Internet Books

Book gives an excellent introduction of WPF. However, I think that the 2D/3D-part of the book is a bit over the top if you are looking for basics.

Money well spent.

All the features of WPF are explained here, with samples and visual codes for your reference. I decided to buy this book and other about Blend 2, but most of my doubts I solved with this edition.
Great book from beginners to experts.

Hey, a programming book in full colour!! WPF Unleashed really does introduce the concepts and details of WPF programming in a clear and easy manner, and Adam Nathan is to be commended for his efforts. Anyone wanting to learn (more) about WPF will benefit from this book.

This is a well written, well structured book.

Full color with good examples and covers a good range of details.

On first opening this book you are struck by the beautiful full colour pictures and syntax-highlighted code samples. [Though the experience was slightly marred by the tears and damage to the front cover which occurred during shipping, as was also the case with another book in the order.]

I did a quick flip through and thought... "Beautiful presentation, but the content looks a bit over-simplified. Maybe all the reviewers were seduced by the full colour pages."

Then I started working my way through the book. I was blown away. The writing style is simple and to the point. But it doesn't lack depth. There are indications of the little things that are likely to catch you out, as well as discussions of some pretty advanced topics too.

So, Yay! The content of the book was just as good as the way it was presented, if not better. My only criticism is that in some cases there could have been more code examples.

On the other hand this would probably have made the book very bloated and not as useful as a reference book. There's enough information to point you in the right direction, and from there google will get you to all the code samples you need.

So let O'Reilly do the cookbook style books with lots of code snippets. They do that so well. This book takes a novel approach, and it works brilliantly!

Brian Klemmer's first book, If How-to's Were Enough We'd All be Skinny, Rich and Happy, was a catalyst that provoked me to pursue my life's purpose. His newest book, The Compassionate Samurai, provides the foundational traits that I can emulate while being on purpose and creating an abundant life. Whether you are stuck in life or not this book is a must read to gain greater insight to living life to the fullest.

It is refreshing when I find authors who are willing to speak their mind with clarity, honesty and integrity. Brian Klemmer has given me a fresh drink of water with his book The Compassionate Samuri. Klemmer walks you through a myriad of life experiences using ancient Samuri warriors as his example to follow. I appreciate when a book speaks to my heart and causes me to reflect on my own life. This book does that. Klemmer's straight forward writing style is often tough to accept especially when it exposes a truth that speaks to your inner soul. There were many (and I mean many) times when I felt somewhat punched in the gut. I wanted to divert to the 4 year old boy that I once knew and respond to Klemmer with - "Big Mr. Brian man hurt my whittle feelings. He call me mean names like "Average" and that give me tummy ache. Mommy give me band-aid to make big Mr. Brian man go away." Fortunately Klemmer does not back down but continues to speak the truth in love. If you approach the book with an open mind and heart you will reap treasures of insight, knowledge and peace. I say "peace" because I find when I am willing to admit my shortcomings, release them to oblivion and begin to practice new principles, then I experience peace. The Compassionate Samuri had the same effect on me as Dr. Phil's book Relationship Rescue. Both books do not pull punches yet still contain enough grace to prevent a knock-out so you can still move forward. Sometimes a bit preachy but always honest The Compassionate Samuri is a book I will recommend to my two sons, wife and friends. I want them to experience transformational words of wisdom that will solidify their success as they move forward on their life journey. I will also be sure to include a band-aid as a bookmark.

Brian Klemmer is a man who wants to make a difference, and he wants to challenge other people to make a difference. The lessons/traits he dicusses in this book are not only inspirational but applicable for anyone willing to do the work. Results are often harsh, but always fair, so it is up to each person to make the choice to change. It is easy to read and understand.

Interestingly, when I reviewed this book 50 out of 51 rated it 4 or 5 stars, and only one person rated it with one star. I guess you are either you are going to love it or hate, but I loved it.

