Personal Development Books

Boy, was I disappointed with this book. It's clearly aimed at housewifes and house husbands. Almost nothing about organizing paperwork, calendar, your office...etc. This was an utter waste of time for me.

One Year to an Organized Life: From Your Closets to Your Finances, the Week-by-Week Guide to Getting Completely Organized for Good Good book. Haven't had time to put it to use yet, but am planning on moving, so I'll be able to start from scratch.

This author really knows her stuff. As a long-time sufferer of adult ADD, I am always interested in tools to keep my household organized, not to mention my life. The monthly projects are great, not too overwhelming. The only problem is...I read the book 3 months ago and it is still on my nightstand because I like the way it looks there!

This book has great ideas. It gives good examples of how to organize certain spaces. You don't have to start organizing on January 1st. You can jump in any day of the year. It's a nice motivating tool.

This is a great book when you need a bit of help with the mess you are in... It breaks up the disorder into orderly projects, which are fun to do and easy to follow. And it gives you the very positive feeling about the house and the chores you have to do to make it your home.

Ouspensky's philosophy may seem dated to some, but is interesting within its historical context. At the early part of the century, physics, psychology, technologies and arts such as cinema, etc. were coming into the public consciousness. Through the mediums of the phonograph, the photograph, and the film, time and space were fractured - one didn't need to be somewhere to experience something. Our understanding of the nature of the universe had been undermined by physicists and mathematicians such as Planck and Einstein. Moreover, theosophy had a large audience (a result of these factors, to an extent). Within this mileau Ouspensky penned his work describing, to a large degree, how our perception played into things. There is a fantastic section in the book where he describes (a very film-reel-like) rotating circle and how it would be perceived by someone in a one-, two-, three-, and four-dimensional world. Then he explains that these perceptions could exist side-by-side, that it isn't the physical world that changed, but merely the perception. Given how the world seemed to be changing radically due to an increasing understanding of it (or at least our models of it), such a conclusion, while elegant and genius in its own right, seems plausible.

Ouspensky's interesting background helps explain his insight - he is an early "out-of-the-box" thinker. He was a mathematician (logic, models, etc.) who was influenced by/a follower of Gurdjieff the mystic (a bit of the opposite of math, I'm afraid). Moreover, Gurdjieff, or at least interest in him and his teachings, have a lot to do with Ouspensky sticking around to the extent he has. People have explored him via their interest in Gurdjieff or later followers. That is a shame, because I think that Ouspensky's ideas are worth consideration on their own. If some seem dated, ridiculous, or quaint, look at the work of some of his contemporaries that are held in high regard (Freud comes to mind here).

Another reason to consider this book, however, is its influence on a small number of influential people. For example, the American poet Hart Crane was influenced by Ouspensky's Tertium Organum, and some references can be seen in his epic poem "The Bridge" (though they may be confused with some of the Blake references/influences).

Overall, I recommend the book. I found it challenging at times, but worthwhile reading. I especially think that scholars of Modernism and/or Gurdjieff will find interesting material in it. At the very least, it may change your perception of what people were thinking and discussing in the early 20th century.

I agree with the previous review. The math is faulty, the philosophy the same. Ouspensky is a hack. This book is a mere curiosity, nothing more! Reader beware: The Fellowship of Friends, an international cult uses Ouspenskian philosophy as its centerpiece!

Ouspensky's book impresses upon the reader with remarkable scope and sophistication just how vast and strange our universe really is. Exhaustive, penetrating and wholly satisfying.

This book takes concentration to read - So do most books concerning logic and mathematics. However, it is well worth the effort and time. Anyone trying to understand the nature of the universe and cosmic consiousness will find this book to be most insightful and helpful.

I wrote a longer review, but it got deleted. So I'm writing a short one and hope to post a longer one later. I believe Ouspensky should not be taken seriously, because there are parts in this book where he treats objective subjects like mathematics and makes grave errors in reasoning to support his ideas. This is more disturbing in light of the fact he is called a mathematician. He mentions Aristotle, Bacon, and Einstein, but this does not mean his thought is on par with theirs. The fallacies in his logic cannot be excused by saying that people in his time were naive. After all, Einstein must have understood his own theory of relativity. Ouspensky even makes a mistake to the effect of, "If a square has length x, then it has area x to the xth power." (It should be x squared.) If his mathematics cannot be taken seriously, why should his philosophy?

