Programming Books

This is Dr. Mellors third book on programming in the "Learning by Example" series. The DHTML book lives up to the standard of the first two (ASP and XML). As usual the book comes complete with web support (download the codes). It is concise and clearly written, with all examples clearly explained and increasing in complexity throughout the book. Covers CSS, DOM and JavaScript, both alone and in combination (dynamic scripting). Well worth the price!

This book (and indeed all of the books in the "Learning by Example" series) are simply great for people in the education branch. They are ready-made courses with web support. The style is streamlined, the examples are simple but are logically build up, so that by the end quite a high level of complexity is achieved. Why waste time developing your own material when this is difficult to beat, and costs only pennies!

I don't know that I can add much to what the other reviewers have said, except that the book is very very well written and even the complicated techniques appear to be easy and logical. The book has a nice flow, building up stepwise in complexity. With the codes (downloaded from the web support) to help, then you can't really go wrong.

This book has been adopted by us (and other colleges) because it is an excellent introduction to DHTML at the beginner level, for 1-credit courses. The book is well built up, pedagogically correct and at a price that suits the students pocket. It covers HTML 3.2 and 4 tags, the DOM, CSS1 and 2, plus XML, XHTML and Active X. Client side scripting is illustrated using JavaScript and VBScript. Finally the book ends with Dynamic Scripting (CSS, DOM and JavaScript in combination). It covers RegExp (which is unusual and very refreshing for a beginner book) and even touches ASP, Java and UNIX. Recommended for all teachers (and students).

This book has been adopted by us (and other colleges) because it is an excellent introduction to DHTML at the beginner level, for 1-credit courses. The book is well built up, pedagogically correct and at a price that suits the students pocket. It covers HTML 3.2 and 4 tags, the DOM, CSS1 and 2, plus XML, XHTML and Active X. Client side scripting is illustrated using JavaScript and VBScript. Finally the book ends with Dynamic Scripting (CSS, DOM and JavaScript in combination). It covers RegExp (which is unusual and very refreshing for a beginner book) and even touches ASP, Java and UNIX. Recommended for all teachers (and students).

If you have DocBook markup that you need to turn into html or pdf YOU CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT THIS BOOK! That's right I'm shouting. This book is really that important, and that well written. Do bear in mind that you need to know a thing or two about XSLT and XSL-FO or you won't understand a thing you are reading.

The DocBook stylesheets have been carefully written to be both customizable and extensible; after all, no two organizations are likely to have the same format requirements for their documents. This book describes how you can develop your own customization layer between the DocBook stylesheets and your formatted document. Most developers, even those with a lot of time on their hands, would be unlikely to discover all of the techniques described in this book for accomplishing that task.

This book is especially useful if you need to produce pdf documents using XSL-FO. The html output is nice but you can easily format it with CSS. XSL-FO is a large and complex specification for marking up text and images to produce pdf documents. XSL-FO is so detailed that it takes a ton of markup to create even a modest document. The DocBook stylesheets generate a ton and a half of XSL-FO markup and the beauty of the techniques described in this book is that you only modify those things that represent the special needs of your document. I totally agree with previous reviewers, this book is essential.

This book is, without a doubt, one of the most helpful resources available to anyone seeking to understand DocBook XSL. Bob Stayton has done an incredible job gathering everything you need to know regarding this topic, and he presents it in a style that is both easy to navigate and easy to understand.

DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide takes the reader from the very beginnings of how to create custom output (whether print or HTML) using DocBook XSL. It includes information on the tools you need and how to set them up, giving you all the information you need to get started. But this book doesn't stop there--it continues with detailed, organized information on the myriad of ways you can create custom stylesheets that will generate your project precisely the way you want it. Everything is covered--from titlepages to bibliographies, this book leaves no topic unexplained.

It is extremely rare to find a book that truly is a complete guide to its subject matter. DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide more than lives up to its name--you will not find a better resource for understanding DocBook XSL.

