Applications Books

In the short time I have had this book I have found it not only to answer my questions but give me clear and concise information.

I had Photoshop Elements for about a year - until this book I was unable to use it effectively. Scott Kelby does a great job walking through the myriad features and functionality! Instructions are clear and easy to follow. Would definitely buy again!

I have found this book easy to understand and follow. Instructions take the material step by step to a conclusion. The subject matter is easy to locate thru its index.

One of the best "how to" books I've ever bought. Every step is detailed, taking the reader to the finest final product.

I bought this manual for my 13 year old daughter, so she can get more out of her new digital camera. She and her friends used the book to manipulate photos they took and they loved it, as they found lots of new and exciting things that can be done with Elements. She found the explanations and the language used very clear and easy. I'm not sure to what 'advanced' level it takes you, but it's definitely great for learning the basics of Photoshop Elements.

This is a terrific book, as good as I've seen for the intermediate user. I'm not a professional but in my opinion, once you've learned the basics, selecting and masking are skills essential for improving your photographs, or whatever type of art you do with Photoshop. This book is a treasure trove of information I've never seen in other books or in tutorials from the web. And I even learned how to use the pen tool, something I've only been frustrated with before.

The author uses a unique combination of tutorials (along with sample files from her website) and descriptions of Photoshop features that will help you easily master every technique.

However, I'll warn you. The pages from my copy were falling out when I first received it from Amazon. If I had been willing to ship it back and wait another couple of weeks, I'm sure they would have replaced it. But it was a frustration. I've managed to keep the book intact with a generous application of glue to the pages, but the binding was unacceptable and I doubt my copy was the only one in that condition.

Ms. Eismann hits all the areas necessary for one to become proficient in masking and compositing. She is recommended by all the current photoshop gurus for a very good reason. This book is an excellent primer and also delves into advanced techniques. It's a great resource book and I've got post-it flags everywhere. You can't go wrong with this book.

Debbie Schmidt
dsh Solutions
http://www.dshsolutions.com

The most comprehensive book on selecting, masking and layers. It was easy to read and follow. Adobe Photoshop CS3Photoshop Masking & Compositing (VOICES)

The cost of any book by Katrin Eismann is returned to the reader in value many, many times over. This book is everything the photoshop user needs to know about the sometimes daunting, but now made easy by Katrin, masking and compositing images. Now you can make those tough cut-outs of thin strands of hair against tough backgrounds that you used to run away from before.

Katrin is one of the best and this book continues that tradition!

It's a great book. It gives you a very wide knowlege of how to make masks,selections and compositions.It's easy written and you can download all pictures of the book from the internet.So you can try it yourself wright away.Katrin is a very inspiring person and she makes you very enthousiastic by telling her way of seeing things and the many ways you can make these things happen with photoshop.You really can't wait to start.I thought I knew photoshop but I learn so much more by reading this book and doing it at the same time.

I have used Web Side Story...moved to Omniture....also work with Google Analytics.....This book does a good job of getting away from the mountains of data, to provide a clear cut "THINK ABOUT WHAT THE ANALYTICS MEAN" on a business basis- definitely worth the time investment.

I can consider myself as pretty noobish in the field of web analytics. I know SEO and usability, but web analytics has always been just looking at the number of visitors and pageviews. Until I received this book, because this book is a real eye-opener for the new comers to web analytics. It totally change your way of thinking about what web analytics is and how you can pull the best out of it.

I can't wait to finish it, which costs a lot of time by the way.

And students, you can consider this as a good step up to web analytics with theory plus hands on stuff. Like a real school book you learn everything you need from what to why. More than 400 pages long.

P.S. There is also a cd included with some nice stuff like a presentation from the writer, pdf and mp3 files with valuable information.

If you find yourself stumped with how to improve your website, or don't know where to begin with looking at web statistics, this book has everything. It begins with going through the foundation of what web analysis really is and definitions and explanations of different metrics and how they can be useful. He then goes into detail with different metrics such as bounce rate, segmentation, and some things you probably never considered. It steps you through knowing what analytics tool to use and how to implement it. It has wonderful examples and sample reports that you can tailor to your own company.

This book is very actionable. I can only speak from a beginner's perspective, but this book is easy to follow and has golden nuggets that even experienced web statisticians can take another look at. The highest recommendation possible from me. I will be waiting for another of Avinash's books.

