Applications Books

Radically Transparent is a well written, entertaining, well researched guide with many real life examples. This is a book that provides you with the tools, and specific guidance on how to use these tools. Every professional and business should have knowledge of these tools, although many may not fully recognise the importance or impact the new world of Web 2.0 may be having on their business. This guide should be read a number of times, although, it is written in such a way that you can easily skip to specific areas of interest. There is a lot in it but you can pick off one strategy at a time, explore it, implement it and of course, monitor it. Definitely provides the rationale for strategic business involvement in the social networking world.

A triumph. With an agile and engaging prose, Andy Beal and Judy Strauss reveal how to promote, maintain and (if necessary) repair individuals and companies' online reputations based upon the principles of transparency and honesty.

Choke-full with practical advice and relevant case studies, this book achieves its self-imposed objectives with flair. The referent in search engine reputation management (SERM) and online reputation management (ORM).

It's been my experience that while politicians have been quick to capitalize on the power of online reputation management, most of the governments that they lead have failed to grasp the possibilities. Concerned about negative comments, the potential for embarrassment, and media scrutiny, many local governments have avoided social media altogether.

Strauss and Beal make the case for why no one can afford to ignore the potential for engagement and the real dialog afforded by social media. And for those who can't fully implement their suggestions organizationally, the book is rich in advice for managing your personal reputation online.

The book was written by Andy Beal from Marketing Pilgrim and Judy Strauss.

Andy Beal is a SEO and fellow blogger who specialized in social media optimization, reputation management and public relations. He is like Kris Jones a frequent speaker at search marketing conference, such as Search Marketing Expo, Search Engine Strategies and WebmasterWorld's PubCon.

As the subtitle states, his book is primarily about monitoring and managing of your personal, your professional or your company's reputation online where it focuses heavily on using search engine optimization and marketing techniques as tools to accomplish your goals.

It also provides advice and recommendations for how to approach the social media space as a business in order to reduce the risks and possible problems that will arise, if you jump into this area of marketing without being prepared and ready for it.

The power of social media and the benefits your customers and your company can get out from it are a reward that is worth the risks. Yes, it has risks and it is impossible to eliminate all of them, but that does not mean that it cannot be done. Just eliminate the risks that you can eliminate and be prepared for the things that can happen and impossible to prevent for sure.

What I love about this book is the way it is laid out in a step by step process that leads you from confusion to clarity in the use of social media in business today. Be aware, this is not a book about blogging even though they discuss is a lot, it is a book about all social media and the precise steps you can take to begin and continue influential conversations that can change the face of your business.

The book lays out a clear path for becoming transparent in your business and leverages really good examples to demonstate how it has been done effectively . . . and points out the pitfalls and traps that exist if you don't follow a sound process.

You'll literally go through this book chapter by chapter and implement it one step at a time and to that extent the book will keep you busy for quite a while.

My only criticism is that I wish it had an addendum to cover the very latest technologies and talk about implementing those, so I'm hoping for a quick follow on book. Groundswell did fill some gaps but this book is much more usable for businesses that want to implement the technology and create the conversations themselves.

Excellent book for understanding social media. A must read.

After reading this book over the holiday, I decided to give it a try on my new project. I applied the authors categories to business plans I needed to prepare. I have to admit that her approach made an improvement that even impressed my managers. Her questions in the appendix were also extremely useful in helping me think of more needs than I had originally thought were important. Her chapter on the parts of a requirement helped me supply the details that I would have omitted previously. Bottom line, the author makes you think allowing for better definition of product needs.

When trying to understand what information architectures are all about, this is the only book I have come across that answered all of my questions and placed the field in context with modern technologies. Unfortunately, most books on information architectures fall into two categories that miss the mark:

1. There are books written by IA experts before the internet, and the terms and viewpoint used require considerable on-the-fly translations to modern technologies.

2. There are books written by IT experts who couldn't spot an IA if it bit them on the leg. These books are fat with useless lists of IT technologies and acronyms.

Fredinandi's book is worth reading cover-to-cover, and more than once.

