Software Books

Nikoluas Wirth once said "language design is compiler design". This book is truly remarkable in providing a look behind the (LISP ) scenery. Everyone who write LISP progams should red it to get an understanding of the implementation and hence cost of the language features. Great reading!!!

This book is excellent. It is clear but not superficial at all.

Queinnec explains from the basics of Lisp implementation (evaluation of S-expressions) to techniques for compiling into C. You will find very good advice on how to implement macros and continuations. If you want to implement Lisp, Scheme or any other language actually, buy this book!

Also, there are exercises -- with answers! :-)

I'm not a professional reviewer. But I program a lot, and for a living. After more than 15 years of experience in algorithm development and user interface design, to name some extremes, I get the feeling that "traditional" computer programming languages like C (C++, C#, Objective C) and Pascal (Modula, Oberon, ADA)
and even oldtimers as Cobol and Fortran tend to develop, or rather mature, into languages getting closer and closer to Lisp, Algol, and their ultimate offspring, Scheme.
This is not without reason.
But although the many qualities of Lisp have long since been known in academia, they need time and, more important, good reference material, to find their way into the real world.
Lisp programmers know the value of everything, but the cost of nothing, it is said. Christian Queinnec neatly fills the gap in our knowledge in a book that is a hard read because of the density of the content, but also a fun book because all the source is there (available through the Internet, of course) to experiment with.
You will not only gain insight into the workings of your Lisp system. You will gain insight into the basic elements of computer programming languages and their reason for being, their implementation, and the benefits and costs they will bring you.
All in all, one of the best books on Lisp I have ever almost, but not completely grokked.

I sincerely believe that tomorrow's programming languages, whether they be called C** or Delphi 2010, will be closer to current Lisp than to current C or Pascal, and a way to efficiently implement these languages is available here and now.

The book covers all standard material like direct interpretation, compilation towards a virtual machine using bytecodes, and compilation to C. New material is found in the chapter on macro's , a subject that has regained much interest of late. A broad variety of programming styles is used to illustrate all concepts.

There is only one drawback to the book. It won't teach you Lisp, or Scheme. That is, unless you already know it.

This is an excellent book on Lisp implementation. You'll get a lot out of it, whether you are interested in writing compilers and interpreters (for Lisp or any language) or whether you just want to see how Lisp works. It is the modern day successor to Allen's "Anatomy of Lisp".

An unexpectedly good book.

If you're interested in implementation choices for Scheme and the Lisp family of languages, this is an amazing book. Its worth reading even if you never plan to implement a Lisp interpreter and just want to learn a bit of theory and history behind these languages.

Very clear explanations on ordinal logistic regression modeling. Also, the author explains much of the assumptions that must be adhered to when using the techniques. Very good resource for SAS users.

In the first place, I am a pathologist writing a review on a book on statistics. That, by itself, will raise a few eyebrows. Few pathologists, in my opinion, understand statistical jargon. Yet, I would recommend this $40 book to even a novice in pathology who wants to do logistic regression modeling. While this books does explain logistic regression like most other books, what sets this book apart, are the real-world examples and the simple SAS code included with each example?
I have specifically been able understand GEE modeling only in this book, as compared to the numerous other books, where I find the statistical jargon intimidating; so much so that, I have ended up getting confused even after a couple of hours worth of intense reading. If you are devoted SAS user, you have probably read this book already. But if you are a novice pathologist and want to start learning a new program, I would advise Stata rather than SAS. SAS, in my opinion is code heavy. Yet, this book will be very useful to understand the varied uses of logistic regression (from exact to GEE analyses, especially from a pathologist's perspective). All discussions are to the point without too much jargon. For $40 this book is great value. I am just waiting to see if a newer version comes up in the near future.

Paul Allison's book on logistic regression is a wonderful introduction to logistic regression. He manages to be rigorous, and yet present the material in an easy-to-understand manner. This would be a useful book even for non-SAS users who want to use logistic regression. As a SAS user, I find it indispensable.

