Software Books

This book will be a very helpful tool for anyone using the new image-editing software to improve drawings and paintings. There are a number of examples that show what today's software will allow an artist to do. It gave me new ideas to try as I experimented with software, my scanner and digital camera. This book would be great for anyone who is looking for some great ideas and new approaches to art!

As a novice artist and computer user, I found this book so important and useful. It is a one of a kind book, extremely innovative and ties together both the art world and todays technology. Not only is it timely for today but will be important for the future. Bravo!!

This book was extremely helpful. It provides clear instruction and beautiful examples of how many different artists have used computer software to explore innumerable possibilities for a painting in a short period of time. Pollard and Little have presented the material in an easy to read style. It gets right to the point. An excellent tool for any artist.

This book encouraged me to buy Photoshop Elements and get started learning this powerful and complex software (I have used Microsoft's Picture It! and a watered-down version of Phtoshop before, the latter for several years). This book coveres several types of media. A number of different artists put together paintings using the software to aid in explorations of graphic ideas and planning. Basically, it is an introduction to using Photoshop (or, "...Elements") or other image editing program that demonstates the advantages, and some of the ways, a computer can be used by artists. It's chief value lies in getting you excited about expanding your tools and shows you how a computer can enhance your creativity, making it easier and quicker to explore the possibilites.

As an artist taking a Photoshop class, i was hopelessly lost in a deluge of material. This book sorts through the material and focuses only on what is necessary for an artist. Great way to take the pain out of thumbnails and value studies!

A very good book for those who want to learn advanced concepts in OS. Since it is a open source the book is very useful in understanding how they look like. The paper quality is too good, which makes u read non stop. i luv reading this book. Price worth it. A good buy.

A BSD Bible. I never could read the Bible. I do Believe ...

650+ pages of truth and gore. I (as a sysadmin and BSD boomer) related most to the History (Ch.1) and Startup/Shutdown (final Ch.14). Memory management and other gore escapes me. GOOD JOB!

First of all you should be warned that this is not an introduction to get started with UNIX kernel programming. The Design of the UNIX Operating System by M.J. Bach provides a good general introduction to UNIX kernel programming. The design and implementation of the FreeBSD operating system is an excellent book to deepen knowledge of the UNIX kernel by looking how a current UNIX is implemented in practice. Even if you plan to write code for another kernel, working through the FreeBSD kernel with this book as a guide is a good excercise to become consious of the fundamental problems and solutions in kernel design. FreeBSD (or any of the other BSDs) is a good starting point, because the BSDs have relatively stable kernel subsystems and APIs due to the long cycles in BSD development.

The writing style of the authors is to the point (don't expect a novel) and clear. The troff typesetting of the book gives it a consistent style and simple, but clear diagrams (though I heard that some diagrams were hand-drawn). The book doesn't just drop the reader in a kernel subsystem. The second chapter gives a detailed explanation of the various kernel subsystems, and the relation between the subsystems. The third chapter gives a summary of what is expected from a kernel from the user level. Combined these two chapters give the reader the necessary conception of the FreeBSD kernel to start looking at individual parts of the kernel in detail. Most remaining chapters are logically ordered, in that subsystems are ordered from parts with less dependencies to parts with more dependencies (e.g. memory management and I/O are covered before filesystems).

If you are interested in UNIX programming, you should have this book on your bookshelf (as well as a CVS checkout of the FreeBSD kernel tree to read the implementation).

For the other side of the story, you may wish to check out the most recent "Inside Microsoft Windows" or "Microsoft Windows Internals" by Mark Russinovich.

