5 comments about Platinum Edition Using Visual Basic 6 (Using ... (Que)).

1. This book is all over the place. I have no idea who it is for. I would consider myself and advanced beginner and in some places in the book i feel like an expert where he re explains things like how to make an access key 3 times but then tosses in this code that i havent seen before leaving behind no explanation. Most of the examples of code are 2-5 lines which are ripped from some program and displayed without giving any background context. I have no idea where he wanted to go with this book and I dont think he did either. The only reason I give it one star is because it has a nice cover and the table of contents makes it look helpful. Please do NOT waste your money on this. It would be more helpful to spend time on your own exploring VB than using this book...



2. Let me start out with a salute to the good people at QUE. The Special Edition Using and the Platinum Edition Using series are incredible, to say the least! I have been reviewing these titles on and off for over two years now and I have always been impressed with these two series. If there is a CD included in the book you should get the book just for what is on that. In my humble opinion they have been worth at least 2 to 3 times what you paid for the book.
   

   Well that's enough kissing up for one review. Now for the real stuff.
   

   Book Icons
   The way they designed the little side notes is very helpful and mostly to the point.
   

   All through the book you can expect to see little icons that have notes attached to them to help explain, or augument what the text is saying. There is also pictures for the visual side of the brain. I like pictures. I got my best grades in college when the books had lots of pictures.
   

   The Icons consist of: Caution, Note, Tip, Troubleshooting, and On the CD. I have found them to be concise and excellent side bar thoughts.
   

   For example, on pg. 906 there are 2 tips. The first is explaining the standard naming convention for Dynamic HTML events. The 2nd. one talks about upper and lower case and the reasons for keeping the standard of lowercase for event names, in your code.
   

   When I was looking at some of the code snippets, I realized that there were some of those sections I could use and reuse in the code I would write. There are several places in the book that refer to that time saving practice. I do this with the HTML Coding I do, and I know VB coders that have whole libraries of reusable code that make projects they do go a lot faster. And keeping code standards as you are writing makes it easy to do this.
   

   I really enjoyed reading this one and I count it as a valuable asset to my library, as I am sure you will also.
   

   Below is an example of the contents in this incredible book.
   

   Contents at a Glance:
   Platinum Edition Using Visual Basic 6
   Div 1: Visual Basic 6 Fundamentals
   Chpt. 1: An Introduction to Visual Basic 6
   Chpt. 2: ...
   Div 2: Visual Basic Controls
   Chpt. 7: Add-Ins and Utilities
   Chpt. 8: ...
   Div 3: Professional Visual Basic Programming
   Chpt. 9: Effective Product Management
   Chpt. 10: ...
   Div 4: Advanced Visual Basic 6 Programming
   Chpt. 15: Creating Wizards
   Chpt. 16: ...
   Div 5: Using ActiveX Components
   Chpt. 20: Microsoft Object Technologies
   Chpt. 21: ...
   Div 6: Programming for Intranets and the Internet
   Chpt. 26: Using VBScript with the Internet
   Chpt. 27: ...
   Div 7: Database Programming with Visual Basic 6
   Chpt. 30: Building Database Applications
   Chpt. 31: ...
   Div 8: Appendix
   

   Platinum Edition Using:
   Visual Basic 6
   By: Loren D. Eidahl
   Publisher: QUE
   ISBN 0789719169
   Pages: 1120
   Additions: A CD Crammed with Tons of Really Cool Stuff
   Contents:
   30 Third Party Software Pkgs
   29 Examples of code
   Tons of Graphics
   User Level: Beginner >Intermediate< Experienced
   Understandability Rating: *****
   Readability Rating: *****
   Coolness Rating: *****
   

   Review by: Joseph Stone
   Web Designer - JWebStone.com
   




3. Sorry, this book is just about 50% identical to VB6 Unleashed. Ever heard of Copy and Paste?



4. This is the best VB book specially as a reference.



5. I recommend this book to any programmer interested in more detailed information on the advanced use of Visual Basic.

   The Que Platinum Series is aimed at the accomplished programmer. I have used Visual Basic professionally since version 1.0 and I found this book to very useful. My specific interest was the Visual Basic Extensibility Interface, otherwise known as VB Add-Ins. This book beat SAM's "Visual Basic Unleashed" hands down on that topic in both organization and information. In fact I preferred it to "VB Unleashed" on most topics.

   For a reasonably complete Visual Basic library, I would recommend this book after the "Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Programmers Guide," the "Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Reference Library," and Francesco Balena's "Programming Visual Basic 6.0."

   If you can only afford one book, then get Balena's.

No comments about Programacion Con Visual Basic 6/programing of Visual Basic 6 (Programacion).

