Web Books

The DOM these days is available in a multitude of programming languages and environments. Not so many people have the knowledge to properly handle the topic, moving back and forward across different languages and implementations, Joe Marini is definitely one of the few. As a matter of fact this is the first book ever available on the subject, and long awaited one! Joe covers much more than just DOM programming for browsers and the books contains a few gems like coverage of Xerces, Dreamweaver's API, generic DOM algorithms and a dedicated chapter on the future of DOM. A must have for anyone doing sophisticated client-side programming for web browsers, this book will be also very useful to anyone dealing with the DOM in any other environment

I have a great deal of interest in the document object model, as it is the basis of HTML and XML documents. Anyone interested in working with HTML, XML, DHTML in an advanced way should read this book and learn from it. This isn't a book for people with a passing interest in slapping together Web pages in Front Page, but it will give you a solid knowledge of the advanced topics of DOM manipulation using JavaScript.

The book starts with some solid theory and explanation of the DOM API, but quickly moves to some practical examples, such as some useful debugging tools, and some HTML interface components (popup menus, in-place list editing) which will get you off on the right foot thinking about how you can implement your own interface elements. That's really the strongest aspect of the book -- getting you to think in new ways.

I read through this book in detail, and I must say that I learned a lot about the DOM that I had previously glossed over. The DOM spec is much more powerful and interesting than what most folks assume. This book gives you insights on building real-world applications using the DOM, as well as helping to deal with cross-browser issues. As I said, it's a great resource for both web developers and web-based application developers.

This book rightfully deserves 5 stars. Is it revolutionary in the sense of "unleashing" DOM? No. If you love reading HTML documentation you can get pretty much the same scope at the W3C site (which the author himself acknowledges). It is more of a wake-up call for web developers.

The ideas presented in the book are very elegant which makes them very valuable. The author explains subtle and obvious differences in the DOM support as implemented by different browser vendors. It has been of great help in my work since I read this book.

Part III alone ("Practical Uses of the DOM") is worth the time and money for its real-life applications of DOM!

I have only read about half of the book so far and already I have used many of the tips and scripts. All the scripts mentioned in the book are available online so you don't have do all that typing. Many of the hacks are not really hacks, but tips and recommendations on how to do things.
The only minor complain I have is that the book references other chapters, but you have to go back to the Table of Contents to find the page number for the chapter. I think each page should have the current chapter number on it.
Each page does have the hack number on it so it makes it easy to find a hack without going back to the table of contents.

If you use eBay (as a buyer or seller), this is the "user's manual" or best practices guide that should be part of your signup... eBay Hacks by David A. Karp.

Contents: Diplomacy and Feedback; Searching; Bidding; Selling; Working with Photos; Completing Transactions; Running a Business on eBay; The eBay API; Index

Most Hacks titles consist of 100 tips and tricks related to the subject matter being discussed. In eBay Hacks, you get an extra 25 for your money. What a deal! :-) Regardless of whether you're a complete newbie to eBay or you actually run an eBay storefront, you'll find things in here that will save you time and money on a regular basis. Reading the chapter and hacks on feedback, I learned that there are ways to prevent negative feedback even after it's been given. Since so much of who you are on eBay relates directly back to your feedback rating, this can be a critical factor in getting buyers to trust you (or others to sell to you). The chapter on bidding went into the act of "sniping", or bidding at the last second, so that you can stand a much better chance of not being overbid at the last second. I didn't realize there are third-party services that will do this for you automatically. No wonder I've lost some things I really thought I had nailed. Karp even goes into how best to compose photos that will draw people to your auction rather than send them away for something that looks more appealing.

Obviously, you can use eBay without this book and information. I'm sure you'll do fine. But the first time you find an auction miscategorized (because you were looking for that condition) and you launch a bidding strategy that gets you the deal of a lifetime for next to nothing, you'll wonder why you waited so long. Good stuff here...

