Software Books

This book is filled with everything you ever wanted to know about excel. Great reference with fun tips like games and making your excel talk!

Not really for true beginners, but an excellent reference book for those times when one thinks to themself, "How do I do that ___ again?"

I think the book was very good at giving examples on doing things that you might run into while making use of excel. In between the examples, you'll find a tip on a shortcut key or other, "I didn't know that" type information. The two weaknesses that I would give it are:
1) No example CD so I could follow along with the book (this was painful because I had to take time to create similar examples)
2) I wish it would go over all the shortcut keys. Perhaps I missed this but I have found these to be useful and wish the material had been better organized so that you could find them all in one place rather than sporadically buried in an example that had no indication it was teaching you a new shortcut.
Alas, there is much more positive than negative and I would definitely recommend the book to someone wanting to enhance their excel skills and learn a lot of tips they might have never learned otherwise.

This book is very well done. It's straight-forward, covers a wide amount of topics, and is practical in how it uses examples to demonstrate available functions. The only thing the book could have fleshed out more is macros.

Great amazon seller. I really like this book. It was shipped promptly. Highly recommended.

The Definitive Guide to Actionscript by Colin Moock is a must have for anyone serious about Actionscript. Moock explains object oriented programming with ease. There are many samples and examples making this book easily accessible to a wide range of programmatic abilities. This book is a great learning resource and also serves as a reference for developers.

i dont need to say more, I even pre orderd the second edition allready

It's all good... lot's of info, examples, details, etc etc...
I do have to comment though that everything you find in this book is EASILY found and sometimes in a way more deep and detailed manner in the Macromedia Flash Help section and in www.macromedia.com Flash support section... I would not consider this an essential book even though one feels secure to have it close...

Nice book, found it pretty pleasant at first, but it was too easy to digest (six, seven hours and you can toss it over your shoulder). The real answers I need (mostly dealing with movie clip behaviours) are only vaguely explained or absent and I found the book more of a frustration than otherwise from about 1 week onwards.

Having said this, there doesn't appear to be any other title for Flash that caters to those whose programming knowledge exceeds their experience as a graphical design user.

Finally, an actionscript guide that is superb in its production! My hat is off to Colin and Gary for this detail-oriented volume that has cleared the smoke out of my head and has made a programmer out of an artist.

Bravo!!!

This book was recommended by the instructor. It's a lot of book, and at times difficult to find the exact information you need. There were a lot of long-winded explanations that sometimes confused. The author is Welsh, so there are a lot of references to that culture that Americans might not understand.
On the other hand, it was helpful for correlation and regression analysis.
I bought the SPSS Survival Manual by Julie Pallant also. I ended up using it more often, as I could get to the information I needed for a particular task faster.

I find this boook to be extremely helpful. It explains the psychology statistics in a very easy to understand conversational manner. Each SPSS test is described in thourough detail with full color examples and each output box is thouroughly explained. The only thing that prevented me from giving this a perfect 5 is that the ink seems to have never completley dried. Since I handle this book a lot I am finding that the text can smudge very easily.I have to treat it with extra care or the words could easily become incomprehensible. Overall 4 and 1/2 stars.

This is an excellent book with a lot of humor, which makes reading statistics an enjoyment.Gives a lot of info for working on SPSS.

I've taken a bazillion seminars / classes in stats/spss and never have I laughed out loud like this author inspires the reader to do. I'm having a ball reading and understanding this book - now I understand why my faculty mentor loves Andy Field as a writer/teacher. This is a MUST text on your shelf.

I have looked at a number of alternatives and completely agree with an earlier reviewer: this is the best book on the subject. I relied on the second edition of this book to complete my doctoral dissertation. This wonderful book not only saved me thousands of dollars in statistical consultant's fees, but it also taught me a great deal about statistical analysis using SPSS. Even with my degree now completed, I am glad I invested in the 3rd edition of Field's textbook. The new edition's full-color pages, numerous updates and additions make learning statistics an activity one can enjoy.

The word:value ratio is poor. Compression is needed. Overly focused on collecting data, nothing penetrating is offered about using it.

