Software Books

This book is not about designing forms, primary keys, or the use of built-in wizards to make easy queries or reports. This book is about applying Access to real-world business problems. The book addresses how to query data, how to move data to and from Access in various ways, the calculation of different financial and investment terms, and other such problems. The reader of this book should already have some Access experience and thus know how to get around the Access user interface, know basic table structures and relations among them, and how to construct simple queries. As long as you know this much or more, the book should be quite useful to anyone interested in business solutions using Access to analyze the data that is involved. The book consists of a series of recipes that provide example queries, programming tips, and also some requisite math. The following is a summary of each chapter's contents. Each section of each chapter is actually a recipe consisting of a problem - the section title - and its solution(s).

1. Query Construction - A variety of query issues are addressed, including the use of the AND, OR, IN, and NOT operators; creating union queries; and understanding join types.
1.1. Finding Unmatched Records
1.2. Making AND and OR Do What You Expect
1.3. Working with Criteria Using the IN Operator
1.4. Excluding Records with the NOT Operator
1.5. Parameterizing a Query
1.6. Returning a Top or Bottom Number of Records
1.7. Returning Distinct Records
1.8. Returning Random Records
1.9. Fine-Tuning Data Filtering with Subqueries
1.10. Combining Data with Union Queries
1.11. Inserting On-the-Fly Fields in Select Queries
1.12. Using Aliases to Simplify Your SQL Statements
1.13. Creating a Left Join
1.14. Creating a Right Join
1.15. Creating an Outer Join

2. Calculating with Queries - More on using queries to find solutions to business problems. It demonstrates how to apply aggregate functions, custom functions, regular expressions, and crosstabs.
2.1. Finding the Sum or Average in a Set of Data
2.2. Finding the Number of Items per Group
2.3. Using Expressions in Queries
2.4. Using Custom Functions in Queries
2.5. Using Regular Expressions in Queries
2.6. Using a Cartesian Product to Return All Combinations of Data
2.7. Creating a Crosstab Query to View Complex Information

3. Action Queries - How to apply queries to perform activities such as inserting, updating, and deleting data.
3.1. Running an Update Query
3.2. Appending Data
3.3. Deleting Data
3.4. Creating Tables with Make-Table Queries

4. Managing Tables, Fields, Indexes, and Queries - Introduces how to programmatically create and manipulate tables and queries.
4.1. Creating Tables Programmatically
4.2. Altering the Structure of a Table
4.3. Creating and Using an Index
4.4. Programmatically Removing a Table
4.5. Programmatically Creating a Query

5. Working with String Data - Recipes on managing text-based data. Shows how to isolate parts of a string, how to remove spaces at any place in a string, and how to manipulate numbers stored as text.
5.1. Returning Characters from the Left or Right Side of a String
5.2. Returning Characters from the Middle of a String When the Start Position and Length Are Known
5.3. Returning the Start Position of a Substring When the Characters Are Known
5.4. Stripping Spaces from the Ends of a String
5.5. Stripping Spaces from the Middle of a String
5.6. Replacing One String with Another String
5.7. Concatenating Data
5.8. Sorting Numbers That Are Stored as Text
5.9. Categorizing Characters with ASCII Codes

6. Using Programming to Manipulate Data - How to use arrays, access the Windows Registry, encrypt data, and use transaction processing. Also covered are search methods, charts, and manipulating data relationships.
6.1. Using Excel Functions from Access
6.2. Working with In-Memory Data
6.3. Working with Multidimensional Arrays
6.4. Sorting an Array
6.5. Flattening Data
6.6. Expanding Data
6.7. Encrypting Data
6.8. Applying Proximate Matching
6.9. Using Transaction Processing
6.10. Reading from and Writing to the Windows Registry
6.11. Creating Charts
6.12. Scraping Web HTML
6.13. Creating Custom Report Formatting
6.14. Rounding Values
6.15. Running Word Mail Merges
6.16. Building a Multifaceted Query Selection Screen

7. Importing and Exporting Data - Different ways of moving data into and out of Access. Covers import/ export specifications, using the FileSystemObject, XML with XSLT, and communicating with SQL Server. Exchanging data with other applications in the Office suite is also covered. Also covers how to create an RSS feed.
7.1. Creating an Import/Export Specification
7.2. Automating Imports and Exports
7.3. Exporting Data with the FileSystemObject
7.4. Importing Data with the FileSystemObject
7.5. Importing and Exporting Using XML
7.6. Generating XML Schemas
7.7. Using XSLT on Import or Export
7.8. Working with XML via the MSXML Parser
7.9. Reading and Writing XML Attributes
7.10. Creating an RSS Feed
7.11. Passing Parameters to SQL Server
7.12. Handling Returned Values from SQL Server Stored Procedures
7.13. Working with SQL Server Data Types
7.14. Handling Embedded Quotation Marks
7.15. Importing Appointments from the Outlook Calendar
7.16. Importing Emails from Outlook
7.17. Working with Outlook Contacts
7.18. Importing Data from Excel
7.19. Exporting Data to Excel
7.20. Talking to PowerPoint
7.21. Selecting Random Data