Author: David A. Karp

Description:
eBay Hacks by David A. Karp
Published by O'Reilly ISBN 059610068X
Reviewed by Jim Lauria-HuNTUG member

From the introduction: "Essentially, you'll find in this book the tools to help you trade smarter and safer, make more money, and have fun doing it."

This second edition-revised and updated to June 2005-provides the eBayer with tips and tools (aka hacks) for successful bidding, buying and selling on the premier online auction web site.

I found the hacks provided by the author to be extremely helpful and informative, easy to use and understand. As a long time eBay seller I had become complacent with the tools and techniques which I had been using for months or even years. This book has given me new ideas and approaches to make my eBay business better.

Karp provides clever shortcuts and powerful tools to do all sorts of neat things like create better titles, listings and descriptions to fancier photographs (Hack 74) and even how to cultivate a good reputation and protect yourself and your $ (Hacks 25 & 85). He also provides warnings about your safety, privacy and money matters.

Included is a chapter on eBay's Application Programming Interface, XML, Perl, PHP and RSS and development of custom software apps that can be worked in to one's own business apps and can also be passed along to others-hey maybe even for a small fee!

The book is well written with plenty of photos, screen shots and lots of code to get you up and buying/selling in quick fashion. 438 pages that read through really quickly and are packed with plenty of good stuff.

I would recommend this title for anyone-novice or pro-who is or would like to make or save some money using eBay or just to have some fun while selling your wares. The book lists for $24.95-less online.

I give this one 5 stars.

One of my favorite activities in my spare time is buying and selling on eBay. It has quickly become the world's largest virtual mall of just about everything you can possibly think of. When I received this book I was eager to learn some of the "tricks of the trade" and found a lot of useful material, albeit some of it is geared towards power sellers and not the average user.

The book itself is packed with 125 "hacks" for eBay, which can range from the basics (leaving feedback) to the more complex (setting up your own online check-out). A lot of the hacks give you tweaks and twists on the normal way of doing things, or take a task and show you a different, sometimes a little more dynamic, way of doing it.

Some of the more advanced topics will only be feasible if you are a powerseller. The author covers a lot of third-party tools as well, which can quickly run into the big dollars if you are just selling a few things each week. However, there is a fair amount of material devoted to the mom and pop sellers, like many of us are. One of the shining points of this book is that it does show you how to do a lot of tricks yourself if you are willing to roll up your sleeves and play around with Perl.

However, the book is for more than just sellers. A lot of tips are there for buyers as well. Such things as how to snipe effectively, and how to take advantage of bid increments in the auction to get the item for the lowest price. Even though the author is writing for both parties, the buyer and seller, he does a good job of not taking advantage of one over.

A few of the topics he covers can be a bit controversial, depending on how you look at it. Things such as withholding feedback and sniping can be frowned upon by some -- but it is all perfectly legal in the world of eBay and the author tells you how to take advantage of it.

Overall, a good book for those who want to get more out of eBay than just the casual buyer/seller. If you want to kick-start your eBay selling career, this is one of the books you will want to have to help guide you; Whereas if you want to learn the tricks of the buying game, you couldn't have picked a better reference manual.

The inevitability of more publications being distributed via eBook format is pretty well conceded by any expert familiar with the dollar and time benefits of ePublishing. How soon we start seeing titles in eBook format, which subjects they cover, and which format version becomes the accepted standard depends on how easily the issues are understood and the techniques for creating eBooks explained.
"ePublishing for Dummies" makes a major contribution in that advancement. The more publishers, technical writers, and budding authors read and apply the topics covered by this book, the sooner ePublishing will take off. ePublishing does not spell the end of paper books... it simply offers another delivery medium for published content - superior for many readers. Thank you Victoria for making writing and ePublishing approachable.
ePublishing is not for the faint at heart, it is still "early adopters" territory. But this book does provide credibility, easy-to-use instructions, information, and insight - and that's a start!

