Microsoft Books

This book has completely smashed every possible expectation I had when I set out to read it.

Let me put it simply. There comes a time in every software developers' life when he contemplates the age old question of, "If I were to be stranded on an island and I could bring only 3 things with me, what would they be?" Well, this would be one of the 3 items. (The other two would be Windows Internals by Russinovich and some other obvious classic like the Windows via C/C++ by Richter, or UNIX Network Programming by Stevens). This book is easily on the same playing field as such classics as those, and its only flaw is that it is not 1,000 pages because when a book like this comes along, you really just don't want it to end. There is so much useful information in here.

The chapter on LPC debugging is worth the price of the book alone, as LPC is completely undocumented and you literally will not find this type of information anywhere else. Every single chapter in this book is filled with gems, and with the plethora of average books being released recently, it really took me by surprise to read such a well thought out book that hits all the right topics in all the right ways.

That being said, it is advanced. Yes, I realize the title says it, but too many books come out with the word Advanced in the title that are merely Intermediate. You need some assembly language, you need to be comfortable with native code, you need to not be frightened at the thought of debugging something for which you have no source code. But for those that meet the pre-requisites, this is a must-have in every sense of the word for the serious developers' bookshelf.

Chapters on debugging heap/stack corruptions are simply invaluable. Worth reading even if you think you know everything about those issues, this book will easily prove you wrong.

A very good hands on book with many gems of knowledge. It walks you through the processes of different debugging techniques with easy to follow screen shots. I definitely recommend this to anyone writing Windows OS dependent code and it is even a very good book to read even if you are a .Net or Java developer on the windows platform. Even if you consider yourself advanced in this area you will still find a few new tricks.

The focus is on debugging using tools other than Visual Studio. There is still a lot of useful information about other tools, but if you want to learn how to debug with the Visual Studio debugger, this is not the book to get.

Have you ever tried to debug a problem in a productive environment? Do you know how hard this can be, especially when you are not allowed to install or use your full Visual Studio environment? Or did you ever try to debug a problem which only happens at the customer's side? This book shows you how to do all of this, and much more. It shows you, for example, how to create and use a memory dump and how to set up and use remote debugging.

And this is a very concentrated book. It covers a very wide area of expertise. It is an indispensable companion for every real world programmer. It explains in detail some of the lesser-known areas of programming infrastructure, like stacks and heaps and the RPC (DCOM) infrastructure, the possible error symptoms and their analysis.

Did you know about the powerful tools in the Debugging Tools for Windows package? This book begins with an introduction to these tools. It shows you how to set up and use them. It introduces you to the user-mode and kernel-mode debuggers, the Global Flags, the Application Verifier and many other tools. All of them are available for free. And you can easily give them to your customers or to the IT department of your productive environment.

Bottom line - great how-to book. I am NOT in any way, shape, or form, a computer geek. Technology is not my friend, and nothing about machinery is inuitive to me. I am also a no-nonsence kinda guy. In this particular case, I want to edit, not spend my time READING about how to edit. So this book is GREAT! (Wouldn't know if it's the best 'cause I'm completely dependent on doing what it says to do so I have no way to compare it to other resources.) The layout is straightforward - topics are categorized and independant from each other. Like a cookbook. Simply go to the instructions on how to do a particular thing, and there you go! The book uses paragraph format in the beginning of each topic/chapter to explain the "why's" of the upcoming topic; like a comprehensive overview. (What's the purpose and point of doing "_____".) Then when it comes to the "how-tos", each subtopic/activity converts to bullet-points. (Click A, then do B, then press C.) The book also includes side notes and hints along with illustrations of what you should be seeing on the screen at that particular stage. Wonderful! Efficient!

This book is based on Avid Express Pro as of 2004 and will serve you well as a reference text. It is well-indexed and has useful cross-references in the text.

