Software Books

This book doesn't contain a lot of jargon. It has pictures of how to do things and explains things in non-technical terms. Great for beginners but also useful as a refresher when you haven't used some aspect for awhile. Well laid out index so easy to find what your looking for. These people have done a good job. Hope they bring out another one more advanced.

I had no idea what the interface looked like or ANY idea about how to use 3DS Max; I just knew I want to learn how to do animations.

Well, I know this book isn't going to have me making 3D animation movies, but it does give a great insight into the program's basics.

Lots of hands-on exercises, just as I like. Lots of pictures too. The authors do an excellent job of spelling out the basics and telling you exactly what you need to do to complete an excerise. And, as you move further along in the book, they "neglect" to tell you how to do something they've already covered - just like a teacher would do in class. It forces you to explore, reread (if you don't understand a subject) and practice with the program - what you need to do if you're ever going to learn to use 3DS Max.

A very well written book about the basics of 3DS Max 7.

I highly recommend this book to the beginning 3ds max student. It was very helpful to me, as it explained more of the basics and gave more detail behind the steps. Also, the tutorials frequently used diffent tools to accomplish the same task. This showed how to use the graphical interface, quad-menus, toolbars, etc.

I found it the best of several books I bought to get my feet wet with 3ds max. It really helped with some of the basic lighting and material concepts. While, this book doesn't even begin to touch all the features of 3ds max, it was a great primer and I'm glad I read it.

This book is perfect for those just getting started in 3ds Max 7. There are a lot of easy to follow screen shots to accompany the text so it is possible to still follow along when you're not in front of your computer. It is written with plenty of step by step explanations of what you are doing and why as well as a great accompanying disk to help with tutorials. It even tackles some of the more difficult aspects of 3d modeling such as composition, the dreaded material editor (it even throws in a side bar about UVW unwrapping) and lighting. It is written with the beginner in mind and does a great job explaining concepts and procedures without insulting your intelligence. It may, however, be a little below intermediate users, it can be a great tool to brush up on fundamentals. I can't recommend this book enough for those looking to get their feet wet in MAX.

The book by Till & O'Connell is great for newcomers simply because it doesn't attempt to give you too much information but only what new users might need to learn the basics of max 7. I had never turned on max 7 and within a week I was amazed as to how much I had learned without having any previous experience with 3d softwares. This should be the first book you buy if you are starting from scratch with max 7.

This book is not for the faint of heart in Access 2000 coding but it is invaluable to the advanced programmer. I refer to this book almost daily in developing our in-house applications. The real strength of this book is in developing code that is more portable or reusable. I have gone from writing sloppy code that is application (or even form) specific to writing completly reusable (and of course fully documented) code. Excellent reference for the power VBA programmer!

Had everything I needed to get going, even the obscure stuff.

Only thing missing was an explanation of what Access does with it's version of Stored procedures, but then again, Microsoft isn't sure on that one itself, so that's no surprise.

Great book, I recommend it.

Love this book. This is the only book I know that does not abandon DAO. I like DAO. All other post Access 97 book abandons DAO.

It is well written and have used many of this examples for my job. I even like it better than the Getz books.

I BOUGHT NOT LESS THAN 15 MS ACCESS BOOKS WHILE LEARNING ACCESS. I FOUND THIS ONE MOST HELPFUL. I HAVE LEARNED MANY THINGS FROM THIS VALUABLE BOOK: CLASS MODULES, CUSTOM COLLECTIONS, CUSTOM PROPERTIES & METHODS, API CALLS ETC ETC... THE AUTHOR HAD PROVIDED MANY USEFUL CODES. I REALLY LIKE HIS BOOKMARK TRACKER.

This was just the book I was looking for. Scott goes into alot of the issues that most of the books on Access just do not. For instance his sections on the winAPI's as well as performance recomendations. I found this book a total reference for beginner through the intermediate programmer of Access. Thanks Scott.

Dr Folk was my graduate advisor and I worked with Bill Z at TMS. This book actually reflects some of the technology we worked with there as well as other thoughtful and useful ideas in storing data on disk.

There are many Computer Science references that show several common sorting techniques but most stop there. This book has what no other that I've seen had: A concise discussion of sorting data that won't fit into storage at once.