Incredible resource guide for publishing your book in electronic form.

I wanted to write my own eBook and 'ePublishing for Dummies' helped me through the process every step of the way. This great 'Dummies' guide showed me just what to do, with easy-to-use instructions and smart tips, now I can publish my own titles! Not only was the book helpful, Victoria Rosenborg is funny and I enjoyed reading her work!

I've been waiting for ages for a book to come along that makes sense of this new technology, and ePublishing for Dummies does it! Ms. Rosenborg has a real knack for taking confusing, technical information and making it easy-to-understand and even fun to learn about. EPublishing is really a revolution that allows "the rest of us" to manage, publish, market, and package all kinds of written material into this exciting new medium, and ePublishing for Dummies offers the tools to enable us to do it. This book teaches you exactly what you need to know to make the most of ePublishing. A great resource!

If you have ever thought of a feature request for Flash then this book is for you. It teaches you how to make your own! Flash MX 2004 is in the title but it's just as useful for Flash 8. This book is worth the price just for the JSFL reference alone.

This book has gone under the radar based upon its title. It truly does not explain what this book can teach you.

Basically it teaches the basic Flash user that you can extend what Flash normally does for you in its normal authoring environment. Like create new drawing tools, create commands that perform complex real-time tasks instantly (similiar to custom macros), create custom user interfaces, add timeline effects (scripted tweens) to any object, and create scripted behaviors (prebuilt code components) to help almost automate your Flash development.

If your an exisiting Flash developer who knows how code with ActionScript and needs a way to streamline your development environment and development time, this is a book you shouldn't pass up.

If you are an advanced Flash user, Extending Flash MX 2004 may be just the right book for you. Written by veteran Flash developers Keith Peters (bit-101) and Todd Yard (ego7), this book introduces you to the world of extending Flash MX 2004 by teaching you how to create custom functions and features for the Flash MX 2004 authoring environment.

At first I had never heard about 'Extending' Flash MX 2004, but hopefully my following explanation may help you to understand this concept if you are new to this term. Imagine Flash MX 2004 being a customizable browser such as Firefox. In Firefox, you can download snippets of programs called extensions that add some cool, extra features to your browser. Creating new extensions for Flash MX 2004 is similar to developing extensions for your browser. Using a new language called JavaScript Flash (JSFL), you have the ability to create scripts, commands, behaviors, etc. that add new functionality to not a Flash animation, but to your actual Flash MX 2004 application itself.

This book teaches you how to use JavaScript Flash to create extensions - custom commands, menu items, and others things to help make repetitive tasks easier and enhance your Flash MX 2004 program. You start with the basics and progress towards complicated techniques. Early on you start by creating a command that, for example, allows you to take any shape and automatically arrange them on a user-defined grid. Towards the end, you move beyond simple commands and learn how to modify Behaviors, create custom interfaces using XML, and more!

Another great feature of this book is the expansive JavaScript Flash (JSFL) reference. The JSFL reference section contains all of the various items of the JSFL language that you can refer to when creating your own JSFL extensions. For any JSFL code item or property, you will find a description, the types of values it accepts, and a code example.

If you use Flash MX 2004 extensively and are interested in automating some of the repetitive tasks or adding new, useful features to Flash, you will find this book's coverage of this new topic excellent for intermediate and advanced users.

Keith and Todd command a huge knowledge of one of the more interesting and productive new features of Flash MX 2004, extensibility. The authors guide you on your way to learning about these new features starting off with easy concepts and then moving into more specific areas. This book is essential for anyone who develops with Flash MX 2004, the skills and tools that you get from the book will streamline your work flow and improve your productivity. From JSFL commands, xml to UI, custom behaviors and custom tools this book will load your Flash IDE with tools and widgets to get the job done faster and smoother. Excellent book!

Great reference book. I think every function and aspect of FW is in here! I have already found out a lot of new things about FW from this book! Lots of great ideas too! There are not many FW 4 Books available, but this one is definitely worth a look!

