Software Books

I have three Office 2000 books. If I had to recommend a good one for learning the basics to beginners-this is the one. It covers the fundementals of Word, Excel, Power Point (slide presentations) Outlook (E-mail, appointments, calenders), the basics of Publisher (publications-newsletters, brochures), and Front Page (Web pages). Even if you are not real familiar with the Office software-this is a good place to start. The book is illustrated with clear, color pictures which are accompied by step-by step instructions. I find that it was a lot easier to read as compared to the technically-oriented books. (I am not a technical person). Along the margins of the book-there are tips, warnings and shortcuts which are very helpful. For all the non-techies like me-this is a good start.

I am new to the Office 2000 suite of products, and this Easy book helped me get an overall grasp of Office 2000. It covers more topical information in a visual format than any other book out there.

I have three Office 2000 books. If I had to recommend a good one for learning the basics to beginners-this is the one. It covers the fundementals of Word, Excel, Power Point (slide presentations) Outlook (E-mail, appointments, calenders), the basics of Publisher (publications-newsletters, brochures), and Front Page (Web pages). Even if you are not real familiar with the Office software-this is a good place to start. The book is illustrated with clear, color pictures which are accompied by step-by step instructions. I find that it was a lot easier to read as compared to the technically-oriented books. (I am not a technical person). Along the margins of the book-there are tips, warnings and shortcuts which are very helpful. For all the non-techies like me-this is a good start.

I really enjoyed this book - it took just 3 or 4 hours to read, and that included experimenting with all the features that the book introduced. This book tells everything one needs to know to write a basic web page.

It's an excellent book about software science metric.

This book have great value in the field of metric of software science.The theory reffered in this book play an important role.

It's an excellent book about software science metric.

This book have great value in the field of metric of software science.The theory reffered in this book play an important role.

Many 'engineering' matlab books don't live up their titles. They are simply written as general introductions to matlab with a few useless thoughts about engineering thrown in.

In my opinion, a good matlab engineering book focuses less on general tips that you could get anywhere, and more on practical problem solving techniques and methodologies that provide insight into a paticular engineering problem and its solution.

This books succeeds in that respect. Though it gives space to the more general issues of using matlab, it gives ample room to specific engineering problems. I found its information and examples very useful. The topics are focused on mechanical engineering fields, such as vibration and control; however, the math used for such topics are used across engineering and science disciplines. Thus, any scientist or engineer will find this book useful.

The book is written so that engineers at many levels can benefit from it. For example, as a former graduate student, I found the treatments of vibration response analysis insightful. However, an undergraduate or otherwise inexperienced user would benefit from this book as well, because there is alot of general discussion of how to effectively and efficiently use matlab and write m-files.

All in all, I found this book excellent for both its treatment of high level engineering analysis issues and its more general matlab tips and discussion.

This is one of the best books out there. I not only used it in my vibrations class back as an undergraduate (and I had vibrations with Magrab too!), I have continued to find new ways to use it in the work world today. Dr. Magrab and the others have written a very useful book that definitely relates engineering to this program.

Excellent! ... Applied Engineering using computers, it doesn't get any better than this. Examples, programs, applications .. this is where this book beats the competition. Matlab is a powerful program, and this book shows why. It has been written for beginners and experienced users alike. Introduction to matrices, then goes into functions, and 2D/3D plotting ... then the fun begins with Engineering Applications in fields such as Machine Design, Vibrations, Control Systems, Dynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer and even Statistics and Optimization! Numerous programs and examples serve as practice for the reader. I am currently using the text to write programs for calculating the vibration of thin beams in my Grad Vibrations class. I only wish I could have gotten my hands on a book such as this when I took many of my undergrad courses. By the way, this book refers to MATLAB 5.3 (Release 11). Congratulations to the authors on such a thorough guide.

This one is really for engineers, it goes over the basics first, subsequently it goes into more details. It has handy examples of mechanics, dynamics...etc. if you are a mechanical or an electrical engineer, and you are a matlab user, this book would mean a lot to you.