The only drawback is that it has not been updated to cover the capabilities of newer versions of SAS.

If you need to understand logistic regression analysis and you must do it in SAS, then you must have this book.

Gives clear, concise explanation of logistic regression, how to accomplish it in SAS, and explains the details of the SAS results.

This book had me up and running in short order.

It is always nice to have an example. This is what this book gives you. It also gives you options. SAS commands are written clearly. It still can not be your only logistic regression book. You will need other books to have a better understanding of logistic regression.

This is without question the best book available for Outlook Business Contact Manager. We had previously purchased two other books on the subject, however they were both difficult to read and reference.

I am so thankful that I found this book. I keep it right on my desk and if I ever have a question, I can quickly and easily find the answer.

It's easy to use, read and extremely easy to reference. It has become the must have resource for everyone in our office. If you are using Outlook Business Contact Manager this book is a must.

Even though I wasn't sold on using MS BCM, my IT department didn't provide my choice. After reading through a list of books, I settled on this one. It is my first one with these authors and I cannot recommend it enough.

It was well written and comes more from the business perspective, which makes it a real value for me. My IT folks could never have explained to our department as clearly as this book. I found it easy to use and it even inspired me to dig a little deeper into the software.

Thanks for the great text! I am much further along now than I could have imagined. Will be sure to look for more by these folks.

This is definitely one of the best book on the market for Outlook Business Contact Manager. It's easy to use and easy to reference. It has become a resource for everyone in our office. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone working with Business Contact Manager!

tired of CRM that costs a fortune and is too difficult to maintain, i ended up taking a look at the outlook business contact manager (BCM) when i upgraded to office 2007. it turns out that i needed a book after all and was happy to find this one.

this book offers clear instructions and helped me to understand BCM far more quickly than i had managed without the book. there are a couple of others out there, but i recognize the authors from a couple of books Managing Contacts with Act! 2006 i liked about ACT!, another CRM software application. they got it right before and they got it right this time.

i recommend Managing Contacts with MS Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager to anyone who is upgrading to MS Office 2007 and wants to take a look at BCM without getting lost. this book offers you the best way to master BCM in the shortest time possible.

I bought this book because we wanted to see if Outlook BCM would work with our business. We also got the Dummies book, and this book was hands-down more useful than Outlook BCM for Dummies. This book was clear, and I really liked the fact that there was only one task on each page. This made the book really easy to reference, and since I wasn't reading the book from front to back - like a novel - this is exactly what I was looking for. I highly encourage everyone to buy this book!

I used this book to teach myself AutoCad in two weeks and got a job as an engineer. (Yes, I still have the position!)
The book is clear and concise in it's instructions. The index works exactly as an index should work allowing you to quickly find solutions to perplexing problems. It covers the ACAD program from beginning (Look! I drew a box!) to end (3-D modeling).
There's more info than you can possibly remember so buy a copy and guard it jealously. Users of any level will walk away enlightened.

As a student landscape and gardenarchitecture (last year), i found myself lacking the courage and will to learn autocad as they taught us at school.
I actually got very bad grades untill i decided to make an effort and buy some kind of book that could teach me.

After giving it some thought i decided to buy this book written by Omura and boy! i am i glad i did.
My grades went up a whole bunch and suddenly i understood what the teacher was explaining. Students around me started to come to me to get answers on things they didn't understand about the program.
So in short, what makes this a good book?
It starts from zero, absolutely from the beginning, working itself up to the point where you enter a more advanced level.
each step is fully explained, instead of telling what to do, George Omura tells you WHY you need to do what you do.

The best about the book is that in the back of the book, there is a list with keywords, enabling you to fastacces things you are stuck with or don't understand as you use the program.

So this book isn't only handy to learn autocad, it's also good for a fast look-up on something you need to know.