I didn't like this book. It does not go into the individual concepts enough. I found it to be really unhelpful. And sorry, but my desk already has a paperweight. And I have issues about spending any amount of money for what amounts to a bound version of copied paper. The entire book was a very poor zerox copy.

I just opened up the OOP section and noticed that the diagrams that are in the book appear to be photocopied. One diagram shows an inheritance relationship between some banking objects. There are nine objects in the diagram and you CAN NOT see the lines bordering each object, nor the lines between the objects. Most of the other line diagrams are fuzzy and not solid (imagine taking a faint line drawing and photocopying it). Two big thumbs down on printing quality. As for the material, I have read about 3-4 paragraphs, so I can't comment on it. I am seriously considering returning it since some of the diagrams are unreadable.

OK. I am an experienced C/C++ programmer, so you have to keep in mind that this review will be based on my background. The book is OK. That's why I gave it a 3, but it's nothing more. It is very basic. It has good explanation of the basics, but nothing more. And my opinion is that if you are a C/C++ programmer you really don't need the C# basics. They are just so similar. The thing I hate the most about this book is that it doesn't go into depth at all. Some concepts are not explained very well either. I actually wish that I hadn't bought this book. I am yet to see a good C# book.

Very well written book that will help anyone at any level learn C#. I've read many books on C# and this one is the best - hands down.

A good introductory book - if you already have a good background in C/C++. Otherwise, you'd be struggling and may need some other really basic books to complement your reading.

Most books have erratas and this book is no exception. However, it is minimal and acceptable.

This book delivers exactly what it promises - an excellent overview of essential .NET Framework. Easy to read format, good chapters on IL,Framework,COM+ Interop. Unfortunately very little or no .NET serialization, memory management or threading. But a lot of information for the size of this book. Gives excellent foundation to learn upon.

I went to my local bookstore to get a functional understanding of ".NET". My previous readings had been hit and miss and provided little understanding of the new platform.

This book provided that understanding. The writeups on the CLR, assemblies, garbage collection, net components, web services, etc. were skeletal but quite good. I came away with some understanding of what .NET is, why it was developed and why I believe it should leapfrog Java in the web development world.

It wasn't an easy read since it provided good understanding with little detail, and takes some thought; but again, it serves it's purpose well.

Very well written primer on the .Net framework, internal workings of the CLR and language fundamentals. Great book.

As the title says, this book gives the essentials of the .NET framework. It is not an exhaustive treatment, rather, it touches on the main features of .NET. The book assumes that the reader is fluent in object-oriented and component-based programming. Overall, the book was fairly well written with the main features of the .NET framework being clearly explained. The book has no distractive "fluff" in it, so one can easily dive into learning about .NET. The authors give an overview of .NET, and then present a description of the common language runtime (CLR). The common programming model and working with .NET components follow. XML data and web services are clearly explained with a lot of code snippets being given. The book concludes with chapters on ASP, Windows Forms, and mobile devices. The appendices are useful, as sometime acronyms aren't defined in the main text, but are explained in the appendix.

Overall, I found the book well written. The coverage of topics is actually fairly decent. The authors have done a good job of focusing on the essential aspects of .NET. If you're looking for a book that gives gives an overview of the heart of .NET, this is a good book. If you're looking for an exhaustive reference, than you'll probably want something else.

IMHO, OReilly tends to have the best technology books (I own many) but this book isn't one of them. This book is lightweight even as an introduction. This book is certainly fine for managers, senior architects, and business types, but if you plan to design and write software I recommend Jeff Prosise's "Programming Microsoft .NET" and Jeffrey Richter's "Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming", though a bit dated, both cover the .NET framework essentials and then some.

If you've read My Old Man and the Sea, this book will disappoint.