I have given many copies of this book to friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances. I can always tell which ones have read it because they call or come by to thank me and several with tears in there eyes because this book has made such an impacted on them. The Compassionate Samurai is about integrity, which is so lacking in our world. Nine of the ten traits deal with integrity: Courage, Personal Responsibility, Trust, Honesty, Commitment, Focus, Contribution, Honor, Knowledge and the tenth trait Abundance is the natural consequence of being in integrity. Take a close look at Mother Teresa she had Abundance. How many loved her (abundance), she had every form of transportation at her deposal (abundance), if she ever needed anything do you think it was not made available (abundance). She chose not have a bank full of money. If you are want to learn how to express your greatness or what is holding you back this is the book for you!

If interested in taking charge and transforming the course of your life, begin by reading The Compassionate Samurai! Great thoughts, great words, great insights on causing sustainable change towards achieving extraordinary results in your life. If there were ever a book to read and use as a life-long guide for a life of purpose and fulfillment, this is it.

I'm almost ashamed to admit that after diving into WPF back when it was known as "Avalon", I haven't even touched WPF since. So I finally needed to suck it up, get started, and learn WPF.

As somebody new to WPF, I just have to give a huge "Thank You" to both Chris and Ian. This book is very entertaining and the quality of the writing between both Chris and Ian is just tremendous. The pace of the book is perfect and the teaching style is one that any developer can relate to.

As a Technical Evangelist working for Microsoft, I think that every "Evangelist" in the tech industry can learn from Chris and Ian on how to tell a compelling story that developers can relate to and "grok". We evangelists are all-too-willing to simply explain the technical details of an API while completely forgetting to answer the "why" (let alone telling a compelling story to suck people in). This is yet another area that this book excels at.

I can say with full confidence that this book is the first book I recommend to anybody wanting to dive into WPF. Enjoy!

Jason Olson, Technical Evangelist, Visual Studio & the .NET Framework
[...]

Writing a programming book is not an easy thing to do -- I know, because I've done it myself. And I have to say that I'm really impressed with the job that Chris Sells and Ian Griffiths have done with "Programming WPF". This is one of the best programming books I've ever read (and I've read a lot of them).

For a programming book to be good, it's not enough for it to simply contain all of the information that you need to know. If that information doesn't stick to your brain, then the book hasn't done it's job. If you want the information to stick, then the book has to be interesting to read. It has to have a lot of clear examples that show you real-world applications without extraneous fluff. And to be really effective, all of that should be done with a little bit of style and wit.

And I'm really pleased to say that "Programming WPF" does all of those things. I recently needed a refresher on WPF, so I just spent a lot of time over the last few weeks going through the book very carefully. And I have to say that I'm really impressed. It's engaging, interesting and they chose really good examples. And it's witty! (You'd be amazed at how the occasional chuckle keeps a reader from getting that "eyes glazed over" feeling that far too many books induce.)

I know from experience -- believe me, I know! -- just how hard it is to pull that off. And they did it with style. So first of all, congratulations to Chris and Ian for doing a great job. And second, if you're a C# developer looking for a good, hands-on way to learn WPF, I highly recommend "Programming WPF".

I bought the first edition of this book called Programming Windows Presentation Foundation (AKA Avalon) at the PDC in 2005 and read it completely on the plane home.

When I heard the second edition was released I didn't think much would have changed, but this is even better than the first edition. It's twice as big and covers all major (and not so major) topics in WPF (inc. an introduction to 3D and Silverlight).

I think this book will proof to be for WPF what Programming Windows, Fifth Edition is for WIN32 programming.

This book is the most in depth resource into WPF i have seen. And not just that, it gets to the good stuff that you'll actually use in your code and not just filler or lists of properties that you can get from intelisense. The examples are extremely useful.

The other benefit of this book is that it doesn't just tell you how to do things, but why. This is incredibly helpful in finding the best solution to your specific problem.