I purchased that book as soon as it came out: I just knew I'd need it some day. That day came three weeks ago and I got into the book with a vengeance. I needed to utterly customize the docbooks stylesheets and produce 12'000 different pdf's in four languages out of a huge documentation DB. With the book next to me it was a breeze. Extremely well written, knowledgeable, accurate, just verbose enough to get the point across and and and.

Beware: this is a book for people who are already very well versed in docbook in general, and in XSL in particular.

One does wish the author would have offered ant versions of his scripts as well as Make versions. But that's a matter of taste.

This book needs to be beside the computer (and I do mean RIGHT beside) anyone who is attempting to support or modify docbook applications for the first time. Do that, and you may just be able to put away the extra strength excedrin. Without it, you might have a few problems......

Here's why:

Last year, I had the pleasure of implementing docbook for a large company down in Oklahoma. However, I didn't know much about XSL at the time or for that matter docbook; other than how to markup documents and make changes to the DTD. In other words I was a rookie. I had two tools at my disposal; the definative guide and docbook documentation. Any developer would understand what a rookie who is trying to muddle through docbook documentation is trying to go through..... I had a bit of consulting from Arbortext but other than that I was on my own. The definitive guide has very little information on publishing XML information and barely even mentions XSL. Thus, my modifications consisted of looking at existing code and attempting a patch job. Even with the training I'd had on XSLT it did not help me to find files that I didn't know existed. This book solves that problem and gets you off the ground running.

While the book is NOT a tututorial on XSL is does give a brief overview on the subject. This book talks about implementing XSL in a docbook environment as there are plenty of books in the market that teach you how to code XSL. An understanding of XML is expected and knowledge of docbook is certainly helpful. Topics covered include how to find docbooks XSL stylesheets (or obtain them for free, if you don't already have them)and tells you how to set them up, customize them for your environment, use special stylesheet output features and work with docbook options.

In short, if you need to learn how to implement XSL in a docbook environment; get this book in your hands and don't let it go. It's too valuable a commodity!

With this book and "DocBook: The Definitive Guide" in-hand, I
really can't imagine any other DocBook guide you'll ever need.

The book thoroughly covers just about every possible aspect of
DocBook publishing (that is, generating HTML, PDF, HTML Help, man
pages, etc. from your DocBook XML source) -- from general tool
setup down to the level of stuff like fine-tuning content of
headers and footers, title pages, cross-references, indexes, etc.

I have reviewed and used it a lot, and tried hard to come up with
suggestions for Bob for topics that should be added to it. But I
rarely manage to find anything that it doesn't already cover. When
I have a DocBook publishing question, I can almost always find the
answer in this book.

And if you're not familiar with the author, here are some details:
in the DocBook world, Bob is basically "The DocBook Answer Man" --
he is the most active contributor to discussions on the
docbook-apps mailing list (where DocBook publishing and tools
discussion takes place) -- patiently answering "How do I..."
questions posted by new users and following up on DocBook XSLT
stylesheet bug reports.

He's also a member of the DocBook Technical Committee, responsible
for overseeing refinements to the DocBook vocabulary, and he's a
major contributor to development of the actual DocBook XSL
stylesheets themselves.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying that this guy knows his
stuff, and in buying and using this book, you'll be benefitting
from a wealth of knowledge and experience with DocBook that you'll
not find anywhere else.

