Programming Books

It is great for teaching class on the basics of MS ACCESS.

Byron Giles
www.gilestechgroup.com

Each chapter is a Project. Project 1 took you through what you should already know about other Windows applications. I felt that I would not be trying to learn Access if I did not know how to use "Help" in other Windows applications.

Anyway, this was a great BASIC Access book. I did, however, have to send an email to Prentice Hall. After a week, I still have not heard from them. There are sections in the book called, "Discovery Zone Exercises". They let you figure out what to do by using "Help". Sometimes "Help" is no "Help". My advice to you is, if you can not figure out the "Zone" exercises just go on. I found one answer in the "Intermediate" book. Another at a book store.

With all that, the book is well written. They have you do the same thing more than once and sometimes in different ways. It earns 5 star's.

I am now starting on the "essentials Access 2000 intermediate" book. Look for that review.

I bought all three book, beginning, intermediate & advanced to use in a course that I teach in Theories of Database. My students used these books to learn Access on their own. The book is very clear with practical examples. It includes many hints and tips that help avoid many of the pitfalls that beginners will typically encounter. Gives plenty of assignments and examples. My only complaint in that the binding on the spiral addition is pretty flimsy. I highly recommend this book for beginners or for teachers looking for a good access "workbook".

Great way to learn Access basics. Interesting examples, lots of stuff to help you along, plus neat tips and pitfalls. Good CD for practice.

serves as a valuable tool regarding my project on AN

This is an excellent book for the signal processing community as the stress is mainly on algorithms and implementation. A reseacher who wants to work in this field without much background in acoustics, finds this book very useful and it enables him to get to know how he can apply his adaptive signal processing skills to active noise control. This book provides in a simple way the active noise control field and its associated problems. As the book provides only required amount of acoustical details and explains the filtered LMS algorithm very clearly unlike other books, for a beginer it is a very good book. I didn't know any thing aboout ANC when I started, but to day I am able to contribute even to international journals and conferences. Further I have under taken projects at national level from government agencies to develop ANC systems. I feel this book is really well written and it makes the reader keen to know about the subject and provides him high level of confidence. I sincerely recommend this book for any person who is new to this field and has signal processing background. It is a very very very excellent book.

This is an excellent book for persons with signal processing background. The book provides only minimum information about acoustics for a signal processing person and does not confuse with too much of details. In this way, the book makes to reader comfortable. Also many aspects of signal processing which can improve the performance of an active noise control (ANC)system are explained and hence the reader feels more confident that he too can work in this field. This is very much essential as the adaptive algorithms play a crucial role in the ANC implementation. The FXLMS algorithm and its problems are well described. To start with I did not know any thing about ANC, but this book has helped me to get good understanding about it. Presnently, I am able to do research contributions to international journal and to conferences. Further, I have taken up projects at national level in ANC. I feel this book has presented the subject in a simple way retaining all the intricate details. This background enables a reseacher even to follow new developments taking place in this filed. This is a very very useful and excellent book.

This excellent text is written for advanced study and practicing engineers who need to design controllers for active noise control systems. The emphasis is on the algorithms that are usually implemented in a Digital Signal Processor. The book's treatment of acoustics, sensors, and actuators is not as in-depth as texts by Fuller or Nelson. Included in the book is C and assembly code for the most popular adaptive control techniques, but beware of bugs and patent issues. One of the algorithms covered in detail is the Filtered-X Least Mean Squares technique that one of the Authors (Morgan) help to make popular in the community.

This book was excellent and very informative. Mr. Young impeccably explains how to use PDFs to achieve the desired results of your product. I've often been confused on how to precisly use various PDF products, but with this book, I can now design my product the way I want it to look. This book is definitely a "must read"!

I'm one of those people who buys every software book on the market. I've looked at lots of books on PDF. This is the best yet. It's practical and tells me how to avoid making the most common mistakes in creating a PDF. I wish the rest of my colleagues would read this.

Unlike many books in this category, Carl Young's book is not a rewrite of the Acrobat Help file. He lays out the most common mistakes creators of PDFs make, and then provides step-by-step solutions. Highly recommended.

