No comments about Visual Basic 4 Developer's Guide (Sams Developer's Guide).

No comments about 2559B: Introduction to Visual Basic .Net Programming with Microsoft. net (Microsoft Official Course).

5 comments about From Photoshop to Dreamweaver.

1. I thought the book could be done a little better. If I wasn't familiar w/ Photoshop 7, then I would have been lost on several occasions while following the examples in the book.



2. Yes, I did learn how to use Photoshop, Image Ready, and Dreamweaver in about a week. So the book must be O.K. However, I found it to creatively uninspiring and utterly lacking in basic make-up. Often there were there sections devoid of real instructions on how to get things done. I would say that if you want to learn the meat and potatoes of making web sites, you will be out of luck on this one. And please, "Footprint Design"? that is ridiculously lame.
   Thanks--David Bowie



3. This book is a great book. It will show you how to use Photoshop to create your design and how to ultimately bring it into Dreamweaver. However, there is a reason I didn't give the book 5 stars.
   First of all, I think the book presumes that you are more than just a novice in Photoshop. So if you know nothing about PS, then you could get frustrated. Also, as another reviewer mentioned, the book is not designed with creativity in mind. That is, I don't think anyone would create a masterpiece using this book. What I did was use a Photoshop template already designed and started from there. The book eventually tells you how to create slices and import them to Dreamweaver.
   As for Dreamweaver, it will tell you how to set things up in DW after you've sliced things up in PS. Again, its pretty much basic stuff. Although if you don't know much about DW, the book does a good job in pointing the reader in the right direction. However, again, I think the books lacks a bit of creativity because it doesn't tell you how to do a lot once you've got it in DW. I'm proficient in DW and so was able to do what I wanted to do. That is, add forms, hotspots, etc. However, for the person that doesn't know much HTML or no HTML at all, they will probably be left with the empty feeling that they haven't accomplished much because you may be wondering what to do next once you've got your slices in DW.
   Overall, its a good book. I think I know a lot more about PS than I did before reading this book.



4. This is my third book from Friends of ED (Apress). I also own Flash MX Most Wanted and Photoshop 7 Professional Photographic Techniques. Each friendsof Ed book is packed with useful, easy to understand information and links to download support files. All their books are well organized with easy to follow steps and plenty of screenshots/illustrations.
   The book takes you through the steps of building and publishing a complete web site. From initial planning to uploading and updating the completed site.
   The first chapter gives you tips on how to plan for your site, such as deciding who your target audience will be and layout/navigation of the site. You'll then start to build a site using Photoshop and Imageready. Some of the things you'll do is create a textured background with some filtered effects like motion blur. You then start blocking out the main areas of your site. They also show you how to use layer styles and custom shapes to enhance your website.
   One of the most important steps when building a web site is slicing and optimizing your site. Photoshop to Dreamweaver does an excellent job explaining and demonstrating how to slice your page properly. They go into great detail to make sure the reader understands how and why optimizing your images is important.
   The chapter(s) on Dreamweaver was awesome. They do a great job at taking a novice designer and explaining how to define your site. The screenshots of different palettes in Dreamweaver was very helpful too. I especially liked the fact they dedicated several pages to CSS.
   To finish out the book, friendsof Ed leave you with some useful advanced tips for both Photoshop and Dreamweaver.
   I would have liked to seen some different looks/situations when slicing the site and a chapter for troubleshooting when things don't quite go as planned. Overall the book is very good. I really like how you have the exercise files so you can work along with each chapter. I give the book a strong 4 out of 5 stars and suggest anyone who isn't quite sure of how to tie the two programs together; Photoshop to Dreamweaver is for you. Even those who have used the two programs would find this book helpful. It's well worth the time to read this book.
   
   Ernest Phillips
   Member, D-MAG.org



5. This is my third book from Friends of ED (Apress). I also own Flash MX Most Wanted and Photoshop 7 Professional Photographic Techniques. Each friendsof Ed book is packed with useful, easy to understand information and links to download support files. All their books are well organized with easy to follow steps and plenty of screenshots/illustrations.
   The book takes you through the steps of building and publishing a complete web site. From initial planning to uploading and updating the completed site.
   The first chapter gives you tips on how to plan for your site, such as deciding who your target audience will be and layout/navigation of the site. You'll then start to build a site using Photoshop and Imageready. Some of the things you'll do is create a textured background with some filtered effects like motion blur. You then start blocking out the main areas of your site. They also show you how to use layer styles and custom shapes to enhance your website.
   One of the most important steps when building a web site is slicing and optimizing your site. Photoshop to Dreamweaver does an excellent job explaining and demonstrating how to slice your page properly. They go into great detail to make sure the reader understands how and why optimizing your images is important.
   The chapter(s) on Dreamweaver was awesome. They do a great job at taking a novice designer and explaining how to define your site. The screenshots of different palettes in Dreamweaver was very helpful too. I especially liked the fact they dedicated several pages to CSS.
   To finish out the book, friendsof Ed leave you with some useful advanced tips for both Photoshop and Dreamweaver.
   I would have liked to seen some different looks/situations when slicing the site and a chapter for troubleshooting when things don't quite go as planned. Overall the book is very good. I really like how you have the exercise files so you can work along with each chapter. I give the book a strong 4 out of 5 stars and suggest anyone who isn't quite sure of how to tie the two programs together; Photoshop to Dreamweaver is for you. Even those who have used the two programs would find this book helpful. It's well worth the time to read this book.
   