Great reference book. I think every function and aspect of FW is in here! I have already found out a lot of new things about FW from this book! Lots of great ideas too! There are not many FW 4 Books available, but this one is definitely worth a look!

I think anyone serious about Fireworks needs this Bible as a reference source. The index is excellent for looking up quick answers. Its a bit "design" challenged and if you have version 3 the major portion of the illustrations are the same.

You could learn Fireworks with this book if you are patient or have a lot of time, but its better suited as a reference book. The layout and order of things don't flow like a step by step, beginners book.

Don't get me wrong, this is an excellant book with a wealth of information. If you are looking for inspirational design ideas then this isn't it. There are some more advanced topics such as customizing Fireworks and a chapter on integrating Fireworks with Dreamweaver. Good value for the money. If you want to find info quick, this book fits the bill.

I highly recommend this book! I like the way the author didn't waste my time trying to include little jokes to spice up the text. Every feature was covered in complete detail. I read the book from cover to cover and immediately became a master at using Fireworks 4. Previously, I had been using photoshop to make my web images and effects but since reading this bible book I haven't touched Photoshop. Fireworks is a great program and if you want to learn all of its capabilities then you should own and read the Fireworks 4 Bible.

Its for a very niche audience, technology marketers, technology product managers, technology online marketers. Especially if you're in the telecommunications industry.

Great writing style, quick read, essential reading if you fit into the targeted audience.

This is a great book for light reading or serious investigation.
Even though the book is specifically targeted for technology products, the ideas and concepts apply equally well to any product that is being developed with a general audience in mind.

You dont need to be creating a product to purchase this book.

This book was great and gives concrete examples and projections about the abandonment rate of users. This book could be helpful across a range of industries, and I find it of particular relevance for website design.

Too many webmasters/product designers forget about the end user, and in this book the authors layout specific fallacies ("myths") and prescribe a better way of approaching development.

It's a quick read, but invaluable!

This is a specific book for a specific market, but if you do create any type of consumer-touching tech product--from hardware or software to websites, blogs (like mine [...]) and any type of e-commerce--it's a real Godsend. I devoured this one in an evening and a morning, interrupted only by a night's sleep...where I dreamt about the multiple raminfications this could have on my mobile entertainment business. Breezily written in a style so real-world and friendly that it's accessible to a wide audience, but after getting to know Smethers and France in print, I would suspect that cutting a wide swath through the book-buying public would just serve to disprove the theory they build so convincingly. These guys are bright, concise and relevant, and demystify a process that even many of tech's big boys have trouble dealing with. Mark me down as a "Power User" of the Five Myths.

I didnt buy this book to learn about flash coding, or web development. I bought this book because I am interested in Software rendered graphics. That is, applications that dont utalize OpenGL or Direct 3D for rendering to the screen. I bought this book for the techniques it discusses in "faking" 3d, and also producing real 3d. So far it has done a perfect job in giving me ideas and techniques that I can use in my applications. For anybody interested in producing anything that is real time, and 3d, I would reccomend this book.

This is the best book I have read in years! If you know the basics of ActionScript and you know sine and cosine, this book opens up whole dimensions of possibilities for both games and business applications of Flash.

It is clearly written and reads more smoothly than most programming books. While it does assume a basic literacy with ActionScript, it does not leave you flailing with complex 3D concepts. You may have to pull out your definitions of sine and cosine, but beyond that, it is pretty light lifting.

The genious of the book is that it violates commmon assumptions, and this results in simple, elegant techniques that are also powerful for a wide range of problems. The common assumption is that Flash doesn't do 3D. Don't believe it anymore. If you are willing to use some basic limitations to your application (such as keeping your polygon count down), you can have some smoothly flowing, useful 3D applications with relatively little effort. And unless I'm mistaken, those applications will run equally well on a browser running on a Mac, Windows or Linux.