This book is very helpful for new beginners learning AXP. It is very detailed and to the point. A must have.

figata ci vediamo al solito posto alle 12.00. porta la corazzata
pinuccio

I am a beginner with Avid and was daunted by all the different and options available to me. Monohan's book was just what I needed. I am currently giong through the book from A to Z, which gives me an overview of all the options and work-methods the program has. Even though I allready had set up my workspace, this book gave me some interesting tips. Even though I had allready developed a workflow for my previous projects, I learned some new options by reading this book.

Interestingly, serving as a guide from a to Z is not where Monohan excells. It should be used as an index to all the available options from this program. Want to know how to find those audio-peaklevels? How to get rid of that nested alpha-channel? Or you want to remember that trick in lassoing to trim mode? Use the index or the table of contents and you'll find what you're looking for in no time.

Great value for its price!

In learning how to use FrontPage 2003 step by step, this is the book. It's very colorful & informative, it provides all you need to get started in the development of your own website, you're going to like it very much.

I bought this for my daughter and she said it was very easy to follow. She has already started designing web sites for her friends.

I have just begun to use this book. I am an extreme beginner and find the book attractively laid out and well-illustrated. I have not finished my web site yet, but I'm on my way. There are a few details that are "over my head" but I think I can work around them and still get good results.

FrontPage was a new application to me and somewhat different than other web page applications. I was asked to take over website updates and didn't have time to go through a class, etc. This book enables the user to look up the task at hand and then basically follow the step-by-step instructions. It has been a fabulous tool. It is very user friendly for the novice but still has enough technical information to satisfy the HTML hound. I found it to be a more effective tool than Microsoft's on-line classes.

If you can only have one book on FrontPage, this should be it.

I am just learning about web page development and bought Microsoft FrontPage. I needed help understanding the program and bought this book. I find it very helpful. The layout of the book is most useful. I needed assistance with taking the first steps, and this book is serving my needs. It would probably be too basic for someone with web development experience.

As a dotNet Developer, I am often called upon to write my own database code or maintain existing db code. I am also called upon to diagnose performance problems or set security. Sometimes on lightly staffed projects, I am a defacto DBA.

I have always strived to have a comprehensive understanding of the technologies I use. However, my level of understanding of SQL Server was more limited then my understanding of the other technologies I use.

I purchased this book based on existing Amazon recommendations. In particular, I was interested in the Performance and Security sections, as well as what is new. It did not disappoint. The depth on items like Indexes was exactly what I was looking for. The discussion of new items was enough to get we to a working level.

So it definitely fulfilled my needs and expectations.

However, the book seems aimed at DBAs. Given the number of topics covered in the book, I suspect it could not be comprehensive enough to take an intermediate DBA to the Advanced stage.

But for someone like me, who is often called upon to be an 'acting' DBA it serves as an excellent reference; in addition to providing a tutorial on the topics mentioned above.

Even for a beginner like me. This is a great book as a reference or if you learn by experimenting and need a book to look up things here and there. I'm not an expert with SQL Server but it really seems like this book is a must have if you're dealing with SQL Server setup, management, etc..

I used this almost every day now for the past couple months. I used it as a reference with developing in SQL SEVER 2005. It answers about 80% of my questions. Must books answer a little more then half - so I give this five stars.
If you write a lot of code in SQL, I highly recommended this book.

Very valuable when it comes to referencing all the functionality SQL Server 2005 has to offer.
Microsoft(R) SQL Server 2005 Unleashed

There are a lot of typos and grammar errors in the book. Like "or" instead of "for", for example.

This is definitively a must have in the bookshelf of all .NET AD Developers. I have been working with ADAM since .NET 1.1 and have always struggle to find answers to simple questions like how to make an LDAP query to run efficiently or how to define complex queries; this book has that and a lot more.

This book is everything I was hoping it would be. I'm working on a project where I need to get computer accounts from AD (TENS of THOUSANDS of them) and move, delete, enable, disable and set account expiration dates. Everything I need to know is in this book. The AD paged search, useraccount properties, etc. Some of the routines I was able to use as-is (the VB versions from their web site download). These guys do a great job of explaining all the stuff I couldn't find anywhere else. Highly reccomended!