Though a book of the 90's I have just used this book as a text in my course on virtual architecture in our computer graphics program. It worked superbly. The text stimulated long fruitful discussions (some for three unbroken hours) and put students in the state of mind to produce 3D based sites of significant meaning. Students took to heart Anders cautionary assessments on designing cyberspace and produced work that leapt well ahead of the work they were producing prior to the discussions. Anders chooses all of the best sources for his analysis of the similarities and contrasts between actual space and cyberspace, especially his use of Jean Piaget's interactional psychology as a base.

This is an extremely thorough introduction to cyberspaces and has many beautiful illustrations. This is an intellectually sophisticated book for non-computer scientists. It begins with a rigorous intellectual picture and then continues to survey existing cyberspaces with many insights along the way, that will please even techno-nerds.

The book fills in many details in the history of building cyberspaces.

Next year in cyberspace!

The accelerating growth of personal computing over the past two decades and the unprecedented rise of the Internet in the 1990s has led to a countless number of books. Many deal with particular aspects of this revolution - linear historical accounts, analysis of emergent psycho-social phenomena, how-to manuals on the latest program or technology, etc.. Very few however, manage to capture a broad overview and comprehensive analysis of this explosion. Fewer still have documented the wide array of less common technologies and research efforts that have accompanied and in many cases, presaged, the more familiar aspects of today's cyberspace.

It's not surprising then, that a uniquely comprehensive view should come from a member of the original generalist profession - architecture. In "ENVISIONING CYBERSPACE: Designing 3D Electronic Spaces," architect and media theorist, Peter Anders has succeeded in delivering one of the best and rarest overviews of the beginnings of the Information Age.

Integrity demands that I disclose that some of my own work is featured in this book, but what I discovered to my great surprise and delight, is that it's also filled with many incredible technologies and ideas that I was unaware of. Such is the difficulty in being aware of everything that's going on in our rapidly evolving era.

Anyone interested or involved in the design and development of information technologies would do well to read this book. The future is not limited to just a simple extrapolation of what's most commonly known today. The real Information Age is a vast, barely explored region of possibility around us and ahead. We're lucky to have Peter Anders serving as both Lewis and Clark.

Something that makes Peter Anders' _Envisioning Cyberspace_ especially interesting is that it's the work of an architect and designer, for whom the issues of designing workable, user-centered cyberenvironments are comprehensible. He's gathered and comments upon a wide-ranging collection of work that he finds interesting, efforts that approach and address the big issues if not always fully realizing them. It often reminds me of the 1991 anthology _Cyberspace: First Steps_ edited by Michael Benedikt (another architect), or some of the hot early-'90s books on Virtual Reality, in that it's full of enthusiasm and enjoyment at the elegance of possible solutions. In this hard-nosed commercially-driven era that's a breath of fresh air; the real kind, not the virtual.

Forget about class factories and such...
The real issue in COM is type libraries and proxy/stubs and how these are created using IDL. Also of great importance is designing COM interfaces so that they may be utilized by VB and C++. This is a one stop reference for all that good information.
If you program COM, buy this book. It will pay for itself in minutes.

This is a great book that teaches you how to design and develop COM interfaces that work for C++ and VB clients and also explains the intricacies of the Interface Definition Language.

Even if you use COM at a higher level - ATL wizards, VB wizards and dont really write your own IDL file, you need to read this book to get an understanding of how you can do write even better COM clients and servers.

One thing i wish it also had is information about accessing these COM classes from VBScript.

This book goes into more detail about IDL than most people care about. However if you start wondering why your interface is not being properly marshalled, knowing your IDL will save you from scratching your head in biwilderment.

If you dont want any surprises from COM marshalling this is the book to get. Even in the .NET world, this book will be useful. All the COM components out there today are not just going to go away.

COM programmers have waited a long time for a definitive book on IDL, and Mr. Gudgin has written it. A superb summary of the language that is central to real-world COM programming, and a one-stop resource for developers struggling with IDL. Chock full of juicy details, with coverage of topics ranging from the structure of IDL files to method aliasing and asynchronous COM. If you're a COM programmer, this book will pay for itself many times over.

Kent Tong Ka Iok's book contains far more code than commentary, and I'm learning, really learning, some of these skills now in a way that never came through in all of the dozen or so books on agile techniques that I've read before.

