down to earth comments and examples of what the industry entails and what DW is all about. He covers most of the issues and gave me some interesting insight into some areas that I haven't yet delt with.

   I've been working in DW for over 5 years. Even so, I think this book is worth reading. I'm gald I did.




2. This book is good for the person completely new to data warehousing, as long as they DON'T take it as the complete or last word on the subject. Most of the basic concepts are presented well, but there are various errors in some of the specifics, and there are some theories described that are 'old school' and not necessarily relevant with todays technology (in the last 5 years data warehousing has changed in the capability of tools and in approaches & architecture).

   RECOMMENDATIONS: If you are a business person trying to understand what your computer people are talking about re data warehouses, data marts or business intelligence, this is a good starting point.
   But, if you are an IT/IS/computer person, skip this book and read Ralph Kimball's "Data Warehouse Toolkit", then graduate to his "Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit" (covers many more aspects), and Bill Inmon's "Corp Information Factory". These 3 books, and a DBMS specific book (e.g. "Oracle 8i Data Warehousing") will be all you need for your first few projects.




3. This book is good for total beginners, to get familiar with the Data-Warehousing Lingo's. Though the author does tend to give some wague out of the blue examples, it is an interesting read. Buy it only if you have no clue what a database or data warehousing is.



4. I enjoyed reading this book and found it an excellent foundation to issues in data warehousing. However, note that this book was published in 1997, so it does not include anything that was developed after that date. (To be fair, it accurately predicts some trends.) I wish the author would update the book to 2004!



5. I knew nothing about it but now I do thanks to this simple book on the subject and well laid out to get a good overview and now I could easily get involved and learn more knowing the basics.

5 comments about The Essential Guide to CSS and HTML Web Design (Essential Guide).

1. This book is a good guide. It is comprehensive while not being overly technical. I got the book to use as a desk reference. The book starts out with the basics and does a good job building on that knowledge and bringing things together in later chapters.



2. The short review: I downloaded this off a torrent; I was so impressed with it, that I'm buying it hard copy. It's definately one of those books that works well for a quick reference.
   
   The long review: This book probably isn't for absolute gurus, simply because there's too much explanation. I'd probably recommend "The Ultimate CSS Reference" if you've already got a firm foundation and just need a quick reference that you can flip through faster than you can load a pdf from your flash drive.
   
   In fairness, though, this book covers more than CSS; it takes the absolute beginner from the basics to a point where they presumably can google for what they need. I picked this up to get up to date on doing web design, after taking over a decade long haitus from it. I was sold by page 6, where the author explained why he wasn't going to go into using WYSIWYG tools. I was further sold by the _lack_ of an IE centric approach, which I've seen other books use. (One of which went so far as to say that Firefox and Opera weren't worth wasting time designing for, because they comprise such a small percentage of user's browsers.) Craig takes the opposite approach and stresses compatibility heavily.
   
   If you're an absolute beginner, I'm not sure this book will be a good fit for you: it tends to present tags only once, and then flesh out actual usage, without covering every possible attribute of them.
   
   However, if you're somewhat familiar with doing web sites, and especially if you did it in the bad old days, this book is an absolute godsend. The writing style is pleasing, and the book is organized such that it's easy to read it cover to cover and not get bored. The examples tend to be well illustrated, and the graphics save having to actually load the code to see the end result.
   
   Frankly, I was impressed enough with this book to make it the first technical book I've actually _bought_ in years. While it's readable in digital form (which tends to be my preferred method), it almost demands being had in hardcopy. Or, to put it another way, it allowed me to close the 20+ tabs I had open to [...]CSS pages, as well as the multiple Google searches. :-)
   
   The only people who might not benefit from this book are the true experts; if you're so familiar with CSS that you can calculate margin offsets in under 2 seconds, for a four column page with 20+ divs, then it's likely you need something like The Ultimate CSS Reference. Even so, the real world site examples at the end might still give you some food for thought.
   
   I can't think of any gripe about this book, so, I'll just nitpick: the sheep images used for the img tag demonstrations were too Euro-centric. I'd of much rather preferred llamas.



3. A bit complicated for a newbe to web design but I am getting there. Its well laid out and seems up todate.



4. Excellent book, after reading and experimenting with css I have been able to convert a site to use css. Did not know anything about css until this book. Gives great insite to web design using css. Worth every penny.