8. Date and Time Calculations - How to add time, count elapsed time, work with leap years, and manage time zones in your calculations.
8.1. Counting Elapsed Time
8.2. Counting Elapsed Time with Exceptions
8.3. Working with Time Zones
8.4. Working Around Leap Years
8.5. Isolating the Day, Month, or Year
8.6. Isolating the Hour, Minute, or Second
8.7. Adding Time

9. Business and Finance Problems - Ways of calculating depreciation, loan paybacks, and return on investment are introduced, and investment concerns such as moving averages, Head and Shoulders patterns, Bollinger Bands, and trend calculations are discussed. One recipe explains how latitude and longitude are used to determine distances between geographical areas.
9.1. Calculating Weighted Averages
9.2. Calculating a Moving Average
9.3. Calculating Payback Period
9.4. Calculating Return on Investment
9.5. Calculating Straight-Line Depreciation
9.6. Creating a Loan Payment Schedule
9.7. Using PivotTables and PivotCharts
9.8. Creating PivotTables
9.9. Charting Data
9.10. Finding Trends
9.11. Finding Head and Shoulders Patterns
9.12. Working with Bollinger Bands
9.13. Calculating Distance Between Zip Codes

Chapter 10. Statistics - The most math intensive of the chapters, it discusses statistical techniques such as frequency, variance, kurtosis, linear regression, combinations, and permutations. All the recipes here have great value in data analysis.
10.1. Creating a Histogram
10.2. Finding and Comparing the Mean, Mode, and Median
10.3. Calculating the Variance in a Set of Data
10.4. Finding the Covariance of Two Data Sets
10.5. Finding the Correlation of Two Sets of Data
10.6. Returning All Permutations in a Set of Data
10.7. Returning All Combinations in a Set of Data
10.8. Calculating the Frequency of a Value in a Set of Data
10.9. Generating Growth Rates
10.10. Determining the Probability Mass Function for a Set of Data
10.11. Computing the Kurtosis to Understand the Peakedness or Flatness of a Probability Mass Distribution
10.12. Determining the Skew of a Set of Data
10.13. Returning a Range of Data by Percentile
10.14. Determining the Rank of a Data Item
10.15. Determining the Slope and the Intercept of a Linear Regression
10.16. Measuring Volatility

One final word of advise is to purchase "Head First SQL" or some other good book on SQL if you don't already feel proficient. Although the book briefly explains each query it shows, I don't think the explanation is sufficient unless you see the stuff every day. A good thing about the book is that it shows screenshots of the application in just about every recipe and usually gives directions in clear numbered steps.

This book is compatible for Access 2007 and 2003(title of book doesn't let you know that), what it does is answer questions that the author poses. Many of these scenarios are relevant. I have never bought an o'reilly cookbook previously, but this book is very refreshing especially when you look at the current books out there. This book isn't for new people, this book is for people who want real solutions to the problems that they might face. If your looking for a first book to get a real grasp of access, get Access 2007 Inside and Out, if your someone who has read a book or two, or has some experience but still runs into hurdles in data manipulation, get this book.

Any involved in database management in general and Access in particular will want the ACCESS DATA ANALYSIS COOKBOOK, a survey which shows how to solve common problems of extracting data and performing calculations from large databases. From developing better queries and applying them to inserting, updating and deleting data to managing text-based data and using arrays, this offers a wealth of high-level technical Access information perfect for managers who already have the basics down.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I am not sure if this was the intention of the authors, but I find this book to be amazingly helpful given my set of circumstances: I am pretty skilled in Excel and very new to Access, and I want to use Access in the same way I use Excel, but with much larger quantities of data. Of all the Access books I have been referencing, this one is by far the most useful. It provides lots of information on SQL if you are interested, but I'm ignoring that for now and still the book is great at providing the answers I need. I suspect there are lots of people in my shoes (heavy Excel background, but little experience with Access) and so I want to let you know about this excellent reference. I hope it helps you as much as it is helping me!