This book is great for anyone who does AD programming with .NET it covers everything from the basics to some pretty advanced stuff and even some undocumented stuff.. a must have for AD Programemrs!

If you are or may be in the future, doing directory services programming then this book is a must have. It also suffices a quick reference as it has code sprinkled around so that you can get up to speed quickly.

If anything, it is sort of lacking on other LDAP directories. It does have the history of LDAP and does show where the differences are between AD and the others.

If your primary focus is other directories, this may not be the end all book for you, but should still suffice as a reference.

If AD is your main focus, buy this now, you won't be disappointed.

This is a very good book for[...] developers who wants to program against Active Directory. There are some good examples in this book that can be very handy. Other than examples in pieces, there is not a project or Web Site codes that a beginner could use.

I already read many Oracle books from Oracle Press & other publications. They are very good. This book takes different approch of How-to Style content which is very much practical & solves day to day administrative needs. Topics are covered in detail. Most importantly examples given are from grounds up. Excellent! This book is also helpfull for all who know a little bit of Oracle Database & want to know more in depth

We all know, especially here in Brazil, the money that one pays to have a good Oracle trainning. If you already have a little knowledge of Oracle and its jargon and are self estimulated, this book will take you to high level of expertise without a pain . Want to know Oracle ? Start with it.

Among all the Oracle reference books, I found this one to be the most useful and practical book. This book is very well written and has an easy to read format. The detailed step-by-step instructions in Q&A section helped me solve problems quickly. This saved me much time and effort than going through piles of other reference books and trying to pull pieces of information here and there together to get a complete picture. I highly recommend this book to Oracle DBA's in all levels.

As an Oracle Instructor and DBA I've had the opportunity to review numerous Oracle texts for DBA's and have to say I've been quite disappointed with most of them. Mr. Yuhanna's book however is an exception. Out of the many DBA texts I have on my shelf this is the one I goto most frequently. Unlike other texts which spend excessive amounts of time covering uncommonly used features and little to no time covering commonly used features this books covers almost all the basics in a hands on approach. The book is setup in a step by step how-to format. Although it doesn't discuss concepts much that is not its purpose and the best concepts book is the Oracle Documentation anyway. I've have yet to see a good how-to DBA book until I came across this one. As a consultant/instructor I recommend it quite frequently.

The book is very useful for both new and experienced DBAs because it has a lot of practical examples. I especially like its Q&A format with scripts which makes reading very interesting.

I found this book to rehash information found in many other sources. It covers a wide range of topics, but none in sufficient detail. A good overview of the topics; for detailed information look elsewhere.

I have a nice little library of books that would put a small library to shame, but I find myself connected to a few much like the kid with his favorite teddy bear. Well, this book is like that teddy bear. I carry it 2 miles each day to and from work. Any good book is invaluable to a job/certification. This is one of them!

I read the entire book over the last few weeks and found that is was very helpful in giving me a better understanding of networking. I learned a lot about the basics and a ton about the advanced aspects of NT networking. I found out about how to use key NT tools and the book was a great resource.

I don't usually take the time to come back and comment on a book unless it's very bad. In this case the book is way better than I've come to expect from most NT books. There were so many extra topics in the book that I don't think I've seen elsewhere. Important registry setting are listed and explained but not ALL of them (with no explaination) just what is important. I liked the IP Management section and DNS overview. The capacity planning section that somebody else here mentioned was excellent and the tuning and troubleshooting chapter had a great section on problem resolution. It covers a very wide range of topics relating to NT and networking and does it very well.

-Tom

This book, along with Tony Northrup's Windows NT Plumbing, will put you a step above your other NT peers. Both of these books go into the nitty gritty details of how NT REALLY works in the real world and how best to deploy and configure it.

Both are excellent primers on networking and TCP/IP as well as NT specifics. Highly recommended.