5. Great book suported by some On-line examples, specially good for begginers.
   Little more examples or exercises will give this book the 5th star but as it is now it is also great.
   My recomendation..
   
   BR

5 comments about Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design (2nd Edition) (Software Patterns Series).

1. IMHO, if you ever wanted to understand Design Patterns and most of the basic OO concepts way much better than you do now, then this is the book. It is well written, easy to read, and the authors convey the information very well. They even stick to the same real-world examples throughout the book while explaining the various concepts and patterns. This book treats the GoF Design Patterns book like the catalog that it should be with lots of references into it.
   
   I randomly decided to bring it along on my recent business trip. I found the book engaging and have studied (not just scanned) almost half of it now. I found it to answer so many questions I had about OO all these years. It provides a strong foundation into thinking about design, OO, and patterns. I highly recommend it. The book's subtitle states, "A new perspective on OO design" and I totally agree with the authors. So far I have covered the Adaptor, Façade, Bridge, and Strategy patterns. They are highly useful and very powerful patterns that allow for easy communication among the designers, the implementers, and the unit testers.
   
   For experienced software engineers, you may find this just a concise repackaging of what you already know and have learned. But you too may still find some new golden nuggets here and there within these pages. Plus, I believe you may find this new perspective enlightening as to why you use design patterns not just how or the pattern as a cookie cutter.
   
   To address all the other prior reviews (especially those with low ratings), this book is in fact a new perspective. If you miss that point then this book will look like just another rehash of the topic of design patterns. But if you really study it and look for and understand this new perspective, you will find it very useful. The authors are trying to have you see design patterns as much more than just a common diagram. It is a better way to conceive of designs and communicate them, with much more understanding behind them. Design patterns are like any other tool; you may understand what a hammer and nail is for, but you may not know all the proper techniques in using a hammer and nail, and therefore your final product will be reasonable but not the best. This book goes a long way to achieving the best.



2. This book gives an excellent insight into using some of the patters described in the classic book Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series). It explains the reasons why particular patterns are useful and how they can be implemented to solve real-world problems.



3. It's a textbook.
   I needed it for a class.
   Your mileage may vary.



4. This books is the best introduction to object oriented design. I've been working as a programmer for several years now but I was never confident with my knowledge of object oriented design. This book shows you the way with commonality variability analysis and the author augments traditional inheritance based object oriented design with design patterns by using aggregation instead of inheritance. He shows how the design patterns can lead to better object oriented design.



5. I have seen developer who knows quite a number of design patterns, but still produce terrible design, because they don't know when and where to apply.
   
   If you want to increase your number on design patterns, this is the wrong book for you. If you want to learn the design principles behind most of the design patterns, such as open-closed principle, single responsibility principle and favor aggregation over inheritance principle, this is a must-read.

1 comments about Rails Pocket Reference.

1. Like many who dabble with Rails, I own many books on the subject. I like this format in general, and this book does not disappoint. Rails is a loose set of tools/scripts, and this brings together the "how", with just the right amount of "why".
   
   I give the content 5 stars, but it's so densely packed with information at times the layout is too busy, so I gave it a 4 overall.

5 comments about Ruby Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly)).

1. i found ruby cookbook is a good read for learning ruby, provides good thorough explanations of the topics, and gives great examples as well. if you want a good dummies book to get you going, this is not the book for you. if you want an encyclopedic reference 1000 pages long, look elsewhere. but this is a great happy medium.



2. Great stuff. I suggest this book for a first look at Ruby over and above Programming Ruby and Agile Web Development. If you're already a coder, this book will put Ruby in context of essential problems that you typically solve in whatever language you're called to use in your day-to-day work. This is this book's strength. It's not the deepest look at Ruby, and it's not a replacement for The Ruby Way or Programming Ruby, but it might get you into the groove faster by leveraging common programming tasks and their representations in Ruby code.



3. As with most O'Reilly cookbooks, Ruby Cookbook has two main avenues of exploration: the core of the language, and an introduction to some of the more important libraries, presented as the solutions to a series of themed tasks and problems the working programmer might face.
   