Oh, I'd occasionally like a little more commentary than he delivers, and I'd sure like a good editor to work it over and clean up the prose, but the examples are first-rate, non-toy examples, and the chapter exercises are making me think in whole new ways about writing my own code. I'd love to see lots more examples and exercises in some of the chapters, especially the code smells chapter (where he only covers a few of the smells from Martin Fowler's list in Refactoring). I've also found a few errata that I haven't been able to report because of problems on Kent's site (www.agileskills.org) - but I've emailed him about that.

I don't want to pull punches here, which is why I've mentioned several negatives about the book. But those are nothing compared to the book's qualities. This is one of those great, really valuable books, like Fowler's Refactoring and Freeman & Freeman's Head First Design Patterns. You can find out how great without spending a penny: download the chapters from Kent's site (but note that they won't print, and you can't copy the text, which is why I eagerly came to Amazon and bought the hard copy, which I'm avidly annotating as I work through the examples and exercises). Get this book!

Kent is really doing a good job on writing this book that focus on OO problems and solutions by using examples without using too much boring theory words.

The idea of pointing out "code smell" in source code described in this book really helps programmers know when they should do something OO to keep code fit.

I highly recommended people should read this book first before reading any OO design pattern books. Once you understand the OO basic and concept, later you will figure out "Oh, that example in this book is using strategy pattern!, oh that code is using visitor pattern!" I am sure after you read this book, you will believe how amazing that this book can help you and me!

Kent, a programming genius in Macao, has been actively promoting XP for serveral years. This is a good book coming from the course material of the XP course in CPTTM. I was ever a newbie of XP, however, with this book, I merge my mind with a newer, more powerful, more effective devopment methodology.

Automate Testing and Test Driven is the kernel of XP. Readers are able to learn a more effective way of how to write tests, especially acceptance tests.

Not only does Kent introduce new skills of testing, but also introduce important skills of OO programming. Once and Once Only, IOC principle,etc, newbies of OO can learn essential skills from this book under Kent's simple explaination.

Kent is my teacher of OO. Without him, I was still struggling at the dark age of the Procedure Oriented programming.

If you are a newbie of OO or stranger of XP, don't doubt, read this book immediately. You will soon realize that the sky of OO and XP 's world is Free !

This is a book for software developers interested in gaining the right skills for agile development.

This book has an elegant yet highly effective minimalist style. Rather than long theoretical discussion (of the type I'm sometimes guilty of writing) the book does what it does by example - and there's plenty of example code given.

For example, in chapter 2 - turning comments into code - Kent examines some typical code (I've seen enough like it) littered with comments that are apparently intended to make life easier. Step by step he takes us through removing the comments and expanding variable and method names to show the intent of the code - along the way pointing out useful refactorings to improve the overall code structure and make clearer what's going on. It's a convincing description and easily applied.

Overall the book covers many topics and issues related to agile software development, including: keeping code fit; handling inappropriate references; seperating database, UI and domain logic; unit testing and acceptance testing amongst others.

The thing I really like about this book, and the reason I would recommend it to developers, is that even if you're not doing full on "agile" development, there's still plenty of useful material in it. The lack of hype is also refreshing - the book focuses on examples and shows good solutions. You should get it!

An excellent text aimed at users who are competent at using spreadsheets but need the increased power and flexibility that the use of VBA allows. The examples are useful and the CD included with the book saves a lot of bother with debugging mis-copied code.

This book is really just what I needed to break the manual data-parsing habit! The examples are mostly from the realm of chemistry, but they're generally applicable to lab, field, and even scholastic or administrative applications. Mr. Billo has plenty of experience and has been generous in sharing it. As a bench tech who came to Excel without any prior education in the use of spreadsheet applications for comparative analyses, I highly recommend this book.

P.S. Excel is a powerful application for getting a good hard look at your data, but it's no substitute for real statistical software or programming languages. There are other good spreadsheets available; nevertheless, Excel is probably on your computer and if you're using Excel in the lab, this book's for you!

Unlike some books, this book is not just a paraphrase of Excel's help file. The book is written for the professional chemist. It uses examples from chemistry to show how Excel can easily handle many graphing and data analysis problems. The reader should have a basic knowledge of spreadsheets. If you haven't used spreadsheets before, this book will be overwhelming.

