Microsoft Books

Valuable information for all developers. The book is pretty well organized, and I like all the screen shots, although in some shots of mouse hovers, I would have preferred if a transparent arrow cursor image had been pasted on the screen shot for clarity.

Personally, I could have done without all of the superfluous anecdotes about the author's experiences as a tester, but I suppose that some would prefer the added levity and blog-like delivery.

If you're one of the millions of developers who use Visual Studio every day, your daily productivity will benefit from mastering the tips found in Sara Ford's book. Most of these tips will only save you a few seconds or less; however, considering that you'll perform these operations hundreds of times per day, you stand to save yourself a lot of time and effort. Mastering Visual Studio begins with Sara's book.

If that's not motivation enough to order a copy today, consider that Sara is donating her royalties from this book to support the Save Waveland Scholarship Fund at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, which is located near Sara's hometown of Waveland, Mississippi. As many will recall, Waveland was nearly wiped off the map when Hurrican Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August of 2005. Sara has chronicled the impact of this event and the subsequent recovery effort on her MSDN blog.

I have been following Sara's blog [...] for a long time and recently discovered that she was making book that covered all the things that most developers do not know or have forgotten when using the Visual Studio 2005/2008 IDE. I pre-ordered the book and I am amazed by not only the content but also by the organization of the book. The author has done a great job of organizing the Visual Studio tips so that the reader can find the area and then either read all the tips or browse through the table of contents to find what they are looking for. I spent an hour last night looking at tips that I know will make me more productive when developing software with Visual Studio.

I pre-ordered the this book back in August and I have to say this is the best book on the Visual Studio IDE that I have ever run across. It is a great collection of tips taken from Sara Ford's ever-popular Visual Studio Tip of the Day. I really like the "Sara Aside" sections where extra insight is given about the tip.

There are tips for (but not limited to) the following -

* Dealing with the editor
* Searching files
* Development environment
* Debugging
* Design time tools

If you have to spend any amount of time in Visual Studio then this book is definitely worth the money as I will be referring back to it time and time again. I am also recommending it at my office. Especially for beginners to .NET.

I have found this book very easy to understand and very useful. I have learned alot from reading this book. It takes you step by step through all the processes. It is a total and complete over view of Windows 95 done very accurately and put into simplest terms. This is a very excellent book!

This book is thorough and clear. The exercises and practice disk are very helpful. The chapter summaries are useful for reviewing. It is an excellent training book for individuals or to supplement classroom teaching of beginning Windows 95. It is also a good book to have on the shelf for reference. I highly recommend it to my students and my friends.

This book is thorough and clear. The exercises and practice disk are very helpful. The chapter summaries are useful for reviewing. It is an excellent training book for individuals or to supplement classroom teaching of beginning Windows 95. It is also a good book to have on the shelf for reference. I highly recommend it to my students and my friends.

I routinely use this book in the Windows 95 classes that I teach. My students range from rank beginners with their first computer to old timers upgrading their systems from DOS and Windows 3.xx. In the classroom presentation I use examples that are different from the ones in the book. The students are instructed to do the Exercises for the Student in the book as their homework. This, of course, is where the learning really takes place. The most difficult part of the process for the rank beginners is loading the practice files on their computers. I can't tell you how many times students come to the first class and ask, "How do I open those practice files?" Beginners are also somewhat afraid to make the changes in how their computer is set up: video colors and patterns, shortcuts, etc. With a little encouragement, most overcome their fear. I do not find this book is a good reference book. I think that's what makes it a good teaching/learning tool.

It is rare that I would read a technical reference book cover to cover, but that is what I have just done with this excellent effort from two masters at HP. Having been in the identity and security arena at Microsoft for nearly ten years I wanted depth of coverage and this book delivered not only depth but breadth as well. I worried that the coverage would be too broad and would water down the content but this book delivered an enjoyable read cover to cover. Though I would like to have even more coverage I recognize that a book this size needs a follow-up in order to continue the content. Therefore, I am eagerly anticipating the release of the second volume later this year.