Before I encountered this book it was quite a bit of frustration in attempt to learn BSD and UNIX to the point I can really use it. For some reason there so many good books in a subject with one of two inclinations: or the book is too theoretical and very little of the real workflow provided or it is too down to earth and it is difficult to understand what is behind the sophisticated command line zingers.
I found this book to be well balanced, well written and generally providing good, accessible way to get into BSD. I have followed advise in someone's review here and coupled this book with Linux and UNIX for a beginner training suite, 4DVDs + 2CDs includes 4 Unix Academy Certifications ed.2008. To my great surprise I have to say they really have made an outstanding training outfit!
If you really ready for a training and do not expect that UNIX will come to you overnight it is worthy book and deserves your attention.

Over the years, I have bought a pile of "How to" books on After Effects,Première Pro, Photoshop and Illustrator and I did not feel any urge to write anything about these books before buying Ms Hartman's Illustrator guide.

I liked the writing : unpretentious, simple with a warm tone that clicks with the reader.

The first lesson in itself, is worth more than half the price of the book.

This book honestly is like a guide line. Especially if you need to look up something you can't remember, you can probably find what you need in the book.

This book really showed me, step by (illustrated) step, the way to make the most out of using Illustrator. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes the hands-on approach to learning. In the very first lesson, the author helped me create a logo that was really great looking, which gave me a boost of confidence to go on and do more. This book is just great for a beginner, to learn all the essentials of Illustrator.

This book is a guide to learning Adobe Illustrator CS and digital illustration. The approach is divided between reading sections and step-by-step exercises. Each chapter is divided into several short lessons with accompanying images describing the steps. The key combination and minor interface differences for Mac and windows are explained when necessary.

Overall, this was a good book that provided a smooth experience to learning Illustrator and design in general. The basics of Illustrator are easy to understand through the reading and exercises provided. Although the lessons are short, there is plenty of opportunity to practice on your own. You are initially walked through an exercise, but then usually given a chance to finish part of it on your own. The "Exploring On Your Own" sections provides extra practice and places to look for more information on the various topics discussed. The rest of the book in dedicated to providing useful information on design concepts such as color chords and art principles (line, fill, value etc). The color chords such as analogous, dyad or monochromatic will definitely help on my color choices on my next project. The CD provides all the needed lesson files and any additional samples for practice.

As for problems, most were really minor with this book. There were only a few minor errors spotted such as steps with missing detail or incorrect menu paths. Also, I did think the review questions at the end of each chapter would have been more helpful if the answers were provided. Actually, the biggest issue I had with this book was the novel sized format it was published in. The book is small and the pages are difficult to keep open. Even my document holder was barely able to keep the pages open. For most of the book I had to use one hand to keep it open while working the mouse with the other. I am probably just being a little finicky since most of these minor problems had little effect on actual content.

In the end, this is still a fine book to quickly get up to speed with Adobe Illustrator. The coverage on related design principles was just a bonus. Since this is a short book, do not expect deep coverage on Illustrator techniques. If you need more advanced concepts and/or less on design, then another book will probably work out better. However, the material that is covered is done so well and it should provide a good start for any beginner.

I am a computer programmer/web designer familiar with adobe photoshop, but I wanted to learn more about designing with illustrator. I knew how to get around the program, but was not confident in using it. This book was wonderful - it's great for beginners, and I love how it encourages you to use keystrokes to get things done, instead of the mouse (much faster).

I admit that at first I was thinking this book would focus more on the game engine part of the toolset development in its title. I knew it wasn't REALLY about developing a game engine but even so, make sure you understand what you're getting.

That said, I really liked this book. I'm halfway through it already (it's a very quick read given how discrete each chapter is and the clear and easy to read print and examples).

I've read a number of game development books and you rarely get everything done right. This book gets close. The author describes the particular problem the chapter seeks to solve (e.g. encryption, batch processing, etc.) and goes through the steps of solving it.

The book is similar to those programming gems types of books that aren't organized in some linear fashion but are discrete chapters on specific topics that can be picked and chosen as you see fit.

The author does a very good job of putting the examples together and many of the chapters have been useful to me (I plan on implementing a number of the tools/frameworks he mentions).