Every graphic designer should own this book! Designers constantly send PDFs
that are waaaaay to big, or have missing fonts to my small marketing/pr
firm. I may buy copies for every designer I work with.

When I found out Doug and Deepa were writing the Flex book for Dummies, I'll admit I was shocked. These two people could easily write the most advanced book on Flex, but a book that by default of its expert level would have been accessible by few.

With so much Flex knowledge in their heads, can this really be a book for dummies? Yes, it can. I'll prove it with a quote from the book. In Chapter 16 (Custom Components and Component Architecture), Doug and Deepa explain how to make a custom component in MXML, not ActionScript. You'll find this little gem in the "Choosing between MXML and ActionScript" section:

"Because creating ActionScript components is an advanced topic (we could write a book on it!), we cover only MXML components in this chapter."

They know their audience and thankfully take it easy on them. The writers gives a taste of Flex's greatness, without getting too deep into all the complex magic that happens behind the scenes.

Anyone looking to get up to speed on Flex would do good to pick this up. After you get comfortable with the basics, go check out the authors individual blogs for more advanced information.

I took my copy of the book into the office, where it was rather quickly "borrowed" by a coworker. I'll likely have to buy another copy just to have at home, where no one can "borrow" it. :)

I want to be clear that I know Doug and Deepa on a personal level. They speak at my conferences and participate in my user group. Does this make my review biased? No. Instead, it gives me insight into their personalities. It helps me understand why they spent so much of their precious time to make life easier for those just getting started with Flex vs those advanced enough to find their own way. Although, I say they still should write an advanced book. If they get started now, it should be done when the buyers of this book are ready for something a bit more advanced.

Doug and Deepa are incredible! They're superstars in the Flex development world, and experts in the field!

They break Flex down into manageable bits and very clearly explain it. I can't imagine anyone better to learn Flex from than these two!

The authors have done a superb job creating Flex for Dummies 3.0. It will be a great asset for beginning Flex developers. The book can be read from front to back - giving an over view of all that Flex has to offer - or as a desk reference to be used while working. I particularly appreciate the 'Remember' and 'Warning' sections, since they point out some of the nuances of working with such a powerful language.

While most likely regarded as a beginners book, there is probably plenty here for a moderately experienced developer to work with. Chapter 16, on Custom Components and Component Architecture has been invaluable while trying to build more complex components.

As Flex grows in popularity, there are more and more resources popping up. While this is great, it is also becoming more difficult for developers to sift through it all and find the answers to their questions - Flex 3.0 for Dummies can provide many of these answers... on your REAL desktop.

As one of the Product Managers for Flex at Adobe, I am often asked for pointers to resources to learn Flex. Flex is admittedly a complex set of tools, and even with our excellent documentation and resources it can be a bit overwhelming. Adobe Flex 3.0 for Dummies is a great resource for those looking for a one-stop shop to get started. The basic underpinnings of the languages are explained, the basics of using Flex Builder are right up front, and you get a really great high-level overview of everything Flex can do.

If you've been intimidated in getting started with Flex, I highly recommend this book.

Adobe Camera Raw Studio Skills is a great resource for CS2 users. Each Chapter is written by an expert in that particular area. Yet each chapter is equally easy to read and follow. One of the bonuses of this book is that it integrates Adobe Camera Raw with Bridge and Photoshop, so there are tricks and instructions that incorporate all three to get your desired results.
Along with through instructions of all the Adobe Camera Raw tools, it covers workflow, HDR, blend modes, black and white conversions, advanced use of free transforms and a host of others.
The name suits it well-Studio Skills. After reading it, you may feel as if you do have your own studio!