Anyone who is new to Visual Basic 4.0 or those who are migrating / upgrading from Visual Basic 3.0 to Visual Basic 4.0 , will find this book as the basic tool to Object-Oriented approach in Visual Basic. Author has given some good ideas to tackle class hierarchy , not supported by VB. This is a must buy for all Visual Basic 4.0 learners who want to develop Business Objects in VB 4. But a serious developer who has already done programming in VB 4 may not find this book as very informative , for most of the subjects described may have been already done by him. (By the time I got this book I had already done a lot !) Hence , ABC learners must go for it but practical developers must use the experience they have

I was surprised to find the first half the book devoted to project and object design with very little code. Yet these sections turned out to be far more compelling than the (excellent) coding techniques that followed. I found the book an invaluable source for the more intangible side of programming: rather than teach dozens of techniques for coding yourself into misery, the author demonstrates how to design one's objects and applications correctly from the beginning. I can honestly say the book has saved me days, if not weeks, of effort by showing me how to design first and code later

If you are an experienced programmer looking to get into the Object Oriented side of VB, buy this book! Deborah Kurata and ZD have done an excellent job of laying the foundations of OO for you. All you have to do is read the book

Deborah Kurata has given the Visual Basic programming community something it has desperately needed for years -- a pragmatic framework for project development. In fact, any developer using one of the modern Interactive Development Environments (IDE's) will benefit from reading this book. Kurata skillfully combines a straightforward object-oriented methodology with practical examples of VB's new OO features. Every VB programmer (arguably every programmer of any language) should own this book

If you want to learn more about the entire design processes -- objected oriented design -- then read this book. You will not learn neat tricks in this book or even pick out a lot of Visual Basic code; however, you will learn how to better plan, schedule, and manage projects. Bottom line... if you must pick a book that will go beyond learning the language, and go into real-world project design... GET THIS BOOK

The book was in great condition and delivery was on time, I couldn't expect anything more.

This is a brilliant book for beginners and home page designers alike. Excellent online support and resources. Slightly dated now (July 2005), with nothing about CSS or "Style", so eagerly awaiting their next book which will hopefully cover these topics.
A great reference book.

Never seen anything better--probably never will. I have read about Web design, HTML, etc. in other books and articles, but I have never been completely at ease with the subject and didn't bother to read the material in detail. It never really sunk in. Then, this book came along and it opened my eyes. The whole book is superbly structured and the mystery about Web design is all cleared. Everything in the book is so well presented and appears in the right sequence. And there are so many tips strewn about. I now know HTML much better. Your confidence grows as you keep reading. I have a website done in Word2000 and I didn't quite use Word's full potential till I read Chapter 9. I had ignored WordArt for example. Now I am much the wiser in so many ways. I can't imagine any better book coming along.

I have been working with web page and web page design for about two years and I also teach the design of pages through HTML and FrontPage. For most people they need more than 1 or 2 days in a classroom in order to understand the concepts and this is where this book comes in handy.

Using the color photos of screen shots in order to make the understanding better, this book is broken down into 3 parts. Part 1 is the basics, helping you crawl in web design before you run. You'll be treated to topics like the elements of the web page, adding graphics, which include types of art, colors, pixels, photos, drawings, backgrounds and bullets.

Part 2 is the creation of the web page, which deals with subjects like posting, HTML layout, using Microsoft Word and FrontPage as web editors. The ideas and techniques for both Word and FrontPage are well explained and the screen shots included make it easier to visualize what the final outcome will look like.

Part 3 is the going live phase of the design, with the uploading of pages with the FTP protocol and web page updating after you have gone live. The hands-on really starts in part 2, which may be a drawback to the book, but overall information wise this book will transform the novice designer into a serious web master in no time flat.

Finally, a computer book that looks at the task at hand beyond the computer. I was looking for a book to help me do a decent looking web site on my own. This is the book to get. They talk about ALL aspects of the process - from how to write and plan the content to writing the HTML to do it AND everything in between like hosting, fonts to use, colors,... everything. I have found this to be a rare commodity in info systems books. This book gives you advice based on their experience and lets you know what to expect if you don't follow it. This is what I want in a computer book, not a step by step guide on how to execute menu items. This is truly a well-written book and I wish the authors would do many others. Good job!

The book provides good overview on the ebXML architecture, and gives lots of business case examples. I highly recommend this book for business manager looking into implementing ebXML and web services in their company.

I was looking for an executive level summary on B2B services, and this book help me to understand the issues without overwhelming me with the technology.