Way too much detail for someone not looking to treat the Internet like rocket science :) Otherwise, book is good. Just too deep and complicated for beginners.

I love that Avinash has broken down the learning process into digestible chunks, it really is an hour a day. Add to that this man is the Chief Analytics Guru for Google and you have a winning combination. This book is a must-use for anyone who runs a website.

If you're looking to get into web analytics, this by far, is the book to pick up. I've taken the UBC web analytics program, and this book pretty much summarizes the entire program (as of the writing of this review) without all the typos, and repetition. It's straight to the point and very affordable.

You will NOT learn specific KPIs (you won't really get much of this at UBC either), but you will learn how to think like a web analyst. You also won't learn of advanced techniques, or learn how to use GA or Omniture - but it's definitely a good intro book.

Light reading, friendly tone. Definitely worth the purchase.

Quoting from this book in meetings at my company is like reading from the scriptures at bible study. Not in that it is seen as unquestionable wisdom taken on faith. Just the opposite, we have all questioned it and found it to hold true both in theory and in practice.

The best part is that each section of the book can be taken individually and applied almost the same day.

Something about SAM's unleashed lineup, as of late, has me dancing about with a renewed vigor and WPF Unleashed is yet another log on that fire.

Some review the document as being somewhat a general reference as well as being a bit on the extremist side demanding formal training in the WPF realm of discipline. These are somewhat erroneous ascertions as the only real requirement is a basic understanding of WPF to enhance the overall learning curve at times. The text itself delves into the basics all on its own. It reaches down into the dirt to pull up information of a specificity to aid you in understanding the technology -- not how to cut and paste code.

WPF Unleashed is a book for those who want to understand how to use the technology to benefit their UI design goals. The real scope here is to teach the user (reader) how to apply layout and design patterns using WPF on a congenial level with minimal complexity while getting to the core of the libraries' fundamentals. The reading is somewhat fast but, quite insightful with empathy in the delivery as it is NOT in rocket science linguistics.

WPF Unleashed has too many examples to list but, one that struck my fancy with a knockout punch was an in depth excursion into designing a Visual Studio like environment. The exercise covered slide out menu panels and their push-pin buttons and allot more. SAMs gets into the layout and code specifics with sincerity and brevity as the Visual Studio environment example took less than ten pages including illustrations, sidebars, and explicatives.

This tomb has color syntax highlighting, full color illustrations, tips & tricks, call-outs, and practical examples throughout -- phenominal approach and impeccable delivery. This is one of the finest books on any technology that I've had the pleasure of laying eyes upon.

SAMs should really consider modularizing and incorporating this document management styling into every book they publish from this point on. I can not rave aboout this book enough. A+ off the charts. I should also mention, in the event that this fact has been overlooked, that the main author of this formal instruction is also a developer on the WPF team at Microsoft -- so, who you gonna call?!

Yeah, this book is that good. SAMs was definitely upto something when they got this idea in their heads and it worked splendidly.


NOTES:

- Many examples are given in XAML but, are also explained and given in C# right along side in the current context without jumping around.

- Some examples given explain how to use PInvoke with WPF as well as using DLLs.

- One example illustrates how to access Windows themes, primarily Aero, with a lesson in how to create a form that has an all aero-glass background and many more like: shaped forms and gadget style forms.

I actually read this book for fun. Sickening, isn't it? I have truly gone nerd-ville!

I bought this book along with the Charles Petzold tome "Applications = Code + Markup". Though Petzold is a legend, with several indispensable titles under his belt, his effort pales in comparison to this title. When reviewing this book people often cite the use of color and the almost PowerPoint feel as major factors. While these are indeed factors to it's appeal, the main asset of this book is the content. The information is conveyed in a very fluid style which translates into an immense amount of information packed into a relatively small amount of pages. As an introduction to a new development platform, this is perhaps the best book I have ever read.

I have read (or tried to read) other WPF books but this one is by far the best one, both in terms of readability (the colors really make a difference) and contents. It feels like each page has a gem of information. If I were to buy only one book about WPF, this would be the one.