Unbelievable what Charlotte K Lowrie managed to realize with in my opinion the best book on the subject.She brings together eleven of the best widely known top photographers who share their techniques & tips with you to achieve your skills;
This wonderful illustrated book is a MUST on your bookshelf!!
The layout is fantastic,the photos beautiful and the tutorials from each of the specialist tremendous.
Camera Raw is taking back the control that photographers had in the black-and-white darkroom and "Studio Skills" brings you in the darkroom of this eleven gurus.What pleased me especially is that in 348 pages I could deal with the know-how from these artists.From Workflow and image evaluation(section 1 page 4-61)to Image processing techniques(section 2 page 66-268)to end with Add finishing touches in ps(section 3 page 276-295)all you ever wanted to achieve is explained.An overview of each photogapher-contributor(including Charlotte Lowrie)is given at the beginning of the book with his/her speciality,clients,career and the techniques they demonstrate in this book referencing the page where you can find them.Thanks to the editor's permission you can search inside the book this is a great advantage to make a decision before buying this bestseller!
An handy format,glossy paper,great photograps and above all extremely useful techniques(look at the resume above what's on the back-flap)

The appendix A explains in detail Adobe Bridge(page307-316)Appendix B Getting to know Camera Raw (page 317-329)Appendix C all about updates and downloading Camera Raw plug-in update(page 331-332)Appendix d a variety of professinal organizations offer support a selection by category(page 333-336)
Finally the advantage is that you'll deal with several"visions"from the best professinals on the stage!!!!!
Charlotte we 're asking for more books on this high level.

Being a Raw enthusiast I have read many books and articles concerning post processing using the Adobe Camera Raw Converter.
Even though this book only uses Adobe Photoshop CS2 as the basic Raw converter there are gobs of information that will help guide you through the Camera Raw process from Raw capture to final printing. When and if you upgrade to CS3 the additions to the Raw Converter can be easily be integrated into your workflow.
This book is broken down into three major sections with chapters that provide step by step techniques by various professionals on How to use - Adobe Camera Raw. These major sections are: Workflow and Imaging Evaluation, Image Prtocessing Techniques and Add Finishing Touches in Photoshop.
The presentation used by the author is excellent and should be in my opinion,very helpful to anyone considering using the Adobe Camera Raw Converter. With that said, I highly recommend this book.

Adobe Camera Raw Studio Skills is a MUST for anyone using Adobe Photoshop. Charlotte Lowrie has assembled a host of great contributers, including herself, and has compiled a vast array of knowledge. The book is written in a very logical format, and covers just about everything you want or need to know about Adobe Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw. The appendices at the back of the book include information about Adobe Bridge, Camera Raw, How do download and install plug-ins for Camera Raw, and finally, websites for variety of professional organizations that can provide additional training and information. This book really does belong on any digital photographer's reference shelf.

I loved this book. The world building was incredible and I felt for all of the characters. There were many twists throughout the book and it was an incredible read. It is a spicy romance. If you are looking for a good fantasy romance, I would strongly recommend this book.

It was one of the best books I read this year!

It had everything from SciFi, magic, interracial love, betrayal, jealousy, original plot, and everything good you can think of. It was a page-turning book, and I couldn't put it down. I read it straight in two days, and its hard for me to do that unless it's really good.

I will give this book 10/10 stars, if I can give it more I would. I will recommend this book to anyone who are scifi and interracial lovers who enjoy a unique and very interesting plot. It's worth every penny!

I have been anticipating this book since I read about it months ago. I was not disappointed. Mrs. Bagby is truly a great story teller. The books starts out with the main character being abducted by her future husband followed by issues they face together on Bron. The book was good from the beginning to end. (Where most book fizzle in the middle) this one did not. I am so happy someone was able to keep my attention and incorporate Sci Fi within it. Great Job! I would recommend this to anyone who loves IR, Sci Fi and mystery. I look forward to order her other books.

Loved this book!

Adrienne is assaulted while on campus by a disgruntled student when Malik comes out of nowhere to save her. She is taken back to Bron (modern day Asia) to become Malik's not-so-willing bride. Malik is the king of Ulan, with a short temper and sort of cruel to his people; Adrienne tames the beast as she learns to love Malik.

No racy sex or erotica, just a nice romantic storyline along with a few surprises that keeps this story interesting enough from start to finish.

This is definately the book to get to get up to speed with powerbuilder. I just picked up the advanced book in this series. by the way, newer versions covering powerbuilder versions thru 10.5 are available from the author/publisher, [...] And you won't have to pay more than the list price, which is what some used copies are listing for.