If you are in the Active Directory, identity, or security profession you will find this book informative, educational, and well written.

Great book, highly recommended. Detailed information explained thoroughly and understandably. Every Windows Admin should own this book. As mentioned previously, the Kerberos and Delegation chapters are fabulous as is the chapter on Unix/Linux Authentication Integration. Actually, every chapter provided quite a bit of value. If you are a Windows Admin - read this book, you will be glad you did.

Another instant classic from the folks at DP/HP. The writing style is truly excellent - flows nicely, never boring, and technically enlightening...its what i expect from De Clerq to be honest - author of the classic: Mission Critical Active Directory. My only complaint is that this book is really the 2nd Ed of Windows 2003 Security Infrastructures (again De Clerq and DP/HP, and obviously covering SP1 and R2), so if you already have that one, then you may need to determine whether the new info is worth the purchase. Regardless - this book is brilliant...the chapter on Delegation is worth the price alone.

Very good book, chock full of detail on things you have issues finding details on normally. Sections on Kerberos and Active Directory will likely be extremely enlightening for many people. Some pieces can be a little tough to follow at times but we aren't talking about how to color within the lines in a coloring book, this is some serious technical security information. I highly recommend that all Windows Admins spend time cuddled up with this book. Windows Server Admins absolutely better be reading this book.

I am a dyed-in-the-wool Wordperfect user and was trying my best to switch over to Microsoft Word. This book has given me the oomph to stick with it. It is crucial to my home business for me to be somewhat proficient in Word and this book will do it. I love the two-page displays and simple tutorial. Thanks IDG Books.

As a teacher, I am often creating worksheets, homework, and notes to parents on the computer. With this book, I am now able to mail merge, create labels, and make more attractive and professional documents using my computer. I am now adding graphics with ease and my work looks more like the way that I want it to look without all of the extra trouble.

This book is extremely organized. The pictures and step-by-step instructions are easy to follow.

I highly recomment this book to anyone who is not a computer wizard. It will make you look like one.

This good book is too simplified. Layout and generous screen captures are good, but some graphics are too cute. I learned several things from it, but the audience for this book is on par of a "dummies" book. Word beginners could get better value with a book with more tips and advanced features without the fear of getting lost.

As a teacher I am always word processing worksheets, homework, and notes for parents. This book was extremely helpful in teaching me how to mail merge and to create labels. Even things like adding graphics and changing text styles were easily learned through this book. I can now make more attractive, more professional documents with ease. The step-by-step directions and pictures were easy to follow and the book was well organized. I highly recommend this if you are not a computer wizard. It'll help you look like one.

Some examples of documents are in color and others are in black and white. They all look good--professional. I think I can do that too, with the help of this book. Lots of good advice, tips and tricks. Good book!

This book is very easy to use, informative and has lots of good examples. It enables you to get the most out of Publisher 2000. There are many tips and tricks located throughout the book. Easy to read and comprehend.

The book has a lot of examples that showed me different ways to do my newsletter and other designs. I can never think of ideas for making the text and pictures look good together. Plus, the author uses a conversational tone in her writing...it's like she's sitting next to me and telling me what to do. Good book.

I like this book because the author offers a lot of tips and advice about using Publisher and about making documents look good.

This book is a must have for any IT shop that wants to run and monitor Exchange to keep your system running 7x24. The book thoroughly covers all major areas and is a must have for IT Professionals. This is a crucial book for everyday tasks.

Mike has a terrific job of writing a lucid, well thought-out book on managing and monitoring Exchange. Very, very helpful not only for tactical "how-tos", but also for a top-down strategic perspective on this issue. A must-buy!

This book will be a great reference to Exchange 2000 administrators. I had the opportunity to review this book as it was being written, and the owners of this book will have a wealth of information about how to keep their Exchange 2000 servers happily chugging along by following the expert advice that Mike has given in this book. Mike has vast experience with large multi-national companies and his many years in "the business" is very much evident in his writing.

Michael Daugherty's book clearly draws on a wealth of in-the-trenches experience in planning, deploying, managing and monitoring the integrity and efficacy of Exchange environments at some of the largest corporations in the world.

