4 comments about Beginning DotNetNuke 4.0 Website Creation in VB 2005 with Visual Web Developer 2005 Express: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: from Novice to Professional).

1. It's not for the complete novice and it won't teach you how to code. But it will get you up and going with VWD and DNN. Well written with good screenshots. He also takes you through the process of creating modules. It's a good primer and was what I was looking for.



2. This is a very good introduction to DotNetNuke. It will help you install DNN on you own machine and guide you through building a simple website.
   
   If you know a little about programming in VB and know something about HTML and CSS, this book will show you how to write your own DNN modules and create your own DNN skins and containers. You won't learn how to write complex modules or elaborate skins but you'll learn the basics.
   
   If you already know how to install DNN and how to create DNN modules and skins, this book is not for you.
   
   If you know nothing about programming in VB and know nothing about HTML, then you should probably learn about them before you tackle this book.



3. This book will take you from absolutely no knowledge of DotnetNuke and get you well on your way. Simple to follow. Like any good intro book it will help you to understand how DNN works and gives you enough information to know where to go to learn more. For example after you are shown what a skin is and how to use it you are then shown how to make one of your own. You should then understand where you want to go from there. My experience level is 1.5 years as an ASP.net, VB and C# Developer with SQL server 2005. I have no previous knowledge of DNN. It will be very helpful if you know a bit about Visual Web developer, Light Coding, CSS, XML and some graphics program knowledge such as Fireworks or Photoshop. However, this book will get even the non programmer where he needs to be to use DNN. In short - if you are new, Start here.



4. This is a good beginning book. Not great but good. It provides good step by step instruction for some of the most common tasks and good explainations of what you are actually accomplishing. The only complaint I have with the book is in the chapter on creating a module. When he has you accually go into the SQL database to design the tables and stored procedures, he follows a path that is not always available in every DotNetNuke hosting environment. Still, if you have some SQL knowledge, you can modify what he does to create a workable installation.
   
   In a way, the module deficiency is not really serious. DotNetNuke is such an extensive product that most things are possible right out of the box. If you start thinking you need to write a module, you should first make sure you understand fully the ones that are already available.

5 comments about Eclipse Distilled (Eclipse Series).

1. With Eclipse becoming extremely popular as an integrated development environment, there have been a number of books published to help you learn the tool. I recently received a copy of Eclipse Distilled by David Carlson, and it's a pretty good addition to the collection...
   
   Contents:
   Part 1 - Getting Started: A Java IDE and So Much More!; Hello Eclipse; Managing Your Projects; Customizing Your Workbench; Rapid Development; Java Project Configuration; Debugging Your Code
   Part 2 - Getting Agile: Characteristics of Agile Development; Updating the Eclipse IDE; Continuous Testing with JUnit; Refactoring Your Code; Continuous Integration with Ant; Team Ownership with CVS; Coding Standards; Index
   
   If you're looking for a book that covers a large number of the features of the Eclipse IDE, this book will be a good choice. In addition to covering all the technical details for installation, options, and "how to" things like refactoring, the author also covers how Eclipse works with various other common programming tools like JUnit and CVS. It's not a definitive guide on these other software packages, but you'll get a good grounding on how they integrate.
   
   What this book *isn't* is a tutorial guide to learning Eclipse. There are a number of Eclipse books that will walk you through a number of examples of how the package works and how to write code with it. This book really doesn't do that. You'll find out a lot about all the different options, but it's not like a "step 1, step 2, step 3" presentation. I really don't consider this a detriment to the book. If I wanted a tutorial, I could find one. But if I want a book that shows me all the mechanics and let's me figure out how to apply them to my needs, the "Distilled" approach works great.
   
   I like the book, but I can see how some people might not be enamored with the lack of sample code. If you're going in with your eyes open, you should be fine...



2. In his forward, David Carlson writes: "This is the book I wanted to read when I started using Eclipse three years ago." Wow! And this is the book I wanted to read too!
   