Thanks guys! great book!
Ralph

I say to ignore those reviews because they do not refer to this book. This is the second edition published August 28, 2007 with 863 pages. Those reviews are based off of the first edition published nearly two years before (September 12, 2005) and with only 447 pages.

Using Amazon's 'Search inside this book' takes you to the 2005 edition also. That shows only 10 chapters while this edition has 17. Most of the negative comments from the 2 and 3 star reviewers seem to have been resolved.

This book was not exactly what I expected when I purchased it. I've been working with XHTML for 2 years professionally, but I still hadn't bothered to read up on web standards.

The book is well organized and goes over the basics of HTML elements (ol, ul, em, strong, p, etc...) and does a nice job explaining the benefits of using the most recent standards when selecting an appropriate tag.

Being that I have had experience coding, I'd recommend this book to those will little on hands practice or knowledge of markup. It's an excellent tutorial on the functionality of common HTML tags as well as some of the more obscure ones (code, samp, var, abbr, dl, etc...)

The most beneficial lessons learned in this book, however, is something the novice and experienced coder will appreciate: accessibility. W3C has been pushing the development of accessibility development for awhile. Screen readers and browsers are finally coming of age where such code considerations will set your website above others. Additionally, in professional arenas, accessibility can be a money-maker.

The author does an excellent job of explaining how screen readers and those with disabilities can benefit from more advanced and considerate markup. After all, how it looks matters little when your user cannot see the screen.

With only a casual tinker in Dreamweaver split view under my belt starting out, I learned how to hand code XHTML and CSS with this book alone (well, and some web research here and there and CSS Mastery is an excellent follow up). It's written clearly and gives multiple solutions for each case, while explaining the advantages and disadvantages of each. I cannot recommend this book enough, as even after I finished it, it remains close by as an invaluable desk reference that I refer to here and there.

This is an excellent book that all web designers should own. When I look at people's sites, I often validate them just out of curiosity, and it is so rare that I ever find a valid site. I always pay attention to validation, and this book just validates (for lack of a better term) my opinions on the importance of following web standards. This book is good for helping with workarounds for certain browsers (cough, IE) that don't support standards that most others do.

Web Standards Solutions is reasonably solid title that discusses the benefits and approaches of using web standards in the design of (X)HTML markup. CSS is also covered as a means to remove presentational elements from web page markup. Lists, tables, headings, hyperlinks, forms, quotations and layouts are all covered to a foundational level.

The information covered in the book is especially suited to new web site designers who are yet to understand these concepts. Web application developers - who might not focus their craft on the quality of their markup, would also benefit greatly. For others already possessing an basic understanding of semantic markup and presentation through CSS, the book might contain a few useful tips only.

Throughout each chapter the book doggedly follows a pattern that can become tedious. For each chapter, non-standards approaches are considered before the 'correct' standards based approach is shown. After this the 'extra credit' portion of the chapter provides practical applications of the given solution. Whereas the correct solution and extra credit sections are useful, the repetition of the defective non-standard approaches for in every chapter is sometimes repetitive and slightly contrived, and could be discussed more casually as required without dominating the format of every chapter.

Having said that, the book is easily read, has examples and practical applications, covers the breadth of the topic well and could certainly be used to bring anyone up to speed on the basics of standards-based approaches to the web page markup development.

Through simple illistrations and small code snippets this book covers pretty much what one would need to know in order to create great web 2.0 sites.

This is a very nice book to get to know all the tools of Java 5 for concurrency support.

As others have written, this is the best book out there on Java concurrency. I am a decent journeyman coder, not a guru, and this helped me wrap my head around what is involved with concurrency. Concurrency is in many ways orthogonal to the rest of Java programming, so it's good to get a clear and authoritative guide. I still avoid multi-threading whenever possible, but if I have to go there, I reach for this book.