   Ernest Phillips
   Member, D-MAG.org

5 comments about VB .NET for Developers (Sams White Book).

1. I am an intermediate VB programmer. I was a little frustrated reading this book. The book didn't cover much and the explanations were not very clear. I also thought the author did not use a common sense approach of explaining complex ideas by using simple examples. He went the other way.

   A better book is vb.net codenotes.




2. I have been prograaming VB for nine years now and consider myself to be intermediate to advanced. This book simply does not cover the new VB.net in sufficient details. New methods and properties are not explained whilst dealing with other new methods or properties. A good exmaple is the string class. This is not explained, just used, when giving a code example. Also, the examples are incorrect, in many places. I went to the website ... and they hadn't even bothered to correct the code there.
   I'm sure there must be better books out by now. If



3. The trouble with most books on technologies like .NET is they try to be all things to all people, and end up being either too shallow or far too long.

   This book is a very welcome exception. This is how technical books should be written: no messing about, no unnecessary repetition, but all the material is covered clearly in about 250 pages. A very clear target audience (experienced VB6 developers), and clear objectives help - the book's intention is clearly to communicate the essentials, and the practitioner will then get more detail from other sources. It's one of the few books of its type which can be read from cover to cover.

   The book isn't perfect: I spotted a few proof-reading errors (in an early copy based on the Beta version of VS.NET); some examples are a little difficult to follow, and some topics inevitably rather sketchy.

   However, I can thoroughly recommend this book, although I suggest that the serious VB developer will probably need other volumes as well: I also purchased "ASP.NET for Developers" by Amundsen & Litwin, and "The Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to the .NET Framework Class Library" by Powers & Snell, both in the same series from Sams.




4. I used this book as a preparation for the Beta exam. It was pretty useless. It has many typographical and code errors such that it looks like it was thrown together at short notice. With at least one chapter, the technical content very questionable. Very much a rush job in my opinion.



5. I stopped reading not even half way through. The author gives an overview for the chapter that explains quite a bit about each topic. Then, when the topic is revisited, basically states the same as was covered in the overview. As a result, the book could have been a lot shorter without the redundancy makig it even more expensive per page of real content than other reviewers have noted.

2 comments about Rapid Application Development with Visual Basic 6.

1. Easy to read with instructive examples. Great for beginners to Visual Basic who want to learn how to do meaty tasks like develop ActiveX controls, DLL's etc. Has a good overview of file and database programming and a nice introduction to classes. I would recommend this book to readers who have done their first "21 days" level book and want to move on to the next level.



2. This is a nice book for those new to VB who want to go beyond the standard beginner's book. It uses the understandable style of a beginner's book to clarify several advanced problems of practical importance. The book presents many easy to understand examples of difficult tasks like creating ActiveX controls or DLL files. Database programming and SQL are covered well with instructive examples. The author explains most aspects of VB, always in a clear and straightforward style leaving the impression of one who has long mastered VB. I particularly enjoyed the step by step instructions for creating your own setup package. Overall this is a good way for beginners to move on to the next level.

3 comments about Visual Basic 4 Enterprise: Client/Server Development.

1. Visual Basic 4 Enterprise covers just about every aspect of building three-tier Client/Server systems with Visual Basic. Each tier is discussed in detail from design to implementation. OLE Automation is also discussed at length. This book should be read by anyone developing enterprise level applications with Visual Basic.



2. This was one of the first books on really developing 3 tiered apps with VB 4. The author is working on an update expected to be out late this year(98). (After reading some of the reviews of Jenning's book on MTS; I wish this author could kick this one out the door a little sooner. (Since the update will include MTS which the original book did not. But one problem expressed by readers of Jennings book was the fact that it was almost like a beta. The author wanted it to hit the beach first with MTS 2.0 info and therefore lacked depth and through examples. So I guess I can understand the wait on Goren's new edition; since it is rumored that the wait is to make sure the book provides complete in depth coverage of VB5/N tiered deveopment with MTS.)



3. This book should be a required text for all programmers intending to become developers!!! It bridges the chasm between programming and large systems development. It accurately describes the problems encountered in industrial strength Enterprise development and presents methods to resolve those problems. It then provides excellent examples to illustrate each point. I am not aware of any another book that explains this process in such pragmatic fashion. I can't wait for an updated version, but until then, Eventhough a little outdated, this is still the best software development book around.