The solutions are simple and eclectic. The authors have created a variety of 3D engines - each optimized for a given purpose. The engines are simple enough that (in theory) you can take the source and enhance it to your needs. Each technique is backed up by source code that you can download from the publisher's web site. But don't shortchange yourself with only the sample code - the explanations in the text are worth the cost of the paper book.

Here are my favorite techniques:

* ch 8 (P 195) - Drawing API and Math for 3D - here they explain and provide a working polygon 3D engine. The demos work smoothly (at least 20-30 frames per second) on my cheap Dell laptop. The demos include a oragami bird and a rocket ship with at least 10-20 polgons each. It doesn't support bitmapped textures, but it does offer fill color and shading support.

* ch 9 - 3D Slice Engine - this is the more clever, powerful and non-obvious technique of the book. Check out "dad.swf" in the binary samples from the web site to get an idea of the power of this approach - the author has made a 3D talking head of his father from a photograph! The idea here is that if you can view your 3D world as a topographical map, then you can model it with a set of parallel planes, where each plane represents a certain cut through the entire 3D model. This approach, though not immediately intuitive, is extremely powerful in Flash because it plays on the strenghths of Flash. Each plane is represented by two "movieclip" objects, with one embedded in the other. The first one handles scaling, and the second handles rotation, within the scaled clip. The hidden surface problem is finessed because the planes are parallel - so you only reverse the rendering order once every 180 degrees of change in viewer angle. This enables you to handle full bitmap detail of your scenes, and the result is pretty dazzling! The basic rendering engine requires only about 50 lines of ActionScript!

* Ch 6 - Parallax Scrolling - This name is misleading - it really goes beyond a scrolling 2D game model. In the Wyvern's Claw" example, it explores the idea of building a 3D world like a movie set - with a set of strategically placed flat surfaces (like the fronts of buildings in the studio sets). Each surface is a movieclip, and your script manages the proper scaling and shading as the viewer moves through. The demo then shows an animated walk-through of a small town rendering in such a way. This seems very cool for a potential game.

I'm already using the Chapter 9 slice engine for a work-related project - multidimensional data browsing. So for me, the book was not only stimulating to read but valuable!

TOC:

Chapter 1 Introduction to Flash 3D
Chapter 2 Light and Shadow
Chapter 3 Scaling for 3D
Chapter 4 Isometric 3D
Chapter 5 Focus and Depth of Field
Chapter 6 Parallax Scrolling
Chapter 7 Text Effects in 3D Space
Chapter 8 Drawing API and Math for 3D
Chapter 9 3D Slice Engine
Chapter 10 Departure Lounge: Moving beyond Flash 3D

Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 10 don't require a trigonometry
background. One of Chapter 6 topics uses XML though.

The best chapters for me were 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6.

I gave the book 5 stars because it has something for everyone.
Some people use Flash to create digital art while others use it
for practical purposes. This book delivers to both people.
Unfortunately, I belong to the latter kind and some of the topics
aren't for me.

I also think that some chapters are impractical unless you're
really a math geek. For example, I think Chapter 8 - Drawing
API and Math for 3D -- is unnecessary because you can import
Swift 3D files.

Some of the authors also show you Actionscript without really
explaining what it does (I think they assume you do know trig).
I work for a software engineering firm (not as an engineer
though) but I do know that it's bad practice to embed magic
numbers -- literals that don't have apparent meaning -- in
any code. It's better to put them in constants.

One of the authors (the Chapter 4 author I think) said to get
a good book on trigo. I don't think I will because there are
plenty of free trigo tutorials on the web. I agree though that
to get the most out of Flash and this book, learning trigo is a
must.

This has to be about the best book I have ever seen. The 3D cheats in it are amazing -- and you surely wouldn't know you were cheating. There are some incredibly insightful techniques, and some more staple things if you're not quite steady on your feet yet.

