Microsoft Books

Pretty much what I was looking for. Relatively thin book packed with 'to the point' info, with mostly unambigious explanation. Have not found any printing mistakes yet.
Money's worth.

I knew a little about XML before reading this book, but nothing in-depth. I've been a software developer for years however, so I didn't want a basics book, but something that covered the subject quickly and in depth. After reading the other reviews I bought this book and was not disappointed. I was particularly interested in XML Schema and XSLT, and this book does an excellent job with both. I'm not sure you can find a more thorough reference outside the standards documents themselves. Datatypes, restrictions, defining complex types--I use this book for XML Schema like I use K&R for C programming. Note that this book has almost no coverage of subjects outside the W3C standards, such as the different types of validating tools and parsers or other XML schema languages such as RELAXNG from Oasis. You will have to go elsewhere for a fuller understanding of the entire 'XML Universe'. The only real gripe I have with this book is its constant use of Microsoft in the examples, which grates on this long-time Linux user. Of course, its from Microsoft Press, so what can you expect. Fortunately XML itself is non-OS specific, so nothing in this book is really Microsoft-centric. All in all, a great reference.

If you are a knowledgable IT professional and need to either learn XML or increase your knowledge quickly, this book is for you. Complete, fast-paced, no dead wood, and designed with the busy IT professional in mind. It reminds me of the Wrox "Handbook" series.

It's 370 pages but half-size, so equivalent to a normal-size 185-page book. Best book purchase I've made all year. Weird for an MSPress book to be so good :-)

Take the hint, MS Press... make all of your books like this!

I seldom award five stars but this book deserves it. If you can only buy one XML reference book, buy this one; if you have XML books that you're not satisfied with, buy this one: The XML Pocket Consultant is *the* XML "sleeper" title.

In my mind, I've retitled the XML Pocket Consultant "The XML Comprehensive Quick Reference." The book presents every aspect of XML and related technologies in a clear, crisp, understandable style. The book's excellent content is augmented by a professionally crafted visual style (page layout, whitespace, typeface, headings, list construction, examples) that facilitates information access and transfer; I mention this because too many books of this type look like they were designed and produced using consumer-level desktop publishing software.

I'm not normally this enthusiastic about a book, but The XML Pocket Consultant is truly a treasure: It's the single most useful, helpful, 5.5" x 8" x 1.2" compendium of XML information I've so far found.

"XML Pocket Consultant" is the best XML book on the market. It is really worth every penny. This book is packed with useful information. My biggest disappointment is that I had such a hard time find the book. For anyone wanting to learn XML, XSL, XPath this is the book I recommend.

Mark Warhol has given us a book full of very sound advice for writing real, maintainable applications. The programming tips are applicable to any language; I work mostly in Tcl/TK and Perl where Mark's advice holds just as well as in VB. It's a darn shame this one is now out of print. A note to Wiley & Sons: bring it back!

I really enjoyed this book which is more than I can say about most of the programming books I read. The author is humorous while his is delivering his message about responsible programming. He reminds us of the need to be consistent and sensible about the way we code - in the real world, other people eventually have to deal with our code and it can sometimes be very painful. In fact, we can save ourselves the pain of going back to work on code we wrote months ago only to find we can't understand it now. Follow the techniques in this book and save yourselve and others a lot of grief.

The copy of this book that I have is for VB 3 and I don't know if it has been updated, but it really doesn't matter, because the main points apply to all versions.

By following Mark's advice you can avoid months, even years of the blood, sweat, and tears he's already been through creating- and the more importantly- maintaining code. How much would you pay for that? This rich book is well worth the meager price

This and Code Complete are my favorite programming books, and I have read a bunch. This book is hilarious, his stories are out there. Covers a good number of real world difficulties that other books don't cover. I wish this guy would write more, he is a genius.

While dated in specific VB examples (it was written for VB3), this book is far more important in what it teaches you about the programming industry in general. It teaches how to write clean, structured code, and what to expect as a professional programmer. Anyone who writes code for a living should buy this book immediately, regardless of whether you're just out of school, or have been in the industry for years.

When I first started looking at Web Parts I couldn't quite grasp how they were different from other web technology. Darren was able to clearly describe how individual parts are created, and how to integrate them into a cohesive whole and helped me enormously in building modern websites.

When I began to work on a web portal using .NET 2.0 in mid-2006, I found out about this book and anxiously awaited it's publishing. I wasn't disappointed. The material covered in this book goes into such great detail and is so full of great ideas that I recommended the re-writing of our portal using Darren's book as a basis of our new design. This was money well spent.

This a very thorough and complete guide to ASP 2.0 Web Parts. After reading this book, I gained more knowledge than reading countless internet articles, numerous blogs and a few cumbersome books on subject. This book is a MUST Buy for anyone who needs to understand and/ or implement ASP 2.0 Web Parts. One added new value is the concepts outlined
in his book also work on ASP 3.5.

