Software Books

Comments from using the electronic version of the book at books24x7.com.

I read the entire book for use on a capstone project I'm working on. This book hammered home many of the exact concepts I believed were present, but couldn't prove. I work in IT for a multi-billion / year company. Many of the issues Tom describes are the exact issues we've either gone through or are currently struggling with.

Key concepts for me:
1) IT cannot be responsible for data quality, but they are definately involved.
2) Data quality is a multi-facted management issue.
3) Quality has to be defined by the each organization. (i.e. what's good enough for company A may be substandard for company B.)

I also noticed the website address listed in the book is obsolete and has been replaced with this:
http://books.elsevier.com/companions/1555582516/?country=United+States

Have actually improved performance results by implementing many of the techniques found in the Field Guide (tips have helped me in a number of places and ways). An easy read. Practical, applicable and actionable.

This is an excellent everyday guide to data quality. Easy to read and filled with tips and techniques for starting and improving a data quality program. The field guide format makes it a great reference book.

Good practical advice for improving data quality. Covers the most common data quality problems. Well written. Some other sources to look at online:


http://www.dmreview.com
http://www.datalever.com

I like this book quite a bit because although it's not a huge doorstop of a tome in terms of length, it's quite complete and thorough. Some data quality books cover management aspects, some the technical aspects, and some take other angles. This book takes a look at all of the different angles on data quality and sums them up into a very nice package.

One of the things I liked about it is the section on social aspects of data quality, since so many technical people I work with have a great idea but aren't able to implement it for lack of understanding of the social aspects of working on data quality projects. Another is a part where Redman goes through the process of how data quality is tracked over time, to see if things are improving, and the way that he draws a distinction between records that are "perfect", and records that are "usable", which points out some differences that are important. There is even a very relevant section on data quality problems in the US elections of 2000.

The nice thing about this field guide is that it should have everything an organization needs to do some serious data quality work (including even middle management roles and responsibilities). I think it's a very solid book that would be a great addition to data manager's and other tech manager's libraries.

The Delphi 2 Developers Guide is the authoritative source I consult for advanced programming topics in Delphi. This book is aptly marketed as an expert level book. It goes well beyond the scope of the "This is Delphi" books typically found on store shelves. An underrated feature of this book is its comprehensive appendices of error codes. I highly recommend this book to anyone serious about Delphi programming

When many computer books today are just a rehash of the documentation, this book stands out as a real problem solver.
Although this book is not geared towards the beginner, if you are serious about developing applications in Delphi, this book should be on your shelf. In depth explainations and real world examples make this book well worth the price. Specifically helpful chapters include explainations of Windows Messaging, the Win32 API, multi-threaded applications, OLE, and more. There are also some very good chapters on porting your applications to Delphi 2 (32-bit) and differences between 16-bit and 32-bit applications.
As a Delphi developer, I keep this book handy at all times, and I am looking forward to the Delphi 3 version

Xavier and Steve do an excellent job of delving into the more advanced aspects of Delphi 2 and Win32 development, without wasting a lot of time on the 'newbie' stuff. Highly recommended!

If you want to do some serious work with Delphi, this book is for you. I covers virtually everything you must know about Delphi. Thanks to the authors.

THIS BOOK is art of perfection. No more to say. THANKS to the authors

Published in 2004, this book is a bit dated. A few of the software publishers mentioned have been merged, acquired or gone out of business and all the products still published have had multiple new editions released. None of this, however, reduces the utility of this fine introduction to digital scrapbooking.

The authors begin with the absolute basics and move onward from there, which for the beginner to scrapbooking, much less digital scrapbooking, is an excellent route to take.

They begin with a (pretty dated) review of digital photography and move on to the essentials of image editing. Layouts are next followed by using photographs creatively, which is where the book starts getting really interesting. From here they move onto adding and manipulating text elements, how to use filters, plug-ins and effects and more on image processing. More advanced topics include making your own elements to use in your creations, such as backgrounds, buttons, ribbons and fibers.

Overall, this is an excellent and very well done introduction to digital scrapbooking. It may be a bit on the older side (four years!) but is still an excellent way to get into the craft.