To be more specific, if you are skilled at constructing formulas in Excel to convert and reformat and analyze data, and you have at least a rudimentary understanding of Access (I have attended a few 2-hour workshops and that's all), and you find yourself stumped in terms of how to do something in Access that would be easy for you to do in Excel, but you can't do it in Excel because you have millions of rows of data, then I'm guessing you will love this book.

This book provides a good balance between the mathematical theoretical foundations and the implementation of wavelet algorithms. The chapter of time-frequency analysis is specially relevant, and very hard to find in other books about the topic. The only miss is about more practical implementations of the algorithms.

This is where to learn about wavelet packets, and what they can do.-- Where to learn the programming techniques that are especially adapted to wavelet algorithms, and which have proved their worth. The book actually tells you how to write a program;-- it motivates, and explains the elements step by step. It also gives the background, and offers a beautiful presentation of the essentials. It is selfcontained and a pleasure to read. It has the algorithmic approach to the discrete wavelet transform;--a topic that is hard to find elsewhere,-- at least in a systematic presentation.

This is the only book i know that is focused on implementation aspects of numerical transforms. It explains quite well the practical issues that are rarely touched in digital signal processing and wavelet textbooks. It spans fourier transforms, cosine, wavelets,... It is rather self-contained, if you have problems with maths you can skip chapter one, other chapters should be quite readable by every science grad student. Be aware that this is not a transform textbook, so you should first learn a few things about numerical transforms, wavelets and subband coding before getting into this one (go to Oppenheim and Schafer for DSP, Vetterli for subband coding). A good textbook for a course on numerical transforms implementation.

This book gave me a rather hard start with very dry and short theoretical introduction but the algorithmical/discrete part is well done and allows for implementation of most of the work where many details emerge ... I was missing solutions for the exercises though

Farhang-Borjeny does a superb job explaining complex topics in a very straightforward fashion.

As a course instructor, I found adaptive filters a very helpful book for teaching. It is also an easy to read book, as a self-study. Having used the previous books in the market, I found this a lot easier to teach. My students seem to understand much better. The very nicely designed end of the chapter problems are very helpful in enhancing the students understanding of the basic concepts. Farhang-Boroujeny has a very special view towards the fundamental concept of convergence; the significance of the power spectrum of filter input on convergence behavior. He starts injecting this concept right from the chapter on Wiener filters and carry this through out the book. Chapters 6 and 12, giving the basic concepts of LMS and least squares, are really nice and very instructive. Chapter 7 is very enlightening in understanding the basic concepts of the convergence and its relationship with the power spectrum of filter input. Chapter 8 has made the difficult topic of frequency domain adaptive filters very easy to follow. It also contains some unpublished work which I found very interesting. Other chapters also bring to the attention new views of adaptive filters. I am sure that the students and new researchers enjoy this book and will learn all important concepts of the adaptive systems and filters from this very well written book.

Congratulations to Dr. B Farhang-Boroujeny!

This book is one of the best books on the subject! The writing style is as clear as Widrow's "Adaptive Signal Processing" and it has as much detail as Haykin's "Adaptive Filter Theory". In short, if you have to get ONE book on the subject, this is the book to get. Perfect for either studying on your own or learning in a classroom setting, and relevant to both researchers and practicing engineers.

Superb, great book! . Starts with simple theory, it makes you think harder and harder and you progress into the deep science of adaptive signal processing and the implementation of filters with different algorithms, difficult themes are made easy and over all this is great reference book for the designer. I wish I could get a solution manual for a deeper and more reliable analysis. It will serve you well is you use Matlab to analyze and simulate complete Adaptive filters for equalization or so.

[Also posted on my blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/luisabreu/archive/2008/06/11/book-review-ado-net-3-5-cookbook.aspx]
After several days, I've finally finished reading this book. This is really a very complete book wit lots and lots (and lots!) of examples. It's fair to say that it covers most (if not all) ADO.NET related scenarios (I'm an SQL Server user but if you're into Oracle then it also has several examples that show how to use ADO.NET and Oracle).

I do have one complaint though: chapter 8. Currently, I'll personally "hurt" anyone that is working on the same project as me and that uses ADO.NET objects on window forms or ASP.NET front ents! Ok, I'm not violent, so I wouldn't really hurt anyone :) serioulsy, don't use ADO.NET objects on your UI.

Having said this, I still recommend it (specially if you're working with ADO.NET).

The 'ADO.NET 3.5 Cookbook' is a great resource for every .NET database developer out in the world. With 950+ pages of content you will not be reading thin, as this goodies book comes with 222 tidbits of information that will help you in your everyday work.