   Coverage of the likes of XML, databases, networking, web services is all present as you'd expect, but I always enjoy the exploration of the core language the most, especially as it applies to strings, arrays and hashes, where the idioms and 'zen' of programming in a language are normally revealed. Ruby Cookbook excels in this area, but it also provides a very solid grounding in Ruby's object system, namespaces/modules and blocks. The basics of Ruby's metaprogramming and reflective abilities are also well enumerated, although the recipe-like structure of the book doesn't quite communicate the 'magic' behaviour that pervasive Ruby metaprogramming (exemplified by Rails, of course) conjures.
   
   If you've read Perl Cookbook, rest assured that the Ruby version is easily as good, although as you might expect, in the latter half of the book there's less emphasis in Ruby Cookbook on low level networking and sysadmin work and more on higher level libraries. That said, the chapter on Rails felt a bit superfluous.
   
   This book is well-written and thorough, and would be a great second Ruby book (The Pickaxe being the obvious example for a first book). It has some interesting things to say about performance for some of the techniques it describes, although given how many different Ruby runtimes there are and how quickly they're progressing, it's difficult to say how relevant these will stay. Some of the examples are even quite amusing. Unless you were hoping for some truly in-depth metaprogramming detail, you'd be hard pressed to find anything wrong with Ruby Cookbook, except for the fact that it's competing with established Ruby must-read The Ruby Way, which covers very similar ground, in a very similar style. You don't need both books, and I preferred The Ruby Way. Nonetheless, this stands on its own as a great Ruby book.



4. Not a simple cookbook (o'reilly is cool). A lot of usefull informations and several lines about the differences with some other languages (python, java)
   
   Is not a "must" but it is a good resource for many of us.



5. Yes you can read online material but it's just not as good. The book really has some great content.

1 comments about Beginning Python: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition (Beginning from Novice to Professional).

1. To summarize, too cumbersome and rather difficult to find the exact information you are looking for. Magnus Hetland tries to be funny and assumes that it makes the book more readable. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. I'd rather have a serious book with all the information accessible, rather than something which reads like a boring college lecture. This book does not address the needs of experienced programmers in other languages who want to shift to Python(like myself), and is way too advanced for a beginner. That said, the only interesting things in the book are the projects described at the end.
   In place of Hetland's book, I'd recommend other books like the freely downloadable Python programming book in the "Thinking like a Computer Scientist" series by Green Tea Press. Besides this, there are also many websites which teach Python programming for free. Why buy a bad book?

5 comments about Learning Cocoa with Objective-C, 2nd Edition.

1. A very popular book, and greatly improved in its second edition. Very example and tutorial oriented; somewhat out of date at this point, however.  Helps the user learn Interface Builder, ProjectBuilder and Objective-C, too. Possibly a bit shallow to get the reader writing their own Cocoa programs from scratch, but a good introduction. Ultimately, probably not as recommended for a first purchase as Cocoa Programming by Scott Anguish or Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass.



2. While this book is very detailed and has a lot of information in it about Cocoa programming, it starts off too quickly. You might be discouraged by the assumptions the author makes about how much C (and programming in general) you know. If you are experienced in computer programming, then you will find this book to be a blast and will learn objective -C in no time at all. However, if you aren't too good with programming, start off with some online tutorials or other books, as you will get lost after reading the first two chapters or so.



3. This book is a great start to learn the best OS X programming technology. As a professional developer. The title says it "Learning Cocoa with Objective C". Avoid the book "Cocoa in a Nutshell" until you know Cocoa and Objective C and want a good refeerence.
   
   I also plan to read: "Programming in Objective C" and "Cocoa Programming", but only after mastering the material in this book.



4. As with most O'reilly books this one is not a let down. I was most impressed to find out that is actually written by Apple Computer and then was handed to James Duncan Davidson to make it flow.
   
   It has a great explanation of Object Oriented programming as it pertains to Objective-C. Although if you are looking to get into OOP for the first time I would suggest a higher-level language such as Java (the syntax can get in the way of learning the concepts and ideas with Obj-C / C++).
   
   The book is titled to cover upto MacOS 10.2. I am using Leopard (10.5) and the only differences (so far) are: the GUI screenshots in the book are, well, out of date; and the default naming conventions for Xcode files are different. Neither of these is a big issue though.
   