I have read several web analytics books and Avinash's book is definitely the one I would recommend first.

What you can learn from the book:
- how to think about and how to approach web analytics -- this is where this book excels
- how to deliver actionable results - the mantra of Avinash
- how to start with the basic metrics

What not to expect from this book:
- you will not learn how to use any analytics software
- you will not learn details about the technical aspects, frequent problems with data and measurement, what to avoid etc.

Check out Avinash's blog to get a picture of what you can get from the book.

If you buy 'Web Analytics ...' looking for some guidance, or even a few ideas, as to analysis of your internet marketing/sales endeavors, you will be disappointed. This book is about data collection ... nothing more.

To Avinash Kaushik's credit he appears thorough. I did appreciate his flagging the limitations of data collected by the various methods. On the downside the book is repetitive and could have been better ordered. The '... Hour a Day' is appropriate, as that is about all a reader can risk in one sitting. The text makes an arduous read. If better structured, this book could have been half its length.

If I learned one thing, it is this. I'll architect my approach to web analysis, define the data I need, and then recruit an IT type to build the process to collect the data. Having read the book, I now know what data there can be. For this I'm grateful to the author.

All the features of WPF are explained here, with samples and visual codes for your reference. I decided to buy this book and other about Blend 2, but most of my doubts I solved with this edition.
Great book from beginners to experts.

Hey, a programming book in full colour!! WPF Unleashed really does introduce the concepts and details of WPF programming in a clear and easy manner, and Adam Nathan is to be commended for his efforts. Anyone wanting to learn (more) about WPF will benefit from this book.

This is a well written, well structured book.

Full color with good examples and covers a good range of details.

What can I say.. I was looking for a book about WPF. I saw many, and many until I found that one. Then I stopped looking for more :)

On first opening this book you are struck by the beautiful full colour pictures and syntax-highlighted code samples. [Though the experience was slightly marred by the tears and damage to the front cover which occurred during shipping, as was also the case with another book in the order.]

I did a quick flip through and thought... "Beautiful presentation, but the content looks a bit over-simplified. Maybe all the reviewers were seduced by the full colour pages."

Then I started working my way through the book. I was blown away. The writing style is simple and to the point. But it doesn't lack depth. There are indications of the little things that are likely to catch you out, as well as discussions of some pretty advanced topics too.

So, Yay! The content of the book was just as good as the way it was presented, if not better. My only criticism is that in some cases there could have been more code examples.

On the other hand this would probably have made the book very bloated and not as useful as a reference book. There's enough information to point you in the right direction, and from there google will get you to all the code samples you need.

So let O'Reilly do the cookbook style books with lots of code snippets. They do that so well. This book takes a novel approach, and it works brilliantly!

This book is the perfect example of a good "Computer" book: It teaches what it needs to teach in a way you understand.
It covers all the important stuf like BSTRs, Smart Pointers, DCOM, TLBs, IDLs and other buzz-like acronyms.
I used it as an only reference for learning COM and I was doing complex COM projects within weeks. Andrew Troelsen is 'the man'!

Best regards,

I NEVER write reviews; however Mr. Troelsen for this effort has earned it. He has written by far one of the best written tech books on C programming I've ever read, and for COM/ATL this book makes writing interfaces for VB both understandable and accessible. Coverage and background is sufficient, and equally important for those who don't do this every day for a living, the depth in setting up projects in Visual Studio is also there so one unfamiliar with technical setup issues involved in setting up an ATL COM project are enabled to create their own. All I can say is well done, please keep up the good work, very much appreciated. Looking forward to your next releases.

Sincerely,
Dr. Mathew G. Pelletier, Research Engineer

Describe low level COM and then ATL internals and interfaces which can let reader easily understand such complex mechanism. Though the book is a little bit old, it can still be served as a good reference.

Apart from the fact that so many customers gave 5 stars to this book, there's another indicator of its value: it looks like nobody wants to resell it after they are done reading it. I, for one, intend to keep it for reference...

I've been programming in C# for a few years, and now I needed to learn COM. This book was the best tech manual I've ever read.

My recommendation is: if you need to learn COM, do not waste your money on any other book until you've read this one.

My current project at work required me to learn COM. I purchased several books to assist in the learning, and I must say that this book is absolutely indispensible, both as an instructional medium and as a reference. I highly recommend this book to anyone needing to learn about COM.