Jerry

This is it, the one book you need to learn digital scrapbooking. Sally gives you clear concise step-by-step instructions that will take you from the basics of digital scrapbooking to more advanced techniques.

Chapter by chapter you will build your skills. Then have fun with the CD full of digital scrapbooking supplies. Paint Shop Pro is a great digital scrapbooking program and Sally is definitely a GREAT Paint Shop Pro teacher!!

(Sally's other books are great as well.)

I purchased this book before I committed to a particular software and it was so helpful. I used it to practice with free trial copies of various softwares to help me decide which one I wanted to go with. The examples are great. The text is easy to follow and thorough. I am very satisfied with this book and learned everything I needed to get started and even do some advanced techniques!

I bought this book for a start in digital scrapbooking. It is great for teaching some of the basics, but I have Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 and the latest it includes is 2.0. Quite a few of the operations have changed when trying to do such things at adding shadows and combining layers. Needless to say I had to buy another book for 4.0. This has some great ideas however and some good information on filters.

If you are thinking of making the move to digital scrapbooking you will do well to read this book by Sally Beacham and Lori J. Davis. Assuming that you have not committed to one image editor, the authors use five popular image editors in the examples throughout the book. They demonstrate the similarities and differences between Jasc Paint Shop Pro, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Microsoft Digital Image Pro, Serif Photo Plus and Ulead Photo Impact. But this book is not about imaging software. It is about digital scrapbooking.

The authors begin by discussing the pros and cons of digital scrapbooking and what you will need to get started. Besides showing how to make completely digital scrapbook pages, the authors also show many ways to integrate digital scrapbooking with traditional scrapbooking.

Next, they cover scanning photos into the computer and what can be done to correct and enhance your photos once they are in digital form. They discuss image corrections such as cropping, alignment, noise reduction, red eye removal and color correction.

The authors discuss two popular styles for scrapbook pages. The first style, faux-paper, emulates the textured paper, fibers, tags and other embellishments of traditional scrapbook pages. The second type, graphic design, has a more commercial look which emphasizes enhancement of photos and elaborate word art. They discuss how to use pre-designed layouts and how to design your own pages digitally.

Next, they begin to build a digital layout. They discuss color and how it should relate to and enhance your photos. Once you have chosen a color and texture for the background of your layout, you add your photos.

Text techniques and word art are a natural extension of digital scrapbooking. The authors discuss the importance of fonts and the digital effects that can be applied to the titles and journaling on your scrapbook pages.

There is a large section on plug-in filters and how they greatly expand the creativity of your image editing software. The special effects from these filters can be applied to your photos, digital background papers and embellishments.

The authors discuss how to save your digital page in the various formats for printing, burning to CD, emailing or posting on the web.

The accompanying CD contains several tutorials, clipart, over 100 fonts, trial versions of popular plug-in filters, sample layouts and page kits.

Lori J. Davis is a technical writer and author of many books on Paint Shop Pro. Sally Bracham is an author and teacher of Paint Shop Pro and related subjects.

I used Dragon to first-draft Writing Nonfiction: Turning Thoughts Into Books. I was so impressed with the system, I included a chapter on using speech recognition to dictate a how-to book. Then I found Dan Newman's book. I recognized a number of things I had learned and found a whole lot more. Newman made the Dragon even more fun.

If you write a lot and are not an accurate, rapid typist, get speech recognition software. If you are fast and correct, keep on keyboarding. Dragon is good but you will have to make corrections. If you already make mistakes, it does not matter if you talk or type.

Dan Newman takes you step-by-step through using Dragon Naturally Speaking. (For coverage, click on Table of Contents in the left-hand column of this page.) He even includes trouble-shooting tips and resources.

Dan Newman is a great writer, gifted computer expert and a dedicated teacher.

As the author of 113 books (including revisions and foreign-language editions) and over 500 magazine articles, I highly recommend this book to anyone who has to write a lot. DanPoynter@ParaPublishing.com.

Why didn't someone write this book years ago? Dan Newman distills the complexities into concise explanations of perfect clarity. Dragonites need this book. All the problems I've been struggling with for years were solved in a few hours of reading. Talk about clear, easy organization. Thank you, Dan Newman!