It's easy to sort items when you can load them all into memory. Many books show how to do that.

This is the first book that I've seen that explains, in detail, methods for sorting data that is too large to fit in memory at once. Techniques are shown, then refined.

An amazing book. Although it's a textbook, it's an excellent reference for all programmers. Even if you think you know a great deal about file structures and/or sorting data, you will learn something from the techniques shown in this book. I couldn't put it down.

The metodology used by the authors to write the book is really excelent.
Starting every chapter with a very interesting introduction and covering all the aspects of the inteligent design of file structures with many examples in pseudocode. The references to other books and papers in the end of each chapter makes you fell secure. The index of key words (with a small summary) is really usefull, when you finish reading a chapter you can test yourself to see if you really know it (when you have little time, for example, a day before exams, then it's much more usefull). The exercises and programming projects (always using real world problems) after this index closes each chapter nicelly. The book also discusses the problems with implementations in C and Pascal.
The best one !!!
Congratulations to Folk and Zoellick.

Este libro es una exelente referencia al la estructura de archvivos, gracias a como los autores desarrollan el texto, de una manera deliciosa que profundiza en los problemas de almacenar en archivos, poco a poco y profundamente, y lo que es más importante haciendo que el lector se de cuenta de por que realmente la necesidad de cada nueva estructura de datos revisada. La única pena es que ya es un libro bastante viejo yen ciertas lieneas el lector puede pensar que el libro esta desfasado, pero en lo verdaderamente importante, lo que el libro cuenta sigue estando vigente y lo estara por que al fin y al cabo las bases no cambian.

As a senior software designer, I helped implement file structures for dBASE, cc:Mail, Collabra Share and other commercial software packages. I spent 16 years learning this subject, and Folk and Zoellick taught me a few things in addition to presenting the material so logically, so usefully, that no one need write a book on this subject again

The accounting text, it is - what it is. Some might find it interesting, but it was a required, it was good for what I needed =)

This book is awesome. If you don't understand the accounting terms or what is being said in class, then this book will help you supplement the lectures. I recommend this book for students who have to take accounting more then once. It really helps me understand the material and I do have another exam tomorrow. I am ready to take the test.

Conditions of the book was as described (brand new), super fast delivery, very trustworthy, high value product, great service!! I will definitely order from here again!

I found the Study Guide to be a big help when needing to understand a little more than what the Course book tries to teach you. In the guide, there were examples of problems that are not explained in the Course book. The guide helped me to make better grades on my assignments, better grades than what I was making before I purchased it. I really understand the concept of accounting more in several areas of the business. I would recommend any study guide book, in any subject, to any one!

I am taking a condensed Accounting course and was somewhat lost in the first half of the course which is why I purchased this book. Each chapter is summarized and then there are various exercises and examples to work on. The most helpful part is having the answers for each problem right there, so one is quickly able to see where mistakes were made. This book is worth the price. And, if you're struggling with accounting, it will make a difference in your understanding of the material and your grade.

This book makes it easy to fix Access. Simply look in the table of contents for the annoyance that is plaguing your database and go to the page that fixes it. Most of the fixes are simple ones that are either hidden from the user or just not documented well in the Access help. Just one of the fixes was worth the price of the book. The rest were bonuses. My database now works the way I had envisioned it would.

0-596-00852-X
Reviewed: 1st Edition

If you work with Access (or are thinking about it) you really need this book. Access is a very capable and powerful app and can certainly handle the majority of small business needs (and even enterprise class as well, say if you're using Access as a front end to a backend SQL database). The catch of course, is that Access is full of inconsistencies, irksome quirks, weird "features" that don't work as expected, and of course (like all complex software) bugs. (Although to be fair there are many things that MS probably can't change to ensure compatibility with already written applications).

This book notes the weird stuff that can crop up in using Access and more importantly how to work around same.
In my case I had never done any development with Access before but wanted to develop a custom application using it. Before starting however I bought this book - and am REALLY glad I did. There were many pitfalls that I would have fallen into unless otherwise warned (of course at the start it was kind of discouraging seeing all the "issues" one can have with Access, but better to be advised than sorry after!)