The book provides good overview on the ebXML architecture, and gives lots of business case examples. I highly recommend this book for business manager looking into implementing ebXML and web services in their company.

My company is just starting to look at ebXML for handling b2b transactions. I'm familiar with XML but really needed a quick primer to get me up-to-speed on the essentials of ebXML. This book is very clearly written to guys like me--it covers the basics very clearly, with good examples. Now I am ready to get my company rolling with ebXML.

This book really helped me build on what I already knew in order to get a handle on ebXML. The author does a great job of showing how ebXML builds on XML standards, and also how ebXML relates to Web Services, which I'm just starting to get a handle on. It provides good technical detail on the ebXML architecture, and gives lots of business case examples and reasonable guidelines for developing a strategy for staging implementation of ebXML. Coverage of security and the other major specs is very complete and readable--I highly recommend this book!

Wonderfully produced set of cd's that are entertaining and helpful in numerous ways. A whole lot a "Bang for your Buck"! I highly recommend this set to anyone looking to enjoy the heck out of their life.

In "Effortless Success", success coach Michael Neill invites the listener to address two fundamental questions: 1) What do you want? and 2) What is stopping you from getting it?

The first half of the program is spent guiding you through a path of self-discovery to help you answer the first question. The second half helps you answer the second question. Filled with lots of exercises and hands-on activities, this 6-CD set is worth much more than its paltry price indicates.

In his easy-going, non-confrontational way, Michael can help you--and you don't have to spend thousands of dollars for a one-on-one session! Stop spending $ on coffees for one week, save the money, and BUY THIS NOW! You will reap the benefits for the rest of your life.

I highly recommend the CDs to be your companion wherever you go. If you want to have what you want in your life, buy these CDs NOW for yourself. After you finish with them, you will want to share them with family members, and even send them to others as gifts.

In one week, I listened to all 6 CDs, and as soon as I would finish one, I would be like a child on Christmas Eve waiting for tomorrow to discover what the next CD had to offer. The most amazing thing is that I continually found something new from the text and stories even in areas I was already familiar with and thought I had a good grasp on. I am curious to see what new nuggets of gold will be uncovered the next time I hear them. I have read two of his published books, (see my Amazon reviews), taken Coaching Mastery seminar by him, and received my NLP practitioner license from London (He was one of three trainers.) As a life coach, not only I, myself, practice his teachings, but also, I share them with my clients. So, before I listened to the CDs, I thought, "Well, I really understand what he is talking about..." WOW! I could not have been more surprised as I learned something deeper, beyond his words this time.

Michael Neill's trained actor's voice sets the tempo, and his enthusiasm and compassion lift up the language, and conveys a much deeper understanding than his talent alone. When you read a book, you read with our own voice, often thinking of the meaning in your own context of what you think is right, so you miss what's beyond the meaning and content, and in the process, what he was trying to convey. His ideas and stories are uniquely his own, and his own delivery lends a totality to his intended communication that creates an aliveness that can only be experienced. Visceral, emotional, and the sensuality of the communication, which is normally not fully present in a written form, in this medium, is amplified to the highest effect.

Another luxurious benefit is this: as he speaks, we can sit back in our most comfortable chair, close our eyes (which I actual did), and go into a quiet state of mind where we turn off our monkey mind that bounces from thought to thought. This way, you can be receptive and more open to what he is actually saying, and you can be present as he takes you to a special place in your mind, that will allow you to be in touch with your true inner voice.

I just spent two years of my life recovering from a burn out by listening every possible self help/self development tape I could get my hands into. Brian Tracy, Wayne Dyer, Paul McKenna, Doreen Virtue, The Secret -- you name it. Yes, even some Anthony Robbins.

I knew Michael Neill from the Hayhouse Radio (http://www.hayhouseradio.com) and have always loved his very practical, funny and smart advice. I bought his first book You Can Have What You Want right after it was published, but was too exhausted to read it (or anything else) at the time, so I gave it away to someone else who needed it more -- he loved it and got amazing results from it.