Subjects covered include:

- connecting to a variety of data sources
- working with disconnected data objects (datasets)
- querying data
- executing functions and stored procedures
- using LINQ
- searching and filtering data
- adding and updating data
- copying/transferring data
- database integrity
- binding data to web forms
- XML data
- optimizing .NET data access
- debugging stored procedures
- doing batch updates
- enumerating SQL servers
- SQL Server CLR integration

I feel that is an outstanding companion book for .NET database developers that are looking for a resource that specifically outlines tasks into a neat, organized manner. Instead of thumbing through a book to figure out a particular way to do something, these common tasks and questions are broken up for ease of use and efficiency. If you are a .NET DB developer you definitely owe it to yourself to add this great book to your collection of technical books immediately.

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for a review by a "technical expert". I really liked how the book was laid out with a problem-solution-reasoning approach (known as a recipe). Each one was generally useful for those unaware of how to do things in ADO.NET. The examples were short and too the point. The topics were quite varied so just about everyone will find something in this book. In particular the recipes on getting schema information programmatically will really benefit a lot of people because it is neither common nor easy.

I had only a few complaints about the book. The first complaint is with the title. It says ADO.NET v3.5 but in reality almost all the recipes cover any version of ADO.NET from v2 on. This might cause some people to shy away from the book. This book is really for anybody using ADO.NET.

This leads me to the second complaint. There really was no 3.5 content mentioned. LINQ and SQL 2008 were mentioned a few times but they aren't specific to ADO.NET v3.5. LINQ itself seemed out of place for the topic.

The final complaint I had was that the recipes are mostly designed to be copy and pasted into working code. The code samples don't really follow what I would consider an appropriate pattern for professional code. Therefore simply copy/paste will cause more problems than not. It really would have required no additional lines of code and would not have complicated things to have "done it right". Still this seems to be standard practice for most technical books so I can't harp too much.

Overall I recommend this book for anyone who works with (or will) ADO.NET of any version.

(Full Disclosure: I was a tech reviewer for this book and received a free copy)

I've been using the various incarnations of Microsoft data access technologies for quite some time and have been using ADO.NET for a few years, so I wondered whether I was going to learn anything new from this book. It covers all of the territory to get started (connection strings, basic usage of ADO.NET classes, etc.), but what I really appreciated was that it topics that advanced ADO.NET users would find useful and I certainly learned a few new tricks.

The topic on writing provider and database independent code (Section 10.22) which covers how to do it right if you are targeting .NET 1.1 (which we do) was particularly useful to me. Chapter 10 (Optimizing .NET Data Access) is just generally a good chapter no matter what your level and covers asynchronous SQL calls (executing and cancelling), ASP.NET data caching, paging queries, SQL Server stored procedure debugging and more.

Since my job was to actually run every code snippet, I can vouch for their quality. Most are built off the AdventureWorks sample database that comes with SQL Server Express, so they are ready to run. The rest come with full DDL to create what you need (databases, stored procedures, etc), and the code and SQL is available online so you don't have to type it in.

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.

Perhaps the most pertinent question answered by the book is what are the differences between Elements 2 and 3. If you are an existing E2 user, is there enough incentive to migrate to E3? Huss devotes considerable space to squarely address your concerns.Of the changes, the most useful is Photo Organizer. A huge improvement over File Browser, which is what E2 gave you. PO is well suited for collections of hundreds or thousands of photos. Many people who take photos regularly will run into the scaling constraints of File Browser. PO lets you attach metadata to a photo, in the form of keywords which you can choose as succinct descriptors of the photo. Then, later, if you search for a keyword, PO will return a set of thumbnails of the photos with that metadatum. Picking a thumbnail gives the original image. Very simple to use.If you know HTML, the metadata in PO maps to the <meta> tag that can be used in any HTML page.

Serious collectors should welcome PO. The only drawback is that it does not exist in the Mac version of E3; only in the Microsoft version. Huss speculates that Apple's iPhoto is too close in functionality for Adobe to economically develop a Mac version.

What a great book! What separates this book from all the others is the downloaded pictures that you work with as you make your way through the book. I kept the pictures in their chapter folders and put them in a folder called Elements 3: 50 Cool Ways. Then after practicing with them, when Adobe asked me if I wanted to save changes, I said no - so I could practice again and again. I must be slow because I have needed to practice them again. Thanks Dave, for a wonderful book. Will you be doing the same for Elements 4?