Mike's book provides invaluable, easy-to-understand and most importantly, actionable ideas on how to best manage and monitor key aspects of Exchange 2000. This is an easy-to-understand, extremely clear must read for anyone charged with or interested in, understanding and managing the deployment and day-to-day management of a corporate messaging environment.

The authors appear to go to great length for completeness in a companion reference for programmers creating DotNet Forms, an important new feature of the DotNet frameworks. We have been always looking for a capable web enabled report writer without integrating a third-party product, such as Crystal Reports for the Web. DotNet Forms promises in creating at least simple, yet dynamic, multi-paged reports without a whole lot of work.

DotNet provides for creating dynamic Excel-like forms for ASP.NET html. Additional form paging provides for DB presentation similar to Yahoo and eBay searches, which is a familiar and intuitive format. DotNet provides these DataGrid forms with the DotNet Forms API. The API architecture is listed in the last two-thirds of this book, which is an inch and a half thick.

While the authors claim to include a "very fast-paced" tutorial (p1) in the first third (313 pgs) of the book, the DataGrid portion is a mere 6 pages (p307-312), very steep indeed! I'd highly recommend its combined use with another MS Press book by Dino Esposito (0-7356-1578-0) which devotes about half of his book to DataGrid reports and code examples. Another is Jesse Liberty's O'Reilly book on VB.Net (0-596-00438-9) which has one chapter devoted to ADO.net (34pgs).

The publisher include a MS Visual Studio.Net Add-in on the accompanying CD which has the text of the book as integrated help files, 1.7MB MSI files for VS.Net 2K2 and 2K3. Appears a tad bit small? I have not tested the usefulness of the claimed dynamic integration of the O'Reilly Help files along with MS Help during coding process within VS. It appears that this is the initial product enhancement from this publisher. I wonder if an annotatable PDF file of the book would be more useful; at least this would be in a separate window. This tome was read at a local library.

At a local SQL Server Users Group meeting, a new technology that will embellish on the DataGrid and Forms was discussed and demoed. It is the forthcoming SQL Server 2K Reporting Services that will be a low/no cost add-on for SQL 2000 Server and authoring with a Visual Studio.Net 2003 download. It currently is in beta and will be released in 4Q03. It appears to be XML based and production reports can be rendered for browser, printer, PDF, and TIFF output. What a seemingly great idea.

Overall, this detailed 469-page reference on the DotNet Forms API appears needed for the programmer, although this is probably duplicates what's available on a MSDN subscription CD somewhere. The appendix includes another 69-page API term cross-reference and a 23-page index.

Databinding is handled later, and lots of interesting stuff I wasn't knowledgeable about came sooner. Bravo. This is a great book that will always be on my desk! (I'm a professional developer with walls of books by Microsoft on Wrox, primarily.)

This was the 3rd or 4th WinForms book I purchased. The others were good, but they were lacking in detail. This book does a great job in explaining 'under the cover' details. The authors do a good job explaining DataBinding, Controls, GDI+, Form, Menus, Inheritance and much more.
This is more than a resource book. The first half is devoted to getting you up and running with building WinForms apps. The 2nd half is an incredible reference, one I turn to almost daily.

If you plan to use or are using .NET WinForm, please, do yourself a big favor, buy this book and leave it on your desk

This was the 3rd or 4th WinForms book I purchased. The others were good, but they were lacking in detail. This book does a great job in explaing 'under the cover' details. The authors do a good job explaining DataBinding, Controls, GDI+, Form, Menus, Inheritace and much more.

This is more than a resource book. The first half is devoted to getting you up and running with building WinForms apps. The 2nd half is an incredible reference, one I turn to almost daily.

If you plan to use or are using .NET WinForm, please, do yourself a big favor, buy this book and leave it on your desk.

This book skips the jargon and spells everything out -- Yet has key details for intermediate or advanced readers.