Parece que si, pues aunque el libro cubre la mayor parte de los temas relacionados a configuracion de servidores DHCP, WINS y DNS utilizando NT considero que el libro es pobre en ejemplos ilustrativos, graficos de flujo, consejos y trucos.
Honestamente no recomiendo el libro si es que tienes un serio proyecto en mente para crear un nodo internet y deseas desarrollar toda la infraestructura de soporte TCP/IP.
Este es un libro frio, una clase magistral distante de hace unos 50 años atras sobre un tema tan moderno como TCP/IP, que mantiene al lector muy lejos del autor.
Veamoslo de esta forma matematica:
Este libro + Más graficos + Trucos y Consejos = Que buen libro !!
Espero sinceramente que mi revision te ayude a hacer una buena decision. Saludos.
Piyux.

It's clear and simple. Very good and usefull to understand the network computer.

If you're any way involved with the administration or planning of your NT network environment, this is a book you must have! I consider myself pretty good in networking, but still found myself referring back to this book every so often. A must have on any networking library!

I bought this book to use as a reference when I got my first IT job. Areas of TCP/IP I found confusing from the Microsoft course I took were cleared up nicely from reading this book.

I never found the need to buy a second TCP/IP book after reading this. You won't either.

I had studied other resources, including a training course to get my knowledge to a good standard. This book was the first that was really worth the effort. So much so, I am now looking for titles by the same Publisher to complete my MCSE

Comprehensive. A good resource to have in the collection of books.

Andre Van Staden - Senior Developer
Marco Giani - Group IT Back end Developer

This is a great book. I have recommended it to coworkers who also purchased the book and they were equally impressed. This helped me have a much greater understanding of both Access and SQL Server and how they work together.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone using Access with SQL Server. It is easy to understand and has plenty of useful code examples. I use this as a reference on a regular basis.

This answers a lot of programmer level questions about using MS-Access with SQL Server. It describes the limits and penalties when going the various routes. The book is quite clear in its descriptions. It would make a good addition to any Access programmer's collection.

I have been an Access developer since 1.1 (1993). I have bought many a book over the years. Some good, some bad. This book, however, is super! It is designed totally with the Access developer in mind. All of the questions that popped into my head seemed to be answered in practical terms chapter by chapter. The organization is terrific and the flow is second to none. The topics that are worth repeating are repeated while others are left for a one-time only view. The writing is easy to digest, powerful and very explanatory. The pictures are all also very helpful. You can tell the writers paid attention to every line they wrote. But they also inject a human kind of writing style which keeps things interesting throughout.

In addition to a thorough discussion on SQL Server security vs. Access security, data conversion, upsizing, etc., the book covers the differences among MDWs, MDEs, ADPs and ADEs beautifully and it addresses scenarios for when to use stored procedures, server functions, views, etc and with great attention to detail. The chapters ADO vs. DAO and on T-SQL are well written too. Later the book even goes into simplifying building multi-tier apps with Access as front end, VB-based COM+ components in the middle and of course, SQL Server sitting in the back. And just when you think the last chapter will be a letdown as many last chapters are, it wows you with an incredible amount of insight into how to optimize, backup and perform other settings in SQL Server.

If you are a serious Access developer like me, and are timid about moving full force into SQL Server, then this is the book for you! I recommend it highly!

I have a lot of SQL server books. Everything from SQL Server 2000 for Dummies up to SQL Server 2000 Stored Procedure Programming. And many times none of these books had what I needed. Then I would turn to this book. I was using VB.Net, so I figured this book wouldn't apply, but I was wrong. Even if you are not using Access, this book explains SQL Server the right way. Chipman and Baron offer simple but thorough explanations and samples of the things you actually need to know as a developer. They don't spend a lot of time on the things a SQL Server DBA might need to know that a coder would not.

Maybe their approach works so well for me because I came from an Access background, but I am willing to bet anyone coming straight from VB and needing to understand Transact SQL, effective stored procedures, funtions, and triggers would appreciate this book as well.