This book not only covers Dragon NaturallySpeaking software but also offers several tips and examples on efficient speech recognition. The material is presented in such interesting fashion that makes this book fun to read. If you own Dragon NaturallySpeaking software, this book is a must to have.

Dave Newman's book is essential for any speech recognition user regardless of the amount of experience they may have. He teaches you techniques that help you improve your accuracy and speed. He also gives you pointers on how to optimize your software and hardware for maximum accuracy and speed. Dave provides a complete step by step guide on all the features of Dragon 4.0 with greater detail. He includes the new features such as surfing the web by voice. This book is a must have for making your speech recognition program usable in terms of reducing frustration and improving the overall performance of your software with his instructions which Dragon doesn't cover in their manual.

This is a really helpful book. I would prefer to read and Dan Newman's book than all the technical stuff in the Dragon manual, because it is so much more user-friendly. I have been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking since it came out in 1995. There is so much to know, and so much you can forget!! By reading this book, I am remembering some very useful tips, and learning some new ones. I would recommend this book to anyone using NaturallySpeaking.

As a data warehouse practitioner for over 12 years, I was recently challenged at my current employer to help assemble a global data quality team and process. Having done much of the work before on a piecemeal basis, we made steady progress.

When I received my copy of "Enterprise Knowledge Management," I found two important things:
1. We were definitely on the right track, and
2. There were some things we had missed.

David Loshin has put together an excellent field guide to all aspects of data quality. It is very easy to understand, and contains practical, effective suggestions. Most importantly, it is a true "soup to nuts" guide to data quality. There is very little that you might need to improve your company's "knowledge quotient" that you will not find here.

I have heartily recommended this book to a number of people when asked about data warehousing and data quality. You'll not find a better handbook anywhere.

David has written an excellent data quality book. He focuses on a real works around data quality. He presents a practical approaches how to solve a different types of quality defects and also pointed out main quality principles. But reader must think how to apply mentioned principles and approaches in reader's organization.

Simply, good reading with application on a real cases.

At the time the book was published I worked as a data quality manager at the New Zealand Ministry of Health focusing on the implementation of the Data Quality Strategy for National Health Databases. It was a great help for us. We've implemented many of David Loshin's principles. Most importantly it helped us to understand that the majority of our DQ problems were not due to the poor data management processes, but because of the inadequate system's design or poor data model, which was either conceptually or contextually incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate.

Most of the literature on Data Quality focuses on the challenges of creating and maintaining a data warehouse. Thankfully, for those of us trying to improve the integrity of the information in our OLTP databases, this book presents a methodology which is not specific to any one data environment.

This book is packed with lists of cases to consider for each step of the methodology. Each case is nicely documented. Actually, much of the book is taken filled with the documentation for each case, which may cause a person to lose sight of the methodology that is being presented.

I am person who prefers to learn concepts. I am not as interested in memorizing details. Hence, I would read this book, skipping most of the documentation in the lists, instead focusing on understanding the methodology. Thereafter, I would use this book as a reference when needing information on a particular step of the methodology.

While I am not a technical person, this booked helped me enormously to understand the management issues that surround data quality. In today's world, I am shocked that more companies are not using this approach to save massive sums of money. This book has given me the tools to do so within my company. I highly recommend it!

This would be the only textbook on physical diagnosis you would need EXCEPT the attendings are still using other texts. Listen for those carotid bruits and document those Homan's as students/residents but don't delude YOURSELF that they mean anything.

I hesitated to buy this book because of the title - "evidence-based" is often not so much an assurance of reliability as of nonreadability. However, of the twenty or so books on physical diagnosis I have perused this is by far the best - no single book will improve your clinical examination with more speed or pleasure.

Many good physical exam books exist, but this is the only one that really tells you what PE finding mean. It includes great tables that lists findings of particular diseases and gives the sensitivity, specificity and likelihood ratios. Other books will tell you that sign X is associated with disease Y, but no others tell you that if you see X that there is a high probability that the patient has Y, and a low probability if the patient doesn't have Z. The tables are even referenced to articles.

