Software and Tools Books

Picked up this book in the clearance bin at a technical bookstore close to my work place for Five Dollars. I thought I had an incredible bargain in my hands until I read the book. What a piece of trash! I do a lot of Object oriented coding with Powerbuilder on WindowsNT4.0. I was interested in the design patterns & OO programming techniques that the authors say that they are covering in the book in the preface. I have already read the Patterns book by Erich Gamma/John Vlissides and I was interested in how the authors might have applied those techniques with PowerBuilder. It was a major disappointment for me when I discovered that the authors had no clue of OO programming and a very bad understanding of Patterns in particular. They seem to know enough about Powerbuilder, but they are totally ignorant of OOP and patterns.

I spent only five dollars to buy this book but still I feel ripped off. BUYER BEWARE!

I have my improved my OOP skills after reading this book. The coverage on nonvisual user objects, OLE ,application framework design and OOAD are excellent. It would have been even better if the PFC chapter is elaborated

Waitng for their new release on PowerBuilder. A must have in your library

How WROX decided to push this terrible piece of writing on their readers is beyond my comprehension. I am a senior Sybase/PowerBuilder programmer, and I felt like laughing at the inaccuracies and inconsistencies that I constantly encountered in this stinker. When I read the reviews at Amazon that this is a great OOP/Design Patterns book, I was intrigued enough to snap up a copy. I am a great fan of using Patterns in my code. But the authors of this book give a completely uneducated and uninformed writing on this complex subject. Coders who are experienced in Patterns/OOP will laugh at this garbage. Novice programmers will be misled completely. I will never buy another WROX title again. My guess is that the reviewers who gave this turkey 5 stars must be friends of the author.

This book pretends to teach advanced OO and design patterns and falls woefully short. The authors don't have any grasp over the fundamentals of OO. Don't waste your money on it. This book isn't worth the paper it is printed on. There are better books on powerbuilder. If you want OO or design patterns pick up the books by Booch or Gamma et al.

I bought this book based on the reviews at amazon. The time I spent on this book could have been better utilized elsewhere. The author tries to talk about powerbuilder/OOP/design patterns/ActiveX/OCX/VB and so on without any grasp of the concepts underlying any of these technologies and methodologies. The result is a hopeless morass of confused ramblings with no direction. I wonder how some of the other reviewers gave this sorry excuse of a book 5 stars.

Unless you're a PERL weenie and just love all the technical jargon and obscure set up code in this book -- forget it. This is just the book for such geeks, and not a book for your average PHP or Java programmer.

If you want to stop spam, rather than go back for an advanced degree in geekiness, (by which time all the spam techniques will have changed anyway) just let your ISP provider do their best. You won't be able to do much better with this book, even if you COULD implement it. Which the average reader never will.

Coming into Spamassassin as a new user is very confusing, especially if you don't admin e-mail systems frequently. The spamassassin wiki and documentation are really confusing as well, it seems that nothing really explains the system as a whole very well. Finally, a real book about Spamassassin (I thought). This book skipped over a lot of topics I want to know more about (logging spamassassin activity, how to install razor and pyzor, more information about the RBLs installation and configuration). I don't think so much time should have been spent on Baysean techniques, I find Baysean to be too labor intensive and not practical at all on a site-wide level (which I think the author mentions in the book). This book was good, but not as complete as I was expecting, but as a reference for Spamassassin I suppose it's ok, but not anything better than is online.

This is a book for anyone who wants to know what is under the hood. This books details what is behind the engine, its architecture and its learning system. While it is leaning more heavily in the mail transfer agent (MTA) side, it still offers a lot of tips to readers as to how one can use SpamAssassin to combat junk mail. The Autowhitelisting and Bayesian Filtering are a must for those who really want to know how to use the tool. This is what makes it different from other keyword based filtering. This would be a great book for those who run and maintain their own mailing server, because it has lots of details for sendmail, postfix, exim and qmail.
Although the author has a section on pop mail configuration, I would like to see more client configuration examples such as outlook express or Novell's evolution/Ximian, or kmail. This is because not everybody runs email server at home. Nonetheless, this is a great book for those who want to set up their own spam mail filters and get rid of those annoying junk mail. Additionally, the author provides a very detailed list of resources.

SpamAssassin is the immensely popular open-source spam solution for the Linux/Unix world. This book covers version 3.0, which, curiously enough, is not included with the book. This is pretty unusual in the open-source world since it costs very little to put a copy of the program onto CD and bind it into the book.