The format of the book is primarily a question and answer format, like "I'm trying to do XXX but it doesn't work" with an explanation of what's going on and *why* it's not working and solutions for accomplishing the task at hand (which may include VBA code or diagrams to help illustrate the point). The Q&As are organised into chapters dealing with a specific topic (i.e. Forms, Queries, Reports, Code Modules etc). In the course of my app development I have reached for this book more often than some of the thicker and heavier (not to mention more expensive) Access books, but you will undoubtedly need other books for reference as well (this book isn't a tutorial nor for absolute newbies to database or Access development, even though there are explanations describing normalisation, relationships, etc).

Aside from the Q&As there are very useful tips regarding recommended options to enable/disable ("Access's Bad Defaults"), Optimization ("How can I speed up a slow combo box?") and avoiding database corruption. This kind of "real world" information is exactly what you NEED to know when you do development and is precisely the kind of thing you'll NEVER find in the help files.

There's also other information such as a list of common Visual Basic functions (and what they do) which is useful when you need to do some task but don't know the name of the function. Likewise there's a similar list for Access Events which is helpful in figuring out which event you need to attach code to in order to have something happen. Lastly there's a Glossary of terms ("What's the difference between a bound & unbound control?").

Unlike other books this one doesn't come with a CD. But that's OK, because typically to solve problems you don't need a lot of code once you understand what's going on (in any case code will have to be customised for your app).

If you're developing an application in Access using custom forms, reports, VBA etc you'll get the most benefit from this book. Overall, I think this book's value exceeds the purchase price.

Wow what a great idea for a book series!!

I thought I had seen it all, but then when I picked up my first "Annoyances" book I learned there was a whole new niche out there that had yet to be exploited.

For many of us out there, we pick up technical books for a few typical reasons: to learn a new skill or a reference for an existing skill. What about if you already use an application and there is a whole known set of pitfalls and problem areas that you either need to find a workaround for, or you just want to learn about so if the need arises, you know how to deal with these?

Well, enter the "Annoyances" line of books.

'Access Annoyances' by Phil Mitchell is a great companion book for anyone that has a lot of Access books on the shelf or uses Access on a daily basis and needs to read up more on the problems that will be seen at some point. With a layout that takes each problem one at a time, the flow is very good, and the writing style is clear and concise. Unless you are the MOST experienced of Access users/developers, you will be able to pick up something from this book, and it's more likely that you'll pick up a LOT of things.

Some of the O'Reilly prices on books blow me away because they are so low. It's like you are paying x amount and getting xxxxxx in return. If you use Access on a daily basis, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of 'Access Annoyances' right away.

***** HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION

I wish I had this book when I began programming Access, it would have saved me a lot of frustration. The writing is easy to follow and it contains a wealth of information I had to either learn through trial and error or lots of searching google groups.

That said, there isn't much of value here for someone with a couple of years Access experience--you've already learned this stuff through trial and error or searching google groups!

I only found one piece of incorrect information--it is possible to create page headers on a subreport by creating a dummy grouping level (=1) and putting your headers there. The book says the only way to do it is by putting the headers on the parent report.

I consider myself fortunate that I converted my last regularly used database off of Access awhile back. While the software served me well in learning about database systems when I first made the move to PCs, I always found myself fighting with things that should have been easier than they were. Now I find out that it wasn't just me. Phil Mitchell and Evan Callahan have put together a great book titled Fixing Access Annoyances. If you spend any time in Access, this ought to be on your bookshelf.

Contents: Access Basics; General Annoyances; Performance, Versions, Security, and Deployment; Data, Tables, and Database Design; Queries; Forms; Reports, Mailing Labels, and Charts; Expressions, Macros, Code Modules, and Custom Controls; Appendix; Glossary; Index

The Annoyances series is set up in such a way that each chapter covers a series of "questions" posed as to why a particular software package behaves in a certain way. The questions range from minor "why does Access always do x" to "my #$@%@ database is corrupted!", and the conversational tone between the questioner and the authors is fun to read. After reading some of these things, you wonder why *anyone* would use Access! Mitchell and Callahan, although experts in Access, maintain a healthy cynicism towards the product's features and foibles, and all it would take is for you to find three to five annoyances that bug you to no end in order for you to think this is the best money you've spent in a long time. They also try and cover a range of things, from beginner to advanced level gripes, so that you should see value wherever you are in the continuum of Access experience.