This is the first book about Requirements Pattern. You can easily understanding your problems after define all project's requirements. This book also provides a completes framework to categorizes and organizes the different types of requirements, forming a requirements set. It makes our project done on time and within budget. Thanks to Pat for this excellent book.

This book servers as an excellent source for gaining insight into the field of requirements engineering. Developers, Managers, Requirements Engineers and Testers could all benefit from reading this book. In addition to providing important information about requirements engineering in general, the book presents a requirement pattern framework targeted for e-business and web based applications.

This book servers as an excellent source for gaining insight into the field of requirements engineering. Developers, Managers, Requirements Engineers and Testers could all benefit from reading this book. In addition to providing important information about requirements engineering in general, the book presents a requirement pattern framework targeted for e-business and web based applications.

This book is special in that it adds empirical support for the authors' business hypothesis. However, their ideas themselves are not revolutionary. Rather they organized and framed a lot of the ideas that today's business leaders already know and practice.

I suppose that the book is in the tradition of academic research paper rather than overblown business hyperbole. As with any academic oriented publications, they make less than interesting reading, but valuable nevertheless.

Survival of the Smartest is reviewed - very positively - in this month's Fast Company. And having now read it I see why: clear, insightful, and packed with great examples for high tech managers working to improve the performance of thier organizations.

By examining the information managment practices of a sample group of short life-cycle high tech companies, Mendelson & Ziegler create a valuable framework to evaluate your company's ability to manage information in the information age. Also chock full of terrific soon-to-be popular industry buzzwords, including: "Decision Architecture," "High/Low IQ Company" and "Internal Information Dissemination." Use 'em while they're hot.

Survival of the Smartest is one of those management books that made its way through the academic world (or so-called the Ivory Tower) into the real-world. In contrary to what is expected, it does a very good job in connecting these two seemingly unrelated fields.

The novel concept, "Organizational IQ", was developed theoretically by Prof. Haim Mendelson and published in some leading academic journals such as Management Science and Information Systems Research. This book summarizes the results of those publications in an easy-to-read way. Organizational IQ is defined as "...a quantifiable measure of how organizations assimilate information and put together their decision and information architectures." It is argued and proved empirically in the book that High-IQ organizations on average are more successful than Low-IQ organizations. A company's organizational IQ describes how well the organization performs along five dimensions:

(1) External Information Awareness
(2) Effective Decision Architecture
(3) Internal Knowledge Dissemination
(4) Organizational Focus
(5) Information Age Business Network.

Mendelson describes each of these dimensions in detail and supports its arguments through the use of case studies from Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Acer, British Petroleum (BP), and Modex (a real company with a disguised name).

Although, the main focus of the book is on the use of Information Technology applications along these dimensions, an average reader will not have any difficulty in understanding these concepts if s/he knows what an Internet or Intranet is used for.

The book can be recommended as a supporting textbook for Strategy, Marketing, or Information Systems courses, especially in the graduate level. Whether you are in academia or in business, it is one of the books you should read if you are interested in how business should be done in the Information Age. Forget about the past Industrial Age books, they are already history... Chrysler has learned it in its own way (page 100 in the book)

PS: One may think that I am too generous in rating the books I comment on. However, one should keep in mind that among the books I have read, only those that are worth reading can make it here-my way of decreasing the information overload for Amazon.com members :)

The importance of this book can be judged by any employee asking why can't we work in an organisation which is better developed on the author's 5 Organisational IQ factors:

1 EXTERNAL INFORMATION AWARENESS, ie each part of our organisation captures external information (customers, technology opportunities, competitors' actions) quickly and accurately

2 EFFECTIVE DECISION ARCHITECTURE, ie in our organisation decisions are made at the right level (by the people with the best information and perspective). As a result decisions : are made quickly, have high quality, instill ownership and accountability

3 INTERNAL KNOWLEDGE DISSEMINATION, ie each part of our organisation knows what it needs to know when it needs to know it. Effective information flows 4-dimensionally: Horizontal, cross functional Top-down, org-wide goals and priorities Bottom-up, operational challenges and opportunities Learning, review over time of all of above

4 ORGANISATIONAL FOCUS, ie organisation systematically fights overload and complexity by: Limiting scope of the business; focusing on core competences; simplifying processes

5 CREATING AN INFORMATION AGE BUSINESS NETWORK, ie Organisation maximises the value of eternal partnerships by applying the above 4 High IQ factors to the entire business network

Would love to share experiences with anyone working or reading up on how to improve organisations IQ factors

chris macrae, chief infomediary, brandknowledge.com e-mail wcbn007@easynet.co.uk

If you are new to Lego Mindstorms then you are also probably new to Lego Technics. This book not only covers how to program robots but also how to build them with Lego Technics parts and makes use of many well laid out and easy to follow diagrams. This book should be included with every lego Mindstorms set.