The reasons for SpamAssassin's popularity include its high level of customizability, the ability to change the rules and the weights assigned to those rules, automatically report spam to clearinghouses, ability to interface with other resources on the internet including DNS blacklists, ability to create a whitelist, and the ability to work with a wide variety of mail systems including sendmail, Postfix, qmail, and Exim. One of the really nice features is the ability for the system to automatically add a person to the whitelist if you send an outgoing email to that person.

Of course all of this requires an understanding of how SpamAssassin works and how to configure and tweak it to get it to do what you want. That is where this book comes in. The author has done an excellent job of explaining not only the concepts but also the details of how SpamAssassin works and how to tweak it to work best in your environment. This is easily one of the most clearly written and understandable books on configuring the software that I have read. SpamAssassin is highly recommended for anyone on a Unix-like system who is considering using the program as a spam control solution.

It took some time to figure out how to configure it best for my needs but my spam is down over 90% with no false positives. Don't expect the author to spoon feed you what is best for your system, but he gives you the information to design one that works for you.

I'm sure that the Spamassassin developers are doing the best they can, but the sad fact is that the spammers are winning the war.

I don't think there really is a good solution for spam right now. Blacklists don't work, Bayesian filters don't work - nothing works well enough to stop spam entirely.

Still, Spamassassin is useful, and because it is configurable (and open source), you at least have complete control. That assumes, of course, that you understand how it works. That's the reason to buy a book like this, but I was a bit disappointed in that area. I'm not sure yet whether the fault is Spamassassin - maybe it's just not as configurable as it should be - or this book just not explaining things very well.

For example, I note that an awful lot of the spam I get is from certain IP blocks. I don't want to block out large ranges arbitrarily, but I thought it might be interesting to increase the Spamassassin score if the sender was in one of those ranges.

Well, if there is a way to do that, I still haven't figured it out. It could be me - maybe I just haven't read things carefully enough - but I didn't feel that I understood Spamassassin after reading this. Maybe this needs to be a bigger book - only about 100 pages are devoted to configuration and modifying rules, the rest is installation advice.

On the other hand, there's nothing else out there, and this isn't totally without value. If you are using Spamassassin, you may want to pick this up - it could be a long wait for anything better.

The official and informative guide to 07 Quicken. I reviewed two other books about Quicken but this was the most informative and clear. Great for beginner and intermediate users.

Most of the stuff in this book is there in the Quicken help file, but I am a person who likes to thumb through a hard copy in the evening and not have to sit at my computer. My one hesitation about this book is it tells you everything about Quicken, but it does not help you solve the many, many quirky problems that arise with Quicken during setup, data conversion, downloads, investment accounts, etc. I had to go to the forums for that info. If you want a hard copy operating manual that is complete but short on problem solving, this is an excellent book. If you want a book that will help you unsnarl Quicken's many quirks, this is not for you.

I would have rated this book zero stars for Mac Users, but I was forced to choose a number ... so I chose 1 star. This book is totally directed toward Windows users. If you are a Mac User, check your CD for a Mac User Guide.

Typical of all "Offical Guides" this book is complete, however, without any lightness. It tells the nuts and bolts wthout the humor of a "... for Dummies" book. If you plan on doing any advanced work, other than just keeping your check book, then an "Offical Guide" may be necessary.

I have used Quicken many years but was still using the 1999 version until mid summer this year. I decided I wanted some features that the new one has, plus that older one doesn't seem to like Vista all that well, so I bought 2007 Premier. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised to find there was no written user manual supplied with it as that seems to be the way with most software anymore.

So, I came looking on Amazon.com to see what was available. This one looked & sounded good from the descriptions with it's listing. I ordered it along with another and even paid for two day delivery! The book is billed as being the official guide and it seems like a well written user manual that SHOULD have been supplied with the book. I am still working my way through it but have learned a lot. There is a good, usable index which is very valuable in a book like this. I would say it is a good purchase for anyone and especially one like me who is jumping a few generations of the software to get to the 2007 version.

I failed to get the example source codes listed in the book by following the exact instructions of the book. In addition, I can't contact auther for this.

I believe this book deserves a 5 stars rating. But you cannot get the examples with the provided username and password. This means wasting time which avoiding it is the reason for buying this book from the beginning.

The accompanying web site is unreachable. Most examples are based on a commercial package (TicleMan)

This book offers many Tcl examples to show network discovery, status monitoring, etc. If you are looking to build concise, custom mgmt tools to meet your specific needs, Tcl/Tk and this book will get you well on your way.