If I had this book available to me a year ago, I might still be running my reading log database in Access instead of in Notes. I certainly would have experienced far less frustration than I did. After making sure you have a solid Access reference guide on your shelf, this should be your second purchase on the subject...

The philosophy behind frames and framing techniques astonishes me. It is revolutionary and practical. I like it very much.

Chancellor C.
http://www.extremephonecards.com

I have pretty much experience with object oriented and procedural programming in several languages, now getting into AOP and byte code engineering. The first 30 minutes with this book were dissapointing - i couldn't figure out what the heck this guy is talking about. So i started at the front, not back cover. And this is my hint - read it from the beginning, page by page. I knew, there is something wrong with software development in general, now i know what it is exactly, and why. I knew it! More - i know how i can break this vicious circle and burn the tires. We've been going the wrong way folks! This definitely is the most valuable book in my monster library (some 100 titles). This is the top secret knowledge, worth thousands and thousands of bucks. I really am not related to the author or publisher. Great stuff!

I have pretty much experience with object oriented and procedural programming in several languages, now getting into AOP and byte code engineering. The first 30 minutes with this book were dissapointing - i couldn't figure out what the heck this guy is talking about. So i started at the front, not back cover. And this is my hint - read it from the beginning, page by page. I knew, there is something wrong with software development in general, now i know what it is exactly, and why. I knew it! More - i know how i can break this vicious circle and burn the tires. We've been going the wrong way folks! This definitely is the most valuable book in my monster library (some 100 titles). This is the top secret knowledge, worth thousands and thousands of bucks. I really am not related to the author or publisher. Great stuff!

Found my first copy in the university book store in Ames, Iowa, and have been looking at it constantly, until I lost it in one of my numerous moves. Bassett has the right idea. Software should be **engineered**, not hand crafted, and Netron seems to have found at least one way to do it.

Another thing. To my knowledge, no one else in the field has advocated the notion of **balance** between source level changes and the re-use of executeable objects. This is probably the most important idea expressed here.

I thought I was becoming comfortable with OO until I ran into a group of Smalltalkers. What a mind bender! I learned things about OO that I didn't know. I also became concerned as, ostensibly for reuse purposes, the design stage decoupled logically unrelated functionality and fragmented real-world objects far beyond their natural granularity, to the point that I found myself mired in bitty components and methods with so little responsibility that I could no longer see the big picture. Worse, those myriad components now had complex interrelationships, most of which I could no longer see. I fully agreed that reuse was a worthy goal - but at the expense of readability and maintainability? Paul G. Bassett not only identifies and describes all of these issues (and much more), he has concrete solutions to these problems, with bottom line statistics to back up some pretty wild claims. His book is small - initially a concern for me. Don't worry. Paul G. Bassett is clear, concise, correct, complete. This, I strongly believe, is where we're headed.

I put this book on my "must have, don't loan it out," shelf right away.

I really like the approach and the presentation. The teaching style is casual and encouraging with a welcome absence of jargon. Don't get me wrong, if you follow the chapters you will get a FP site up and running, you just won't have to suffer a barrage of technical details to do it. Why utilize FrontPage in the first place if you are excited about the all the nuts and bolts of how web site programing works?

The included CD helps tremendously ... the combination of reading it and seeing the author go through the steps just further demystifies the process. Between the two presentations, you're bound to "get it." I watched some of the how to's, that I didn't even want to do yet. It got me interested and curious and gives you a sense of all the things you can do with FP2002.

I already had the FP Bible 2002 by this author. Did I "needed" the Virtual Classroom? ... Yes! The Bible is great for digging deep into the FP world, but the Virtual Classroom is clearly the right way to get yourself up to speed and in the running as a web site designer, painlessly. My advice, if you asked me, would be to get yourself a copy.

I found everything I needed in this book and the cd that comes with it. Having known nothing about FrontPage before owning this book now in just a couple of days I know a lot of things to create my perfect web site. Thanks David Karlins. You are one of a kind. I am looking forward to your other books to be published with the same format.

If you want to have an instant website without wasting a lot of time, this is the book for you. The CD takes you step by step to creat a fairly sophisticated website with input forms, scrolling/fly in text, differing themes, inserting pictures and video. etc. Using the CD, I really did not need the book all that much. Well worth it!!!