The first chapter is an introduction to Excel. Even the experienced user will find something new here. My favorite was learning that a shortcut menu listing all sheets in a workbook is available by right-clicking on any of the sheet tab scroll buttons.

The second chapter (10 pages) explains how to make basic graphs in Excel. Many people have Excel, but are unaware of how easy it is to make graphs with Excel. Chapter 5 shows how to construct advanced charts with, for example, multiple axis, error bars, and smoothed lines.

Chapter 3 starts to get into the power user stuff, such as making formulas more understandable by using named ranges. I had quit using names because they apply to every sheet in a workbook; this chapter shows how to make the name apply to just one sheet. The chapter also does a very good job of showing how to construct huge formulas ("megaformulas").

Chapter 4 explains how to use array formulas. This chapter is valuable because Excel's help file doesn't provide much information on using arrays. Arrays make for much cleaner-looking spreadsheets.

Chapter 6 shows how to use Excel's database features to keep track of, for example, a chemical inventory list. Since I don't use these features very often, it is nice to have them described where I can use them when I need them. The same can be said about appendix E, "Shortcut Keys for the PC and Macintosh".

Chapter 7 describes how to import data into a spreadsheet. If you have more data than you want, this chapter shows how to extract every, say, 10th data point.

Chapter 8 shows how option buttons, check boxes, list boxes, etc. can simplify use of a spreadsheet. For example, I needed to enter a number and convert it to pH, pOH, Ka, or Kb, depending on what was entered. Using the info in this chapter, I now just click on an option button, and the sheet does the appropriate conversions.

Chapters 9-12 are about spreadsheet mathematics. Goal Seek, linear regression and Solver are covered. What really makes this material useful is that it tells how to do a statistical analysis of the results, even for non-linear regression.

Chapters 13-19 illustrate how to use Visual Basic for Application (VBA), the programming language built into Excel. The code examples are clearly the work of an amateur programmer. "Option Explicit" is omitted, only arrays are dimensioned, the standard method of indenting to improve readability is not used, and-horrors-the author uses GoTo statements. Nonetheless, these chapters do show the basics of programming with VBA. The CD includes many code examples, including a neat program for formatting chemical equations. For example, it will subscript the 2 in H2O.

Chapters 20-23 are more applications. I especially liked learning how to deconvolute a spectrum with Excel.

The book isn't perfect-a few typos, organization could be improved, one of the files on the CD wouldn't open-but if you are a chemist and want to become better at using Excel, this is the book you need. I wish my company had given me this book when I started using Excel in industry. It would have saved a lot of time.

I have bought several books on using Excel for scientists, engineers, etc. However, of the six I have bought, this one by Billo is the most helpful.

If you already know the basics about spreadsheets, then this book is packed with pearls that enhance your productivity and get you powerful results. It will take me years to exhaust the potential.

The CD ROM with the book is very good as well, with examples for the more complex subjects.

I use this reference to evaluate complicated data with multiple interactions on animal and human data in biomedical research. I do research in PET (Positron Emission Tomography) imaging.

While this book is no substitute for a professional biostatistician, the book has helped me to not only follow the progress and interrelationships of the data but also to more clearly communicate my needs to a professional biostatistics firm. This also saves me money since it saves the biostatisticians time. I also think it improves results.

I highly recommend this book.

Books give idia opn core technology on exchange. I am happy that this book will not for paper passing orientation

Books give idia opn core technology on exchange. I am happy that this book will not for paper passing orientation

I am a Microsoft Certified Trainer and had the pleasure of sitting in on one of the authors presentaions. I expect the technical content of the book will be first rate. This should also be an easy read if half of her sense of humor translates well into print.

I am looking forward to the release of the book.

I wish this author would put pen to paper again - this book was a joy to read; succinct, apposite and conversational in tone. Brilliant!

This book is best ever! You can learn IL, but you can undarstand MSIL, how aplications are build.

Wonderful experience writing an IL code generator. Project went quickly, easily, with high quality result. Thanks to Microsoft's .Net and IL ecosystem, and three books; Expert .Net IL Assembler (Serge Lidin), Common Language Infrastructure Annotated Standard (James S. Miller), ECMA-335 CLI Standard (downloadable from ECMA).