I think I am, but this book showed me how much more there was to know!

a great book for any flash student with superb examples . a must for anyone connected to computers..

This is a quite thorough book that picks up where Mohler's intro book leaves off. It's written as if a Flash instructor literally transcribed his class presentations, which is good and bad. Explanations are long, but at times are wordy and dull. It will remind you at times of tedious homework assignments and drills. There is quite a bit of slogging through pages with only two or three long paragraphs with no Flash code. That's not bad, but it's a sign that an editor probably could have tightened up the writing here.

Also, these authors need to lighten up and learn to write! The tone they take is often "academic", with all the snobbiness and overuse of big words and long sentences that comes with that. Often it's clear that one or the other of the two authors has written a particular passage--and there are some awful clunkers there. Better instructors and writers strive for a more human, friendly tone.

Also, there are coding techniques that seem to me not to reflect current or common Flash coding practice, like the frequent use of the eval() function and the set() function (which I've *never* seen other advanced Flash authors use).

One good thing: the two long projects in the book are kind of neat, definately better than in some other big Flash books.

I'm a beginning flash user, and I picked this book up as a follow up to Mohler's first book. Even though it explores advanced scripting, the explanations are clear enough for beginners like myself to understand. I actually understand OOP because of the great dog class example. There are some really great examples on the cd-rom. It's so helpful to have an actual Flash file to play with, so I can see exactly how it works.

I bought this book a couple of weeks ago and I love it. It has tons of examples in the CD. It is a great book to learn complex actionscripting.

This is a great book enjoyed it thoroughly. He explains everything in a simple manner and all the online examples he gives work perfectly. I continue to reference the book now. He also has a great forum which i posted a question on and he replied within hours. Great buy worth every penny.

Luke

The information in this very specific book can help you increase the effectiveness of your Web efforts and gain better visibility among the Web search results on Google and other search engines. David Viney shares his expertise in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in helpful detail. Have you wondered if you need professional input in this area? Read here to find out how expert guidance, copywriting, site design and Web master services can supplement your efforts, and boost your visibility and sales. Viney explains how to assess your current results. He tells you how to make sure your Web page appears among search results in productive positions, but he doesn't overpromise about what you can accomplish. Much of his information is quite detailed and technical, but relatively accessible and applicable. However, it is somewhat vulnerable to becoming outdated, in places, if Google alters its current parameters. getAbstract expects future editions to handle that little problem quite nicely.

I have read numerous books on SEO over the last six months and always felt as though I had a slightly better understanding than when I started. No great leaps. I would be run through the regular tips and general concepts all these books cover. This book goes into great detail and handles the issues that have plagued me all along the path. It brings to rest the issues that have caused me to suffer in the SERPS due to a limited understanding of relevant SEO strategies. If I had this book many months ago, I would have clearly saved myself a lot of struggle, lost PageRank, Google penalties and other misunderstandings.

Thank You David! This is JUST what I have been searching for. I started to read an SEO bible just a few days ago and see no reason to even finish it. The great thing about this book vs. forums and SEO sites is its laid out in a logical order. One is able to make sense of things in chronological order rather than have to make rumors and random website readings into some kind of methodology.

I hope anyone looking for the missing pieces to the SEO puzzle comes across this book... just as long as they're not in my industry!

I hope to see this books fellow readers on the official forum site!!!

I love how new technologies also breed experts to help us understand and guide us through their complexities. David Viney calls himself "The SEO Expert". So, what is SEO? It is Search Engine Optimization. That is, how can your company make the best use of marketing to your customers using search engines, in this case Google. Since 84% of all people doing searches on the web never get past the second page of search results, it makes sense to do what you can to get your web pages as close to the top as possible.

Viney is very clear about the work involved and the kinds of businesses that do best in these efforts. He provides a seven step process to help you optimize the trade-offs you face in trying to get seen in the Google search results pages.