This is the very best book available on concurrency. It covers all the Java 5.0 paradigms and goes from the explanation of volatile/final/mutable/immutable to advanced topics like re-entrant locks.
The best part about the book is Mr Yuk an icon to denote really bad thread unsafe code examples and comparison to different implementations that are correct -you will see from the first day onwards the mistakes that you have been making in your existing code. Very practical; Good explanation, lots of sample code.

Close your eyes look no further and get this book -you will not regret it.

An awesome book on concurrency that all Java programmers ought to read before embarking on anything more complicated than the primordial Hello World application.

After reading this book you will probably thank God that you haven't been using threads, but with that being said this book contains all the information you need to start writing code that walks the straight and narrow path.

This is the BIBLE for Cold Fusion. I have read a few too many compter books. This is the first one I finished and keeped around. The CD has codeing found in the samples in the book. Very easy reading for this type of book. It even teaches you some HTML. WOW.

This book was fantastic. Sure there are the few editing errors common with computer books. I knew NOTHING about Cold Fusion or database connectivity to the web before I got this and now I've written a dozen or so Cold Fusion applications for the UPS intranet. An EXCELLENT resource for beginners and professionals with a tag index for quick referencing. A chapter on SQL also for those who don't know it. It will teach you everything you need to know to get your application online and running. Great Great Great!

Forta's book is very interesting. I almost bought a book solely on SQL, but just bought this book because of its comprehensive SQL sections. As an Application Server Developer, I also have experience with ASP, and this makes ASP look extremely primitive. In fact, I used the concepts of Cold Fusion presented here to evaluate better solutions for projects in ASP. An example of this is the easy implementation of Dynamic SQL in Coldfusion. I then built a Dynamic SQL implementation. Thanks Mr. Forta for a great one. If you know ASP, this book will show you what you need to engineer within ASP to get it to compete with Cold Fusion. An awesome book!

I have very little programming experience and have this book to be very easy to use.

Forta takes you from the start of Cold Fusion and SQL. If you are new to programming and SQL, this is the book for you. I was writing data interface apps in a few hours. A great book overall. Worth the read. I still use it as a reference regularly! A must have for the Cold Fusion developer.

This book is pretty good for beginners. I have recently started teaching myself html and I was able to handle most of the things I was reading about without too much trouble. There were a couple of times I really needed to pause and go back and read it again. Then maybe I could put it together. Only one or two times did I just give up with total frustration. All in all it's a great handbook and I am sure I will get it all someday!

The text was easy to read and gave a great number of examples but lacked any questions or problems at the end of each chapter.

A very good book if you would like to understand how HTML works

I've been doing HTML work on and off for the last 5-6 years. This book is full of great examples for beginners or more advanced users who just forgot how to do something. You won't regret owning this book.

Although the author gives some superfials explanations on JavaScript, CGI & DHTML, this book offers and comprehensive and fairly complete explanation on HTML.
Higly recommended for those willing to learn and master HTML.

I graduated from the University of Redlands (California) with a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems degree a few years ago. Many of the textbooks I used were not very enlightening - I suffered through using them and immediately took them back to the bookstore for resale. This wasn't so with the CREATING COOL HTML 4 book. I use this as a reference book now.

One of the classes I took included a web design portion. How fun to create web pages that were exciting and not boring. It was easily accomplished using this book as a guide but someone who knows nothing about HTML design could easily use this and create.

The chapters are broken down from the basics to intermediate items. The author, Dave Taylor, explains exactly what entails a web page, what a URL is, basic html, graphics, tables, links, pointers, image maps, and other advanced designs.