This "Unofficial" book is very good. David does a great job of showing exactly how to build each project with informative snapshots from the program Lego Digital Designer. The programming was missing a little of information on what to fill in the for each module, but his comments provided enough information to fill in the modules. I did have a question for David and he responded with the answer I was looking for.

This is a great beginner/intermediate level book for both kids and adults. The building section is excellent at explaining HOW to use the technic pieces. The programming section is a very good primer for those new to the NXT-G programming environment and language. It sets you up well for the building & programming projects found later in the book. As a middle school teacher running a robotics club, I set some of my more advanced 6th graders to work on whatever project they wanted to from the book. They jumped into taking on the guard-bot and the golf-bot which are the more advanced projects. With little guidance from me, they were very successful and had a blast. That shows how well written and designed the book is!

The Unofficial Lego Mindstorms NXT Inventors Guide

Author: David J. Perdue
website: http://www.davidjpredue.com ; http://www.nxtguidedavidjpredue.com
Strengths: Very nice schematics, parts listings and visuals to highlight or the parts for the machines. Easily readable. Good for novice robot builders but also advanced users will find it helpful as well.

Weaknesses: The book has black/white text.

Novice/Intermediate/Advanced

Rating: 5/5

reviewed by Dr. Eric Flescher, Olathe, KS: (dreric1kansas@aol.com)


Introduction

I have been working with robot kits for many years. I started with the Fischertecknik robot turtle which I built and was able to use with the logo interface with my Apple IIE. Later on I heard about Lego Mindstorms and bought a set to use. It was tough going and after much delay because of the programming and the light issues with the brick, I was able to get legos finally working. Since then, I have worked with several kits and working with PC and Macintosh interfacing. But I was still looking for more a more helpful guides to build more interesting robots. I think I found one in The Unofficial Lego Mindstorms NXT Inventors Guide.

This author David J. Perdue knows his stuff and Lego Mindstorms. He has been creating MINDSTORMS since 2001 and just won the NXT Camera Bot Building Challenge competition and is the author of Competitive MINDSTORMS (Apress, 2004). He has received three Special Mention awards for his creations on the official online MINDSTORMS and is a full time student, pursuing a degree in Management information Systems in Texas. So I opened the book to see what else I could find out and how I could use the book for my LegoMindstorms in the future.

In the beginning, it was difficult to use Mindstorms. For me the kit did not work at all. Working with Macintosh was not an option. There were minimal additional information for working with the robots beyond the parts, software and initial schematics. I had to use a PC. This version works with PC (needs Windows XP or higher and will or already have shipped Vista version) or Macintosh OSX (version 103.9 and higher). It was not until later that I learned from a Legos salesman that the light in the room could be an issue. Its little things like this that kept me and possible others, from doing more with robotics.

I was hoping that the book started with novice programmers and robot creators. This books has "novice " beginning information so this book can be used with those who are new to Lego Mindstorms or are upgrading to the NXT version. It is good to know that this advanced robotic author, is "down to earth" with his writing and when "speaking" the language of robots. I have not upgraded to the NXT version yet and so and wanted to see whether it is would be worth upgrading myself but if so how and what ways could the robots be used with this new version.

The black and white screenshots are integrated within the instruction. The visuals are large enough to read and decipher what you need to know. The lack of color does not really hurt. I really liked the screenshots and illustrations listings of the parts for assembly. However it would have been nice if they were in color (the parts are a multitude or colors. Tables do however include numbers, piece names and the place color however. When you need more information about the parts, they are all there listed and illustrated/ photographed.