I did at a certain point hunger for more knowledge on the more advanced 3D operations. George Omura does a good job explaining the fundaments, but i wish he would've gone more deeper into it sometimes. Sometimes the explanation felt lacking more information.

But overall, i class this a 5 star book!

I love Omura's books about AutoCAD.I have all the versions from AutoCAD13 to AutoCAD2004, it is wonderful, easy to read to Understood to deal with, since I am an architeact& a lecturer in University, I this book very helpful in my work& teching.
Thank you
Arqem

Page 963 alone is worth the price of the book if you are an advanced user. I learned how to set up all my blocks into a custom tool palette. Tool palettes are a new feature in 2004.
I started at chapter one, and learned about features I have overlooked although I've been using AutoCAD since version 10.
I can't praise Mr Omura enough, he even gives his e:mail address and invites suggestions for improvements. There isn't a better book on the market for new users of AutoCAD, or experienced users either. The writing style and exercises are so easy to follow.

I've been an Autocad user for 9 years going back to version 12. I've used every version since. Let me state right off the bat, whether you're a beginner or a very experienced cad user, BUY THIS BOOK. This book will give you a solid foundation for every area of Autocad. The book is structured from beginner to expert and includes 4 appendixes.

For the beginner (I read the beginner chaps just for fun and to see what's new in 2004) excellent walk-thru exercises with great pictures and easy to understand instructions should have you drawing in no time as well as building your confidence with each chapter.

For the more experienced user who wants to delve in to the 3d features and customization capabilities of Autocad (ex. database integration, VBA, Lisp, Web dev, sys vars, etc.), excellent coverage including walk-thru's of these areas will provide you with the solid foundation to do whatever you want. I was particularly impressed with the coverage of the 3d environment as Omura devotes 4 chapters to this topic with each one being a must read.

The inclusion of good screen shots throughout the book allows you to read and understand while away from the computer.

Very satisfied with the purchase of this book!!

If you have been putting off getting your MCSE and am anything like I was, "Next month I will start preparing for my MCSE.". However, I had no place to begin.

This is the place to begin. Buy this book, READ this book, and you WILL have a better knowledge of computer and network basics.

If you are currently working in this field, you'll even understand some of the things you've troubleshooted in the past - it all comes clear.

I am a programmer for a small software company. Besides programming, I also do training and I fly places and install client/server database engines (and our app) on various networks; which means that I end up troubleshooting misconfigured networks. We have tech support people who talk to IS people at different companies every day. I have recommended to my boss that he buy a copy of this book for every one of our techs. This book uses clear language and covers all the relevant subjects. It is well-organized and almost free of errors. Kudos to Lisa Donald!

This book is destined to be a classic.

Who's saying this? A guy who's an MCSD and a Sun Certified Java Programmer.

I am not the most educated person in the field of computers or networking, but I am not the stupidest either. I build computers on the side and got interested in getting my MCSE. I got this and 3 other books, this book really starts with the basics. If you are getting your MCSE, you will need more than this, however this will definintly prepare you for the acronyms and vocabulary you will find in more advanced books, so that you will know what they are talking about. It is a priceless reference to me and find myself referring back to it time and time again. I have 2 books of the Sybex MCSE titles and they are both very good, I have not rated the other nor will I mention it now because I have not yet finished it. If you want to get your MCSE I recommend this book. It is fast easy reading and barring what it deals with is the most attention grabbing non-fiction book I have ever read.

This book is extremely simple, but excellent background for those who have little or no knowledge of computer networks and Windows NT. I found it very clear and the descriptions of basic Networking model is much better than any I have found in university course materials. I had never used NT so was pleased to find that this described the basic principes. If you know the basics already, skip it and go straight to the Sybex study guides.