Nathan's book is packed full of information but, unfortunately, lacks definitions of terms used (a problem with many computer books).

On pages 20 and 21, for example, Nathan has a section titled "Elements and Attributes." That section includes such terms as "namespace," "type," "property," "event, "element," "attribute," "property attribute," and "event attribute.". Nathan writes about these subjects, but doesn't define what the terms mean. Many of these terms are not listed in the index. Although there is a subsequent section about namespaces, that section doesn't explain what a namespace is.

Lack of definitions is a particular problem in books about WPF because WPF uses many terms the meaning of which is not intuitive and is different from the meaning in everyday usage and some other environments.

I'd like to recommend this book because it contains so much information. I have to caution potential readers, though, that they will be frustrated by the difficulty of understanding precisely what the author means by WPF-specific terms.

I strongly recommend that all computer books contain a glossary of terms or, failing that, index entries that refer to specific definitions of terms. I also recommend that book editors should insist that authors provide concise definitions of terms within their books.

Gordon Padwick

It's a good buy.

The book as a package is a good reference for WPF. However, absolute beginners will have a difficult time through it, or at least I did. The first few chapters left me with a headache. I persisted and I can say I now have a firm understanding of WPF. Overall its a good buy.

Pros:
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1. Loads and loads of examples.
2. Full color graphics, helps one to quickly grasp the concepts being illustrated.
3. Easy reference. Quite easy to reference

Cons:
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1.Beginners be warned. Just keep reading you will understand later on.
2. The Author pulls things out of the hat and starts using them before explaining what they are. If he had explained them immediately after, it would be okay; but he doesn't, until a few chapters later. The chapter that was supposed to introduce XAML ended up confusing me, only after reading half the book did I grasp the concepts of the XAML chapter.
3.The general use of language, too many brackets, too many references to past and later chapters within the text; it is distracting.

Overall I would advice you to buy the book.

I think of this book as a cookbook without the fat, or a concept book with some meat. The book discusses topics that are often glossed over in introductory books; exactly the types of things that a responsible .NET developer needs to understand to write efficient and stable .NET applications.

Microsoft technology has generated some really good books on software programming over the years. This book is definitely one of them. The difference between this book and the others may lie in the fact that it is published by O'Reilly. This book is devoted to the latest Microsoft technology, but it is really a book that explains the basic principles behind all software programming.

You can read this book and substitute any other language, for example Java, to implement the principles elucidated. Of course, the set of software principles is much vaster than in this book, but there are not too many tomes that concisely and clearly explain the fundamental principles that have to show up in any software application.

And it also shows how elegant a job Microsoft has done with DotNet to implement these ubiquitous principles and make their usage incredibly easy. After the pain and torture of their earlier technology (eg. COM), this shines in contrast. Took me back to the joys of programming in plain old Basic and Visual Basic once upon a time. They must have done something right when the open-source advocates jump to implement their own version of DotNet.

Without any second thought I will place this book among the best books on the subject ever published. I hope everybody will agree that there are only a few books that worth reading from the beginning to the end without skipping a page. To me this is one of those rare books.
The author manages to reflect on broad architectural concepts and yet be extremely specific. He was able to present the most complicated aspects of component oriented programming and the C# language in a very simple, yet concise manner. Many complex issues that may turn off even experienced programmers are described in a way that not only are very well understood, but could easily be migrated into a working program. The author has found an absolutely perfect balance of presenting general architectural aspects of the subject he is discussing and real life implementation techniques.
I truly believe that anybody who is dealing with such aspects (to name but a few) as serialization, asynchronous invocation, multithreading, reflection, events, delegates, deterministic finalization, etc., MUST read this book.
By the way, this author has published another wonderful book on Windows Communication Foundation - "Programming WCF".

A Classic Book that begins it's journey, where all books end. The true difference between a casual programmer and a disciplined programmer is more prominent in his/her code when they start using advanced features of the framework. A true programmer knows his stuff in and out and knows how to leverage the features of the framework effectively in every line of code. And to get to that level of proficiency it takes reading and practicing the concepts on daily basis. And if at all, there is any book out there, that will help you, then it is this book. A definite YES. 5 Stars.