It's the author's diary of a year on a fifty-acre wilderness island off the coast of Nova Scotia. Where My Old Man documents a voyage by a couple of guys around Cape Horn in a small homebuilt sailboat with no motor, this book is a thin account of a not-so-perilous episode.

It is too short. The diary entries cover just a fraction of the calendar's dates. Annoyingly, the entries are in the present tense - "Wendy is oiling the floor while listening to one of my favorite Partridge Family CDs."

Quotations from Thoreau lard the chapter heads. The author's reminiscences of his youth and early manhood don't work. I gained no insights knowing the author takes Prozac or that one of his best sexual encounters was on top of a college library's information desk.

We could have used a detailed topographic map of the island, pictures of fog and exploding surf, the dogs, the house, the wife and son, the lobstering neighbors. We could have enjoyed some words on isolation and simplicity's impact on personality drawn from other diaries and even from anthropologists recounting their time in fishing communities.

This is nothing more than a personal blog in book form.

I bought this book thinking that the author was going to describe his activities while living on an island in Nova Scotia in a self sustaining manner. He doesn't. He purchases an island, moves there with his wife and step son, and then publishes his daily notes concerning his moods, relationships (which are not always pleasant), and how he passes the time. He regularly motors to the mainland to buy food and do laundry. They grow nothing, except a failed attempt at sod (SOD?). He fires off a hundred or so shotgun shells, and kills two ducks. Most of the local food is provided by his mainland neighbors. I would have much rather read about their lives than his. At times he waxes philosophical about the evils and pitfalls of our society, especially television. Then he states he has a heavy chemical dependency. This is not one of the better "how I did it on my own" books that I've read.

Daniel Hays, who happens to own an Island off the shore of Nova Scotia, apparently became disenchanted with his life and was able to talk his wife into joining him for one year, with their child (actually, Daniel's step son), and two dogs, and live on this remote hunk of rock. I have to admit I enjoyed ever word of the story of their adventure there.

Hays has an easy style to his writing that keeps the story going in a pleasing way. I note that this work has come under some criticism for various reason, some, somewhat justified, some so far out in left field, that I am not sure if the reviews and I read the same book. The author does do a very good job of relating the different attitude that he and his wife take as to this adventure. Yes, they do look at it a bit differently. This is as it should be. To somehow get the impression that the author has less than a good opinion of women is stretching things a bit. If you want to take that route, then the same thing could be said of his wife's attitude toward men. Part of this story is about the relationship between a husband and wife in a situation which is not the greatest. People are going to act differently to situations, and gender has little to do with it. I enjoyed the writer's honesty. He did not gloss over their little arguments and was honest enough to admit that not all was peaches and cream. Again, that is as it should be.

Hays does spend quite a bit of paper contemplating the meaning of his life. Many of his views I certainly do not share, but hey, this was not MY story, it was his. Just because I would have done things differently and just because I may perceive the situations that came up differently, and acted accordingly, does not lessen the author's work, or, its validity. Actually, I rather enjoyed this aspect of the book. I found myself repeatedly asking, "now what would I have done had I been in the author's shoes?" I suspect you could take twenty people and come up with twenty different answers.

The author does have the ability to laugh at himself. There is no "back to nature chest beating" here. He, Hays, told it more or less the way it was. He allowed us to see his families' experience, warts and all. He allows us to see himself, warts and all. The author is indeed flawed, but there is no attempt made to cover this up or justify. I loved his description of the family dogs and their adventures and their relationship with their human partners. Anyone who lives with dogs will appreciate this.

All in all, this was a pleasing read. The author certainly did not do things the way I would have done them, and certainly received his motivation from sources which I could not relate to, but that is fine. We are all different, and again, that is as it should be.

Don't pick this book up expecting to read about a Rambo type of guy against the wilderness, or a family of disenfranchised hippies wanting to live off the land and weave baskets or, well...you get the point. It is a fun read, a different read, enjoy it for what it is, a year in the life of a man, woman, young boy and two dogs. Note: Had it been me, I would certainly have at least started on a warm island and not a frozen hunk of rock. But then I am getting old and truly hate cold weather.