I AM A 56 YEAR OLD TRUCK DRIVER WHO DECIDED TO BECOME A MCSE. WHILE TAKING MY CORE COURSES I FOUND MOST ARE FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE WORKED IN THE FIELD AND WAS VERY, VERY LOST.. THANKS TO YOUR BOOK I HAVE FILLED IN MUCH OF THE BLANKS IN BACKGROUND EXPERIENCE. THIS BOOK WAS SUCH A FIND FOR ME..I HAVE GIVEN THIS BOOK TO MY 15 YEAR OLD SON TO READ TO PREPARE HIM FOR A CAREER IN NETWORKING.. WOULD RECCOMEND A CD-ROM/SEARCHABLE DATABASE ADDITION WITH A ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NETWORKING TERMS AND CONCEPTS.. WHAT A GREAT BOOK!

The ace it series is very easy to understand and has helped me alot. Good for anyone that knowns how to use the topic but need to learn a little more to pass the test

i have been using nt server books for a long time and this is the best book so far i came across. you dont waste anytime in studying at all, all information is given. Highly recommended for people taking the Server Exam!!!!

the only thing that i wish it can be improved are the questions that was given by the book. It needs a little more punch.

I used this book in conjunction with Exam Cram and found it more thorough, as well as more understandable. I got an excellent score on the test and purchased more books in this series.

A great supplement to your studies for this exam. I purchased Mark's book along with Microsoft's self-paced kits and Readiness Review book. Mark's was by far the best! He gets right to the point with just the essentials you need for passing the exam. I plan on purchasing his other book for my next exam - Server in the Enterprise. For this exam in particular, I prefer Mark's book over the Exam Cram series that I felt was too wordy! Good luck to all, with this book you can't go wrong!

This book is a great study guide for the NT Server exam! I used it to review, and by the time I started taking Trancender exams, I knew almost everything I needed to know.

In the past I've used Exam Cram, MS Readiness Review, TestPrep and Ace-It books, and the Ace-It are always the most helpful. I'd recommend the whole series

This book was very helpful to solve my interoperability problems w/o building crazy wrapper code. I had two huge issues, I was struggling to build an XML web services bridge channel between my j2ee application and microsoft C# application. I had several issues with encodings and XML content issues. I had integration problems with couple of j2ee applications with VB app. This book helped me to solve them.
This book is perfect balance for understanding all microsoft <-> j2ee integration specific concepts and code guidance. Simon guest done terrific job explaining the concepts with good level of details to support both from j2ee and .net perspectives. The author has so much grip and clarity on the subject, makes it so simple for understanding and illustrations and very clear to read. A must have for java and .net developers.

It's an essential resource for any architect or developer who is involved in integrating the two platforms, J2EE and .Net, with enough breadth and depth in both being a technical reference as well as offering practical examples and solutions. The samples are working applications that can quickly jumpstart design and development, providing enough understanding and is presented in a clear concise manner.

It has helped us resolve some rather complex interoperable challenges that we've had with some of our customer applications, and saved us an immense amount of time and resource in research.

If you are looking for a quick start to resolving a complex problem, this would be a great place to begin.

Kudos!

Today's Enterprises are heterogenous environments that make writing reliable efficient applications a nightmare at the best of times. This book gives the modern developer the tools and strategies necessary to successfully build and deploy heterogenous applications in today's Enterprises.

It is nice to see that readers are offered many different strategies for interop including both webservices and binary.

In addition, the companion CD actually contains TONS of usefull stuff including all the code, and usefull 3rd party applications.

Truly a must have.

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt is what J2 enthusiasts cling to when discussing .NET technologies. Simon cuts through these biases with concise, helpful guidance of how to interoperate. IBM and Microsoft both have committed to interoperability and Mr. Guest's book shows how that has real-world applicability. This book shows how an IT organization does not have to commit to J2 or .NET, but BOTH can interoperate and solve the problem. This book is no-nonsense and gives both audiences of developers equal perspective and guidance. Both platforms have their own value. This book attempts to bring synergy and achieves success in doing so. Bravo!