   Like husbands and wives, wrenches and nuts, hands and gloves, some things were meant to fit together, while others repel like oil and water. When I learn a new programming language, IDE, API, software program, etc. I want the basics, the practical, the stuff I really need to get going. In any of these endeavors, there is simply too much to learn to sit reading detailed information on features that just never come up for me. Give me a good grounding in the basics, and I will pick up the details on the fly when I need them.
   
   Carlson's book will get you up to speed fast. Furthermore, it gives you the basics on several of the latest development methods with which Eclipse is compatible. He provides excellent basic discussions of Agile Development, JUnit testing, Ant, refactoring and the Concurrent Version System. He easily fits all this information into less than 300 pages.
   
   If this approach fits you like it fits me: Quick! Buy this book and get started.



3. I manage multiple developers spread around the globe building product relying on the Eclipse Web Standard Tools (WST) and other parts of Eclipse. Getting each team member's IDE configured and updated was sucking up time.
   
   Chapter 9, "Updating the Eclipse IDE," saved us time equivalent to purchasing boxes of the book. Now we have flexible, consistent, repeatable configurations that make upgrading to new versions of WST and other features easy.
   
   We have adjusted our team's practices based on info in other chapters too.
   
   Carlson has provided excellent information for developers who want to work more effectively in the Eclipse environment. I'm delighted with the purchase.



4. I read this book end to end but didnt find even a single startling fact about eclipse that i didnt know already.It was more like feature round up ( which you can discover going through the menu items in eclipse IDE)
   I would recommend this book for people who are absolutly new to eclipse .



5. This is an excellent book and I recommend it highly to start with Eclipse.
   It saved me an incredible amount of time by providing the right level of information on virtually all important features of Eclipse.
   This book is for people with a background in development, but new to Eclipse.

5 comments about C# Cookbook, 2nd Edition (Cookbooks (O'Reilly)).

1. If you are just coming into C# or have been doing it for a while - it doesn't matter - BUY THIS BOOK!!! Oreilly as we all know, makes very good tech/programming books and this one is one of the best I've had so far. This will be a book that will spend much less time on my shelf and much more time next to me on my desk.



2. I came across a project that had to do with XML, and I came to love this book. It has a lot of suggestions that helped me jump start my project.
   
   I wouldn't recommend this book to learn C#- (pick up John Sharp C# step by step for that.)



3. I'm an intermediate coder, familiar with programming and I have about 1.5 years programming C#. I've already used this book(C# Cookbook 2nd edition) to write C# code navigating in and around directories and files. The examples in the book regarding "Directory Info" and "File Info" were so clear and concise, I was able to complete my programming task with almost no lost time to the learning process. What I like most was that there was not one example, but many examples for the most used functionalities. This book has already paid for itself when I consider the time it saved me the first time I needed it!



4. This is a good intro book that eliminates the need for some of the first books I bought on C#. When compared to other "cookbooks", however, this book is incredibly weak (see: XSLT Cookbook, SQL Cookbook). If you have used C# for more than 6 months, you will know how to iterate over an array, to use String.IsNullOrEmpty, get the index of a value within a string, and use a generic arraylist. These are just some of the junior "recipes" you'll see in this book. The "recipes" just exercise the fundamentals (i.e. how to boil water) rather than how the fundamentals work together to solve complex problems in elegant ways. The easier the concept, the more information. There isn't really any analysis or best-practice justification present. I'd like to see some performance analysis of generics or at least some depth on partial methods. Nothing to see here for mid-level developers. Not written or organized poorly, just simple. If it were titled "Intro to C# by example", I'd give it a higher score.



5. [Reviewed by XPSD member Steve Grubbs]
   
   Summary
   
   I wanted to check out a C# cookbook after developing in C# for almost a year. I figured I should get a basic understanding of the language and the .NET framework by using it for awhile before I buy such a book. That said, I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to get the C# Cookbook the day I started developing in C#.
   