Throughout the book, there are helpful ideas in the way of bold notes that are "peppered" throughout the tutorials. In addition, there are pointers that go along with the "balloons " which have text inside of them about related to the robot parts. Circles and arrows highlight the illustrated areas in the screenshots that the author is clearly targeting for his instructions. This makes the understanding of the parts even more explicit.

The introduction introduces Lego Mindstorms, NXT, building , programming and starting and working with robotic projects. Here is an outline of the chapters and what is in store for you.

Part I in entitled "Introduction to LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT". In the Chapter 1, LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT starts off with building robots, the programming of robots, activating robots and what can you do with robots and NXT. Chapter 2 is includes solid but easy to understand information about starting with the NXT robotic set.

Part II illustrates the building with 4 chapters. There is electronic pieces, understanding the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT pieces, the need and building sturdy structures, and working with and building with gears

Programming section is in Part III . Chapter 7 introduction has a nice introduction to the NXT-G system. Later 3 chapters involve advanced NXT-G programming a. There is also more in the form of unofficial programming languages for the NXT.

Part IV involves 6 robot projects and that is where your in-depth robotic education really begins. You are taught the author's Mindstorms method, and working with 6 nice in-depth but easy to understand projects.

Appendices are good resources. Appendix A has LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT piece library. The Appendix B NXT-G has nice quick reference guide section that includes information for advanced programming to perform more intricate tasks. The author details a lot of the complexity, not only with words but also visually illustrates how to and in what ways to to complete the array of blocks, sensors and programming information. While it is not easy to learn, this section takes you "once step at a time". Appendix C informs with other internet resources.

Conclusions

I recommend this book highly for its in-depth tutorials, the visual schematics and the quality of the reading that makes the information well understood. No one said building robots was easy but with this book, you will learn and go further than you thought you could achieve. What I like about this book and the way the author has crafted this book is that he actually invited you to build robots in a none intimidating way. The in-depth information, the visual assemblies and tables, and the easy to read information along with the tutorials will allow you not only start but develop your skills in robot building. You will learn to be creative but at the same learning the logic of the machines and how to build robotics. I know there are many books that teach Lego Mindstorms out there but I am glad I chose this one first.

I'm a coach of a FIRST LEGO League team and I bought this book to help my son "get to the next level." I am making this book mandatory for every team member next season! It is informative, yet easy to read. It covers all the bases from good robot design to programming explanations. I can't recommend it enough!

This is one of the better books about PMBOK-based ProjectManagement. But what I really miss, is a practical explanation of how to switch theory to reality. For example: The PMBOK defines 44 processes. Some of them have to be done one time (e.g. defining a Project Charter), but many process steps have to be done daily, weekly, monthly and with different participants. So, what I miss is a description how to organize all these processes during a concrete project including a project plan with all these process steps defined as meetings.
This book is a really good introduction to PM and it helps to understand every PMBOK process. But when trying to use this methodology in daily work, you dont know what steps to do with whom and when. I simply miss a kind of project calendar showing how to spread these processes over the timeline.

I have been practicing project management/program management and PMO management for 40 years. This is not only a great reference book for all PM's of any sophistication but it should be the Textbook for Technical Colleges and Universities for Project Management courses. I hold it in the same group as the Capers & Jones book on software engineering

I have re-read a number of books immediately after reading them for the first time. Re-reading well-written fiction is of course a pleasure, but I usually reserve this technique for non-fiction that is hard to understand or very dense, and I may re-read immediately after the first read or months or years later.

This book is the first I have decided to re-read before I even finished it. The information presented is so full of useful knowledge that I realized I would forget most of the points while I was taking in the newer stuff. With the diagrams and summaries there is a vast amount of content here.

I have one small criticism that I'd like to make. The book shows common-sense techniques for project management, and on subjects like this we feel we could do the job based on instinct. I think that the book, instead of being almost exclusively saying DO THIS, should have a few examples of DON'T DO THIS. Stories that involve mistakes and disasters tend to make the lesson more memorable.

I have written several books, and I have rarely been more impressed at how the author handles huge amounts of information.

Anyway, this book is worth five stars.

EDIT: Forgot to mention it, but the book has a dangerous typo. On page 208, the book says "Exclude" but the word intended is "Exude" - in this case, that's almost 180 degrees from the intended meaning.