This book is incredibilly well written and has a very comprehensive way of explaining the ways of Component oriented programing. Explains its differences betweent COP and OOP. You can easily understand what the author has in mind, BUT, I found one big flaw on this book. Not that this flaw will make the book less comprehensive, but it will make it less fun.
In all concepts it presents Examples, but not exercises. It explains the features and then give a short example to it. It doesn't stimulate the reader to actually build a code within a major context. You read, see the example and move on to the next topic. It is not fun to just stay around and read and read and read without actually working with the book. It is still a great book, but the approach to the reader could be better.

I was looking for hardback editions for some of my favorite books to add to my library, but didn't want to spend an arm and a leg in the process. This book edition fit the bill pretty well. While not frilly or detailed, the hardback cover and simple, clean printing will stand the test of time and use...all that I could ask for. Plus the navy spine and gold lettering look great on the shelf:)

I purchased the normal Christian life on CD and I have to tell you that is one of the best books I have read I would highly recommend this book too many new believer or even if you've been a believer for a while and are struggling I wish I would've known about this book sooner it answered a lot of my questions. And very detailed. A ++++. I will be getting more of Watchmen Nee's books

I read this book many years ago and have given away many copies. It makes the plan of salvation and Christian life so simple and easy to understand. Should be required reading for every new Christian.

For the newcomer to a relationship with Christ and others who have been living the Christian life, this book addresses several aspects that can be difficult to grapple with and understand.

The author discusses process of salvation and sanctification, in a way that is not only informative, but inspirational and encouraging. For the reader, who is fascinated by the Book of Romans, the writings in this book do an incredible job of developing a type of topography in the book, such that the book can be really explored and mined; however, the book is not a commentary on Romans. Romans may perhaps be the foundational writings, with the author reaching out and drawing upon other related writings in scripture to give the reader a comprehensive view of the material.

When reading this book, don't consider it as an academic read, but treat it is an experience that will strengthen your Christian life. You want to strive to experience what the author is trying to describe. As I read it, I find that while I might run through a book of this size in less than a week, just a matter of days, I have been reading this book for 2 weeks, and I find that it is pulling me into scripture and challenging me to give serious thought to the material, so while you will read the writings of the author, the author is focused on scripture. The writings of the author truly reflect the attitude and mindset of "Less of me and more of Him".

For most believers, understanding and applying Scripture in one's life is not unlike assembling a large puzzle. We are typically mentored through the discovery of the corners. During our early years in the faith we quickly discover and place the side pieces. Then comes the tough part--trying to figure out the middle pieces. On first read, this book appears to contain a marvelous patchwork of insight to the middle of the puzzle--the day-to-day life of an engaged believer. Wow! What a treasure! Someone who can explain in plain language the deeper truths of Scripture!
However, if one looks more than skin deep and you begin to notice something very troubling. Watchman Nee's theology in this book is all over the map. Examples? In the early chapters, prayer is said (correctly) to not be a prerequisite to salvation. [He even correctly addresses Romans 10:10.] In later chapters, prayer is clearly described as a necessary prerequisite. Nee also describes the importance of the indwelling Holy Spirit to the believer, but later flatly states that the Holy Spirit does not indwell the believer until after water baptism.
Clearly, Watchman Nee has some issues with his `corners and sides.' The question you, the reader, must decide is how much credibility Nee's insights into the difficult middle pieces of the puzzle carry if he hasn't yet settled on his corners and sides?
Did, for example, the Holy Spirit reveal to him that the Spirit indwelling did not take place until post-water baptism (thus, denying the Spirit's role as "earnest of our inheritance")? If your answer is no, then what assurance do you have that Nee is correct about anything in the middle of the puzzle?
It's a shame too. I wanted it to be true. I wanted those insights to be the answer. As an evangelical, I must define truth by comparison to Scripture. Nee fails in a very disappointing way in this regard.