Back to this recording. When I heard Michael Neill had finally recorded an audio program about the same principles he talks about in his radio show and books, I ran (ok, drove) to the nearest bookstore and bought it.

It's amazing! No-nonsense, down to earth, yet exceptionally inspiring, thought provoking and touching. Even my husband, who dislikes almost every other author whose tapes I listen, loves this one. When we listen to Effortless Success together, we have to pause the recording basically every other minute to talk about all the ideas that Michael's simple truths provoke on us. How do we know they are true? Because they make us go "but of course!" "that is so true!" "I've always known that but somehow forgot it!"

Since we started to listen this recording couple of weeks ago (yes, we take our time to savor his wisdom), our energy levels have got higher than for years (or maybe ever) and we've both got very inspired, excited and productive. Most importantly, I was finally able to redefine my personal goals after my burn out and I'm happy to follow my inner bliss again.

I wish I would have been able to listen this already two years ago. I would have saved so much money and time and would be so much closer to my WOW-goals. Oh well. Better a little later than never.

Buy this! Listen to it! You won't regret!

---

UPDATE 4 MONTHS LATER:

OK, I can't give all the credit only to this audiobook, but I feel that it definitely helped us to get on the right track. Here's what has happened since listening this audiobook:

1. My husband sold his first screenplay and is now shooting the movie based on it. In the process he got a great new friend.

2. I quit my day job, went back to my old profession which I had quit after my burn out, visited my native country for the first time for 20 months and got THREE new super-exciting and inspiring projects (that's a lot in my profession!). I wake up happy every morning and am very excited about the future. Plus my finances seem to be finally back on the right track. Yay!

Thank you Michael for such an amazing audio book!

This book is about Oracle JDBC programming, not generic database neutral JDBC programming but Oracle specific. There are many JDBC books available and many Oracle and Oracle programming books but this concentrates narrowly on JDBC for Oracle, and how to get the best performance out of that combination. It is aimed at an audience that already knows Java and probably already knows a little JDBC. It is written in a dry but very readable style and plenty of code examples. At just over 700 pages it is a fairly fat book, but I felt everything was justified and there was nothing that felt like "padding". The code examples are fairly short and tend to be complete programs with a main method rather than snippets that need to be incorporated into a runnable program. Each code example includes a comment about which version of Oracle it will run with, and mostly this covers at least 10.1 and 9.2.

The main emphasis is on compatibility with Oracle 10.g. There is an emphasis on performance which is clear from the title of Chapter 1 "Performance Toolkit" and graphs are used to illustrate the influence of various parameters on performance. The book makes use of UML style class charts, tables and plenty of performance/time line graphs. I particularly liked the use of a flow chart to illustrate the statement processing algorithm. Flow charts seem to be old fashioned, but they are almost perfect for illustrating this type of information. If you were being overly critical of the diagrams, you might describe them as unsophisticated. Thus in Chapter 15 the "Our example application" illustration looks like it was taken from the clip art of a DOS program from around 1987. But if you want pretty pictures you can buy any glossy "Illustrated Walking and Chewing Gum" book that takes your fancy. This book by contrast, concentrates on explaining essential technical and performance information, in the simplest clearest way possible, and they achieve it.

The coverage tends to keep to how Oracle is used in most common "real world" situations, thus the index does not even contain a reference to Grid computing and there is no coverage of distributed transactions, which are described in the introduction as a "less commonly used JDBC feature".

Although chapter 3 is entitled "Introduction to JDBC" it is a lightening tour with code examples that assume they are accessing an Oracle database. There is an emphasis on performance with chapters on statement caching and connection pooling. It not only covers the Oracle specific classes, but also covers where they do not work exactly as per the specification. For example
in chapter 4 "Transactions" there is a note

"In 10g Release 1 and 9i Release 2, the method setReadOnly() of the Connection interface internally does a set transaction read only. This is a bug, as it isn't the intended behavior of the method setReadOnly().."