   Overall Review
   
   I see two main criteria for reviewing a programming language cookbook.
   
   1. The quality of each "recipe"
   2. The recipes chosen for the book
   
   The C# Cookbook handles each recipe very well, which we should definitely demand of a cookbook. It has a very simple 4-section format, Problem-Solution-Discussion-See Also. The problem is briefly stated first. The solution is almost entirely code samples, with minimal commentary. The discussion is usually short and sweet, with a few exceptions. The "see also" points to reference topics in the MSDN help, which is of questionable usefulness, since you can search the topics yourself; but, is short enough to skim over easily.
   
   The recipes chosen for the C# Cookbook range from very useful to trivial. One of the trivial examples would be something like, converting degrees to radians. The only language specific feature here is Math.PI, which I don't think is worth the page it's printed on. What I found surprisingly useful were some code samples that I spent time coming up with on my own before reading this book, like a custom trace class that outputs in XML. Fortunately, most of the examples were in the useful category.
   
   A few glaring topic omissions are remoting, ADO, and advanced object serialization.
   
   Per-Chapter Review
   
   * Numbers - somewhat trivial
   * Strings and Characters - good introduction to the C# string
   * Classes and Structures - good stuff on interfaces, casting, converting, COM interop
   * Enumerations - simple, but short and useful
   * Exception Handling - an underrated topic that I'm happy to see covered
   * Diagnostics - a surprisingly useful set of tools to help with debugging
   * Delegates and Events - very good intro for the new C# programmer
   * Regular Expressions - very good intro for the new C# programmer
   * Collections - a little simple, could have more useful samples
   * Data Structures and Algorithms - simple, but good if more advanced types are required
   * Filesystem I/O - very good examples of file I/O in C#
   * Reflection - a necessary intro to reflection, but a bit simple
   * Networking - biggest complaint: Why is there no remoting?
   * Security - a good survey of various security issues in C#
   * Threading - a good intro to threads and basic synchronization in C#
   * Unsafe Code - I tore out and burned this section
   * XML - good intro to reading/writing XML in C#

5 comments about Eclipse: Building Commercial-Quality Plug-ins (2nd Edition) (Eclipse Series).

1. Eclipse: Building Commercial-Quality Plug-ins (2nd Edition) (The Eclipse Series)
   
   + Provides a good overall picture of plug-ins structure, a lot of details.
   - Contains a lot of methods description that you can find it otherwise in Javadoc, running an eclipse plug-in could have included some more options (in fact for developing I preferred the version from Eclipse help)



2. I got the book on time and the condition of the book was new as promised. Couldn't ask for more.
   
   Cheers!



3. This is a good guide for developing Eclipse plugins. Since most online documentation for Eclipse is garbage, this will get you up and running in much less time. It doesn't answer all questions but is a handy reference.



4. If you're planning to write an eclipse plugin, this is THE book to read. The authors have done a fantastic job. Kudos.
   Now a few suggestions.
   The examples in the book can now be imported in the form of an eclipse plugin. This is great but the examples take a huge leap. For example, chapter 6 introduces you to the concept of views and shows you how to build a simple view with a table and a hard coded set of values. The example in chapter 7 is a huge leap in complexity. It would have been nice to have an example that shows you how to wire events to mouse clicks in the basic "One, Two, Three" view. Instead, the example in chapter 7 tries to do too much. As such, I can only give a limited time to reading the book and going through the examples. The jump in the complexity of the examples from chapter 6 to chapter 7 is like going from "hello world" to socket programming.
   
   Again, my review is based on the perspective of someone who is writing eclipse plugins as productivity tools for my project, not as commercial products that I plan to sell. I may not be the right audience for your fantastic book but I suspect there are a lot of people like me who want to write plugins as productivity tools. Since your book is THE best book on eclipse plugins, I'm sure they'll be referring to it too.
   