This book is a godsend for anyone who wants to learn how to successfully integrate .NET and J2EE software systems. Simon's writing style is clear and engaging, the book is well structured, and there are copious examples which provide concrete examples of each aspect of .NET/J2EE integration. One of the book's distinguishing features is that it covers a wide range of scenarios, such as XML data interchange, web services interoperability, messaging with MSMQ and the integrating with the presentation tier. The book ships with several useful third party Java products on a CD that allow the reader to immediately try out the code samples. Highly recommended!

Best Access VBA book I have ever bought, and I have bought several.

Callahan is a great author, knows his application, and is great at explaining something that looks complicated, making it very simple to start programming your access forms and objects, jumping right into the nitty gritty.

Useful even if you use Access 2003. I have not bought Access Vista, but it's as good and still functional for Access 2003.

I have worked with Access97 for several years now, but the person designing the databases worked strictly in macros. I had read enough of the developer's books to realize that isn't the proper way to go, but those books were over my head since I had never had any programming experience. This book fit the bill because it assumed I knew nothing else. I think if I master this book and the Access Macro & VBA handbook by Susann Novalis that I will then be ready for the developer's books. Novalis described it as: intro books - walking; intro VBA programming - running; developer books - flying. I really want my databases to fly, but I have to learn to run first.

Great tutorial with specific examples that walk you though customizing Access DBs with a business purpose in mind. Really great book, I highly reccommend it to anyone who is planning to learn how to build customized access applications. Worth every cent you spent on it.

Mr. Callahan provides a well-organized, easy-to-follow tutorial on application development in Microsoft Access 95, emphasizing Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). This book is an excellent introduction to Access programming. Hands-on training is provided on the accompanying diskette.

I love this book. I learned more in 3 hours with this book than I did in a month of wading through various Access and VBA tomes. It is a perfect fit for the fairly technical Access user who is new to Visual Basic. Is your database dying under the weight of its macros? You need VBA and this is the book to teach it to you.

This particular series of instructional books (meaning the "QuickSteps" series) has always been one of my favorites -- they're concisely written in short paragraphs with decent descriptive pictures to help anyone learn just about any type of software application.

While I found this book to be fairly complete, I'd still only recommend it as a desk-side reference manual to use along with Microsoft tutorials themselves. While it is a cleverly written book that is not as cumbersome to use as other reference books on the market, it does not address all of the finer points of Excel.

All in all, it's a great reference book, and let's face it, sometimes it's just easier to review a chapter a few times to digest material rather than stare at a computer screen until you become cross-eyed.

All in all, I'd probably give this book a 4.5, but since that's not an option, I'll have to stick with 4 stars.

I'm a soon-to-be-graduating Psychology student at the University of Washington and I am writing this review from the perspective of some one using excel in Social Sciences.

I found this book extremely suited to my needs...each step was very clear and precise and it was easy to find the chapter or section that was most applicable to what I was working on.

It covered all of the functions of Excel that I have used in my classes thus far. Although my intro. classes had a very brief introduction to the functions I needed, as I progressed into higher level classes and used more and more Excel I found that I needed additional specific instructions for my work. This book was very helpful in that way, and saved me the bother of forever emailing questions to my professor, as I had done before I received the book.

I actually used Excel the most to analyze the significance of data from an experiment that I had designed and to graph the results. This required quite a few steps and it was helpful to have a guide to look at as I went as opposed to trying to guess what came after the basic skills I had previously learned.

I also lent this book to a friend who works in American Ethnic Studies and used Excel to organize and make tables of data for her thesis. The American Ethnic Studies major has no background in science, so was in the position of having absolutely zero knowledge of Excel. However, with this book alone, she was able to complete the Excel portion of there thesis without any additional help.

From a student's point of view, this is a great resource if your field involves any use of Excel.

I don't use Excel all the time. But when I do I don't have time to troubleshoot problems.

This hands-on, user friendly book has helped me conquer Excel. The text is readable and well organized. The visuals are clean and fully support the instructions.