A must buy book if your working with webparts. Darren (The author) is also extremely helpful if you post web part related questions on his forum. The book is clear, concise and well organised. You will not be disapointed!

Ps. I have bought many many tech reference books from Amazon over the years. This is the first time I have ever posted a review. This book has been an invaluable reference for a large project I am currently working on.

Paul Hale (Domainscanners)

An all in one great introduction to web parts and even to some advanced techniques.

Web parts are a strong web UI element and this book has done a great job of talking about ALL the things that are necessary for proper web parts development.

I am new to programming.

This book starts at the beginning: building a graphical web page in Web Matrix. Following a entertaining blend of practical, funny and insightful steps, in a short period I was using Visual Basic.Net and databases to add dynamic features, controls and web services.

I was amazed at how easy it is to do. This book provides an enjoyable was to grasp a firm foundation in ASP.NET programming.

I am a college student having some programming knowledge but totally new in dynamic/ data-driven web creation. I found this book really helpful to get started from static to exciting data-driven stuff with ASP and MSDE. Although WebMatrix has a limitation(which was developed by a team of people from Microsoft at their spare time), it's a real great tool for beginner to get to know how to install database engine, create a data table, link to your web form with drag-n-drop and some hands-on coding (provided in the book). If you need to go on to industrial level, this book or WebMartix won't help.
Chap 1 starts with step by step instructions on how to install .NET framwork, MSDE (you need this if you don't have SQL running), then WebMartix (which has its own web server, you don't need IIS to run samples from the book). One of the great styles of this book is easy-to-follow-and-understand examples which has "Try It Out" & "How it Works" section which explains the code line by line in detail. I found Chap16 and 17 really helpful for general knowledge on "Web Services" and "Beyond WebMatrix," but make sure you finish this book first, then go on to more exciting Visual Studio .NET (which is a "bigbrother" of WebMatrix)
Oh..2 case studies at the back of the book, which explains step by step how to make a guestbook, reconizing customer and "log-on" stuff..and the CD includes some software WebMatrix, MSDE, etc..
Thanks to David Sussman and Wrox P2P

Great combination and perfect fit of beginning book and tool: ASP.Net Web Matrix. Excellent examples and basic ASP.Net concepts explanation.

You will be amazed when you read it. It is a step by step guide. I highly recommend this book for ASP .NET so far.

This book is a not bad introduction to ASP.NET. The reason I purchased it is I really needed to master Web Matrix ASAP and Mr. Sussman's book was quite helpful in accomplishing that goal. Of course, it is better to begin with Visual Studio since Web Matrix is somewhat limited resemblance of Visual Studuo but Web Matrix has something nobody could resist - it is free.
Make sure you learn as profoundly as possible chapters about datagrids and reusable content; these two are absolutely irreplaceble components of practically any online database application. Also pay attention to inclusion of namespaces at the very top of your code, it is forgetable. The only thing which was not working for me is Web Services. Other code samples work fine.
I would recommend to start with this book to anybody who needs to master ASP.NET.

Beginning Visual Basic 5.0 by Peter Wright was the first book on Visual Basic that I read. Peter Wright's easy to follow style and use of understandable real world examples made my transition from ACCESS database development to Visual Basic development a breeze. Recently I began to explore the world of Objects. I found that most of the texts used abstract, hard to follow language. Once again Peter Wright has produced a book that offers great coverage of the basics of his topic. Since reading this book, I have been able to go back to the other more advanced texts with no trouble. Well done Mr. Wright.

The actual information and teaching in this book could have been easily compressed into 200 pages. The other 449 pages are mostly comprised of Peter Wright boasting about how wonderful and robust a language vb5 is, and constantly making snide comments about how difficult, slow, and inadequate, C/C++ are. I found that insulting to my intelligence. Someone trying to learn Visual Basic does not need to be told that C/C++ are horrible languages. If they ever want to move beyond writing slow and inefficient VB database programs, they're going to need to learn C or C++ sooner or later. Nothing against Visual Basic, it's a great language for what it's meant to do. But I (and nobody else) needs to be told that it's the end all be all wonderful super language when it really isn't..

Aside from that I found that the book goes through creating interfaces fairly well, and actually discusses program structure and bites into code efficiency a bit. The main thing it doesn't do is tea! ch you how to write code, which is absolutely essential unless you're designing a database in Access, and even then you really should know how to code if you want to make anything good. I would steer clear of this book unless you want to pay $25 for a migraine headache.