I definitely wish that every technical book was as well researched and written as this one is. If you're trying to build a network management application using TCL/Tk, this book is invaluable. Watch out for two things, however: The Scotty examples are using a pre-release 3.0 version of TNM, while most of us in the real world are using the non-commercial 2.1.9 version, so the examples don't work exactly as shown. Also, the website that the book directs you to doesn't have all of the code discussed in the book. Despite these few flaws, it's still worth five stars in my opinion.

First off let me say this, many people who rated this book were really to Noob to rate it right. If you want to get the most out of this book you should be familiar with Maya fundamentals, mainly what the essential tools do and how to create and shape objects.

Even though the character is a little dorky looking, this will really teach you how to model game characters in Maya. It contains a very indepth explanation of weighting the character, something you really need to know how to do. If your a beginner and can't really navigate through Maya then you should wait until then to purchase this book..

One thing to remember, proper modeling is not and never will be easy, if you understand that and are willing to put in time you will do fine with this book......

I bought this book primarily to see if I could use it in teaching character animation using a pipeline of Maya and MotionBuilder.

No way.

The first part delves into making scenery for a hypothetical game with a hypothetical lead character. Fine. However, a lot of the polygon scenery could be readily replaced by matte painting, thereby drastically cutting down on poly count. The female character modeling session is typical of other character modeling chapters from other books by Sybex and Maya Press. The game modeler will not find anything new or insightful here.

However, there is one glaring omission in the book that totally negated any thought of using this book in a classroom. After the character is finished, it's time to animate it in MotionBuilder. But is there anywhere in the chapters preceding MB any mention of building the character's skeletal system? On top of this, from my previous work with MotionBuilder, MB is rather fussy on naming conventions for bones and joints. Not only is a "chapter" missing on how to properly bone the character, but at least one lesson on proper naming conventions is in order. Neither exist.

the only downfall of this book is that it doesn't give you a step by step directions to create the character. you have great images to follow. so you have to figure out how to get from one image to the next. it's a helpful book to use if you want to know how to model figures. i would not recommend this book if you just started on the maya program. some of the contents in the book can be confusing for beginners.

Recently I purchased this book because I thought it would give me "In depth" insight into game art creation in Maya and other software, but to my dismay it's more of an "overview" of the process from taking a model for concept to completion. The information was very sparse especially with the texturing section, the exception was the actual modeling of the main character (with no concept art I might add). All of the "information" was glossed over by letting the reader guess at how the author accomplished a particular series of steps. For instance creating the ground for the sets went like this

- Shape the basic terrain of the map with various Maya modeling tools. Start with a primitive polygon and go from there-

Seriously this is basically what was written in a nutshell. The diagrams from step 1-3 were vastly different in areas and requires alot of guesswork on the part of the reader.

The only redeeming quality of this book is the character tutorial and the bonus material on the DVD. The instructor led tutorials were ok but could've been done to more effect.

I'm an experienced 3D artist so I can fill in the wide gaps in the tutorials well enough, but for someone looking to learn the art of creating artwork for games, look elsewhere for ie, the first Sybex book on the matter "The Game Artists Guide to Maya".

Not to leave on a somber note, the book does have some descent info sprinkled throughout, but it's no where near as good as it should've been.

This book could have been great. Maybe it tries to cover too much ground. Maybe the translation from Japanese leaves something to be desired. It's filled with amazing illustrations and great detail you won't find in any book, but it's mostly trapped in the images. The text is often confusing or banal: "Create the appearance of sand on the texture bordering the ground." Oh really? How? Isn't that why I bought this book?

If you're past the beginner stage or want to get a thorough overview of the game art creation process, by all means buy this book. Even beginners will get something out of it. But you won't get as much out of this book as you would have hoped.

I feel that the writing style is a little confusing even though Jensen is a master. I also recommend to integrate the three volumes to one due to the simplicity and vol. 2 just took 182 pages. In addition, the notations relatively differ from the ones in Peterson's Petri nets.

I feel that the writing style is a little confusing even though Jensen is a master. I also recommend to integrate the three volumes to one due to the simplicity and vol. 2 just took 182 pages. In addition, the notations relatively differ from the ones in Peterson's Petri nets.

It is the best book of CPN for the people who intriest in Coloured Petri nets.And it is very helpful to the research fo CPN.Though I haven't owned this book,I wash Icould get it in the near day!

I feel that the writing style is a little confusing even though Jensen is a master. I also recommend to integrate the three volume to one due to the simplicity and vol. 2 just took 182 pages. In addition, the notations relatively differ from the ones in Peterson's Petri nets.