I found that you can start from the beginning and teach yourself EXCEL with simple step by step instructions or you can flip straight to your topic of interest and further build your skills. This is a great tool for all levels of expertise.

I manage a medium-sized network and support a large number of fairly savvy users. That is, most users know how to do their specific tasks very well and are willing to learn new things. But they are not willing to sit down with a book full of dense text. This is where the "Quick Steps" books come in handy. I keep a number of these books on hand and when a user requests assistance, I give them one of the books with the appropriate page bookmarked. Steps are outlined in full color with lots of pictures and pointers and tips. Additional information is set off in side boxes so users can learn more if they choose. What I have found is that once a user completes a task successfully, they get fairly excited about the experience and browse the book to learn more. The books really stimulate users to experiment with things they would not normally bother to learn. And that is where this book excels. It is a "browser." Users don't feel like they need to start at the beginning and read through to the end. I get lots of grumbles when I ask for the book back so I can pass it on to others.

This book is also great for new users. I tell them to spend a few hours working through the steps, which are easy to follow and can be done at a fairly fast pace. Most users think the full color layout is fun to work through. The down-side is that like any book, space is limited, especially with the fully-illustrated format, so you're obviously not going to find everything in these books, but I do feel they contain a good balance of material and are appropriate for corporate libraries.

Marty (the concept author for the Quick Steps series) and I are fellow writers and that is how I learned about these books. I must say that they have helped my users enormously and relieved my support task. Hey, it's the 21st century. Anyone working in an office should know how to work with operating systems and common applications. Most people can do that if they have easily accessible references and refresher material like these books. Thanks to Marty for developing the "Quick Steps" concept and to McGraw-Hill for publishing this series.

I am an infrequent Excel user, so I needed a good reference book that is well indexed. That's exactly what I got with Excel 2003 QuickSteps. It's easy to find what I need when I want it. It's very well illustrated and contains a lot of great tips. The author does an excellent job of explaining the material.

This is an excellent book if you want to strictly pass the PowerPoint 2000 MOUS exam. If you have basic knowledge of PowerPoint and want something similar to a practice test, this is the book for you. I would recommend using this book as a supplement with more in-depth books to pass the exam. The end of chapter practice questions on the CD-ROM are very similar to the real test. I ended up scoring a 984 on my exam practicing with this book.

This is a great book for stictly passing the MOUS exam if you already have basic knowledge of PowerPoint. This book is written more like a practice test and should be used with a more in-depth book to study for the exam if your starting from scratch. But if all you want to do is pass the exam, this book is for you. The end of chapter review questions and CD-ROM exercises are very similar to the real exam. I ended up getting a 984 on my exam practicing with this book alone. But once again, I would only suggest this book to people who are already familiar with PowerPoint.

If you are an average or above average Microsoft user and want to pass this exam -- this is the book for you! This book gives a good overview of PowerPoint skills and has good review tests at the end of each chapter. I only use PowerPoint occasionally but had no problem scoring a 952 out of 1000 on the exam. I also learned a great deal about the program that will help me on future presentations.

This book does not cover basic Microsoft skills. So if you don't know how to cut and paste or copy and save files (minimum skills), want to learn more about PowerPoint AND pass the test, I would suggest a more detailed book.

Crammed for 1.5 hrs before the test and passed.

General Knowlege of Windows + This Book = Certification

I used this guide after briefly referring to a third-party manual and scored 952/1000 on the exam--three days before, I'd never even used PowerPoint. Some people think study guides should be as comprehensive as a manual but the truth about the MOUS exams is that, most of the time, the more advanced knowledge you have, the more likely it is that you'll get tripped up interpreting the tasks. Klippert provides an excellent, easy to read and refer to guide that tells you exactly what you need to know. The accompanying CD is brilliant with practice documents for everything, including finished solutions so that you can check your work. What this guide has that most others lack is focus--which is all you need to pass the exam.