I bought this book because I knew nothing of OOP or Active X components and was faced with the task of being responsible for enhancing an application written using those techniques. Furthermore, the developer that wrote the application was long gone and there was very little documentation. After reading the book and coding some of the examples I was able to figure out the application and how to effectively change it. Not only did this book help me to do my current job, but learning the OOP techniques has made me a better programmer. Needless to say, the skills I have learned from this $40 investment will benefit me in future earnings far and above. I also appreciated Peter Wrights "this is no big deal" humor throughout.

Being an experienced VB programmer, I like the way Peter laid out the way he explained it all. Before reading this book, I really didn't have much understanding of objects/classes....just that they were there and it had some code I could use elsewhere in my project. When I actually had a chance to work on it, I just felt so knowledgeable!!

One thing I thought was interesting.....most of the time when there is source code with the book, the examples are fully coded and functional. He tricked me this time and had a project with many classes and no code. (BTW, I downloaded it from the Wrox site). He leaves this open for you to work on it and get it right. I think that's the best way to learn.

Good Job Peter!!!

He non-chalantly covers what has been a very stick y subject.

His style is friendly ... a little wordy.

But when he puts nuts and bolts together .. the guy has quite a philosophy ...

I've been a VB programmer since v3. VB3 and VB4 didn't do objects .. so I went to Java.

Even though I am familiar with OO programming ... he was NOT boring ... and spelled things out simple stupid 123.

If you are Einstein or Forest Gump .. .you will get something out of this book .. if you do what he says .. and punch the keyboard through his examples.

He should (but probably won't) .. get a commission on my next programming project !!

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

With a foreword by none other than Drs Kaplan and Norton you can be sure that software is not central to this book's message. Drive Business Performance is part of Wiley's Microsoft Executive Leadership Series, however the only time "Microsoft" is mentioned is when referencing quotes from Steve Ballmer or Chris Liddell. The intended audience is a business one not technical, although technical people would do well to get their hands on a copy nonetheless.

Fitts and Aziza provide a comprehensive look at what Performance Management (PM) is and just how successful organisations can be when they succeed in creating a "Culture of Intelligent Execution". Central to the book's philosophy are what the authors have dubbed the "Six Stages of Performance Management Value". Targeted lists of questions at the end of each section enable readers to assess their organisation's current PM capabilities.

For mine the book's greatest strength are the anecdotes and quotes peppered throughout to underscore each topic. It is obvious the authors went to a great deal of effort to interview high-ranking members of companies who spearheaded some very successful PM implementations. The information gathered in these interviews coupled with well-chosen quotes from the likes of Winston Churchill, Henry Ford and many others serve as evidence to support Fitts and Aziza's Six Stages and the culture of performance management in general.

PM is not just something that can be thrown together in a few weeks by a couple of interns, it is an organisation-wide paradigm shift that takes time, effort and dedication to bear fruit. As recounted many times within the book, the rewards to organisations who implement an effective PM initiative can be very substantial.

This is a great book to hand to anyone who is considering implementing any form of PM. It details plenty of good "See! They did it, why can't we?" case studies as well as providing practical guidance describing how to do it within your own organisation. Highly recommended reading.

At first I was skeptical, but then by the time I finished it, I had something I could actually use. The book goes where few management books dare to go - to actually talk about how to change a business culture. Wow!

There are precise examples of how change is made, with company stories, that allow for organizations to understand that change is possible. This book is now on my must reads list, and I will give it to every executive I work with.

I'd put this book before the Kaplan Balanced Scorecard books and even before Competing on Analytics. The style is concise, the case studies are relevant and the roadmap guidance to changing an organization is approachable.

I just finished reading "Drive Business Performance - Enabling a Culture of Intelligent Execution" by Bruno Aziza and Joey Fitts. Wow, what a fantastic book! It is one of the best I have read on the subject of Performance Management. It finds the right balance of not being too theoretical or too techie. I love the fact that it offers a broad education on the concepts and terminology associated with Performance Management but, at the same time, is highly actionable. It serves a diverse audience. I would recommend it not just to a CEO but for an organization's entire executive team. It offers the potential for some great post-reading dialog.

My favorite part is their defined "Six Stages of Performance Management Value". For those who know me, it aligns nicely with my "crawl, walk, run" approach to business application development. The "money picture" is how they show the six stages, listed below, in concentric circles; illustrating the evolution and associated benefits of a commitment to Performance Management.

This is actually a book that you can read cover to cover and feel like you get value from every chapter. Read it then buy a copy for your boss... then find a way to get to the sixth stage!

I manage a consulting firm and the #1 issue I see my business customers deal with is the perceived complexity of Performance Management. My customers struggle to determine the people, processes and technologies to turn their high-level strategy into a successful execution plan and results.

In this book, I have found a pragmatic guide that helps business managers and IT get together, assess where they are and start the discussions required to succeed in Performance Management. Sure - the book doesn't solve everything on its own, but it at least gives an easy and effective model to follow.