   Another thing: Part of the examples from chapter 7 don't seem to work. Specifically, the "add to favorites" button on the toolbar doesn't work because the selection object is of the type TextSelection and not IStructuredSelection. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
   
   Update: After having actually written a decent eclipse plugin, I have a list of suggestions for people who're just getting started.
   1. Eclipse Corner is a very good resource for tips on writing eclipse plugins.
   2. If you can't figure out how something is done, try looking for code on google codesearch. For example, lang:java eclipse ASTRewrite
   3. If you're using Ganymede, you can see how things are done in the eclipse source code. For example, if you want to see the code that implements the outline view, select the outline view and hit Alt-Shift-F1. This will bring up the plugin spy. It will have a link to the source code that implements the outline view. Of course, the real code for the outline view is buried in a deep hierarchy but you get the general idea.



5. I am writing Eclipse plug-ins for almost two years now and owned this book almost from the beginning. Looking back I must say that the book helped me get started and let me believe "it's possible". As probably many others I was a little intimidated at first by the vast possibilities of the framework.
   Now that I am much more experienced I must say that whenever I look into the book it leaves me a little bit disappointed. It only adds little value to the "Platform Plug-in Developer Guide" which is part of the online documentation and already covers a lot.
   The book goes into details and code very quickly without explaining the concepts very well. I still use the book every now and then for finding some nuggets not covered elsewhere and sometimes I get lucky but not too often.
   Shall you buy this book? If you are a beginner and if you like to learn by programming a sample plug-in then yes. The more proficient you get the more the book will lose its value and you will use other sources of information.

5 comments about The Essential Guide to Flex 3 (Essential Guide).

1. I have learned a great deal from this book. Along with taking a course with the author and reading this book I have learned how to do things the correct way and have reaped the rewards from it. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to learn Flex quickly and/or catch up on whats new in Flex 3.



2. Good Book. Would have raised rating to 4 1/2 stars if that was an option.
   Enjoyed reading and doing the exercises. Not many errors, few but they where small. Wish Chapter 15 (AIR) would have been a little longer with more detail.
   
   All in all, a good start. Introduced to many topics, ColdFusion was a good one.
   
   Thanks



3. If you don't know Flex 3 and want to learn the basics and then some, well then this book might just be for you. The author takes you through Installing Eclipse and Flex Builder 3 (FB3) which I found very informing. He then takes you through some of the different areas in FB3. The chapter on ActionScript (Chapter 3) is not a very good one. You will need a different book for ActionScript reference. You then go through some of the "essentials" of Flex 3 to understand how to build an application.
   
   I was a bit confused at times but it might have been because of the speed I was going through this book. If I would have slowed down a bit, I think it would have been a lot clearer. Also, I am new to Flex so it was learning from scratch for me.
   
   This book does not come with the files, nor can you download them. I really think if it had the files it would have been a MUCH better read/work along. There are a few errors in the code and you have to guess at times as to what it should be. I could not get one section to work at all (as was shown in the book).
   
   If you want to learn Flex 3 or get a better understanding of Flex 3, then I would tell you to read this book. The information you will learn far outweighs the few errors and lack of files. I've always said the best way to learn code, is to sit down and type it out. You will be doing a lot of this. Good job Charles!



4. This is one of the most well-written books I have ever read. I have been programming JavaScript for several years, so I assume that makes learning ActionScript fairly easy for me. Nevertheless, this is a good introductory book to Flex 3. All of the examples work flawlessly. The only thing wrong with the book are some unbelievably huge typographical errors, but they are easy to spot and easy to decipher. Sometimes you have to look at the example code from the website to get the correct text. The errors have not caused me any problems and I would highly recommend this book to anyone new to Flex 3.



5. I have this book and got it after taking a Flex Class that Charles Brown taught. I have referred to the book numerous times to point me in the right direction for the application I am working on and also to help me better understand why something works the way it does.

5 comments about Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites.

1. "Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites," by Kevin Potts,was first brought to my attention by my wife, Adrienne, a website designer whose business, Cloud Islands, develops business identity plans for internet marketing.
   