On Whale Island is my top pick of books read for the year. Neither my husband or I could put it down. Boldly honest and pee your pants funny, the book lived a fantasy that I've had in my heart for as long as I can remember. But beyond all the humor, the book raises the big questions about how we choose to live our lives. This book's a keeper and one to be reread.

Dan Hays captured the spirit of Whale Island very well. As someone who appreciates the nature writing genre, I was impressed by his graphic descriptions of the scenery and of events as they unfolded. Maybe the biggest compliment of all is that it rarely dawned on me that Dan Hays was working on the book each day, as the story unfolded; in other words, I became entirely engrossed in the story of a small family living their lives on an island off the Canadian coast.

Dan Hays might also be recognized for his honesty. I appreciated the way -- both positive and negative -- that he let himself, his wife and his son come through. All this adds up, in my mind, to a very realistic and engaging story.

This book is for beginners they know nothing of spirituality. I would recommend the Science of Success over this one by the same author.

The Audio CD was great and have learnt a lot from what James Ray has to offer especially on how to start my journey.

I review a chapter a week with my staff and they get mad at me if we don't have time to discuss a chapter. It has brought our team closer and they are bringing in inspirational quotes and buying self-help books without my prodding. GREAT BOOK with a lot of meat.

Practical spirituality was a good read and is pretty much a overview for attaining a deeply spiritual life. Although the content was very interesting and gave insight of who you should be and what it's like, it wasn'y very helpful in how to actually get the results. Apart from that i enjoyed reading it and devoured it quite quickly.

I first learned about James Ray a year before his association with The Secret book and Law of Attraction principles. I knew he had been on Larry King and was known as a Life Coach who talked about prosperity and the law of attraction. I also became aware that he was into spirituality and considered himself a practical mystic. After I wrote my own book on the Law of Attraction in 2007, Beyond the Secret: Spiritual Power and the Law of Attraction, I was interested to see that this book by James Ray included the words Spiritual Power in his sub-title. So, I purchased this book curious to learn more about him and his views.

First, I got the book at Barnes & Nobel (sorry Amazon) and paid the full price of $24.95. Considering the thin size of the book I was a bit shocked at the price. It is only 140 pages long and books that go for that price are usually 250 - 300 or more pages in length! But, I wanted to see what he said, so I purchased it anyway. (By the way, Amazon.com is cheaper and to be honest I would have felt best if I had bought it here as a used or "like new" book for a lot less money).

Price aside, I was pleased with the content. The book is outlined as a series of 29 tips with a three to four pages of recommendations about each tip. Tips from the Table of Contents include: Transcend the Ego, Less is More, Be Unique, Just Be, Find Comfort in Discomfort, and so on. What I liked best about these tips was how congruent they were with what I also consider to be a practial approach to spirituality. Ray's advice is full of wisdom and insight that can only be ascertained by someone who is attempting to actually live a spiritual life. It let me know that Ray is someone who is walking the walk and not just talking the talk. This gives what he writes a level of authenticity which for a savvy reader like me is a requirement (and is useful for those who may not have read a lot of spiritual books).

And, I truly believe that anyone who follows the advice Ray gives in this book will experience a more meaningful and powerful life based on an ability to stand on your own in life as an authentic, dynamic, and powerful human being in a truly spiritual way. On a totally different note, it also left me wondering about Ray's affiliation with the popular The Secret book. I say this because as this book by Ray reveals, he seems in alignment with principles that go way beyond the hype and materialistic view that was the main presentation of The Secret. Hey, I understand, it was a hugely successful book and anyone who was included in it got a marketing boost. It's just I believe you will discover what James Ray is really all about by reading this book, which is much more in alignment with the teachings in my own book, Beyond the Secret, which states that the "real secret" in life has nothing to do with the law of attraction, which can be used in a selfish, or selfless way. The "real secret" has to do with what kind of person you become while you are here. Practical Spirituality and James Ray give you that kind of guidance. It was a pleasure to learn more about him. And a gift to read this powerful and rewarding book.