As a novice C programmer I found Robert Traisters book Mastering C Pointers useful for demystifying the use of C pointers. Especially valuable were the examples showing the importance of coding style and the use of spaces for making C code comprehensible. His comment towards the end about the importance of commenting code and using good structure was priceless. It goes something like this (I will paraphrase). Frequently it is stated that comments and good coding structure are essential to assist the programmer who comes along in a few months and gets stuck maintaining a piece of code. With C programming comments and good coding structure are essential ... so the progammer can understand his own code after coming back from coffee ... It is so true!

The writing style talks down to the reader. The book focuses on the MS/DOS architecture. Why isn't it titled as such? I stopped reading after the author commented that many programmers are afraid to use functions that return pointers. He then went on to give an example of how to use them. It was wrong! Reference page 111 of the SECOND EDITION. The "combine()" function returns a pointer to a local variable which is out of scope when it is dereferenced. I would have returned the book but unfortunately it came with a disk which I had prematurely ripped out! I doubt ant AP books will be finding a space on my bookshelf.

The material which this book presents on C pointers must, I repeat, MUST, be thoroughly mastered and understood before a beginning C programmer can become a serious professional. This book will provide that mastery. If every piece of C code which I have seen had been programmed by someone who had thoroughly and completely understood how to use C pointers, then the vast majority, if not all, of the memory leaks and other memory related problems in those programs would never have seen the light of day. Particularly useful is the discussion about uninitialized versus initialized pointers, pointer indirection, and addresses (constant pointers). The book is best summed up by a single sentence on page 77: "Always know where and to what your pointers point." Although this book lacks the glitz and polish of other comparable books on C, it is clearly a must read. As a C programming professional, I highly recommend this book.

I was recommended couple of books for my course and this was one among them. Though it touches the topic, the contents are brief and if you want more detail, this is not the right one.

Seydel is at a level of sophistication comparable to Wilmott et al. (2000). Indeed, it makes a lot of sense to read both books side-by-side. While Wilmott focuses exclusively on "differential equation methods" of financial engineering, Seidel takes a more balanced approach. The two books complement each other well.

The main part of this book is focused on methods of how to value american vanilla options. He does this only in the diffusion transformed version of B&S. He starts with the equation in this form, without mentioning much of how to get there, and why. And thats typical for the rest of the book aswell, much of it is "cookery book form" (even if the book contains lots of usefull references in the endchapter). He discusses several ways of solving PDE:s, mainly implicit/explicit/Crank N and then there is a very introductory chapter on FEM. The discussion on stability issues is to brief (and not to understandable), I'd say (Tavella does this much more elegant). In the endchapter he discusses how to value exotic options (using asian as a case), and concludes that the methods ealier in the book isnt of much use, but as the author says this is an introductory book.

During my painful thesis writting, I read this book in order to get some relaxation together with Hull's book. If you are a rocket scientist, such as a struggeling ph.d candidata like me, you will find Hull's book is useful but simplified. This book is quite helpful to me because I used PDE. Statistic, SDE, numerical method here and there and in the book, Seydel shows how to put these skills together and how to solve problems.

This little booklet is best to be read at the bookstore.

There is no need to buy. In fact, buying it is a waste
of money, given the $[money] price tag. That is about a $[money]
a page.

So, save your money and time...

I read this book because I am starting academic research on search engines. It was one of my first books on the subject. It actually deals with two aspects: (1) relevant issues in search engine design, and (2) a mathematically sound approach in building and querying large index strucutres. The explanation in the book on both aspects is short but to the point and explained in an understandable way. It also contains a short list + description of some key references. Great !

There are better books in the market, and even the author would be the first to recognize it. However, this book is one of the most clear and readable introduction to the subject that you can find.

The author fully acomplishes the objective: teach his reader, at undergratuate level, how search engines work. Even some difficult subject, such as LSI, are treated at a level one can easilly understand.

One of the most important characteristics of the book is that it does math. Every formula has an example, usually using small matrix that allow the reader to easilly follow them.

The book is suitable for an objective introduction to the field. It is not very "academic", in the sense it is rather informal. If it is not a textbook, it could help some bewildered student to grasp the inner workings. It could also help a teacher to find clearer ways for explanations and good examples for classroom.

This book helps me a lot. I write ActiveX controls for WebPage. This book gives me a lot detail information for all the proramming technic, and points me to the right direction for all the related utility programs.

This book focused on ActiveX and lots of client-side, Micrososft-specific features. If you're a web programmer, you are going to alienate a great deal of non-MSIE users. The book did have pretty good information, with lots of details, though. Be careful, it requires Visual C++ 5.0 and Active X Control Pad.