And a big Hi! to my loyal fans. Glad you trust what I say.

I've read 10 books on PM in the last 3 years. Without a doubt this is the most practical one I've read. It takes PM theory and goes much further than other beginner's guides to actually telling you how to do apply the theory in the real world. The mind maps are particularly good. I have used these maps extensively for operations staff training and brain storming for phase planning. Highly recommended reading.

As I am taking the responsibilities of a technical leader, I am being introduced more and more into the concepts of project management, and this book has helped me a lot understanding and getting insights into the subject. Compact, rich, simple, and assumes no prior project management experience. I would recommend it for anyone who is entering a senior position (especially in the software development industry).

This book is absolutely not a book for beginners, but a great desk reference. A must have for any serious Access developer.

As the word 'Developer' should imply, this book is not for MS Access beginners, but once you qualify yourself as 'intermediate' or better, you will feel right at home. Very little of this book is devoted to boring you with rehashes of stuff in the help file (as most other books seem to do). There is a great deal of depth and insight into areas that apply to everyday usage, complex projects, and solutions to many problems MS tends to ignore version after version.

The writing is excellent and they have a web site devoted to updates, errata and such which is very helpful. Chapters 10, 14 and 15 have had an extremely positive impact on the quality and usability of my projects in MS Access as well as VBA and Visual Basic. Many of the code samples are outstanding and written so that you can just drop them in to your projects with no modifications. Many of them are done so well they seem like natural extensions to MS Access (stuff MS 'should' have included in the 1st place).

Complaints? None. Well, okay, I do have 1 minor complaint. They devoted almost 30 pages to The Office Assistant. IMHO these pages and the Office Assistant itself are a complete waste.

This book and its previous versions are the best money I have ever spent. They continue to save me hundreds of hours while adding reliability and capability to all my projects. Highly recommended!

Not only is this series the absolute best when it comes to MS Access, it is the best technical documentation I've had the pleasure to use since the early days of Vax/VMS. A perfect blend of explanation, examples, syntax, and guidance. A level of art to which all others should aspire (and regrettably too many do not).

I'm comfortable with Access but when it comes to VBA I'm a newbie. This book doesn't only tell you what to do, but explains the why behind it. I have a database that I've put double digit hours (10+) into one problem. I got the book read up on combo boxes, the problem area, and in 30 minutes debugged my code to make them do what they were suppose to do. If I get nothing else out of this book it was worth it for that one issue, but upon further reading I'm learning the why's of Access. The code is still a little foreign but now I'm much more comfortable working in VBA. They use Reddicks naming convention which is different to me, but that's easy to look past. A great book!! Thanks Sybex!

Without a doubt, THE best book on Microsoft Access you will find. Most Access Developers will have several books on the shelf next to their desk gathering dust while they search through Google to resolve their latest dilema. Although I'm a Googler as well, my copy of ADH is frayed and worn...but never dusty. The authors write confidently and authoritatively, yet it seems that they take precautions to avoid intimidating the novice. I've seen reviewers referring to this book as "not for beginners." I was at the beginner-intermediate level when I first thumbed through it at a bookstore. I thought the pricetag was a little too high, but after about ten minutes I had to own it. Since then, it's brought me a long way. Whatever your level, if you really want to learn this stuff you will find great value here.

This book is great for amateurs like me looking to get all they can out of their new camera. I am taking classes and trying to build a portfolio in hopes to get a photography business started, and this book is the best guide to 'all I don't know' I could find.

I found this book to be an excellent source guide for the XTi. When I have a question about my camera, this is usually the first place I turn to not the actual manual that came with the camera. Its unlikely that one would ever get a better recommendation than that.

Every time the author is describing the camera or its functions, there was a wonderfully detailed image of the topic. I can now navigate around the camera menus and other setting with ease after reading through the this book.

Its a great book for a begniner or someone entering digital SLR photography (like me).

If you are a newcomer to the (digital) photography world and want to have some useful advice on how to master light, shade with your EOS-400 this is the book for you. Even though it doesn't replace the reading of the users' manual, this book explains thoroughly how to use this great camera to make great pictures. The book is fully illustrated, has "screen shots" of the actual menus and is a joy to read. Highly recommended material.