If you're working on a game engine, I really suggest trying this book out. This assumes you're not already an expert game programmer who already built a lot of these sorts of tools before.

If you're looking for something that will help you build a full-fledged game engine, look for another book...then come back to this and get it to help you flesh out your toolset.

I bought this book thinking it would help me write a new tool for, say, building 3d models, or some other general tool. When it arrived I got excited just by the shear size of it, it's huge!

However, I started flipping through it browsing each and every chapter (didn't read them all in detail of course, but quite a few) and it doesn't teach you how to make a NEW tool for your game, it teaches you how to make an EXISTING tool better. While that knowledge is extremely valuable (and the reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 3), it's not what the description of the book stated: "Readers are not required to have any experience developing game engine tools." If you have no experience developing a tool, you're going to have a little trouble getting started. If you know enough math and have good enough coding skills to get a game engine going, you'll be able to write a tool for your game, but you don't need this book to do it.

Now, with that said, this book IS quite good and worth your money so long as you don't expect to read this book and then write a tool, you're going to need more info. Get the book anyway and use it as a guide, it's usefull in that aspect.

This book is so good at making a tool better, most of it's "gems" can and should be applied to ANY application, game tool or not. Also, it covers some good highlevel (or lowlevel, depending on how you view it) .Net functionality such as interfacing with COM and code documentation, as well as few other excellent techniques. These "gems" are quite valuable on their own.

So, in conclusion, if you know nothing about writing a tool, or you don't know C#, hold off on buying this book (make sure to put it in your wish list however). If you have a tool but find it's difficult to work with, or you want to broaden it's appeal, or just simply make it better, get this book, you won't regret it.

I just received my copy of Game Engine Toolset Development and I have been unable to put the book down. The author gives a good introduction to .NET 2.0 and relates it to toolset development for games. The chapters are easy to read and follow and he gives good advice on how to build good tools. He could have looked at other toolsets to make the book more complete, but I see this book as a way to introduce students to game programming who have a basic programming background (Java, C++, C, Alice 2.0, etc.).

This is an excellent book, which covers a lot of important aspects of game/engine tool development, but it is more like a recipe book, as each chapter subject is almost stands on its own - just like game programming gems series. My favorite is how to integrate native code into a managed application. The book is well written (one of the best I've read recently), and the only thing i missed is a few chapters on how-to integrate into an existing pipeline - like importer/exporter for a common 3d package at least. A better title for this book would be "(game)tool programming gems"

Then, as a hobbyist, I'll just let you know that this book not only teaches, but flat you gives you some great modular code that you can work into many different types of tools.

There's also some great design principles covered that have improved my workflow, even though i'm currently working solo.

This order was handled above and beyond the call of duty. They handled everything, including the problem of USPS losing the package. No questions were asked and the book was reshipped immediately. Thank You for the great service.

Great book! I liked the way the author approaches how to begin designing programs. I am half-way through the book and I am finding it very entertaining. Yeap! I recommend this book.

This book opened my eyes. I'd finished a Ph.D. in computer science, and had a decent exposure to quite a few programming languages and paradigms, before coming across this book. I was surprised to start working through this introductory book, and find myself learning new things! The book transformed my approach to programming.

From page one, HtDP starts talking about good program design, and gives a methodical approach. Until this, I'd always thought programming books were "here are ten small example programs; go write ten more." That's hardly teaching. But HtDP builds up a straightforward design recipe, to guide programs along. If I get stuck or have a mistake in my program, 90% of the time I realize it's because I strayed from the book's recipe. The approach is language-independent, although some programming environments make it much easier to implement the design recipe; the book provides links to a good (free) Scheme environment, which it uses for its code examples too. (I've come to use that environment day-to-day). My code--in any language--has become much more robust, and when I do have a bug I usually locate it early, thanks to this book.