I found this book very informative, a great resource on any IP QoS related topics, including very thorough explanations of how different protocols and parts of theirof came about. It is remarkably comprehensive and free of little typos and inconsistencies that seemed to have become almost a rule, based on my other recent readings.

I highly recommend it for anybody who is working in the IP networking environment.

The book - Networking Quality of Service and Windows Operating Systems provides an in-depth introduction to Quality of Service followed by a set of theoretical applications of QoS mechanisms to network engineering scenarios.

The beginning of the book contains the requisite presentation of QoS queuing mechanisms, and IETF work in both the Integrated and Differentiated Services areas. There is also a good discussion on the issues surrounding policy management in QoS enabled networks.

However this books' primary value (and worth its price alone,) are

1) it's discussion of the Quality of Service implementation on the Microsoft Windows 2000 platform. It is essential for anyone developing and hosting QoS enabled applications on the Windows platform. It provides in-depth discussion of the Windows Generic QoS API, QoS Service provider, as well as the traffic control API, and traffic control components including a great discussion on the internal queuing for QoS enabled applications. In the final chapter, the author covers Microsoft value added services for Quality of Service with a discussion of the Access Control Server (ACS) and Subnet Bandwidth Manager(SBM).

2) the authors' intimate knowledge and vision really show with his introduction of a Quality/Efficiency Product (or Q/E product) for QoS enabled networks. This idea is outlined in chapter two, and further referenced in threads throughout the remaining chapters of the book and provides a measurement tool for determining the efficiency of the network over differing QoS mechanisms. The Q/E product - if automated - would go a long way to providing networks with dynamic tools for near real-time QoS provisioning processes inside the network. The Q/E product could provide the foundation on which policy automation and dynamic resource reconfiguration could take place. The Q/E product for a network could be adjusted when promoting applications into or demoting applications out of the QoS space in a network. The impacts of which would be known to existing network SLA's. Although this idea is in its infancy, it provides food for thought to those doing future network research and development in the area of QoS tools and automation.

I highly recommend this book to Networking Engineers, Application and Network Developers, as well as Network Performance and Management planners.

Over the past year I've read a lot of material regarding QoS. I wish this book was in print when I first started researching QoS! This book is very well written and comprehensive. Not only does it do a excellent job of explaining how QoS is incorporated in Microsoft Windows, it also provides in-depth information regarding all the protocols and mechanisms that make up QoS. This book ties it all together very nicely.

Forget about those 1000-page reference books. Learn by doing � that�s what I personally believe in. This excellent book contains many examples that you may encounter in real life. The authors will guide you step-by-step through the assignments in the 12 tutorials. The concepts behind each task are well-explained. If you need more hands-on practice, there are numerous exercises at the end of each chapter. By the time you complete the course, you will be confident and eager to impress your boss with your newly-learnt Excel skills.

What a great book!!

Makes learning MS Excel easy by using excercises as you go.

A good method of learning that also doubles as a great reference tool afterwards.

I can't wait to improve my skills with MS Word by using the New Perspective series.

If you're not a programmer, and you want to learn Excel, skip those fat books full of pictures, and don't waste your money on authors that think you're stupid. This isn't some magic bullet; you still have to do the work. I think, however, that this is a better use for your money than one of those 1000-page wastelands. If you're a self-motivated scrapper, this won't just gather dust while you wait for the recycling truck. Get the comprehensive (expert) edition. After you get through this material, you can find a good reference work.(I'm still looking.)

I had this book for an Advanced Microcomputer Applications class. I found the tutorial style really nice, but I think that you really need to do the additional exercises in the the back of the chapters to really understand the material. I think the material on the use of "solver" and pivot tables were rather well done. I think someone who is trying to teach themselves without a teacher could make good use of this book.

This is a good course text. It is very basic. It does a good job of being specific with each detail at each level. I will be well versed in the use of Office 2007 when I get through.

The best computer book, on Office programs, that I have ever read.
Fore the money, this is it.

I was very pleased with this buyer and my book. It was in good condition and the service was quick and friendly. Two thumbs-up

The book was exactly what I expected. It is very helpful, and I received it quickly.