This is a great book for explaining all the features and how-to's for the Canon Rebel. I have spent hours with it and have hardly scratched the surface. This book should come with the camera!

This is a very well written book and a very friendly to use format. I love picking it up to studying more about the XTi/400D camera. It's a great source of in depth knowledge to learn the capabilities of the camera. Much more user friendly than the original owner's manual. Nice diagrams and pictures to add some interest. Highly recommended!

I was glad to finally see a PowerPoint book that wasn't for beginners. This one--to its credit--does not discuss basics like creating a presentation; instead, it talks about the techniques after mastering the basics. I bought it solely based on a sample chapter where I got something I didn't know out of it.

If you do PowerPoint presentations regularly, you'll also find that the CD will be a big help. I've already saved a lot of time just with the gradient palette enclosed on the CD. Unlike other books with CDs, this has material that you can really benefit from right away.

So you've been doing PowerPoint for years now. So you've even done your own custom templates. Now it's time to take your PowerPoint game to the next level. Cutting Edge PowerPoint for Dummies was written by Geetesh Bajaj, a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP. That means that, while he doesn't actually work for Microsoft, he knows enough about PowerPoint that Microsoft tells people with questions to talk to him, and people like him. He's got the credentials to do this book.

And this isn't a basic PowerPoint book. Bajaj assumes that you know your way around the software, and that you've got a basic understanding of computers. You won't find any tips on formatting text here (try the other PowerPoint book I reviewed for the basics). What you will find are plenty of tips for spicing up your presentations.

One of the things I notice most often in PowerPoint presentations is that the people designing them have no concept of what color combinations look good. Bajaj discusses contrasting colors, and how to use color combinations to make text stand out and be easier to read. Color plates located in the center of the book help to emphasize his point. If more people would pay attention to this simple tip, PowerPoint presentations would be far less painful to view.

Bajaj then gives tips on enhancing presentations with the use of various forms of media -- video, audio, charts and diagrams, and animations including Flash -- in PowerPoint. He cautions the designer that overuse can be a bad thing, but shows how to make the best use of each of these features to create impressive PowerPoint slide shows.

Probably the most valuable part of the book is the CD-ROM that comes with it. Bajaj has included several programs that are designed to enhance PowerPoint, and are referred to in the book. My favorite so far has been SmartDraw 7, which I've used to create tables and charts that PowerPoint's included application couldn't do. You will also find all the examples that Bajaj uses in the book, including backgrounds, slide templates, and Flash animation samples. I've only just started to scratch the surface of what's on this CD, but PowerPoint power-users will find these resources invaluable.

There are a lot of people who need Cutting Edge PowerPoint for Dummies - we all know one or two. Unfortunately, some of them won't buy it for themselves. Be a good friend and buy it for them. They will thank you, and the people who have to sit through their presentations will really thank you.

The author of this book sent me a sample chapter to include at my website and I was so intrigued by it, I decided to read the whole book, and was very impressed.

Do yourself a favor and forget the "dummy" in the title. This book offers great insight into some of the not-so-obvious workarounds that can be used to get the most out of your presentations. So, it's not only helpful to people who are newer to PowerPoint, but also includes lots of goodies for the advanced PowerPoint user. I learned lots of ways to fine tune stuff that I've had to take outside of the program before to get the result I wanted. Geetesh shows lots of alternative ways to get the job done within the program.

And, the texture files and other great stuff included on the CD are fantastic. The CD, itself, is worth the cost of the book.

If you want to see a sample of the AutoShapes chapter, the full chapter is here at my website:

http://personal-computer-tutor.com/geetesh/cepptfull01.html

I believe you will agree with me and follow-up on this sample tutorial by buying the full book ... and I doubt you will be disapppointed. This is a much-needed guide into some of PowerPoint's secrets.

Linda Johnson
Linda's Computer Stop

I use this book two ways.

Whenever I start a new presentation, I scan it for ideas on how to keep my presentations fresh. I particularly like the color plates in the middle of the book for guiding my color related design decisions, and the host of other design related tips.