Other reviewers of this book who have suggested that it has the wrong title are correct. It should have been titled 'A Developer's Introduction to .NET'. It touches on a lot but barely skims the surface of anything. I bought it as a web designer wanting to get into ASP.NET, but the chapter on ASP.NET was just a tedious walkthrough of creating a web form, with pages and pages of minute instructions - add this control, then this one etc. - when all that space could have been devoted to explaining the core concepts.

The book is poorly written, haphazardly organised and plagued by small errors. One example:
'Visual Basic, for all intensive purposes, has arrived, and it's just as powerful and flexible as any other .NET language.' (Does he mean 'for all intents and purposes??') Then two paragraphs later: 'Furthermore, because VB lacks flexibility and power...' Where was the editor?

Another perpetually annoying error is the author's continually referring to 'diminishing' a variable in VB, when the correct term is 'dimensioning'. A small point, but one that adds to the perception of a lack of care.

For someone wanting the quick heads-up on .NET, then maybe, otherwise, avoid it.

As a Visual Basic user from many years ago I bought this book to help me get to grips with the daunting IDE that Visual Studio presents. The danger for a new user is missing the fabulous new Wizards and other time saving things that are pre-built into VS but are sometimes tricky to find for the uninitiated.

This book discusses .NET in detail but to be fair I knew about .NET's principles before. What I wanted was a guide to USING VISUAL STUDIO. And this is really not it. As an overall handy text for a newbie to .NET it is great but I don't think the title is right.

The title, "The Book of Visual Studio .NET," is misleading. The book is not an in-depth guide to using Visual Studio and barely touches on extending and customizing Visual Studio. A better title would have been "A Developer's Accelerated Introduction To .NET." It assumes the reader is a working developer, new to .NET, and moves at a brisk pace. Only one of twelve chapters focuses on the Visual Studio tools although Visual Studio is used throughout to design, code, compile, run, and trouble-shoot examples for nearly every topic. After brief disappointment (I wanted a Visual Studio handbook), I read the book cover to cover and learned something in each chapter after more than two years of heavy reading and significant development effort with .NET. If I taught a course on .NET, this would be my text!

Most of the .NET landscape is explored in the 369 pages - including: Visual Studio, the .NET framework and CLR, VB.NET, Windows forms, web forms, web services, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, XML, and COM interoperability. But C# and C++ are given almost no space.

Design and code samples are numerous and are no longer than needed to demonstrate the essential concepts. You will want to be sitting at your computer with a full deck of .NET available - Visual Studio, IIS, and SQL Server. The code can be downloaded.

This is probably an ideal book for someone crossing over from the Java world or moving on from older Micsrosoft technologies. If you are quite expert in other OOP technologies but new to .NET, two days with this book will get you started on your first .NET project or prepare you for a .NET job interview.

This is the author's first book; he is an experienced system architect working in .NET and COM. The publisher, No Starch Press, is small and new but headed by one of the Apress (serious books for serious people) founders. Their site suggests a bunch of San Francisco guys willing to put away their Linux and Java for a grudging review of the enemy's (Microsoft's) armored division. But I could still hear one of them say, "Microsoft .NET is not even in use within one hundred miles."

Nothing was too hard and nothing was too easy. Definitely no starch!

Excellent example of practical uses of Enterprise Services. This isn't the focus of the book but I was pleasantly surprised to find this nugget.

All-in-all, this is a useful book. I would recommend it to anyone trying to get up to speed with Visual Studio.NET quickly or anyone wanting to get an introductory feel for the scope of many things that can be accomplished with this programming environment.

The downside is that the book has quite a few errors, though most are of the typographical style. However, due to the large amount of code he presents, some occur in the code also, and it can't be executed until they are fixed. Most bugs prove no challenge to a relatively experienced programmer, but an absolute newbie might be frustrated. In a way, though, these light errors provide an opportunity to explore the debugging capabilities of VS.NET - was that the point? :)

This book also assumes you know something about the tools you'll be using outside of VS.NET like SQL Server and such.

As I said, overall a very nice introduction to VS.NET. Just don't expect it to exhaustively cover every topic. The author himself states this in the end when he says "Your next step should be to focus on each of these technologies, either by investigating MSDN further, studying books that specialize in specific technologies such as ADO.NET or ASP.NET, or simply building your own applications."