   She recommended it to me as an extraordinarily useful text. I've found it particularly readable, including the chapters on platforms, content management, standards-based development, and other topics which normally are either over my head or simply difficult to read.
   
   Potts' chapters on content and SEO are cogent, provide excellent examples, and are as useful as any I've ever read. The book is only several months old, so he is even using illustrations from Google Analytics new web configurations.
   
   It's published by [...], which is a publishing house run by and for web designers.
   
   I don't often recommend books for other people's professional libraries, but this one is proving very useful to me.



2. "Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites" is the first book on web design to focus on integrating marketing, customer service, accessibility, and web standards into the design process. It's an accessible, clear, and up-to-date resource on best practices for modern business- and service-oriented websites.
   
   Kevin Potts begins the book by pointing out that the internet is now an essential medium for businesses of all shapes and sizes; at the same time, customers are more sophisticated than in the early days of the internet, and have little patience for poorly designed websites. In order for a company to present an effective presence on the web, it "must deliver beyond customer expectations; better content, sharper design, smarter architecture, and more proactive communication and interaction are all components of websites that produce exceptional results for corporations."
   
   In the first chapter, the author begins by outlining what a company's website should be doing:
   
   * Marketing, selling products, & promoting services
   * Providing customer support & company information
   * Creating branding & market awareness
   
   He then covers planning, researching, and selling the design (or redesign) within the company, then moves on to a brief overview of platforms and technologies.
   
   The rest of the book proceeds to show the designer how to create an effective and compelling site for his or her client. He covers content creation, accessibility, architecture & navigation; essential sections of a company website such as the Homepage, About page, Products, and Support pages; error pages, print-friendly pages, legal considerations, and SEO; email marketing, RSS, and advertising campaigns and metrics.
   
   This book is an amazing collection of diverse information presented in a clear and concise fashion. It's not intended as an in-depth treatment of any of the subjects he covers--rather it's an invaluable checklist of essential tools and considerations for designing a top-notch company website.
   
   "Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites" has become a valuable addition to my reference library, and it is one that I know I will reach for first when I am planning a new or redesigned business or service website.



3. This book is an excellent guide to Web design. It is very well written with practical information. The reading is easy and very interesting. I reccommend it very much.



4. Although this book sounds like a "tech" book, it is far from it. It only contains about two pages of actual code total. I highly recommend this book for anyone who runs a small to medium-sized business where you interact with your web design company directly, or any executive who has to interface with the web development team.
   
   It could also be good for web designers who have been AWOL for the last half-decade or more, or people new to the business who want to learn. Although you won't learn any HTML, CSS, or JavaScript, you will learn stuff that no one else has published in one handy volume. Great for a day at the park - leave your laptop at home. I've written a far-more extensive review on my blog, so search for my name if you feel the need to read really long reviews before buying, but if I can save you some time, just take my word for it and buy it if the above describes you.



5. When I purchased this book, I thought I was getting a step-by-step guide for beginners who build websites. Unfortunately, it turns out this book is for the experienced web designer whose looking for more ideas. I found a better book for beginners through the "Dummies" series. Oh yeah, if you can afford it, hire someone to build your website!

5 comments about Pragmatic Version Control: Using Subversion (The Pragmatic Starter Kit Series)(2nd Edition).

1. This book is targeted at someone who is likely already familiar with version control systems (as it frequently refers back to differences with CVS), yet tries to be for the beginner as well. As an experienced user (as I am) you will have to wade through a lot of verbiage to get to what you want. The author uses a conversational style. I got all I could from this book in two frustrating hours, when what I really wanted was a more terse reference.



2. Excellent book to get kick started on SVN. The examples given in the book are very practical and reinforce learning. It would be more valuable if it could include some help for people who are looking to migrate to SVN from clearcase



3. This is my favorite technical book. I read it cover to cover, which is unusual for me but this book was just that good -- comprehensive and quite easy to understand.
   