In addition, HtDP made me think about things I'd taken for granted: How is assignment to a variable fundamentally different than assignment to a structure's field? Even, *why* do I use assignment statements in certain situations, instead of choosing a functional approach? How often do my programs actually need the efficiency of imprecise floating-point arithmetic, vs using bignums which totally liberate me from numerical inaccuracy?

Although the text is available on line, I cherish my hardcopy. This is a book to first learn programming from, and one to revisit every five years.

As a programming do-it-yourselfer I've had many conflicting responses to this text -- it's didactic style, its attention to detail, its sometimes patronizing tone, its rigor and broad scope and at the same time its immersion in minutia and quiddities I have never encountered in 'computer books' I had ever perused. Perhaps it's my liberal arts background, or love 'em/hate 'em sensitivity to all those broad stiff-spined textbooks I had carried in back-packs since childhood, combined with a disdain for the authoritative stilted style these educators exude -- despite their patent love of their subject. I felt at once both patronized and condescended to.
From the very start of their journey into a detailed six step-by-step process that show the reader how to analyze problem statements, how to formulate goals, make up examples, outline a solution, and test a solution the authors proclaim their pedagogical ends: "We [...] believe that the study of program design deserves the same central role in general education as mathematics and English. Or, put more succinctly, everyone should learn how to design programs..." This is not a textbook, this is a revolutionary pamphlet calling for educational reform. I had read nothing like this in the tens of 'Dummies' and 'In 24 Hours' books I had exposed myself to. One part priggish, two parts pedagogic. I often found myself asking for whom was it written? First-year college student?, ambitious would-be high-school programmer wanna-be? Math mavens? Surely not a middle-aged bookish clerk who tastes run more to Turgenev and Dostoevsky than Turing and Dijkstra. But then I demanded more than mere anonymous web-lurking from my lowly pc. I remember myself many years ago trying to learn BASIC on a massive time-share computer and telling myself surely there was had to be more magic to computing than this. Well, after reading more texts and having had to unlearn the 'Dummies' and the 'In 24 hours' style of disinformation I had finally found the marrow of a discipline that is as demanding as any I had ever come across and as vexing as any artistic rigor I had ever been inspired by. Come be confused, come be amused, amazed and intellectually abused. Sorely, if I find I have little talent for this excruciatingly logical endevour, I have also found a full-blown appreciation of such daunting computational cheekiness. Much to learn here, and this is only the "core subject of a liberal arts education." What had I been wasting my time on all those years as a professional student?

I have been professionally developing software for about 5 years. I found this book to be one of the most useful and helpful books to help my coding skills. Even though I have been programming professionally for a few years and have a computer science degree, I learned a lot of new neat concepts from this book. It also helped to me to remind me of all the basic good practices that I have forgotten.

It is also an excellent book for beginners. The books doesn't use a popular programming language like Java to accomplish its goals. Instead, it uses Scheme so the student can focus on the concepts rather than syntax. It also teaches great concepts and breaks the problem down on how to solve various problems. Also it isn't "hardcore" like SICP-- it is very friendly to non-MIT level people.

Mr. Ulrich has delivered a framework with which IT areas can effectively leverage their existing applications and data to meet the ever-changing business environment. Bill's chapter on Case Studies provides real life examples of how to use his methodology. We face rapidly changing business drivers, including the need to make our businesses internet-ready. This book provides the materials to allow companies a fighting chance to succeed.

I read Bill Ulrich's book and was delighted to see that he was clearing laying out strategies that we were dealing with as we worked with our clients. We now make Mr. Ulrich's book part of our mandatory reading for our consultants and have purchased copies for distribution to some of our key clients. This has helped both our consulting teams and our clients in planning and project executiion.

Mr. Ulrich understands how businesses have a tremendous reliance on legacy systems. Pressure is always on the IT staff to meet the demands of the business cusomter. The IT community is asked to bring products and services to the consumer through the internet while managing the internal demands to keep expenses under control. Bill's book lays out a framework in which the business community can build company-specific plans to leverage their prior investments while striving to meet today's business drivers in a manner that is cost effective.