The first step is to get the right words and phrases. But for whom? You have to first decide what you can best sell and provide over the web and who those customers are. It isn't everything to everyone. He provides the D-A-D process where you make a list (a long list) of keywords and keyphrases. This is supposed to be a laundry list of as many possible keywords and phrases that you can think of. Then you winnow them down to the very best and most relevant items on that list, and put them in your pages in the right way.

The second step takes you through the process Google uses to discover and rank your pages (a very cursory explanation) and how you need to design and arrange your web pages to "court the crawl" of Googlebot. Step 3 is about priming your pages and discusses the difference between Google's main and supplemental indexes and how to tell which of your pages is in which index. Viney also warns you off certain popular practices that may well get you penalized by Google.

Step 4 is all about developing high quality links using content, relationships with web content providers, and avoiding penalties from developing too many cheap links too quickly. The fifth step examines the trade-offs of paid advertising on Google, its dangers, benefits, and when it is likely to be more effective for you. I like Viney's honesty about the need for experienced and high quality web copywriters. You can waste a lot of money with the wrong ads that attract lots of non-customers. You also need to have great web designs for the customers you attract to land on and will help convert them from someone browsing to the web into purchasing customers.

Step 6 talks about getting your site ready today for the mapping and geographic technologies that are rising and will likely be part of everyone's web experience soon. Step 7 talks about the tools Google and others provide to help you track and analyze your web traffic.

A useful book that doesn't require you to be very technical. However you must be able to be somewhat familiar with the argot and jargon of the web to get through this stuff.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

Global Outsourcing with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System is an excellent book and informational resource. The format is easy to follow, intuitive, and simplifies gaining an understanding of both the concept of global outsourcing as well as the software.

Note: This review gives more importance to the processes than the other obvious benefits.

Who should read this book?
- On-site coordinators
- Off-shore managers
- Process managers/Product Managers
- Key people involved in distributed development/outsourcing.

Why this book is useful?
- This book can be used as a process guidance for outsourcing/distributed environment.
- This book clearly identifies the day to day issues of a distributed development environment and gives options on how to mitigate the risks.
- Explains all the possible options on how efficiently VSTS can be used.
- This is very useful not only for the teams using VSTS 2005, but also for any distributed development team as this clearly gives an idea of what processes should be in place. VSTS is an all-in-one tool which helps in making the life easier.
- For companies which do not prefer to use VSTS can also leverage from the processes clearly mentioned in the book and can achieve similar efficiency by using different free tools available in the market.
- The book has shown how to customize the VSTS to suit the specific need along with the code which is very handy and reduces a lot of effort in customizing.
- More importantly, this book is very handy and easily understood by techies and non-techies alike. Non-techies can understand the processes without getting into any technical details.
- Addresses the issues faced by bigger and smaller companies and bigger or smaller teams.

Jamil Azher's GLOBAL OUTSOURCING WITH MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO 2005 TEAM SYSTEM tells how to manage outsourced projects using Visual Studio 2005, which engages developers, project managers and team leads alike. GLOBAL OUTSOURCING takes it examples from the real world also: it examines typical outsource management issues, applications, and problem-solving in a fine technical overview programmers will relish.

This book is indeed about global outsourcing, but it deals with the outsourcing of software not athletic shoes or kitchen ware. Specifically, as you might guess from the title, it concentrates on the use of Microsoft's Team System version of Visual Studio 2005. Other Microsoft products such as Project and Excel from the Office suite are also shown as a part of an integrated management system.

There is little question tht outsourcing is here to stay. The cost savings are simply to great to be ignored. A programmer with a few years of experience in the US is paid an average of $55K, in India $15K, and in China $9K.

There is also no question that outsourcing brings its own problems in terms of management, control and especially communications. Many of these problems are specifically discussed in the book, and it goes on to show that the Microsoft tools can assist in these areas. The tools will not, of course, guarantee success but they may help to make a project a success.