I found the book helpful at times and learned some things that I didn't know before, but I was largely not the target audience for this book. If you are relatively adept at using a computer or already have some experience with Pro Tools, then you're probably better off with another book.

I usually don't bother writing reviews but I had to write one about this book. I'm impressed! I would recommend this book for anyone who is getting into Pro Tools. It's a very easy step by step guide, fully illustrated and well written. Kudos Gina!

Most of the rest of the books out there on this subject leave you baffled and frustrated. NOT THIS ONE! It lets you get started right away making music in a fun and painless fashion. A great resource even for a complete neophyte! If you are serious about learning to use Pro-Tools, buy this book!

This is a great 'how to' book for basic Pro Tools operations. I have it perpetually checked out from my local library.

It is very similar to the Officil ProTools 101 Courseware; in fact, they cover much of the same topics. If you are torn between the two, and you are less technically inclined, then this book is probably your best option. The official ProTools book does some with a nice video and some Plug Ins, but those are mostly available on the DigiDesign website.

This was exactly what I was looking for. If you are like me this will work out great for you. I had ProTools M Box for about a month and could not even figure out how to record a sound. These tutorials walk you through everything in a step by step manner. I am half way through chapter 3 and have begun to get a handle on creating and recording tracks. Exactly what I was looking for.

A great handbook showcasing common CSS uses. Will definitely keep this by my side when developing.

This book was not exactly what I expected when I purchased it. I've been working with XHTML for 2 years professionally, but I still hadn't bothered to read up on web standards.

The book is well organized and goes over the basics of HTML elements (ol, ul, em, strong, p, etc...) and does a nice job explaining the benefits of using the most recent standards when selecting an appropriate tag.

Being that I have had experience coding, I'd recommend this book to those will little on hands practice or knowledge of markup. It's an excellent tutorial on the functionality of common HTML tags as well as some of the more obscure ones (code, samp, var, abbr, dl, etc...)

The most beneficial lessons learned in this book, however, is something the novice and experienced coder will appreciate: accessibility. W3C has been pushing the development of accessibility development for awhile. Screen readers and browsers are finally coming of age where such code considerations will set your website above others. Additionally, in professional arenas, accessibility can be a money-maker.

The author does an excellent job of explaining how screen readers and those with disabilities can benefit from more advanced and considerate markup. After all, how it looks matters little when your user cannot see the screen.

This is an excellent book that all web designers should own. When I look at people's sites, I often validate them just out of curiosity, and it is so rare that I ever find a valid site. I always pay attention to validation, and this book just validates (for lack of a better term) my opinions on the importance of following web standards. This book is good for helping with workarounds for certain browsers (cough, IE) that don't support standards that most others do.

This book is split into two distinct sections, the first about markup (HTML) and the second about CSS. I'll admit, I was hesitant about even reading this book as my initial thoughts were "a book about HTML and CSS? Really?" However, this is not a book about HTML. It is a book about using web standards for common HTML tags that are used in non-standard ways. The chapters include Lists, Headings, Tables, Quotations, Forms, Phrase elements, and Anchors. Any web designer should know these tags without further explanation. Each of the chapters answers a specific question and provides four common ways of answering that question pointing out the good and bad of each. Lastly, the chapters end with an extra credit section that provides a little bonus on using the presented tag in alternate ways.

So why, you ask, is this chapter on HTML so interesting? What I liked most about it is that it provides excellent ways of styling and using tags that are, as I said, commonly misused and even sometimes avoided because of the difficulty in styling them. If you review the list of elements I detailed above, most designers may agree that the tags that they struggle with styling the most are forms and their elements. The best tip I pulled from this book was to wrap form elements in a definition list

element. For one, this provides easy ways to align elements, but also still gives a nice layout when styles aren't applied. I havn't developed a form without the

tag since reading this. Additionally, how many designers exactly use the

tag in their sites regularly? Again, since reading this, I find myself using it more and more.

The second section is all about CSS: Applying CSS, Print Styles, Layouts, Styling Text, Image Replacement, and styling the tag. My favorite chapter, and the longest in the section, was all about layouts. Again, it follow the "question and four answers" theme towards both the traditional 2-column and 3-column layouts and makes it very easy to design both. However, it gets better with a nice chapter on multiple Image Replacement techniques to provide nice header images without sacrificing the text for SEO and non-styled versions of the site.