I am sure I wouldn't be wrong if I say there is no other book
to match the standards set by this book on "Physical Diagnosis"
A substantial amount of material has not even been mentioned
in other books. I must concede, I prepare all my teaching
clinics from this book.
This book is indeed a goldmine. I am looking forward to the
next edition.
Dr. Wiqar Shaikh
Hon. Asstt. Professor of Medicine
Grant Medical College, Bombay, India

this book is combination of ancient artistic physical signs with recently popular scientific evidence based medicine , great work that writer provide detail and clear evidence , all physicians must review their bed side skills with the evidnce ,their trend should be taught in every medical school .5 stars .

This book is unusually well written and presented. I find myself reading up on areas that I hadn't even intended to learn about. In fact, I'm having a problem staying focused; it's like discovering a treasure trove of wonderful detail. I am especially impressed with the coverage of IL.

Without exception, the presentation of this book is flawless; Simon has an extraordinary writing skill and technique. It's like getting advice from a wise man. You get the right level of detail that's not academic and impracticle, but rather exactly pertinant for immediate use.

I've purchased a lot of books over the years - well over 100 - and this is easily one of the very best books I'm come across, which is why I felt compelled to come here and praise it.

With .NET 2.0 so close, is it worth buying and reading a .NET 1.x book? The answer, in this case anyway, is definitely yes. .NET 2.0 builds on 1.x, making the majority of the material in this book relevant for years to come, and as most professional programmers will end up maintaining systems that, for one reason or another, can't be migrated to 2.0, having in-depth 1.x knowledge (which this book provides in bucket loads) is a great investment.

Even for those that think they know everything about .NET, this book will still educate. I've been a .NET and C# MVP since 2002, and I still found this book a worthwhile read.

If you have read Richter and Lowey and are looking for the next evolution in your learning THIS IS THE BOOK. As the CEO of a .NET consultancy all staff are required to read three books. This is the final book.

Right now the market is in a sad state. Only 1-2 in 100 can pass, as my company's interiew process (most do not know the difference in a value and reference type) is very, very hard

This is one of those magic books that is easy to read and will make you 'team Leader materiakl'.

Either lead, or 'get uut of t ey;.

Damon Carr CEO
agilefactor.com

The first two chapters (about 100 pages) on IL are worth the price of the book. I'd recommend for those who really want to get a picture of what is going on under the hood in .NET. Some of the later chapters are a little lite like the one on cryptography and windows forms, however, the coverage on topics like assemblies is fantastic.

A pretty intense book. Robinson aims to take you beyond the elementary books on .NET and its affiliated languages of C# and VB. Those often focus on simple syntax level explanations.

Here, he goes far deeper. Like drilling into the Intermediate Language. The basis for .NET compilers, that convert source code in various languages like those above into this form. Like Java bytecode. (Alas, though, no cute CAFEBABE here!) So you can program at this virtual assembler level if you have to. Maybe you need to optimise some bottleneck in your code?

Garbage collection is also studied. Related to this is how to improve memory performance, including showing how to use a profiler effectively. Nontrivial subjects. Some of which, like the chapter on cryptography, really only hint at far greater complexity.

Most .NET programmers may not need to go to the levels of this book. But for those who do, it is good that it exists.

This is not the first book on Access to own unless you fairly comfortable with developing applications using another tool. Check out Wrox's Beginning Access 2007 title. But if your goal is to create an application to sell or use within your company this book provides all the info you need to get started and succeed. As a read it I recognized a lot of the tips that I had gathered over years of work and research. Would have been great if I could have just bought this book years ago. Section 4, "Finalizing the Application" covers great material; some knowledge of .Net would be beneficial if you are interested in DLLs (like resource libraries) or the build utility that comes with the book. Next to the Access Developer Handbook series I'd say this is the best book I've read on Access application development and deployment.

This book covers a ton of Access coding techniques in an easy to understand way. The authors use a friendly tone with good, clear code examples. I particularly liked the chapters on adding advanced functionality to reports and forms, and the pragmatic security discussion. I'm an Access MVP and have been developing in it for years, but I still learned some cool new techniques from this book.