Now many technical books are dry to read and often times leave the non-die-hard techies wondering what was just said. Not true with Taylor. He gets everyone to understand html - those creating their first web page to those who want to do more, those that want pizzazz on their pages.
If you're not a beginner, you may want to skip the chapters in which Taylor explains to new users about Web pages, how browsers work, what URLs are, and other basic concepts. (But it can be a good refresher for those who haven't designed web pages in a while). Next he expands into basic HTML, fonts, text styles, and gets the reader to understand the making of lists, special characters, pointers, and links. Next comes the explanation of graphics and the creation of tables and frames. But my favorite part is next - chapters on advanced items like background, marquees, image maps, JavaScript, forms, plug-ins, Dynamic HTML, style sheets, and much more.
Examples shown in the book are easy to follow and let the reader completely understand what the code does and how it will look on a web page. Nothing in CREATING COOL HTML PAGES is overwhelming and will let everyone create a web page of which they can be proud. I'm a computer programmer, and still use this as a reference. In fact, it's one of the most borrowed books in our office! This book is highly recommended for any level of html programmer.

Her book was the only book I got for creating a Website with Dreamweaver and Fireworks. Following her tutorials I built a fabulous Website with cascading style sheets, rollovers, the works. I was never bored or confused, and I understood the "why" and well as the "how."

I've just downloaded a trial version of Dreamweaver MX and came here specifically to get HER book on Dreamweaver MX. Sadly, she doesn't seem to have published one.

Lynda Weinman knows what she is talking about. I have learned quite a bit following her lead.

I highly recommend this book. It was an excellent learning tool for me as a beginner. The tutorials were fabulous!

I enjoyed the exercises and layout of the book. For someone who never did any web development this book is great.

I must say that Lynda is, hands down, the best instructor I've ever come across on the printed page. I've been using Dreamweaver for over two years and I learned so much from this book. The chapters and exercises were so concise, so ordered and really a lot of fun. I recommend this book whole-heartedly!

This is a really great book on BGP and Internet Architecture. The explanation of BGP at the protocol level is great. More importantly though is its explanation and examples of using eBGP / iBGP with an IGP.

I've heard it criticized as being dated and too Cisco specific. Though it is Cisco specific, it's still very relevant. I would start with this book and read past NANOG presentations on introductory BGP if I wanted to learn how the Internet works.

Internet Routing Architectures is considered the BGP4 handbook and rightfully so. I found the overall composition easy to read. Even though the book is aimed at varying levels of expertise, it does not assume any level of knowledge in TCP/IP or routing. It explains all the concepts, from the simplest one right up to the most demanding, in a fluent way. The book works hard not to withhold protocol details and design-oriented information, while at the same time realizing that building general understanding comes first. An in depth look at BGP is supplied here from the theory aspect, if you need actual configurations and commands I suggest also:

Cisco BGP-4 Command and Configuration Handbook : CCIE Professional Development

This is a good book, let there be no doubt about it. But in my opinion it goes beyond the scope of the 682-661 exam for which purpose I bought it. However, every ISP backbone routing engineer should have this book with him and use it as a dictionary in case of.

This is the best BGP-4 book out there in preparation for the CCIE. Do not waste your money on others this is the one that you need. It takes you from the beginnings of the Internet to the current uses of the protocol. This book is a must have.

I have always felt that I am part of the small minority that just does not see the beauty of this book if studying for the CCIE. I have, for years, read other's comments on the how Halabi's "Internet Routing Arch" is a `must have', yet I still have not found a similar reason why. While I do feel that the book does (probably) the best job at explaining BGP and how to implement BGP in a Cisco-centric world, I have not discovered the value for the CCIE. I would much rather spend my time with CiscoPress's "Routing TCP/IP" Volume 2, by Jeff Doyle and Jennifer DeHaven Carroll than this book.

One item of concern, there is a noticable amount of trivial errors in this book that can lead to disaster if implemented incorrectly. For example:

Page 106 - "...any traffic that has an origin OR destination that does not belong to the local AS." This clearly should be an AND, not OR.

Page 315 - "You can also specify a PREFIX list..." - I believe this should be a filter list, not a prefix list.