Text and multimedia combine in David Karlins' 384 page instructional reference guide, Frontpage 2002 Virtual Classroom to create an effective and "user friendly" learning experience. Readers will learn how to create large or small Web sites that are sophisticated and attractive, and effectively manage the organization, content, and style of their site. Readers can follow along on the CD-ROM as the on-screen guru explains and demonstrates the techniques discussed in the text. Frontpage 2002 Virtual Classroom is a confidently recommended "how to" introduction for all Frontpage 2002 users.

I am so glad I bought this book! It is truly a lifesaver! I learn better visually, so the CD Rom Virtual Classroom that's included helped me tremendously. Thanks to David Karlins' for sharing his knowledge of FrontPage. I hope to have my website up & running very soon!

I am an instructor for a 3D Game Content course and Game Art is one of our books. The industry art pipeline and procedures are very well laid-out in this book. Would love a second edition covering the next gen techniques that will be surfacing.

Great book that covers modeling techniques for game companies, uv layout's , future Tech Compontents such as Normal Maps, etc. A well good purchase for anyone who wants to know how it's done or to improve there knowledge.

I have read this book and find it extremely informative. The book is written with the readers perspective in mind. It gives beautiful insight into the industry and the dynamics of it. It also has great walk-throughs with media on a CD that you can use as part of the "practical" experience.

Good Job!

People don't think alike. The person who can handle the programming complexity of doing a graphics engine is often not the person who is capable of designing the characters, scenery, and equipment needed for the rest of the game. In this area, the digital artist comes into his/her own. Note this says digital artist. This requires two separate skills, one is the ability to create vizualize what art is needed, the other is to use a computer rather than some other media to generate the desired image.

The game design business represents an opportunity for the digital artist to obtain jobs with real companies that are relatively well paying. This book gives an artist's perspective into the game industry. It talks about the industry, the work, and gives insight on how to get a job. But mostly it talks about what kind of art is needed for gaming. It shows the detail that is necessary to produce a visually pleasing game.

The CD included with the book includes numerous illustrations and files from Maya and ds max. It also includes a trial version of Rt/Shader software. The book presumes that you have a workingknowledge of at least one major 3D program (3ds max or Maya) and Photoshop.

This is a splendid book that is positioned to take an aspiring digital artist and carry him to the next level -- employment doing a job well beyond flipping burgers.

I was an art director in the video game industry for a number of years and one of the most frustrating aspects was interviewing artists that wanted to be part of the industry but did not know how to prepare themselves. This book addresses that problem in a thoughtful and comprehensive way.

For any aspiring artist that wants to be in the video game industry, this is the book. The examples and explanations are clear and easy to follow. Using this book, you would be able to prepare a very capable portfolio.

Buy it, read it, and put the knowledge to use.

I like this book so much, I've purchased it 3 times! (My first copy was "borrowed" by one of my designer/producers, my second copy was left at Ubisoft SF, and this is my 3rd copy for myself.)

Great mixture of theories, old-school practices, and new-school techniques.

Although I personally disagree with some parts of what this book teaches, it this game design book is one of the most comprehensive I've seen. Well-recommended.

This might be a good book for teachers looking for material in their classes gamedesign or gamedevelopment. It may also be a good book for selfstudy, if you have the discipline to do the exercises. You need to have played a lot of the classic videogames though, otherwise you might not be able to do the exercises, which are mostly about thinking about gamedesigns and making little designs or design alterations on existing games.

Few people realize just how big a business digital gaming has become. Think of it this way: It's bigger than the domestic box office of the film industry. The amount of time spent playing games by young people now exceeds everything but television in time spent on entertainment. The main factor driving the development of the new extremely powerful computers is gaming, slower machines are capable of handling almost all office tasks.

The authors of this book have a great deal of experience in both designing games and teaching how to design games. This has given them an understanding of how beginning designers grasp the structured elements of games, common traps they fall into, and certain developmental exercises that help the student learn to make better games.

Note that this is not a programming manual, nor is it a graphics design manual. It is on game design. What are the characteristics that make a game, how can you prototype and play test the game without a horrendous programming expense, and finally some input on the game industry and how to decide on how you might like to be employeed in that industry.

I consider this an excellent book on game design. As an amatuer board game and basic computer game designer, I found a lot of the material extremely useful in the *process* of coming up with a game from start to finish.