What's inside? It starts with a basic intro to COM, useful (dare I say it) for managers as well as the developer to get the big picture. Then it goes into a discussion of ATL and design patterns. This second section is incredibly important since ATL is for COM as STL is for C++. It finishes off with some of the more advanced areas of study in COM. Only a few advanced topics are not covered (custom marshalling for one), but considering it starts from an assumed ignorance of COM, it does reach a good level of detail.

Who am I? I studied computer science in University. However, I had never previously developped on Windows. I am primarily a C++ programmer, with some experience with Java. Knowledge of C++ (I would say more than just a familiarity) should be a prereq. to reading, but that's about it. It introduces most OO topics you need in the first chapters that most experienced developers can probably skip.

I bought the first edition of this book called Programming Windows Presentation Foundation (AKA Avalon) at the PDC in 2005 and read it completely on the plane home.

When I heard the second edition was released I didn't think much would have changed, but this is even better than the first edition. It's twice as big and covers all major (and not so major) topics in WPF (inc. an introduction to 3D and Silverlight).

I think this book will proof to be for WPF what Programming Windows, Fifth Edition is for WIN32 programming.

This book is the most in depth resource into WPF i have seen. And not just that, it gets to the good stuff that you'll actually use in your code and not just filler or lists of properties that you can get from intelisense. The examples are extremely useful.

The other benefit of this book is that it doesn't just tell you how to do things, but why. This is incredibly helpful in finding the best solution to your specific problem.

Thanks guys! great book!
Ralph

I say to ignore those reviews because they do not refer to this book. This is the second edition published August 28, 2007 with 863 pages. Those reviews are based off of the first edition published nearly two years before (September 12, 2005) and with only 447 pages.

Using Amazon's 'Search inside this book' takes you to the 2005 edition also. That shows only 10 chapters while this edition has 17. Most of the negative comments from the 2 and 3 star reviewers seem to have been resolved.

The biggest strength of this book is that it focus on using WPF programatically, not just laying out XAML. This is extremely useful if you are writing an application for 3D data visualization or a database driven application. You get to learn to create event handlers, generate meshes... all programmatically. I also believe that this book is great, not just as a learning tool, but as a reference guide. It is the most comprehensive book on the subject and a must for the aspiring WPF developer.

If you just want to focus on XAML, however, I will have to recommend "Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed" by Adam Nathan.

As a software developer I've written tons of production-level code for many companies including Rockwell Automation, Compuware, MS.
And I found this book to be too shallow for a technical person like me.

[One can save money by simply downloading WPF SDK samples and learning them]

Can one design and implement a better than WPF framework after reading this book? Obviously not!

No wonder, the authors never developed significant portions of any known product/framework!

Also, my e-mail exchange with C. Sells indicates that he himself doesn't really understand WPF in depth.
(BTW, as a MS employee he has luxury of having access to WPF source code and symbols - he obviously didn't bother to do so)

Just a few examples:
-- Managed/Unmanaged transition, e.g. the MIL stuff
-- Lack of understanding the WPF control model
-- Lack of understanding the WPF text model
-- Just like in any other *shallow WPF book* [are there deep WPF books out there?] authors make no effort to scrutinize the existing framework (WPF). [Which is definitely far from being clean and nice]
-- WPF "GDI-free" claims are nonsense since WPF uses User32 and User32 and Gdi32 libs are tightly coupled.

This is the BIBLE for Cold Fusion. I have read a few too many compter books. This is the first one I finished and keeped around. The CD has codeing found in the samples in the book. Very easy reading for this type of book. It even teaches you some HTML. WOW.

This book was fantastic. Sure there are the few editing errors common with computer books. I knew NOTHING about Cold Fusion or database connectivity to the web before I got this and now I've written a dozen or so Cold Fusion applications for the UPS intranet. An EXCELLENT resource for beginners and professionals with a tag index for quick referencing. A chapter on SQL also for those who don't know it. It will teach you everything you need to know to get your application online and running. Great Great Great!

Forta's book is very interesting. I almost bought a book solely on SQL, but just bought this book because of its comprehensive SQL sections. As an Application Server Developer, I also have experience with ASP, and this makes ASP look extremely primitive. In fact, I used the concepts of Cold Fusion presented here to evaluate better solutions for projects in ASP. An example of this is the easy implementation of Dynamic SQL in Coldfusion. I then built a Dynamic SQL implementation. Thanks Mr. Forta for a great one. If you know ASP, this book will show you what you need to engineer within ASP to get it to compete with Cold Fusion. An awesome book!