Also, whenever I run into a technical problem that I can't easily resolve myself, I check the book and the answer is usually there.

Get the book, you won't be disappointed.

Well, to start with this book does not have any dry or boring moments. It's a rollercoaster of PowerPoint info presented typically well in the Dummies style, and it's got lots of pepper and spice on the way to keep your PowerPoints looking awesome. In fact, even when the book is not with you in front of a computer, you'll still love reading it. I should know because I read it on a long airplane journey. And now when I'm not in front of the book, I still recollect the great advice when I'm doing my PowerPoints. It's like yes, this is what Bajaj said in the book! If you can read just one chapter, read the chapter on Color. That itself is worth the cost of this book.

Mary Kirtland has written a terrific resource for those who wish to know more (i.e. go from basic to advanced) on how to program with COM and MTS. I found the example code (and companion CD-ROM) very useful and relatively bug free. Some of the chapters include:

Windows DNA (now .NET)

COM (101)

Data Access Fundamentals

MTS

ASP

Extending MTS

Application Definition and Modeling

Building Data/Business Objects

Packaging

Building the Presentation Layer

Debugging and Troubleshooting (an excellent chapter on a tricky subject)

Performance Validation

Deploying

Extending the Application

COM+ (pretty good for when this was written, it is time to update the book with the latest and greatest, however).

Most of the information here is still relevant, especially to those with a smattering of COM or MTS under their belt and are hungry for more. Everything is wrapped up well with a comprehensive index. Well worth the purchase price. Definitely a must along with "Programming Distributed Apps with MS COM+ and MS VB."

This book does a good job of explaining the COM standard from the ground up. The first third is devoted to COM. The rest of the book is an overview of building an enterprise application from the ground up using Microsoft technologies.

I used this book as my primary reference in preparing for the new Analyzing Requirements exam (70-100) in the new MCSD track based on the recommendation of someone I know that passed the beta. It may not be listed as a study guide for the test, but it is far better than the Syngress or Sybex study guide for that test. (They were both fairly useless.)

This is an excellent overview of Microsoft's DNA and the technologies that make up DNA. The pieces of the DNA puzzle are clearly defined individually and the way they relate to the others. The Island Hopper application sample (maintained up-to-date on MSDN) is a great hands-on intro to the topic. The amount of coverage on topics like COM, MTS, MSMQ, etc. is just right: technically deep enough to help you understand the concepts, short enough to prevent you from shifting your focus from the architecture to technologies contributing to the architecture.

You may try to surf Microsoft's DNA pages to understand the topic (and potentially get lost in the amount of links that span hundreds of different Microsoft technologies) or get this "one" book to really understand what Mr. Gates is talking about for the last couple of years.

After being confused by multiple books on Windows DNA I was very happy to see a book that actually showed and an entire application which utilized this technology. Part I of the book offers a very concise explanation of MTS and COM without getting too deep into the subjects. Part II showed examples of components that the sample project utilized. I enjoyed the fact that the author used both VB and VC++ in her examples. Beyond the examples, the author also offered very good insight into component design and tool selection. It was enough to get you up to speed so that you can look into deeper books on the subject.

Everyone always draws the same n-tier diagram and says they are going to build a scalable, MAINTANABLE solution.

This book actually provides a blueprint, not the 30,000 ft view.

At my job, we call it "The Good Book"

A Gotta Have book even if you are not calling yourself a Dummie but planning on starting an eBay business in your home. Great reference for the experienced eBayer.

This is an excellent resourve for anyone who is considering doing business on eBay. In addition, the seller was very prompt in sending the material.

The author stresses that a degree of understanding Ebay is assumed. So, if you are an Ebay newby, buy another book. Also, its primarily for those who are starting an Ebay business--if you are just selling your old trains or something similiar, buy another book. If you are starting a Ebay business, it has some pretty good suggestions.

I'm not kidding. THere are several ideas in here that will save you tons of time AND money! I share concepts in this book with members of our eBay discussion group almost every month! GREAT IDEAS. REad about saving on insurance, shipping, and more.

This is a great book, because you can always learn something new to put into practice. It's not just for Dummies!! It can help eBay users of all levels.