3 comments about Visual Basic: Programmer's Reference.

1. This Programmers Reference follows in the format of other References from Osborne, and like the other references, suffers from the same bad binding, which does not allow the book to sit flat on the desk. Something I consider essential for a reference book as I usually need to type while reading something. Not possible. The index is redundant, as it simply lists the keywords in the reference, rather than being a keyword/subject cross-reference, which is really what is needed. Some of the entries suffer from "cut and paste" syndrome, where paragraphs have obviously been chopped from another section, but not modified for their new placement, leading, for instance, to the Oct$ section talking about Hexadecimal numbers. The second half of the book contains some very useful information on Object Models, unfortuanately it is hard to find what you are looking for, and again reflects a hurried attempt to throw the book together. Compared to the C++ Programmers Reference (that I also use) this book is a definite disappointment.



2. I think this book irreplacable on my reference shelf. I use it everyday for work. If you do any Visual Basic work, I recommend that you get this book. It's only $15 and it has already paid for itself several times over. I use this book every day, and highly recommend it to anyone. A previous reviewer complained about a bad binding (true) and simple index. Since the all the language and method entries are alphabetic, I never really looked at the index. I also always use the `See Also' listings at the end of each term to find related commands.



3. I am a learn as you go vb programmer. This book was constantly by my side and used more than all my other books combined. It is a fast and easy way to check the syntax and parameters of a statemets.Two complaints: 1. Examples were given of instructions, but not results. Sometimes it was not clear to me exactly what the statement would do. 2. No reference of statements by type. For example, if working with time and dates, you have to be familiar with the various statements, no list of all time and date statements.

No comments about Visual Basic.NET the Basics (The .Net Odyssey).

2 comments about Instant Visual Basic 5 Activex Control Creation (Instant).

1. I purchased this book from Amozon, attempted to read the first 3 chapters and returned it all within 24 hours. The writting is very unclear and I had a hard time following the topics. It was difficult to tell what they wanted us to try and what they were they were trying to explain. Maybey somebody with a few more years of experience in Visual Basic may have found this book usefull, but if you are new to VB, I strongly recomend against it.



2. This book is a bit too convoluted and indirect about the things it must cover in order to make you an effective VB5 ActiveX programmer. I've seen it done much more efficiently. I got two thirds of the way through it and had to lay it down.

No comments about Visual Basic .Net.

5 comments about Visual Basic 6 Programming: Business Applications with a Design Perspective.

1. If you are just beginning VB6 or brushing up on basic concepts, this book will fit the bill. Many examples to "explain" how to program and what the functions mean in the real world. No fluff here, just real world programming. It covers basic concepts, controls, built-in functions, input/output (file i/o), Database with ADO, a very god chapter on the use of arrays, Object-oriented progamming, and even some API calls to extend VB6. I have been programming since 1984 and more recently since 1996 to VB. This is a great way to get started. You won't waste you money here!



2. This book is meant for students in a structured course - only instructors from some teaching institution are permitted to get the full source code. If you are trying to teach yourself you cannot get the full source code. A waste of time for those you wish to teach themselves.



3. This is THE text on Visual Basic. As a student, I found it to be full of real-world business application examples. Dr. Tsay also supports the text on his web site. By the time you're finished, you can write a small business application that connects to a database. He also introduces object-oriented programming which represents the majority of new systems designs.

   I have used the text in three college courses: Systems Analysis and Design I and II and Visual Basic.

   Can't wait until Dr. Tsay writes a Java textbook with business examples instead of geometry examples.




4. I have been reading this book for the past 1 month. This book has all you need to learn the VB programming. The author has provided lot of examples and a lot of exercises. I do not see any reason why I can't give 5 stars for this book.



5. To be honest I haven't had this book long enough for a full review but from what I've been able to read in the past couple of days this is probably the best VB6 programming book I've come across so far. I've acquired all of the top 20 "bestsellers" on the subject but this stands apart from the rest. Author Tsay doesn't just know how to write code, as a teacher he appears to be extremely gifted. For example, his coverage of sorting algorithms and how they work is light years beyond what I've seen in the other VB books. The author has a knack for encapsulating his examples, providing small succinct chunks of knowledge and then making it all stick. Almost like making a sculpture out of clay he goes on to build upon that foundation incrementally to the point where you're fully able to get your head around what were previously considered (by me anyway) to be difficult subjects. Other authors would do well to emulate the techniques used by Mr. Tsay to impart his teaching in this book. Don't be put-off by the "Business" title either, if you're Beginner-Intermediate like me this book is exactly what you need. My only complaint would be internet transfers and such were not covered, but the VB6 language is so feature rich one can't expect a single book to do it all. This is a book you'll build a strong programming foundation with and that's a big key to longterm success, while reading it I almost felt like a private tutor was by my side. Note however, if you're the type of reader who wants a bunch of code to paste from a CD into your application without knowing how it works then you don't want to buy this book.