There are many examples of notes such as this which could be vital when you are struggling with some unexpected quirk of behavior.

With this book you are not getting a re-writing of the documentation, but a description from someone who has actually used the classes. Although the heart of the book is JDBC it does have some excellent coverage of general Java/Oracle programming and configuration issues.

I was particularly interested in the sections on Connection Pooling/Caching and security related issues. These chapters would be of value for anyone writing JDBC for any target database, as it explains some of the implication of connection pooling in terms of authentication. Chapter 15, "Security-related issues" covers the issue of Mapping an end user to a database user. This covers the performance issues of a one to one mapping and the benefit of proxy authentication to get around this.

Performance Performance

Chapter 2 is called "Oracle Fundamentals", thought it might have been called "Oracle performance fundamentals". It covers issues such as the impact of Oracle record locking and the value of using bind variables for inserting records. This includes a performance graph typical of the book. Without bind variables, the graph curve is like an ascent of Mount Everest. By contrast where bind variables are used the increase in time taken represents a very gentle slope. This is the type of advice that could make the difference between your code being optimal or being unusable. In chapter 2 the author gives his mantra for the book as

"we should not just produce code that works; we should produce code that works well".
I interpret that as code that "runs fast" and code you can prove runs fast.

One of the few parts of the book that is probably not essential is chapter 8 which covers Oracle Objects. This can be summed up unfairly as "Oracle supports objects but you probably don't want to use them". However as most Java programmers tend to have an interest in Object Oriented concepts they will probably get some value out of it, even if they decide not to use JDBC to access Oracle Objects.

What about PL/SQL?

The author is not a Java Zelot and puts convincing arguments for when PL/SQL may be a better choice than Java/JDBC. He makes the expected performance argument, but more interesting is the argument that sometimes using PL/SQL may be more portable, in that you should use the procedural language of your target database, e.g. TSQL in SQL server, PLSQL etc. I think this is stretching the argument, and database portability can be more important for some categories of application.

Summary

This is not a book for students who want to learn JDBC from scratch. It is for people who want to write high performance JDBC for accessing Oracle. It takes the view that to build the best application you need to understand the underlying database as well as JDBC. If you are writing Oracle JDBC you need this book. If you are writing platform neutral JDBC you could still benefit from this book as it would allow you to avoid performance bottlenecks specific to Oracle.

Good Things:
Lots of excellent real life code examples
Good reading for beginners to advanced users; helpful for advanced concepts but also built up to them by explaining the basics ones.
Great code optimization recommendations.
Well written, easy to understand.

Bad Things:
No CD that comes with book containing code examples. I also did not find a website with the code examples.

The previous reviewers are absolutely right about this book. This book is definitely the best book if you are looking to exploit JDBC in combination with Oracle. Note that it covers JDBC on its own right but then suppliments it with info on Oracle. It is way better than any other JDBC book in the market (I have read through most others.) What I liked about this book is:
1. The author gives complete examples for you to work with. He also explains these examples step by step.
2. The author always provides proof for any statement of performance claims he makes in terms of code that anyone can run. This is a refreshingly different approach than some authors who simply state the claims (that are more often than not incorrect)
3. Author's approach is practical and can be used in real life projects.
4. The author goes in-depth into all topics he covers and is not afraid to delve into the details of Oracle architecture when required.
5. There is no "fluff" or "padding". There are no reams of pages just giving API information that is readily available on the web. Instead the author suppliments the JDBC API info and the Oracle documentation on JDBC freely available on the web.

In short, this book bridges the gap between J2EE developers and database developers (focusing on Oracle, of course.)

The only thing to note is that as a reader, you could get bogged down by the first two chapters since they give overview of Oracle architecture and performance tools the author uses. But as you would read the remaining chapters, you would appreciate the contents of these first two chapters.

If you are using JDBC on Oracle, then buy this book! You won't regret it!