The intro book was excellent, so it was a no-brainer getting the advanced book. The advanced book provided excellent help for me as a new PowerBuilder user. As soon as you open the book, you're already learning plenty of tips that will help you later. Yes, this info is in PowerBuilder help, but here it's all in a nice, consise 'get-to-the-point' format. This book is used in the company's actual advanced class, so you also get a disk with exercises and solutions. The price may seem a little much for some, but for someone having to learn this quickly, which makes sense economically - 1)spend a couple of thousand in some 3 day 'quick' class or 2)spend a couple of hundred and get what you need without leaving your desk? This book is definitely worth it. The chapters on the datawindow report presentation styles (tabular, grid, etc) are excellent!

This book realy help me in construction of classes and objects using the PowerBuilder 7. It's desvending and show the secrets. If you want a way to mastering PowerBuilder, this is the right way.

If there was ever a book teaching Powerbuilder 7 advanced secrets then this is it. A must have for all developers of Powerbuilder. What you learn in this book is invaluable

"Advanced Sharepoint Services Solutions" is the second book by Scott Hiller, on Sharepoint Technologies. The first one was about building basic web parts. This book is for developers who have good knowledge of Sharepoint technologies. It is also assumed that you have already built some web parts and also have good understanding of .NET development. If you are looking for basic Sharepoint stuff, refer to his other book "Microsoft Sharepoint Building Office 2003 Solutions".

The Advanced book is not a complete reference on Sharepoint technologies. Instead it contains 8 chapters, which covers widely different areas. There are few chapters which are not covered by other Sharepoint books. This book is good source for CAML, Information Bridge Framework, Business Scorecard Accelerator, Sharepoint and BizTalk Integration, and for Sharepoint and Content Management Server Integration.
Since these topics are usually not covered in regular Sharepoint books, it becomes good source for these topics.

The book has good amount of source code (in C#) along with the text and provides some great ideas for system integrations. But as I said before it is not a complete reference book, just some great solutions for customizing and integrating Sharepoint technologies.

Well, so Hillier's first book on SharePoint wasn't enough for some readers! Apparently, he found demand for explanations of broader, more advanced usages, that he furnishes here in this book.

Perhaps the more important of these are discussed in the second half of the book. Microsoft has developed several other intricate applications, independently of SharePoint. But consider how it integrated the various parts of its Office suite, so that you can easily go from Excel to PowerPoint, say. In similar wise, Hillier explains how SharePoint is compatible with Information Bridge Framework, Business Score Cards Accelerator, BizTalk Server 2004 and the Content Management Service. Granted, none of these is as successful and widespread as something like Excel. These packages are far more specialised and their usages might often involve some programming effort. Thus too, using SharePoint with them also necessitates programming.

Ok, there are parts where you might pass an XML data file to an application, where this file tells it much of what you want it to do. And the XML approach is declarative, not procedural, so it minimises your programming effort. But typically, there are places where you still need the latter.

My impression of what Hillier describes is that Microsoft is not done with further refining of this integration. There are simply too many low level programming steps to be currently dealt with. No fault of Hillier's, naturally. He's calling it as it is. But let us hope that Microsoft continues improving these products.

Scot Hillier is the best SharePoint author - period.

For example: developers need to write web parts. Web parts are custom controls. Can't view a custom control at design/development time, right? Need to install it into SharePoint, run it, test. Right?

Wrong! Scott shows you how to design, develop, and debug at design-time. This little tidbit alone is worth the price of the book.

All of his books will help you become the best SharePoint developer out there.

Sharepoint is so confusing when you get into the backend and this book answered almost all of my questions. Best book I've found. You can tell the author spent a lot of time digging around in the guts of SP and was probably as frustrated as most of us are trying to figure out how to do the simplest of things. Small book, high price. WORTH IT.

I have used this book to do a literature review on the topic for a wargame proposal. It has the most complete collection of state-of-the-art computational approaches to adversarial reasoning. Each chapter is carefully introduced with a few words to distinguish its approach from other chapters. Adversarial reasoning is a subdomain of AI that covers opponent modeling, deception reasoning and imperfect information games because of the inherent covert nature of the adversary. Some of the computational approaches illustrated include Bayesian nets, plan recognition, swarm intelligence, game theory, linquistic geometry, and approximating algorithms to scale up to large state space.