   It helped me move from CVS to SVN smoothly and with confidence. I also find it to be a great reference to come back to for a refresher here and there.
   
   This book is for Subversion what Ansel Adams' The Camera is for photography: The perfect first step and, for some, the last step they need.



4. This book had everything a non-expert would need to understand the basics of the version control system with Subversion.
   
   The tone is very readable. And the use of graphics was good but could be better
   
   Overall, I recommend this book to anyone who is trying to build a strong foundation in source code versioning.
   
   It really cuts to the chase so the reader can be doing real work in a matter of minutes. I expect to see updates to this book.
   
   I would like the author to add a chapter or two aimed for web developers. Dreamweaver CS4 (the editor of choice for many web developers) has recently integrated a subversion client for a robust checkout and checkin. It would be nice to see a chapter on how to setup and configure a site in Dreamweaver cs4 with subversion as a version control system.
   
   I would like to know what are the best practice of using subversion in web enviroment. How Apache, Dreamweaver and Subversion can talk to each other happily.
   
   Thanks again for writing such a wonderful book and keep the good job.



5. [Reviewed by XPSD member Andy de Torres]
   
   As the guys behind the Pragmatic Starter Kit Series admit, these books cover basic stuff all developers should know. So it comes as no surprise that Pragmatic Version Control Using Subversion is not a ground-breaking, earth shattering book. It's a good, thin, easy to read book that covers the basics of version control and how to work with Subversion. It spends fewer than 20 pages on the basics with the rest of the book covering syntax, setup, and best practices for Subversion. (Check out the CVS version of this book if you're using CVS.) An appendix of "recipes" (which could have been organized better) covers over 60 operations with a quick summary of the commands required for each and a pointer to the section of the book where it was covered. Some of the recipes are simple things that you tend to do from your IDE plug-in or TortoiseSVN or other client, but many are more involved. This is very helpful, because many tasks are infrequently performed, and you can spend a lot of time (in other books) searching for where a topic was covered.
   
   I found the book very helpful in getting Subversion installed with Apache for HTTP-based use (through firewalls) in just a few minutes and also for local use on a USB flash drive (with file-based URLs) as well as for organizing my repository. When the time comes, I will refer back to their "recipes" for dealing with release issues. I would not hesitate to recommend this book to anyone using or considering using Subversion.

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

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



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



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



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



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

2 comments about An Introduction to Programming Using Alice.

1. For non-programmers who want to learn an object oriented language, Alice is a nice choice. At least as a pedagogic vehicle. As far as I know, there are no actual [or few] actual jobs for Alice programmers. But at the primary or secondary school level, Alice gets the main concepts common to many commercial OO languages across to students.
   
   Herbert introduces these concepts at a deliberately slow pace. Suitable for most of the targeted audience. The screen captures of the user interface are quite pretty, and help to hold the reader's attention. As compared with learning C++, say, where there is no intrinsic GUI. Plus, the mapping of conceptual objects to graphical objects in Alice is its main attraction. Very intuitive.



2. Not only did I save money from buying from Amazon, it also arrived in time for my first class. Excellenct service.

1 comments about Pro PerformancePoint Server 2007: Building Business Intelligence Solutions (Expert's Voice in Business Intelligence).

1. I have been in the BI space for almost a decade and was glad to see that Microsoft finally entered this space full force with PerformancePoint 2007. The problem was there were no definitive books on the topic. There were "manuals" with click here instructions and dialogue box explanations but nothing that pulled it all together. This book does an excellent job of explaining how to create a complete BI solution with PerformancePoint 2007 and the other SQL Server BI components. It is more heavily focused on the Monitoring parts of the product (scorecards, dashboards, reports, etc) but it does a good job touching on the planning(forecasting, budgetin, and planning) capabilities. This is the book I recommend to a client to get up to speed on the Microsoft approach to Performance Management on the Microsoft stack.