And then there are places where the book is too opinionated - for example - page 206 "Many operators choose to filter dynamically learned defaults to avoid situations in which traffic ends up where it is not supposed to be." I do not feel this is true, and can think of multiple times when not filtering the advertised default route may just end up being the worst option. In fact, I do not feel either configuration is the right configuration to admit or condone, as the wrong configuration can have disastrous effects.

I still have to give this book 4 stars - simply because of it's utilitarian value and overwhelming sense of loyalty given to this book by others. But I don't reach for this book too often.

I give this book 4 pings out of 5:
!!!.!

I've read a lot of AdWords books and have provided a well-known AdWords keyword research software tool for almost four years now, so I know the good and the ugly when it comes to Google's advertising system. Take it from me, a lot of people struggle with AdWords, and many give up altogether, but with a fine book like this one, you can easily avoid becoming one of them.

This book takes a brand new user by the hand and walks them through setting up an account, doing keyword research, structuring an AdWords campaign according to Google's best practices, and much more. Along the way, great tidbits of information are provided like how to write effective AdWords ads, how to do local advertising, and where to find negative keyword ideas, to name just a few. Practical suggestions and helpful advice can be found on almost every page as you go through the book's process for building a well-crafted AdWords campaign and sales strategy.

What I especially like is how this book goes beyond doing just AdWords and focuses in on the entire sales funnel, e.g., how to craft well-written landing pages (important for slashing your AdWords bid costs), how to use Google's amazing analytics tool to increase your sales conversions, and how to follow up with prospects and get more sales using newsletters and email autoresponders effectively.

I dare say that if most AdWords advertisers studied and properly implemented the techniques provided in this book, Google would lose quite a bit of money each day since there is a large number of advertisers who are naively spending more than they should in Google's system. Don't be one of them! Get educated. AdWords for Dummies is a great place to start.

I've recently begun an Adwords project and found that this was very helpful in getting me started. It also provides many ideas and resources for future improvements of my usage.

Howie Jacobson offers a very insightful and helpful guide to sifting through the often confusing aspects of Google AdWords. What is great about this book is that it isn't necessary to read the book from cover to cover in order to get the information you need. The book is divided into sections (which are accurately named) so you can jump right into the topic you need most help on.

The author also provides a website in his book that he runs for further information and responds promptly to emails with a helpful answer to your question. Great book! Must Buy!

Prior to reading Adwords for Dummies, I knew next to nothing about Adwords and had more or less avoided learning it like the plague. I didn't have an AdWords account and wouldn't have even recognized the Adwords interface. Then I decided to conduct some market research, and I needed to learn the Adwords basics. A friend recommended this book, so I ordered a copy of Adwords for Dummies from Amazon. (The book really could be used by a dummy, although they'd likely gain a few IQ points just by reading it.) In terms of teaching Adwords, I can't imagine a better source. Everything is spelled out (including many "secret tricks" gurus would charge you thousands for) in clear, easy to follow language. Even though I'm NOT a techie and was brand new to Adwords, I had my own campaigns up and running THE SAME DAY that the book arrived. Adwords for Dummies is just that great of a guide. There's even a chapter just on Google Analytics that lets you get started right away. But that's not all. Dr. Jacobson is hysterical, and on more than one occasion, I laughed out loud while reading. It was like being in a class with a master teacher- maybe like your middle school history or math or English or science teacher- who entertained you and taught you so that you really learned, both at the same time. My two cents is order the book without delay- it's really free, anyway, as Google gives you $25 (ie, more than the cost of the book) in Adwords credit! Highly recommended.

AdWords For Dummies is slightly more for beginners (as is typical for The Dummies Series), while the "Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords" is more advanced. Heck, let's not dice garlic here and cry; if you cut loose of 40 bucks and get them both you'll recoup your money in a few hours. But be forewarned, you'll be tempted to crank out much more money as you learn about many various and optional keyword research, competitive analysis, split-test and other pay per click efficiency tools highly recommended within these books.