The chapter on prototyping did a great job in showing how to go ahead and create a prototype from a game idea, while keeping it simple and concentrating on the "core gameplay mechanism."

The chapter on "Playtesting" and "Functionality, Completeness, and Balance" builds on the prototype chapter by emphasizing the iterative nature of design where one go aheads and evaluates, tries new things, identify problems and keep evolving.

The next chapter following is maybe the most important chapter that discusses whether you game is fun, goes in to some theory of what makes a game fun, and relates various techniques of improving player's choices so as to make the game fun.

This is a great book that gives you the necessary tools to go ahead and be able to at the very least create a viable prototype of a game that is possibly fun and playable.

Let me join the chorus here, this is a really well written book. The focus on free and current software tools (Stanti's Editor especially) makes following along easy. It may be a testament to the ease of use when it comes to python in general (just beware your use of the tab key!), but I had no problems getting the results described and learned buckets as a result.

If you're new to game programming (or even programming in general) Andy Harris' book is certainly a great place to start. I am by no means an "expert" in the programming field, in fact, I only picked up programming again for the first time in about 10 years. Python is a very powerful, user-friendly environment to program in and coupled with what you'll learn in this book, you have the tools and potential to become almost an expert in no time. Game programming is a great place to start if you're looking to pick up programming in general.

"Game Programming: The L Line" is very excellently and comprehensively written. In my opinion, Harris has made a very useful guide to game programming and I hope you enjoy this book as much as I have!

Andy Harris did a great job on this book. I sponsor a computer programming club for high school students and this book is the best at getting to actual game creation. The first three chapters go over basics of programming, but then graphics and pygame are used early and well.

This book is a bargain at 570 truly helpful pages.

For someone who has never coded a game before, and who perhaps is also new to the entire field of programming, this can be daunting. Commercial games are usually coded in C++. Which is quite an intricate language, especially for the neophyte. Harris furnishes a plausible alternative, where the scripting language Python is used to teach an introductory course in game programming.

You do need some earlier exposure to Python. Though if you still feel awkward in it, you can use this book for the extra reason of gaining experience in Python. Harris explains that there is an open source Python gaming site, that offers the eponymous pygame. You download and install this on your machine. It gives a simple, very bare bones Integrated Development Environment for game coding. If you have used more general purpose IDEs, like Microsoft's Visual Studio, then you can certainly learn pygame. It is much smaller.

Within pygame, you can code small games. Yes, small. But the pedagogy is important. The games elucidated in the text have properties common to many, much larger games. As in how to write event driven code, for example. Or drawing geometric figures on the screen. And using sprites.

The flavour of the games is like those games of the early 80s. Or the current games for cellphones.

Don't judge this book by it's cover! For some reason,
this book is part of a series of Wiley books, and they
all have the same cover.

This is a book about learning how to program computer
games using the Python programming language and the
PyGame package. PyGame is a Python wrapper around the
SDL library. This book offers step-by-step tutorials
that introduce game programming with complete Python
programs. All the programs work on several platforms:
MS-Windows, Mac, and GNU/Linux. Chapters 1-3 introduce
the Python programming language. Starting with Chapter
4, you begin to learn about graphics programming. In
Chapter 6 the programs begin to use OOP/classes. Then,
in Chapter 7, you begin to learn how to make 2D games
with sprites, sound FX, and keyboard and mouse control.
Game programming is a fun way to learn how to program
a computer, and Python with PyGame makes it relatively
easy as well.

This book has detailed information on creating graphics
and sounds for your games, using free, open source
third-party tools that are available on all platforms.
The GIMP is used for graphics, and Audacirty is used
for sounds. So unlike many other game programming books
which require expensive third-party programs in order
to make games, ALL the programs in this book are free.

The book has an easy-going, conversational style of writing
that makes it seem that the author is looking over your
shoulder, helping you to learn game programming. I'm really
glad I bought this book. It is worth many times its cover
price considering the amount of information it contains.

Things I like about this book:
1. Easy to read and understand with step-by-step tutorials.
2. Helpful reference tables throughout the book.
3. Complete example game programs.
4. All the third-party programs required are free and open.
5. Source code and extra appendices available for download.

Happy Programming!