Traditional thinking about adversaries has addressed easily observable and quantifiable issues, such as what? how many? who? The undiscovered country is a place where other, perhgaps more relevant questions are answered: when? why? how likely? under what conditions? It is a place where, perhaps, one can makes reasonable stabs at "what is the adversary likely to do next?"

For anyone interested in going beyond the exercise of counting and analyzing things (airplanes, missiles, bullets, etc), this book is an essential addition. Why? Because it shows new applications of maturing fields of science to the task of UNDERSTANDING THE ENEMY.

The only weakness, and a minor one at that, is that the book, though new, does not address some of the state-of-the-art analytical tools now becoming available. But, perhaps these will be covered in follow-on books. They should be.

As early as the 1950's and 60's computer scientists began to apply computers to game theory. The results appeared as a series of computer games. As computer power has increased so has the complexity of the games. Playing the game at verious skill levels soon followed. This has required the analysis of what the game adversary can do to you in terms of the resources he has, where your resources are deployed, etc.

The inverse of this problem is to analyze what the adversary can or might do that would affect your own security. As this capability began to be realized, DARPA, the central research authority of the US Department of Defense began several research programs to assist in predicting what an adversary might do.

This book is written by several researchers in the field who describe the particular aspects of their own research as it ties into the overall research being conducted. The book is organized into three general areas:

Determinining the Opponents Intent and Plans,
Detecting Deception,
Operating with Limited and Perhaps Corrupted Information.

This book represents the state of the art in the field as it ties in game theory, artificial intelligence, behaviorial science, statistical and probabilistical methods, along with numerous computer science procedures to begin to see what our adversaries are planning.

"Adversarial Reasoning" is a powerful work and relevant for folks who are not computer oriented.

Coming from a liberal arts background (masters in poli-sci, BA in classical humanities), things like sigma notations and multiple Greek letters in a formula make me break out in a cold sweat and the shakes. Despite this disadvantage, the qualitative parts of each chapter were of great relevance to anyone involved in predictive analysis of n-player games (like geo-politics). Each chapter started with a clear and well articulated presentation of the material before going into the maths and computer applications of the concepts. It is this presentation that I read, before having to go for a lie-down when I saw all the formulae.

The book was laid out logically, with a handy little matrix to show the appropriate chapter for a given sub-topic up front. The first section was a discussion of the opponent and infering and identifying the opponent's intent. The second section was a discussion of deception. The third section was split between the impact of imperfect information and strategizing. Deception (building on the discussions of opponent's intent) was both the best developed concept, and probably the one most directly applicable by the non-computer person. Imperfect information, however, may be the most important discussion in the book as this is the situation most disturbing to real world actors.

The closest thing to a criticism is just a vague perception that the authors might be a little naive about the ruthlessness of real world actors. This may be an artifact of the academic language. Also, a closer examination of situations of asymmetric utility and the impact of this situation on all actors in game play would be valuable to real world applications.

Over all, a great work. This work re-written in purely qualitative terms for poli-sci and military folks (n.b. history is the most common major among Army officers) would be a valuble addition to the education of future political and military leaders.

For folks from liberal arts backgrounds - don't let the numbers cow you, there is a lot of value in the first pages of each chapter.

Just bought the book and it has been useful already. If you are serious enough about computer science to want to know what is in the professional literature this is full of wonderful summaries.

This book is an incredible resource for all people interested in software engineering and AI. I've used numerous ideas in from this book in current research projects, and I'm sure that my copy will become well worn with time! -Ben Peterson, Computer Science student

This book is a compilation of texts on different, very interesting, fields on theory of complexity and theory of algorithms. It is very usefull for all that are interesting in the field. Contains mary recent results and concepts.

Knuth's Art of Computer Programming summarized the state-of-the-art in research into algorithms in the seventies and set bar formidably high both in breadth and depth of presentation. Atallah's Handbook is one of the better attempts to survery the present, much wider scope of research in the field, even if it's lacking in Knuth's profundity. It most certainly makes an interesting read if you have the time it takes. If you enjoyed reading Knuth, you will enjoy browsing through Atallah as well.