This book is not only a pleasure to read, it also was superbly reproduced and technically accurate (not all books are!). Dave Huss goes the extra mile to provide an excellent selection of real world (read: useful) tutorials that cover in detail how to retouch and correct common digital photography problems (color cast, wrinkle removal, panorama assembly, red eye, perspective correction). It also covers common challenges associated with managing digital photo libraries (album assembly, photo cataloging, image management). The photo projects are perfect for newcomers to digital photography (like me) and expose many of the features of Photoshop Elements I needed to get up to speed on fast. Well worth the investment.

This is the most user friendly book that I have ever held in my hands. The great thing about this book is that Dave works with you one on one by having you download the pictures that are the examples in the book! This way you work on the same picture step by step and you can see what your picture should look like through the edit process. This book is very FUN and INFORMATIONAL! Buy it you won't be sorry!!! And you will do things with this program that you didn't know you personally could do!!!

I consider myself an advanced amature with Photoshop CS2. I knew I needed to learn about Paths/Layers/Masks but was intimidated and confused (especially paths, masks, and channels).

This book is so well written that just into page 51, so many things just started clicking into place. Understanding what these things actually do, how and why made it seem much less confusing. I can hardly wait to sit down at my computer and start experimenting!

The only "negative" thing I can think of to say is the print in the book is just a tad on the small side ;).

I agree with the other reviewer in that this book tells you the how and the why not just a here is how you do it step by step with no explainations. I have several photoshop books; if I had to get rid of all but two, this is one of the two I would keep.

Though I havent finished yet it is i can say of a good value.
Easy to understand so i can recommend it for people who want to complete their existing knowledge with something else.

I've used both online and printed tutorials for Photoshop in the past, but French's Photoshop Unmasked is easily the easiest to understand and, most important, most helpful. Practical advice on real-world solutions, offered in clear, hands-on lessons with files stored on his personal website. After years of hobbyist use for amateur photography and web design, I finally feel like I'm unlocking the full power of Photoshop. The bibles are good for reference and some of the more arcane uses of Photoshop, but if you want a solid explanation of how to perform the actions you'll need to know regardless of how you use Photoshop personally, this is the only book you should need.

Selections options often trip up the novice Photoshop user. Nigel make this look easy. His style is easy to follow for novices and masters alike. Knowing what to do when is the key to an efficient working environment. For imaging forensics, having the what to do when discussion of selection and masking techniques here in book form helps you prepare for an intense cross.

This one should be on everyone's shelf.

Jim Hoerricks
http://forensicphotoshop.blogspot.com
Author of Forensic Photoshop - a comprehensive imaging workflow for forensic professionals

The book shouldn't be called Used, its was Crisp as New, and exactly what you wanna expect at the start of a new class, having a colourful mak free book in your hands.

The coverage of C++ and data structures looks pretty good. There are lots of programming examples, and the book is written very well. I'm recommending it for our 2nd year course in data structures and C++. Our students know Java, but not C++, so it's been a challenge finding a data structures book that packages a semi-introductory version of C++ with a standard course in data structures. This book appears to be the best suited out of about 5-10 books that I've reviewed for this course.

I actually feel that this book is a mixed bag. On one hand, the concepts are intuitively presented and are easy to understand. On the other hand, the book doesn't delve too much into technical details, which may or may not be a godsend to various students. Personally, I'd rather use the Drozdek Data Structures text, since it goes into much more detail into analysis and logic behind choosing various data structures and algorithms in order to implement an ADT.

Anyway, it's still a great textbook for an introductory course in data structures. Just be sure to get another textbook on the same material down the road if you want to get a more detailed understanding of the concepts presented.

I am teaching the second programming / first data structure course in the department of electrical and computer engineering. I have used the first edition of this book several times, and as of fall of 2004 I am into the third of semester of using this second edition as a mandatory text.

This book is very good for students who already know how to program in C, C++ or Java. The first C or C++ course does not have to cover introduction to OOP though. My students learn C part of C++ in the first programming course. This book covers object oriented programming part of C++, and introduces/reintroduces pointers, file IO with streams, and C++ strings (good for former Java programmers). Then it follows into data structures. It starts with its own definitions of dynamic array that grows, and a simple linked list as basic data containers. Then it focuses on organizing access to data with stack and queue, and then migrates to the standard template library (STL). Everything is kept on the undergraduate student level. All other STL books I know assume that you are already an expert in programming or at lest for students after two programming courses, and are too difficult for average non-CS students.

I originally rated the first edition with four-stars only because it introduced pointers very late, out of the proper sequence and added the fifth star for the unique blend of introduction to OOP C++ and data structures, and STL. However, this edition is free from this inconvenience and it also makes C++ and data structures course accessible to former Java programmers. It gets true five stars from me this time.

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.