I have very little programming experience and have this book to be very easy to use.

Forta takes you from the start of Cold Fusion and SQL. If you are new to programming and SQL, this is the book for you. I was writing data interface apps in a few hours. A great book overall. Worth the read. I still use it as a reference regularly! A must have for the Cold Fusion developer.

If you want to know what is going on under the hood, thn this is THE book.
Every chapter is very in depth with good examples. Definite YES for the geek inside you. 5 Stars.

I love reading Richter's books. When you think that there's no room left for improvement you get a title like this one. Wow!
Where other books present the subject matter this one gives you knowledge. Improves on the previous one.
Covers new topics like generics or nullable types. Just can't wait to see what Richter will do with linq!

I'm more of a Java and Ruby developer, but I found this book fun to read anyway. It's a great read to understand how languages interact with core libraries and how it all fits together inside of a virtual runtime environment. Very well done.

The book is oriented toward experienced programmers. It provides an introduction to the CLR and describes some intermediate topics in detail. Advanced topics are mentioned, but the coverage of advanced topics (such as CLR hosting) is shallow.

If you are an experienced programmer who is new to the CLR and C#, this is a great text. If you already understand the CLR and are looking for more information about advanced techniques, this book is probably not for you.

Most of what needs to be said about this book has already been said. But I feel a need add my two cents, if only to toss another five stars out there.

Really, this one is an example of what a good technical book should be. It's style is both understandable and unpretentious and it covers topics with depth and clarity. The overall organization is such that it never seemed like that terms, ideas, and concepts were being used that had not been introduced previously. Reading this book was a true pleasue and I know I will be referring back to it many times.

The book provides a developer's view of the internals of the .Framework and its CLR. It's more than you need to know to hammer out a lot of code. But if you want to build really good apps - or just want to know what .NET is all about - buy the book, read it, and keep in at hand.

This edition has helped me better understand what our lord has done for us and how we are on earth to bless him.

The nice thing about this Bible is the wonderful commentaries. This is one of the only Bibles that I have read where the commentaries actually challenge the reader to put things into practice in their own life.
This is really an "application" Bible giving practical applications to the areas of the users life that are referenced in the reading.
I would like to have this Bible handy each time I am doing a study, meditation or listening to a preacher speak. It gives challenging and in-depth explanation of topics.

THIS BIBLE I HAVE READ SEVERAL TIMES COVER TO COVER. I JUST ORDERED IT IN LARGE PRINT AS MY EYE SIGHT IS FAILING. I GET COMFORT AND PEACE FROM READING IT. IT IS UNDERSTANDABLE AND APPLICABLE TO ENTIRE LIFETIMES.

The bible has a lot of interesting and helpful features. The large print really makes it easier to read the great study notes. I was disappointed that the words of Jesus were not in red, I thought all newer bibles had that feature and did not even check it out before I purchased the bible.

This is an excellent study bible! The large print is great. It makes it much easier to read. I would highly recommend this bible.

I have used these books since Access 97. Absolutely invaluable to learn how to do anything you want. Don't expect it to cover what's in help, they go where help doesn't.

Is there going to be a 2007 version?

This book has everything you will need to creat Access based applications. A ton of great advice and clean coding. The index is very useful and well written.

I purchased this 2 book set in hopes of advancing my knowledge of Access and VBA. I could not find any useful information on functions such as DateAdd, DatePart, Nz, DLookup, DSum, DCount, etc. These are major parts of Access and are very useful once you learn them, but the Developers Handbook does not even cover these functions and how to use them. Or if it does, you can't find out where by searching the index. I've yet to find any information I'm looking for in these books.

It has already been said, Simply the best! I'm finding more and more Web sites/threaded discussions using or pointing to the code found in the Access Developer's Handbook and VBA Developer's Handbook.

The ShellBrowse functions alone to be extremely helpful.

Thanks to Ken, Paul, and Mike

I am a software developer and have been in business since 1982. I have never gotten more bank for my buck than with these books. I didn't think Access was worth a flip for program development until I bought these books. I have since developed a vertical market package for the seafood industry that sells itself by demo. Thanks Ken, Paul and Mike.