No comments about Excel 2003 Programacion con VBA / Excel 2003 Power Programming With VBA (Programacion / Programming).

5 comments about Mathematical Algorithms in Visual Basic for Scientists & Engineers (Programming Tools for Scientists & Engineers).

1. I bought this book because it includes a source disk and I did'nt want to reinvent the wheel in BASIC. What a drag to debug this code to get the calculations correct. It would have been faster for me to write it up from scratch!

   There are no meaningful comments in the code nor any clue in the text.

   A complete waste of time and money.




2. Before using algorithms one should check code first. Otherwise pretty nice solutions. Recommendable for reading.



3. Too many code errors and very little help on how to correct them. The theory behind the code is extremely sketchy. Hence, the main reason to buy this book would be the included diskette containing the mathematical algorithms, but those too are erroneous. Suggest writing routines for oneself rather than investing in this book.



4. Exactly the algorithms I need and wanted. Unfortunately, the VB forms were shipped in binary form and can not be used with VB 6, which is what I have. What a bummer to have the code, but be unable to use it.



5. Since all the source code is available on the accompanying disk, this is an overall hard to find reference for those looking for technical programming. The procedures may need some editing depending on the specific application. Recommended!

No comments about Developing .NET Custom Controls and Designers Using Visual Basic .NET (Second Edition).

5 comments about Enterprise Application Architecture with VB, ASP and MTS.

1. In a nutshell Moniz puts forth a great concept, but plan on using your own implementation. Read on for the details. When I first read this book I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. I was elated that someone had an architecture that supported just about everything my users were asking for. Then we implemented, or tried to anyway. The code generated by his 'Object Factory' was poorly commented and dismally formated. It uses older ODBC, and improperly uses CreateObject() when the components are supposed to be built to take advantage of MTS. (You must use CreateInstance() to keep your components in the same context) He is also passing whole user-defined objects across process boundaries instead of serializing the data. Incredible performance hit! Still enamored with the concept I converted it to ADO and fixed the MTS errors, thinking that I would just copy this cleaned-up project over and over and edit it to support new objects. Man, was that ever complicated! So, now I'm in my third iteration (and last) of trying to implement this architecture by partitioning the functionality into separate components. In theory, this redisign should work better, and be much simpler than his implementation. (Maybe I'll write a book with my version.) ;^)>



2. Even as a non-VB programmer I got some great ideas from this book, such as the implicit pattern for implementing auditable entities and dynamic property lists in SQL Server. The (perhaps too long) introductory material on "farms" (distribution and components) had me yelling "Yes!" out loud. But, I found the organization of the book befuddling at times, and thought some of the methods and advice weren't as universal as they sounded. Look at this as one man's well-refined method for delivering a broad, but not universal, class of applications on the VB/MTS/ASP/SQL Server platform. Was worth my time. Thanks Mr. Moniz!



3. This book is mainly impressive but also, as some other reviewers mentionned, lacking some content.

   The great thing is that it does go over some quite good VB code example for reusable applications. I would say that about 40-45% of this book is to "learn and understand" how to THINK about reusable component while most of the rest is for the actual VB code that does it (and some leftovers for win32 & web interfaces).

   Indeed, it takes, at the least, an interesting position on Business Logic where he is mainly putting this logic on the data tier but I could agree that in some cases, it could be beneficial.

   As a .NET reviewer, I have to take special care about books that I'm now reading on VB6 code. This book can easily be migrated to the VB.NET syntax mainly because it's the thinking of the book rather than the actual code. Most or all of the ideas are available with VB.NET but the code will obviously needs some changes in order to accomodate ADO.NET, COM+ Application (somewhat really different than what we are used to with VB6), and some syntax modifications that came along with VB.NET.

   Even though there is this "issue" about Business Rules, this book remains an impressive reading about Enterprise Application ARCHITECTURE.




4. This book covers comprehensively how to create a system that allows you to add, edit, retrieve, undo changes on a distributed system.
   You will need to tread carefully in adopting this systems because nothing is offered to effectively analyse the system. How to do you effectively form queries against the large number of tables generated? OLAP has been fleetingly mentioned as a new book but to date I have not seen any hint of it coming out.
   What also is left out is the source code to the code generator the author has created. It would even be worthwhile buying, but you cannot. Therefore you are stuck with what is offered unless you are prepared to spend hours creating your own.
   In summary, interesting concepts but you might drown in the complexity of the system



5. There is so much muck covering the gems that the proposed architecture never becomes clear. Too much, "Okay, now I'm going to tell you..." "Next chapter I'm going to tell you..." If this book had a good rewritting and an editor, it could have been a worthwhile effort. Also, the focus is split between how to set the physical architecture (how many computers, etc) and how to write general purpose business objects that in theory could be used by many unrelated departments, and split again into how what essentially is making objects suitable for automatic code generation. This book needs to be split into maybe three refocused books, and needs a chainsaw to chop out the wordiness.