5 comments about MCAD/MCSD XML Web Services and Server Components Development with Visual Basic .NET Study Guide (Exam 70-310).

1. By looking at the other reviews I can tell their looking for a book which gives them everything they need to pass the test. The book would have to be 3x as long to explain everything in the .NET Framework, etc. This touches all the topics. Although I don't agree with all the answers to the example questions, it is good enough to use for preparing for the test if you have actually used these technologies before you picked up the book.

   I give it 3 stars because there is no Eratta available at the Osbourne website, etc. There are errors in the book, but I have never bought one where there were not.




2. I have tried to unzip the examples come with the CD but many of that not functioning especially for chapter 4, .Net Remoting and chapter 5 XML Web Services.
   I have sent the error to the author but without any reply for months.



3. Un livre de la sorte ne devrait pas exister. Juste à lire la couverture et l'endos du livre, nous sommes embalés par toute la capacité du livre, mais aussitôt qu'on se met à lire les chapitre on se demande: Où sont donc les éléments mentionnés sur la couverture. "Xml web services", hahaha, ... , 1 chapitre sur le sujet. Par chance que je ne m'hasardais pas sur le sujet. Un livre de 520 pages ? Ne vous fait pas avoir par l'arnaque; le livre contient 400 pages et le reste sont des "Appendix" sur quasiement toutes les lettres de l'alphabet. Le chapitre le plus gros porte sur les manipulations de données! He, je penses que j'en ai lu avec 70-306 assez pour dire que le titre du livre est Xml web services and server components Development et non la manipulation de données. Enfin, cela reste un opinion.

   La raison de mon 1 étoile! Parce qu'il n'y avait pas 0 étoile lors de l'écriture de ce commentaire.




4. I think the book is good overall but I know I wasted a lot of time correcting the code exercises. If anyone has figured out how to get exercise 4.03 of the Remoting chapter working then please post the fix in your review because I wasted a good 3 hours on it before giving up. The problem is, is that there is no good documentation on the MSDN for using Activator.GetObject. In the web.config file, I'm still unsure if it should be ObjectUrl (in the book) or ObjectUri (every other article I've read).



5. This was the second book I bought to study for the 70-310 exam. The test covered completely different material from this book. It did not help prepare me whatsoever for the exam, I am currently seeking a refund from the publisher.

No comments about Visual Basic 2 for Windows Inside & Out.

5 comments about MCSD: Visual Basic 5 Study Guide.

1. This book, despite its acceptable editing and writing standards, just does not contain a large amount of material needed to pass the exam. Either buy one of the 1300-pagers or Exam Cram, or both. This book is the worst of both worlds unfortunately.



2. This is a very good book to start preparing for Exam 70-165. All the exam topics are covered and the topics are well explained. However, the book lacks details on some important topics like the Setup wizard (Bootstrap files, ini files, primary and secondary cab files) and ActiveX controls (Ambient and Extender properties). However, its very good for its price. I used this book, VB Books online and the transcenders and passed exam 70-165 with a good score on my first attempt.



3. Mistakes, mistakes everywhere! When following instructions to create a practice application, the code was wrong, it didn't work! Even the CD-ROM stuff was incorrect. Studying for these cert tests is tough enough without the added frustration of textbooks proclaiming to be "Study Guides" that are riddled with gross errors. I ended up using Microsoft's VB Programmers Guide and the Visual Basic 5.0 online documentation. I passed the certification test (hurrah) but certainly NOT due to any help from this book! Don't people read/edit or review this stuff? Doesn't the author check to be sure his code produces the desired results?



4. this book is very easy to understand. good price



5. I debated giving this one 2 stars, because I think you will fail the exam if you only use this as your study guide. I covered this book several times cover-to-cover. I agree with many of the other reviewers that there were an inordinate amount of typos and mistakes. The worst part, however, was that the material was not deep enough and the questions not difficult enough to adequately prep you for the exam.

   After reading each chapter several times and consistently scoring 90-100% on each of the practice exams (the end-of-chapter tests - the promised practice exam on CD-ROM did not work, nor did the supposed correction), I was full of bravado. Fortunately, I got access to a Transcender exam the day before the test. What an eye-opener that was. I took all 3 of the Transcenders and they blew me away. I was scoring in the low 60's. I pulled an allnighter with the Transcenders and the MSDN CD's and snatched victory from the jaws of sure defeat.

   I noted several of the other reviewers noted that they used this material in conjunction with the Transcenders. On its own, I think it is insufficient to prepare you.END