"Expert Oracle JDBC Programming" is part of a new series called OakTable Press. This series is written by Oracle experts, making the quality very high. In fact, one of the technical reviewers of this book is "Ask Tom."

This strong relationship with Oracle results in trying to convince the reader to use stored procs/Oracle specific code. This isn't a good or a bad thing - just something to know up front. The author clearly shows what is Oracle specific and describes the tradeoffs.

The book has three sections, starting with an introduction to JDBC. While JDBC knowledge is not required, it is helpful to get full benefit from the book as advanced concepts are introduced very quickly. The book relies heavily on code with all examples clearly explained. The second section goes into Oracle specific concepts. The last section explains best practices, issues and specific performance related concepts.

This book is distinguished from others by the emphasis on good quality, high performing code. Benchmarks are provided from the beginning. Chapter 1 even covers how to time your code.

As you can tell from the title, the book is Oracle specific. So you can copy/paste the code and run it on Oracle. All code examples specifically state whether they work on 9i, 10g or both. The focus of Oracle also allows the author to demonstrate exactly what needs to be done to run/test the examples on Oracle. I recommend this book for Java developers on Oracle.

This is an excellent book with a very refreshing hands-on approach to JDBC programming for the Oracle database. The author tackles fundamental database concepts, with a strong emphasis on performance. The approach that the author uses includes the right combination of theoretical fundamentals and hands-on coding and testing. The result is a book that is ideal for both the novice user looking to understand fundamental database concepts and the advanced user looking for in-depth analyses using code examples and benchmark numbers. Best of all, the book is not just about the Oracle database in isolation. It is set within the context of JDBC programming, bringing the world of RDBMS programming to the Java community.
This book is a must have for the enterprise software developer who is even half serious about leveraging the enormous power of the Oracle database in her/his application.

This book doesn't contain a lot of jargon. It has pictures of how to do things and explains things in non-technical terms. Great for beginners but also useful as a refresher when you haven't used some aspect for awhile. Well laid out index so easy to find what your looking for. These people have done a good job. Hope they bring out another one more advanced.

I had no idea what the interface looked like or ANY idea about how to use 3DS Max; I just knew I want to learn how to do animations.

Well, I know this book isn't going to have me making 3D animation movies, but it does give a great insight into the program's basics.

Lots of hands-on exercises, just as I like. Lots of pictures too. The authors do an excellent job of spelling out the basics and telling you exactly what you need to do to complete an excerise. And, as you move further along in the book, they "neglect" to tell you how to do something they've already covered - just like a teacher would do in class. It forces you to explore, reread (if you don't understand a subject) and practice with the program - what you need to do if you're ever going to learn to use 3DS Max.

A very well written book about the basics of 3DS Max 7.

I highly recommend this book to the beginning 3ds max student. It was very helpful to me, as it explained more of the basics and gave more detail behind the steps. Also, the tutorials frequently used diffent tools to accomplish the same task. This showed how to use the graphical interface, quad-menus, toolbars, etc.

I found it the best of several books I bought to get my feet wet with 3ds max. It really helped with some of the basic lighting and material concepts. While, this book doesn't even begin to touch all the features of 3ds max, it was a great primer and I'm glad I read it.

This book is perfect for those just getting started in 3ds Max 7. There are a lot of easy to follow screen shots to accompany the text so it is possible to still follow along when you're not in front of your computer. It is written with plenty of step by step explanations of what you are doing and why as well as a great accompanying disk to help with tutorials. It even tackles some of the more difficult aspects of 3d modeling such as composition, the dreaded material editor (it even throws in a side bar about UVW unwrapping) and lighting. It is written with the beginner in mind and does a great job explaining concepts and procedures without insulting your intelligence. It may, however, be a little below intermediate users, it can be a great tool to brush up on fundamentals. I can't recommend this book enough for those looking to get their feet wet in MAX.