Finally, I enjoyed how the book reads. The authors give plenty of company success stories and have extracted some great best practice examples that help me remember them. Very sticky. I've also had success using the methodology, which appears well adopted given all the companies in the book saying they're "moving to a Culture of Performance". The Six Stages & 3 Capabilities (MAP) framework help me to assess what stage my clients are at today & explain the steps they need to take to garner greater competitive advantage.

All in all, a good & very useful read!

"Drive Business Performance: Enabling a Culture of Intelligent Execution" by Bruno Aziza and Joey Fitts represents much more than a demystification of performance management terminology. The book is neither a re-telling of the benefits of performance management, nor a veiled attempt to shape a business case for PerformancePoint. Instead, the authors introduce novel ideas backed by case study research, culminating in a pervasive and flexible model for business transformation within the scope of performance improvement.

The Culture of Performance (CoP) Model presented by the authors bridges a gap between the establishment of a performance measurement framework (e.g., Balanced Scorecard, TQM, Lean, etc.), and the tools and methods brought to bear in executing performance measurement (read: Business Intelligence). CoP is a comprehensive model for evolving organisations into the strategy-focused enterprises that Drs. Kaplan and Norton envisioned years earlier. To be certain, we all stand on the shoulders of giants.

That the authors chose to include "culture" in the name of their model cannot be understated: it directly addresses organisation-wide cultural transformation as it relates to the adoption of performance management (through the model's six phases). The authors demonstrate, with compelling evidence, that a company is more likely to achieve its desired outcomes when all its members adopt a performance-oriented mindset. Here, case studies on Expedia, Energizer and The Veterans' Health Administration (U.S.) each strike a chord on the sometimes painful transformation to a culture of performance. Aziza and Fitts make these findings practical, encouraging incubation through scored questionnaires, supporting capability models (MAP) and guiding principles. The final chapter of the book provides an excellent summary that aligns said scores to an entry point into the CoP model; this provides a reasonable indication of where an organisation may begin to improve business performance.

This excellent book warrants careful review and consideration-- it represents fresh and illuminating thinking from two of the most prominent figures in the field of performance management. For executives, directors and managers looking to improve business performance (as well as consultants specialising in performance management) consider this book essential reading.

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.

All needed I to become MCP and start getting benefits. Exam now questions 15 with adaptive format. Know the material here well and you pass first time out.

If you've ever seen a large sponge that someone has sucked all the water from and seen how small it can get and still be a sponge, then you understand the premise of what is here. All the other NT Workstation books have had the fluff sucked from them to make this book - what is left has no wasted space/thoughts/text.

I spent a lot of looking over the coverage of key topics in half-a-dozen Workstation books. This one covered them in as much or more detail than any other. The small size comes from the fact that the non-critical nonsense has been removed, which saves me from having to jump over a dozen pages here and there.

I found the book to be easy to read, easy to understand, and all that it was advertised to be, and then some.

After years of struggle, NT Workstation won the client war in my workplace and it was decided that 1000 users had to be changed over from every other thinkable operating system to NTW.

I knew some about the OS, but not much. I also knew that someone would have to become an MCP in order to convince corporate that IT knew what is was doing and to leave us alone. In order to accomplish those goals, I needed a quick solution, and the Fast Track seemed like it.

To make a long story short, I learned more about the OS from this book that I ever imagined, and passed the new adaptive exam (much less questions) with flying colors.

Not only is this an excellent book for certification study, but it is one of the best technical books I've ever read on NT Workstation. I typically buy three or four books on a topic when studying for an exam to avoid wasting time if I get a junk one. In this case, I read only the one and intend to buy only one now for any study topic the fast track is available for.

I always start with reading a MCSE for dummies when I am preparing for an exam. This one is the best so far and after taking the exam I can say that this book is all you need.
I used other materials as well because there were some objectives that I did not have experience with.
I scored 790 and that was more than I expected.

I found this book full of information without drowning it's readers in useless jargon. Some of the content was covered only briefly, but with some hands on learning and this book, passing the test was a breaze!

As a Microsoft Instructor, I recommend this book to all of my students. It cuts through the fluff and crud that Microsoft usually tacks on to the courses and gets to the meat and potatoes of what Active Directory is all about. Several students have used this besides my class and have blown the test away. Check out the author's exam tips to save yourself some headaches.

This book does a fantastic job preparing you for the exam 70-217. I am currently an NT 4.0 MCSE aspiring to be a Windows 2000 MCSE and wouldn't of been able to pass this exam with out this book. The author did an wonderful job helping me understand the complex features of Active Directory like group policies and remote install services. Which by the way are hit hard on the exam. I recommend this book to everyone looking to get certified in Windows 2000.

I passed 70-217 today using this book. I scored an 800 and something. This book did a great job of covering the material that MS tests about.