Bill has filled this book with tremendous value for any one working with existing systems of any kind. He builds in the flexibility of approach by mapping many common and not-so-common methods and strategies through his exploration of specific case studies. Chapter 3 is a valuable item on its own - rarely have I seen such a thorough and clear examination of all the different 'movements' in IT in the last 10 years. Nice job, Bill.

Corporations have been trying to retire legacy systems for the past couple of decades. Each new technology (be it client/server, ERP packaged apps, etc) were supposed to put the nail in the coffin for legacy systems. Yet, legacy systems continue to thrive despite attempts to retire them. One reason why they continue to exist is that in many instances, they support business processes in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible. Bill's book views this area more as a transformation effort (evolution) rather than wholesale legacy replacement (revolution). This book is a must read for IT departments as they struggle to remain relavent in an era of outsourcing.

The strategies outlined in this book will help the IT department become a partner with functional business units in delivering solutions that address burning business problems. The focus shifts to providinig measurable value to the business as opposed to implementing unified and elegant technologies.

From beginner to expert this book contains all of the answers to your lingo needs. It is packed with examples and thorough descriptions.

I can't find an updated version of it - if anyone knows of one please let me know!...

This book has got to be the best computer related book I ever bought. I wish there were reference books in this format for every other programming subject like Perl and JavaScript. It's the only book you will ever need for Director's lingo.

The thing I like most is having the Lingo grouped by subject, it makes things so easy to look up.

Darrel, please make a reference like this for Perl!!!!

If you are already familiar with the Director interface, and want to do things in Lingo that most people only wish they could do, pick this book up right now! This is the only book I use on a daily basis for quick information. Darrel Plant not only gives a clear explanation on every command but also gives you examples that you can understand and use in everyday applications. I also greatly appreciated the way that the book content is organized. Rather than list the commands in alphabetical order, they are grouped according to the type of element or function that they control. It's nice to put something together that the user/client likes, but use this book and they will be saying, "Awsome! Love it! Wow, how did you do that?" ------ Thanks Darrel

...your life will be easier if this book is within reach. I even take it with when I have to go on-site to a client. Very useful having the Lingo grouped by subject. Also very useful icons by each Lingo word showing if it can be used in Shockwave and which versions of Director it can be used in. A must-have for a Lingo programmer.

(excuse my english, I'm Swiss) Before purchasing this book or even knowing about it, I had some heavy problems in finding the right way (or a shorter one) to solve several problems in programming Multimedia-applications. I ordered this book and everything changed! It's descriptions are so easy (even when you aren't originally english-speaking!), because you just can read the text and know what the command, keyword, property a.s.o. is all about. You have even more than one solution showed in examples. There is only one bad thing: if you use this book very often, the cover of the book looks old soon; it could be a little stronger. My suggestion: if you suffer a headache from studying and controlling your non-functioning scripts, you better get this book as soon as possible and keep it handy! You will gain a hell of a time!

Have fun

Best regards

Patric Simon

The Item was in very good condition & the shipping was prompt & before time.

This is the book for you if you are new to MATLAB. The book covers the basic steps of MATLAB and how to apply them to real word engineering or mathematical problems in an interactive environment.

The book is well written and is very easy to use. This is a great book for the beginner, but I would not recommend the book for anyone that has over 6 months of experience.