Hope this helps...

This book has proved to be very useful to me.. Its is full of information and teaches you the things you need to learn and understand and then at the end of each chapter it has an assignment for you to do.. If you are a solitary and learning I believe you will find it excellent.. However there are 2 books before it that you need and I need..
I highly recommend this one

This book really seems like it should have been written before the first Green Witchcraft. And this book goes along with the first Green Witchcraft and not the second one. It also constantly refers back to the first Green Witchcraft, which, in this book, is refered to as "the text". This book is very much a course with different lessons every chapter. All in All a pretty good book. I look forward to reading Ann Moura's newest book, Green Magick.
Blessed Be!

I remember the first time I read Ms. Moura's first book "Green WitchCraft". It was a deeper connection for me to the "Kitchen Witch" and "Earth Mother"parts of the eclectic path that I have melded and adopted as my own path. It was well written and practical. I found it basically explains Ms. Moura's Tradition of "Green WitchCraft" for those not familiar with it, and is a good place to start on this particular path.

Her "Green WitchCraft II" book covers the balance of nature, the play of shadows and of light. This is probably one of the best books on the subject of balance, and the two sides of nature. I especially enjoyed the meditations, and she did not disappoint me in this book either.

Her "Green WitchCraft III" book, subtitled "The Manual" covers the earlier material in text book form and is for those who are serious about following the Green Path.

Here Ms. Moura presents, in lesson form, the basic tenants of Green WitchCraft and gives step by step instruction on how to make this path your own. Her classes are laid out in a well thought format and the material is easy to understand and follow. She gives questions and answers following each class, pointing out the important material and encouraging the reader to think about the subjects covered. I love a book that gives you the opportunity to think.

For those who really enjoyed her previous Green WitchCraft books and want to adopt this path as your own or make this your primary path, this book will become the handbook for you. Those who are solitary will find it indispensable and those who teach will find they can use this book as a handbook for this particular path.

Green WitchCraft is a path well defined by Ms. Moura in her first and second books, and is completed here in her manual.

I just recently purchased this book, its excellent.. Has loads of information in it and is so very intune with what I was looking for.. I recommend it to anyone starting out...goddess bless

Very interesting material.. also it goes hand in hand with the Grimoire for the green witch.

CAVEAT: This is not a book for Visual Studio spoon-fed types. Guess what? there are many other IDEs besides VS out there. (IDE - Integrated Development Environment). So if you're addicted to using VS and you're opposed to some mental gymnastics, this is probably not the book for you.
I like and use VS but Petzold's IDE neutral approach forced me to figure out many things about VS and Windows that I didn't know before. And to delineate between them.
Visual Studio issue aside, Petzold's writing style and code examples are so very well thought out and insightful. The focus is on applying graphics functions to Windows forms. This is a way to explore "under the hood" of windows programming without delving into DB, data IO and user interface issues. Since I have an interest in graphics programming anyway, I was totally pleased with the topic emphasis.
Excellent discussion of and application of Object Oriented Design. Petzold is just plain fun to read. Yes, the previous statement reveals that I am a total programming geek.
If you read both C# and VB, choose the VB version. Petzold says in the forward that he refined the conceptual content as he was rewriting the original C# book for VB.NET.

Petzold makes it clear that programming means coding, not dragging and dropping. And that should make it obvious why Wanna-Be-Coders won't like this one very much. With this reader, you actually learn programming at a very high and pure level, which makes it one of the best books on coding money can buy.

I don't have much patience for cry babies who claim the book is recycled crap - they don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about. Now, if the real McCoy is too tough for you, why don't you stay with VB6 or switch to Delphi? Better yet, give up on programming altogether and do something easier - like knitting.

Want to code bit mapped circles and arcs? Want to re-invent "pong?" This is your book. Want to code business aplications - this book is a waste. There is more attention paid by the author to "Fun With Fonts" than to things that have been significantly improved in .NET like TreeView.
I get the sense Petzold wrote the original content for this book back in the 80's and has re-cycled it one time too many.
The title of the book inferred a little bit of help in using VB.NET to tap into the new Window's .NET Framework. It does - but it sticks to the things you could do in the Windows API several years ago. IMHO, in 2004 we are way beyond lines, curves, brushes, pens, images and bitmaps.
This is another author going through the motions and updating old content.