   Its a Good book.



5. If only Apple put as much effort in its books as it does in its iPods...
   
   This text skips over all sorts of details regarding the Cocoa framework it purports to teach, while repeating many mundane details (like how to create a project) over and over. The authors focus mostly on Interface Builder. If that is what you need, though, I'd still recommend the Internet instead.

5 comments about MCITP SQL Server 2005 Database Administration All-in-One Exam Guide (Exams 70-431, 70-443, & 70-444) (All-in-One).

1. PREMISE: I am not yet over the obstacles (certification), I am just studying on this book, so I cannot say whether the book has helped me pass the exams or not.
   
   HOWEVER, judging from other certifications I achieved and the relative study books, this one will work, because it seems pretty comprehensive and detailed.
   
   It is a well-organized book, the pace is just right (and makes me think why one would want to read other books totaling 2000 pages or more to reach the same goal) and it gives tips and hints that I am sure will be valuable.
   
   The plus is that you can read it to learn about SQL Server 2005. It gives you a very good overview, and you feel that you are spending your time learning something.
   
   As a reference book it is quite superficial, i.e. it does not really expand much in any topic. This is fine though, if you are thinking of buying this book as a reference think again. That is not what is advertised.
   
   Four out of five stars in my opinion is be the best rating for a certification study guide: you cannot really make a certification guide something "special", so this type of books hardly ever gets five stars.
   
   However, there are two drawbacks that made me throttle back to three stars:
   
   Firstly, some of the answers to the end-of-chapter questions are wrong. They are easy to spot though, typically they start with "Correct Answer: C" (wrong) then they go on explaining why B is the correct answer.
   
   Secondly, the writing style is not exceedingly good. At the beginning it was just a little awkward to see the way some sentences are put together. Now that I am past the first half it is becoming somewhat annoying, and in some instances a little confusing.
   
   I do not blame the author: I think he did a very good job (nobody expects a SQL Server expert to write beautiful English prose, and lots of it). However, another pass at editing could have made this book much more enjoyable.



2. This is a great book! It is very well written and the material presented in a consitent and logical manner.
   
   Some of the material I knew before picking up this book. Since this would be my first MS cert, I read every section of the book. For the topics I already knew, I was impressed by how well Darril boiled the material down to the essence, the central point that you needed to learn. I was hoping that he'd do the same for the areas I did not know. I passed all three tests and this book was the reason.
   
   Read every page. Do every hands-on example. Review the exam tips and you'll not only pass the test but actually be able to do the work.



3. This book was well organized and helped me pass the 431 exam within a month of receiving this book.



4. I used this book as my primary study/refresher resource to prepare for (and pass) the 70-447 upgrade exam. If you are an MCDBA on SQL 2000, and looking for a resource to for the MCDBA upgrade exam, this is the perfect resource! Very clear, concise coverage of all the exam topics. Each chapter has a bullet list listing the topics covered in each exam. Although the 70-447 exam isn't specifically targeted, you can approximate it by combining the 70-443 and 70-444 topics.



5. I've taken several SQL DBA courses, have numerous SQL Server/T-SQL books and hands down, this is by far the BEST book out there! It's put together in an order than takes you from the basics all the way through the most advanced part of being a DBA. In fact, if you're wanting any more in depth info, just check out this book MCITP SQL Server 2005 Database Developer All-in-One Exam Guide (Exams 70-431, 70-441 & 70-442) (All-in-One), and you'll be amazed at how well thought out both books are.
   
   The best part about this book is that I've had several questions regarding the content and decided to try and email Darril (the Author) for clarification. SURPRISE, I got thoughtful, through responses to all my questions extremely fast! Thank you Darril for doing such a great job putting this book together and being such a great help!!!
   
   On top of the book, there's two great websites & a CD with all the scripts/info that you would need!

5 comments about The Microsoft Expression Web Developer's Guide to ASP.NET 3.5: Learn to create ASP.NET applications using Visual Web Developer 2008.

1. The title of this book is a little misleading. It deals with Visual Web Developer Express Edition 2008 and does an excellent job of addressing the new features in the 2008 release as well as a valid tool for someone just starting with Visual Web Developer. It takes you through the development of a sample ASP.NET website using Access databases along with user security. It is an excellent reference as well as a tutorial approach for a begginner to intermediate web site creation.