One last bonus the book gives is that it the book ends with a couple pages with links to 20 useful websites for designers, many of which I use myself. Again, this is another Friends of Ed book that I highly recommend, especially for designers focusing on web standards. As the title of my review, I have changed some of the things I do during web design because of this book. I refer back to it constantly. I was hesitant at first, but glad I made the purchase. I love this book.

Web Standards Solutions is reasonably solid title that discusses the benefits and approaches of using web standards in the design of (X)HTML markup. CSS is also covered as a means to remove presentational elements from web page markup. Lists, tables, headings, hyperlinks, forms, quotations and layouts are all covered to a foundational level.

The information covered in the book is especially suited to new web site designers who are yet to understand these concepts. Web application developers - who might not focus their craft on the quality of their markup, would also benefit greatly. For others already possessing an basic understanding of semantic markup and presentation through CSS, the book might contain a few useful tips only.

Throughout each chapter the book doggedly follows a pattern that can become tedious. For each chapter, non-standards approaches are considered before the 'correct' standards based approach is shown. After this the 'extra credit' portion of the chapter provides practical applications of the given solution. Whereas the correct solution and extra credit sections are useful, the repetition of the defective non-standard approaches for in every chapter is sometimes repetitive and slightly contrived, and could be discussed more casually as required without dominating the format of every chapter.

Having said that, the book is easily read, has examples and practical applications, covers the breadth of the topic well and could certainly be used to bring anyone up to speed on the basics of standards-based approaches to the web page markup development.

I NEVER write reviews; however Mr. Troelsen for this effort has earned it. He has written by far one of the best written tech books on C programming I've ever read, and for COM/ATL this book makes writing interfaces for VB both understandable and accessible. Coverage and background is sufficient, and equally important for those who don't do this every day for a living, the depth in setting up projects in Visual Studio is also there so one unfamiliar with technical setup issues involved in setting up an ATL COM project are enabled to create their own. All I can say is well done, please keep up the good work, very much appreciated. Looking forward to your next releases.

Sincerely,
Dr. Mathew G. Pelletier, Research Engineer

This book is the perfect example of a good "Computer" book: It teaches what it needs to teach in a way you understand.
It covers all the important stuf like BSTRs, Smart Pointers, DCOM, TLBs, IDLs and other buzz-like acronyms.
I used it as an only reference for learning COM and I was doing complex COM projects within weeks. Andrew Troelsen is 'the man'!

Best regards,

Describe low level COM and then ATL internals and interfaces which can let reader easily understand such complex mechanism. Though the book is a little bit old, it can still be served as a good reference.

Apart from the fact that so many customers gave 5 stars to this book, there's another indicator of its value: it looks like nobody wants to resell it after they are done reading it. I, for one, intend to keep it for reference...

I've been programming in C# for a few years, and now I needed to learn COM. This book was the best tech manual I've ever read.

My recommendation is: if you need to learn COM, do not waste your money on any other book until you've read this one.

My current project at work required me to learn COM. I purchased several books to assist in the learning, and I must say that this book is absolutely indispensible, both as an instructional medium and as a reference. I highly recommend this book to anyone needing to learn about COM.

What's inside? It starts with a basic intro to COM, useful (dare I say it) for managers as well as the developer to get the big picture. Then it goes into a discussion of ATL and design patterns. This second section is incredibly important since ATL is for COM as STL is for C++. It finishes off with some of the more advanced areas of study in COM. Only a few advanced topics are not covered (custom marshalling for one), but considering it starts from an assumed ignorance of COM, it does reach a good level of detail.

Who am I? I studied computer science in University. However, I had never previously developped on Windows. I am primarily a C++ programmer, with some experience with Java. Knowledge of C++ (I would say more than just a familiarity) should be a prereq. to reading, but that's about it. It introduces most OO topics you need in the first chapters that most experienced developers can probably skip.