This is the best book I have ever had. I have used Sams Reach Yourself Visual Basic.Net and Sams Teach yourself more Visual Basic.Net. But, this helped me aply my programing to windows better and I was able to have more fun

Charles Petzold has been writing Windows programming books since the year one. He knows his subject and how to get it across to his readers. This is not intended to be another in an already long series of books on VB data base programming for the enterprise. Rather it is a clear exposition of VB.NET Windows programming with an emphasis on the inner workings of Windows. It will prepare its readers to create their own structures from the building blocks offered by the .NET Framework. It has excellent sections which explain how Windows paints and draws objects and others on how to use the built-in graphics functionality of Windows in your own projects. It is probably not for rank beginners. A useful complement, in a different style, is Francesco Balena's "Programming Microsoft Visual Basic .NET".

No detailed coverage of the Progress Bar control. Reason: so that multithreading and concurrency could be avoided. It is a common GUI programming task to allow a user to cancel a long running operation while keeping the GUI updated and responsive. However, this requires spawning off a separate thread to handle the long-running operation. That thread must also be able to communicate with the main GUI thread. This must be performed carefully but it is easily done by experienced GUI programmers. You won't get coverage of that with this book. Good luck....

BT

I've "grown up" in programming working exclusively with the Web, and recently moved into the very unfamiliar world of desktop development. This is a fantastic piece of work that gives you a very high-level view of the major concepts and considerations you'll need when attempting to conquer the world of Windows Forms.<br/><br/>

The book starts out with a brief discussion of some of the more visual aspects of great UI design, which, as author Matthew MacDonald describes, is as much technical as aesthetic. It then dives right into the major concepts of WinForms - forms and controls, and many of the secrets and tips on using them to create familiar, effective UIs for your apps. Examples are alternate ways of achieving drag-and-drop functionality for on-form controls, creating floating toolbars for and maintaining synchronicity in MDI apps. <br/><br/>

It's very real, very practical, and very easy to grasp. <br/><br/>

I was found MacDonald only mentioning certain class members for each of the controls, and the "members" tables listed in the book don't explicitly break the members down into properties, methods and events, which clouds a newbie's learning of a new set of classes and their functionality for the first time. That's about the only criticism I have with the title. <br/><br/>

The book's finest moment is evident in what has got to be one of the best written chapters on the often-complex topic of working with data and databinding in WinForms. It's thorough, yet easy on the brain in terms of laying out how to work with binding in simple and complex environments. <br/><br/>

The book isn't a primer on C# or on programming in general, so the code snippets are largely piecemeal, abstracted modules of much larger Windows Forms and components. But this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The book is for absolute novices. I haven't found anything of use for intermediate (and above) windows developers.

Maybe my expectations were wrong, but I was looking for more of a best practices book.

i still can't believe it--that anyone would write a comprehensive book on windows user interfaces and forget to mention the RichTextBox control. The author devoted 3 pages to the Textbox control, but said virtually nothing about one of the the most powerful text display controls.
As said by another reviwer, there is nothing here on threading either. This book deserves 3 stars but no more because it is incomplete.
That said, I still must commend the author for a well written book that flows from one chapter to the next.
If you must get this book, bear in mind that you will have to look elsewhere to cover the omitted areas.

I'm finding this book to be a tremendous leg up in transitioning to .Net from VB6. For an experienced programmer trying to move from VB language functions to .Net object methods, this book strikes the right balance in showing and describing how to use the .Net control objects. It supposes you've used each control before, and need a reliable introduction to how to employ the .Net replacement.

MSDN has all the technical details you want, but is lacking in the kind of "big picture" overviews of a control. This book provides that invaluable introduction.

It seems to me this encapsulates most of the knowledge it takes to consider onself an experienced .Net developer. And yes, there are VB to C# copy and paste errors, but this isn't really a C# book so much as a .Net book. And a very fine one, I'm finding.