I recommend Access 2007 Programming by Rob Cooper and Michael Tucker to anyone wanting to start creating data applications in MS Access 2007. The style of the book makes it easy to understand the concepts that the authors intend the reader to learn. They cover all aspects of creating a robust application.
Chapter 6: Using SQL to Retrieve Data and Manipulate Objects is very informative and will help the developer learn how to best use SQL to make an application more efficient.
The book is a great value and a great addition to any Access users library.

I don't know how much I can add to the information that has already been said, but ... here goes. Expert Access 2007 Programming has been written extremely well: very clear examples, great screen shots, and verbage that real people use! The topics discuss are what many developers crave .. API calls, Automation, Late vs Early binding, Working with the Registry, the list just goes on and on! ...

I make the claim that this book will be legendary simply because it covers so much and presents it so well. I am sure MANY will use its wealth of information well into the future and beyond Access 2007.

Brent Spaulding
aka: datAdrenaline
Access MVP

As I was reading through this book, it became clear to me that this is one book anyone who develops in Access should have.

The book is written true to Rob and Michael's form: The content is clear and the information useful. I enjoyed discovering new "toys" in the debugging chapter, and the error logging code is a gem that will be utilized in deployed applications. Going through the Add Advanced Functionality to Forms and Add Advanced Functionality to Reports chapters was like walking into a candy store that carries your long lost favorite childhood candy -- a joy. The ribbon chapter enhanced the knowledge I had prior to reading it. I was first introduced to Ribbon customization while listening to Rob [passionately] presenting the topic in an Access developers' group, and this chapter built on that presentation.

If you want to get a book that will expand your knowledge on Access programming, this is the book to buy. Access 2007 Programming is a well worth resource to own.

I love this book. It's a robust mix of exercises and software how-to, unique among all the FCP books I've read. I'm very glad to have it in my library.

I wrote this to Wolsky, might as well share it with the world:
Hi, guys. I met you at the fcpug last Weds and bought a (signed!) copy of your book. I haven't started to do the tutorial yet but I can't put the book down. It's so clear and easy to understand, and I'm already implementing the stuff I've picked up just from reading, "Now, did he say.... option X? Oh, wow, it works." It's the best book I've seen and I tend to look at everything in hopes that where one person confuses me another will set me straight. Anyway, this is a fan letter. And the writing is extraordinarily fine, literate and grammatical. Thank you.

The author is candid in his discussion about editing with Final Cut Pro. The most valuable information to me was his numerious comparisons between FCP and other editing software. For example, he points out those areas where other programs might be stronger in certain areas than FCP and specifies those programs. I read the book cover to cover and continually refer back to it as a guide and inspiratoin when editing.

Reading many, if not most, software instruction books, is akin to being clubbed by a thousand hammers...overload, overload. They are constructed as reference books, but one has to fight through tons on incidental material to figure out how to use the program.

Tom Wolsky's Final Cut Pro 2 book is, instead, a precise tool, which gets you cutting in no time. Wolsky's credits list him as an editor and a teacher, and his book make it clear he is outstanding in both regards.

At first glance you might think that this book is the same as the other FCP click-step books for the manual-adverse. You'd be wrong. Tom has crafted an excellent instructional work that richly supplements, rather than reiterates, Apple's enormous, exhaustive FCP 2 manual. Certainly he has featured many pages of clear dance-step instruction throughout the book. But, more noteworthy, Tom also incorporates a great deal of contextual insight into why certain features might be useful to the reader and draws upon his professional experience to give readers insights into the professional post-production process.

This book quickly became the mainstay of my FCP editing library. The only feature that would improve upon it is a spiral binding enabling it to lie flat while open!

This book walks the reader through the finite element (FE) method step by step. It is a very good introductory book and focuses on the Galerkin method of weighted residuals. I do wish that there was a hardback version.

This is how all books should be. Many terms other authors skip over are explained clearly. A must have, atleast for beginners.

Gives a very good introduction to "Finite Element Method" for those who have very little or no knowledge of it. It is an excellent reference and I wish the author decides to reprint it ,however, including the FORTRAN source code in a CD ROM.

This is the best introductory book I have read in Finite Element Analysis, it goes step by step in an easy to learn way.

This book is very good and refreshingly different from the other ones, but only if 1)you are interested in electromagnetic and other applications of FEA and 2)Are comfortable with variational formulations.