If you plan to start with Matlab with no prior experience, this book beats most of the other available titles.Since an inside view of the book is not available on Amazon, I will for the benefit of others list out the chapters here.Ch1 begins with the necessary introduction,developing familiarity with the command window,display formats and precedence of operators.It moves on to Ch2 and Ch3 where arrays are introduced and the mathematical operations on them explained.Ch4 is about script files,Ch5 on elementary plotting techniques using in-built functions like plot and fplot.Ch6 introduces functions and Ch7 extends the previous material to formal programming techniques like loops and control structures.Ch8 explains curve fitting and interpolation,Ch9 is about three dimensional plots and special graphics.Ch10, the last one of the book uses Matlab to do symbolic math which cover elementary algebraic equations.The examples contained in the book are from elementary physics and engineering,so if you are looking for more advanced material that has been treated using Matlab,this might be a little less helpful.The numerical techniques again cover simple problems like projectile trajectory,flow of water from a vessel with a small hole punched in its sidewall,RC circuits, viscosity and so on.Relatively advanced topics like Fourier transforms and applications to signal processing are also left out.If you are done with this book or feel that the material isnt of much help, I will suggest that you might try "Numerical Computing with Matlab" by Moler(he is perhaps one of the architects of Matlab).This book(electronic version) is available for free from the mathworks website [...].Overall this book does a good job in explaining details and is also generously sprinkled with figures and screenshots.Please try it if you are first timer to Matlab.

I am a robotics engineering masters student who is REALLY behind on his Matlab knowledge based on the fact that i have a background in biology. (Long story). I just completed my first semester and bought this book in May to learn matlab more thoroughly over the summer. This book is just FANTASTIC. I couldn't ask for more. It is structured logically, the examples are CLEAR and it just makes total sense. I never realized that it would be this readable and excellent. If you are a beginner it can truly be read cover to cover. The problems are interesting and the step by step guides are just what i needed. I initially thought twice about spending the $80 when there were cheaper texts available, but let me tell you from experience, don't bother. I have read some other Matlab texts and they pale in comparison to this one. It is worth every penny. If you have a limited knowledge or are without any knowledge of Matlab GET THIS BOOK. It is great and worth the extra money.

I purchased this title because I am starting a numerical analysis sequence next year using Matlab and I knew only how to plot in 2D and do simple calculations at the command line. After studying from Gilat's text for the past month or so I feel very comfortable using Matlab for all the basics and I am ready to learn how to exploit the full power of the program.

Each chapter gives just enough mathematical background to provide anyone with at least college algebra/trig enough to understand what is going on.
Although this book does not cover any topic too deeply, it does cover the fundamentals of many aspects of Matlab in a way that allows the reader to move fairly quickly through the whole book without getting bogged down in any one area.

In the end you will know the basics about how Matlab operates: how to work with vectors and matrices, how to write simple programs and function files, how to plot and format data, how to fit data to a curve, and how to differentiate and integrate both numerically and symbolically, and a bunch of other great tools for solving problems.

Also, as the other reviewers mentioned, the book makes very good use of graphics to show how input and output should look, as well as what exactly each line means.

I would recommend this text to anyone wanting to learn the basics of Matlab.

If you are doing any developing on an Access 2.0 platform and want to create better then the average application, this is the book to own. I own three other Access books and the one I keep returning to is the "Handbook". Affectionately refered to as as the "Bible", my friends and I point out page numbers to the solutions we need when brain storming. It covers even undocumented features that are available with winning detail and the disk included allows you to pop the code in right where you need it. Even novice programmers can pick up this book and get on the road to building killer applications. This book helped me build an imaging system for a client and made me look like God's gift to consulting. Now they buy me lunch every time I see them. It is a must for the application developer. I can't wait for the Access 97 version

If you are looking for an introductory book on Access 2.0, this is not that book. Use the MS manual and the F1 key. A lot. But once you have a basic understanding, and want to build a 'good' app, don't start without this book. If you believe that code can be beautiful and elegant you'll appreciate the book even more. The samples and examples on the accompanying disk will save you much more than the price of the book. And you'll learn a ton in the process.

The best book I have found on MS Access 2.0. I originally bought it because it contains information about how to dynamically resize forms. It it a great reference manual and you can check out some of the code at Sybex website.