I needed a good "go-to" reference which would aid me in quickly gaining knowledge so I could understand disassembled PE files related to a "small" project I had already invested 40 man-hours. There are references you can find on the web, however, this book will save you time looking for them. It consolidates all information you need to quickly get up to speed if you have not been doing assembler code projects for a while. The author's writing style reflects his extensive knowledge and "comfortableness" in discussing it. He includes invaluable references to tools one can use related to the subject he is discussing. The Appendixes contain excellent information that is quickly accessible simply flipping through the pages. I am not a compiler writer by trade, but I had a good laugh related to the author's comments in Chapter 19's Summary (on page 408). You'll just have to purchase the book to find out! I look forward to investing more time in reading this book in detail. If you have to spend money on a tool, this book is money well spent.

This is an excellent treatment of the MSIL topic at just the right level if you're in need of nitty gritty details for debugging, disassembling, or generating IL code. Coverage of the PE format for managed executables is the best I've seen. The text is well-written, the examples are clear and concise, and the diagrams are very helpful. The book can be used as both a tutorial and a reference: the appendices include an ILAsm grammar reference, a metadata tables reference, and an IL instruction set reference. The book is also available electronically to owners of the physical book.

If you have ever thought of a feature request for Flash then this book is for you. It teaches you how to make your own! Flash MX 2004 is in the title but it's just as useful for Flash 8. This book is worth the price just for the JSFL reference alone.

This book has gone under the radar based upon its title. It truly does not explain what this book can teach you.

Basically it teaches the basic Flash user that you can extend what Flash normally does for you in its normal authoring environment. Like create new drawing tools, create commands that perform complex real-time tasks instantly (similiar to custom macros), create custom user interfaces, add timeline effects (scripted tweens) to any object, and create scripted behaviors (prebuilt code components) to help almost automate your Flash development.

If your an exisiting Flash developer who knows how code with ActionScript and needs a way to streamline your development environment and development time, this is a book you shouldn't pass up.

If you are an advanced Flash user, Extending Flash MX 2004 may be just the right book for you. Written by veteran Flash developers Keith Peters (bit-101) and Todd Yard (ego7), this book introduces you to the world of extending Flash MX 2004 by teaching you how to create custom functions and features for the Flash MX 2004 authoring environment.

At first I had never heard about 'Extending' Flash MX 2004, but hopefully my following explanation may help you to understand this concept if you are new to this term. Imagine Flash MX 2004 being a customizable browser such as Firefox. In Firefox, you can download snippets of programs called extensions that add some cool, extra features to your browser. Creating new extensions for Flash MX 2004 is similar to developing extensions for your browser. Using a new language called JavaScript Flash (JSFL), you have the ability to create scripts, commands, behaviors, etc. that add new functionality to not a Flash animation, but to your actual Flash MX 2004 application itself.

This book teaches you how to use JavaScript Flash to create extensions - custom commands, menu items, and others things to help make repetitive tasks easier and enhance your Flash MX 2004 program. You start with the basics and progress towards complicated techniques. Early on you start by creating a command that, for example, allows you to take any shape and automatically arrange them on a user-defined grid. Towards the end, you move beyond simple commands and learn how to modify Behaviors, create custom interfaces using XML, and more!

Another great feature of this book is the expansive JavaScript Flash (JSFL) reference. The JSFL reference section contains all of the various items of the JSFL language that you can refer to when creating your own JSFL extensions. For any JSFL code item or property, you will find a description, the types of values it accepts, and a code example.

If you use Flash MX 2004 extensively and are interested in automating some of the repetitive tasks or adding new, useful features to Flash, you will find this book's coverage of this new topic excellent for intermediate and advanced users.

Keith and Todd command a huge knowledge of one of the more interesting and productive new features of Flash MX 2004, extensibility. The authors guide you on your way to learning about these new features starting off with easy concepts and then moving into more specific areas. This book is essential for anyone who develops with Flash MX 2004, the skills and tools that you get from the book will streamline your work flow and improve your productivity. From JSFL commands, xml to UI, custom behaviors and custom tools this book will load your Flash IDE with tools and widgets to get the job done faster and smoother. Excellent book!