2. Although this book is not as well written as his book on Expression Web it is still a very good training book for Expression Web Developer.



3. I must have purchased 10 books on how to develope a website from the ground up. Within the first 5 chapters, without fail, something integral to the entire website that they take for granted working, wouldn't work for me, and after a week or two of trying to fix the issue, I would normally give up. I repeated this process for about the past 6 months.
   
   Some background on me, I'm 28, I have a BS in computer science, but generally learned nothing in college, of business value anyway. I am lightly familiar with coding/designing, if given enough time I could read the code and tell you about what most things do in C++ or VB, (And their .net equivalents), but ask me to program something, and I wouldn't even know where to start. This is why I am heavily dependant on any programing examples in a book working...
   
   This book is definitely more a designers guide to building a website, but by that, I mean it shows you how to create a website from the ground up, and every short cut possible where you can have Visual Web Developer (VWD) button, or option do the work of coding. This is like a god send for people like me, that want to learn coding, but not as badly as we want to learn how to create .NET websites. I didn't get stuck for more than a few minutes anywhere.
   
   There are no "stories from the trenches" that many books put in just to fill in space and bore you inbetween what you actually want to know. This book is VERY concisely written telling you what you need to know. This book does not go into great depth in any great part, it briefly touches on just about everything you could need to run your own website though and makes recommendations for either websites or books to purchase to get additional information.
   
   In conclusion, this book is great for beginners, and I would, and have recommended it to everyone I know who, similar to me, wants to create a professional looking website, that doesn't have the programing skills to make it happen. I'd imagine though, if you are above beginner level, this book would not be for you.



4. I have been doing ASP.NET for a few years now and still find introductory books helpful...this book was the exception. I found the chapters that are suppose to cover a facet of ASP.NET lacked much meat at all. Many of the chapters were under 10 pages and I found that instead of offering anything concrete the author went overboard with the external links to articles, help pages, or other books!
   
   In the books defense it will give you a limited working knowledge in topics like the ASP.NET provider model introduced in ASP.NET 2.0, as well as data enabling your web app. However this still isn't enough for me to rate it any higher. The book may be sufficent for someone with a very limited knowledge in ASP.NET however you'll find there is no depth in this book and after you are done you probably will need to continue searching for more. Leave this book alone.
   
   my-2-cents



5. I have never built a web form. Using this book, I built a simple site that includes a contact form and a registration form. I happened to find
   JimCo books and tutorials on this website [...]. The tutorials in conjuntion with the book, solved my problem. I am not a web developer, but I am cheap and these tools were the best I could find anywhere on the web.

5 comments about UML 2 for Dummies.

1. This book has an apprehensible way of introducing the main principles of UML and provides a step-by-step flow delivery. It helps the novice to gather a complete view of the areas involved while supplying a sufficient level of detail without overloading at the same time. Equally practioners will find it a handy guide for quick reference and tool application verification.
   
   This book, as the whole series, is not targeted at the expert user, who demands in-depth analysis of all levels of UML. Thus, a degree of conceptual granularity a novice would feel overwhelmed with, which is successfully avoided by book. Thereby it is perfect in meeting its target of introductionary yet coherent provision of UML concepts.
   
   Experts, however, will feel more at home with the UML-Bible.



2. I took a UML class at university and was having difficulty understanding the textbooks. I bought this book to help me understand the concepts, which this book did admirably. When I showed up in class with this book, the instructor told everyone how great the book is, and he used the examples in class. Excellent book!



3. If you don't know a thing abut UML2 and would like to jump start the learning process this book is for you. Quick to access, easy to comprehend even when the material becomes rather complicated. I would recommend this book to anyone who would seriously like to learn more about UML2



4. This is a fine book and I am sure I will refer to it often but here are a few items I would like to see fixed in the 2nd edition:
   * I had to flip to the next page too many times to see the figure of a diagram as I was reading the text that introduced it. Please put the figure before the text or make sure it is on the facing page.
   * This book is mainly about diagrams but the figure-to-text ratio was too low.
   * I thought some of the UML examples were a bit off.



5. This book is pretty good it really help to understand uml. Im new in UML but this bood help to understand the diferent diagram and when is correct to use it.