The book by Till & O'Connell is great for newcomers simply because it doesn't attempt to give you too much information but only what new users might need to learn the basics of max 7. I had never turned on max 7 and within a week I was amazed as to how much I had learned without having any previous experience with 3d softwares. This should be the first book you buy if you are starting from scratch with max 7.

This book is not for the faint of heart in Access 2000 coding but it is invaluable to the advanced programmer. I refer to this book almost daily in developing our in-house applications. The real strength of this book is in developing code that is more portable or reusable. I have gone from writing sloppy code that is application (or even form) specific to writing completly reusable (and of course fully documented) code. Excellent reference for the power VBA programmer!

Had everything I needed to get going, even the obscure stuff.

Only thing missing was an explanation of what Access does with it's version of Stored procedures, but then again, Microsoft isn't sure on that one itself, so that's no surprise.

Great book, I recommend it.

Love this book. This is the only book I know that does not abandon DAO. I like DAO. All other post Access 97 book abandons DAO.

It is well written and have used many of this examples for my job. I even like it better than the Getz books.

I BOUGHT NOT LESS THAN 15 MS ACCESS BOOKS WHILE LEARNING ACCESS. I FOUND THIS ONE MOST HELPFUL. I HAVE LEARNED MANY THINGS FROM THIS VALUABLE BOOK: CLASS MODULES, CUSTOM COLLECTIONS, CUSTOM PROPERTIES & METHODS, API CALLS ETC ETC... THE AUTHOR HAD PROVIDED MANY USEFUL CODES. I REALLY LIKE HIS BOOKMARK TRACKER.

This was just the book I was looking for. Scott goes into alot of the issues that most of the books on Access just do not. For instance his sections on the winAPI's as well as performance recomendations. I found this book a total reference for beginner through the intermediate programmer of Access. Thanks Scott.

Dr Folk was my graduate advisor and I worked with Bill Z at TMS. This book actually reflects some of the technology we worked with there as well as other thoughtful and useful ideas in storing data on disk.

There are many Computer Science references that show several common sorting techniques but most stop there. This book has what no other that I've seen had: A concise discussion of sorting data that won't fit into storage at once.

It's easy to sort items when you can load them all into memory. Many books show how to do that.

This is the first book that I've seen that explains, in detail, methods for sorting data that is too large to fit in memory at once. Techniques are shown, then refined.

An amazing book. Although it's a textbook, it's an excellent reference for all programmers. Even if you think you know a great deal about file structures and/or sorting data, you will learn something from the techniques shown in this book. I couldn't put it down.

The metodology used by the authors to write the book is really excelent.
Starting every chapter with a very interesting introduction and covering all the aspects of the inteligent design of file structures with many examples in pseudocode. The references to other books and papers in the end of each chapter makes you fell secure. The index of key words (with a small summary) is really usefull, when you finish reading a chapter you can test yourself to see if you really know it (when you have little time, for example, a day before exams, then it's much more usefull). The exercises and programming projects (always using real world problems) after this index closes each chapter nicelly. The book also discusses the problems with implementations in C and Pascal.
The best one !!!
Congratulations to Folk and Zoellick.

Este libro es una exelente referencia al la estructura de archvivos, gracias a como los autores desarrollan el texto, de una manera deliciosa que profundiza en los problemas de almacenar en archivos, poco a poco y profundamente, y lo que es más importante haciendo que el lector se de cuenta de por que realmente la necesidad de cada nueva estructura de datos revisada. La única pena es que ya es un libro bastante viejo yen ciertas lieneas el lector puede pensar que el libro esta desfasado, pero en lo verdaderamente importante, lo que el libro cuenta sigue estando vigente y lo estara por que al fin y al cabo las bases no cambian.

As a senior software designer, I helped implement file structures for dBASE, cc:Mail, Collabra Share and other commercial software packages. I spent 16 years learning this subject, and Folk and Zoellick taught me a few things in addition to presenting the material so logically, so usefully, that no one need write a book on this subject again