I bought the Access 95 version of this book, and later was forced to buy the book to study a particular Access 2 feature. I was struck by how much value the book adds. To me, this is more of an in-depth introduction to Access development than any book outside the "Building Applications" manual. It far surpasses that manual in terms of explanation and samples.

A ~1400 page book chock full of good information and Access 2.0 application development and Access Basic coding. I've used at least 2 full Post-It tape flag boxes in marking the important sections of my book with colored tabs. This book covers everything from SQL syntax to interface development and writing run-time applications. This is truly a must have book for the Access developer

I am a .NET developer (MCP).

I bought this book because our company launches a new dev project for providing alerts to customers on their financial data (wires, etc.), and I've read that SQL NS is way better than any custom app.

First of all, now that I've read most of the book (and worked through all the samples), I totally support that info.

Secondly (yet very important), I swear I have never had a technical book that was as easy to read and comprehend as this one!
Microsoft is inclined to use some sort of "bureaucratic English" on MSDN, which is a pain in the neck to understand for someone like me (apparently, English is not my native language).
However, even though the author is a Development Lead for SQL NS at Microsoft, his book is as easy to read as my favourite science fiction books (and far easier to read than most of fantasy books like those by Tolkien).

The examples in this book lead you from the most basic concepts of NS to the most advanced features such as developing a custom delivery protocol or a custom standalone event provider.
All you need to start with it is basic knowledge of T-SQL (or, just any flavor of SQL) and XML (REALLY basic!).

And, yes, it's true, you can build a fully functional prototype in less than 2 weeks. I did.

It's a pity that the maximum number of stars is 5.

This book is truly a masterpiece.
A must-have for everybody working with data-driven applications.

It's 600 pages of "SQLNS as a way of life", from beginning to end. It explores setup (without any gratuitous screen shots of setup, THANK YOU), configuration, programming instances and applications, writing the processing configuration files, the subscription management application. There are chapters about custom event providers, formatters, and delivery protocol; there is an example of each. But of course, where this book shines most (is shine most the correct construct? hmmm...) is in the description of internals, tuning, and troubleshooting. That's where it's invaluable. I still remember going over "quantum theory" and all its permutations when I read that chapter.

If you use SQLNS as a notification application framework, it's very easy to get a first instance working, but when your app gets popular and you need 10 more just like it immediately, working with SQLNS quickly becomes all-consuming, that's what I meant by "SQLNS as a way of life". If you're looking to "check out" SQLNS or see if its "right" for your application that's fine too, the preface even gets you quickly up to speed on the SQLNS lingo. I also remember Shyam writing to me a few times about the "its not a custom delivery channel, its a custom delivery protocol". In any case, there's *no way* you can be dissapointed with this book.

This book has been very well written and covers all the aspects of Notification Services a developer must know about. Not only are the various concepts explained very well, the numerous examples and code samples given make this an easy read as well.

One of the key sections of the book is how to troubleshoot your NS application which is the USP of this book, seeing that such treatment to that particular area has not been given anywhere else.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in developing NS applications.

This is a book well worth reading from beginning to end, from preface to appendix. I have done so twice, with the result that I have learned SQL-NS well enough to explain its concepts and architecture to my teammates and higher-ups and to embark upon design and development of notification apps of my own. Mr. Pather puts mastery of this platform within your reach. His pedagogical approach is exemplary, for its organization, pacing, clarity, style and tone. And he covers absolutely everything you need to know about SQL-NS. I wish every computer book out there were written this way.

I would highly recommend this book for anybody developing Sql Server 2000 Notifications Services applications. This book fills the gaps in the Books Online, which, for a large scale application are very important.

The book is structured to provide quick, step-by-step implementation instructions as well as detailed explanations of the hows and whys of Notification Services.

I was particularly grateful for Part III of the book that details optimization, deployment and administration requirements.

Another invaluable part of the book is the chapter on setting up your development environment. I had to do my first application before the publication of this book and I will tell you that had I had this book then, the time I would have saved would have paid for the price of the book many times over.