Albright College Books

In a class where learning VBA was a sink-or-swim endeavor, this book is a real life-saver.

This is not an advanced book. Most of the references are very generic in nature and utilize approaches that I've have used previously. I didnt get much out of this book.

The biggest problem that I see with learning VBA is not trying to figure out topics such as object hierarchy, syntax, or "if" statements (there are plenty of excellent VBA guides for that!) No, figuring out what to do with all of the "stuff" you just learned is the bigger challenge.

That is where Mr. Albright's book really stands out. While the first few chapters do provide some basic treatment of VBA, it's the other half of this book that really shines! Here you will find 16 full-blown programs that cover everything from industrial applications (process blending, product mix, production scheduling, etc.) to financial analysis programs (stock trading, portfolio optimization, etc) and much more.

In these 16 chapters is where you will learn to use all that "stuff." And not only use it, but get creative with it. Mr. Albright has done a brilliant job at not only walking through the code step-by-step, but also imparting to the reader the all important "why component." After spending some time with this book, you will undoubtedly be a better technical, and equally important, creative programmer.

This book is excellent for the person who simply wants to expand their ability to use Excel without becoming a VBA expert. Most books on VBA seem to be written for computer professionals who, for example, seem to want to know about every data type that can be handled before learning anything else. Most of us would rather just learn how to do the things we need to do. This book uses this much more useful route (for ordinary folks)and tells us how to do the basic kind of stuff that we need to do (and that isn't at all obvious how to do): Key topics are accessing data in a range of a worksheet, outputting data to a range, writing a function, etc. etc. It only tells you what you need to know and it explains it all clearly. I had banged my head against a wall before finding this book and it answered all my questions and dissipated all my frustrations. I've recommended it to many of my friends.

I am a little surprised at the high rating that this book seems to get from the current 13 reviewers but, then again, these are probably memebers of the books target audience. When Albright refers to "modelers" in his title he is constraining the definition very tightly to those in the business world who develop models for "management science". This book has little to do with the more general concept of modelling as it might be found in the physical sciences, engingineering, the social sciences and anything else you can think of outside of management science.

What is good about this book is that it provides a fairly basic introduction to VBA in the first part in a nicely laid out fashion. It then goes on to develop example code targeted very specifically at the management science student or professional. I think this is an admirable approach and this book is probably very useful to the "management scientist" who wishes to learn VBA as it is implemented in Microsoft Excel. It is also quite nicely written. I think that within its target market this is a book that could be recommended. However, if you are not into business modelling or don't make extensive use of the Solver Add-In that ships with Microsoft Office then this book is probably not for you.

Again, I wish to emphasise that this book is very tightly focused on a particular type of VBA developer: i.e. the "management science" specialist who makes extensive use of spreadsheets. As I said, the introduction to VBA programming is well laid out but there are better texts and this one is really very basic (excuse the pun). The scope of the book is not broad so don't expect to learn a lot about much of VBA that does not fall within the fairly narrow constraints of business modelling.

For a general introduction to VBA programming that is far more wide reaching than this book try one of the editions of Walkenbachs "Power Programming with VBA". If you are already competent in VBA or VB programming and want a good reference book on VBA with excellent examples and a very far reaching scope then there is nothing better than the Wrox books by Bullen et al: my "Excel 2002 VBA" serves as an irreplacable reference bible even after 4 years and an upgrade to Excel itself.

I am not a "management science" professional. I have been developing a number of fairly extensive specialist VBA Add-Ins as a scientist/engineer for several years now and I can honestly say that this book taught me nothing new. I didn't actually find anything wrong in any of the text or code that I studied but from my point of view the code examples are highly repetetive and very simple (definitely aimed at the novice VBA programmer). Possibley a great book for management scientists wanting to learn VBA but others can find far better in terms of both introductory texts and advanced programming texts.

For mangement scientists wanting to learn VBA I would give this five stars but for all other Excel users, or potential users, of VBA I can only give it one star.

It was the text book the professor wanted me to buy.
It was good.

The book is very good with really good explanations and examples on descriptive analysis and inferential analysis.

On the positive side, this book has many excellent case studies and examples. It is well written and interesting. However, I was disappointed, as I was expecting use of Excel to rigorously solve decision making and data analysis problems. The focus of the book is mostly traditional statistics solved using a group of commercial add-ins for Excel. If this is what you want, then the book would get five stars. However, for data analysis and decision making, I think a more thorough treatment using Excel without relying so much on the add-ins would have been appropriate.

I find the text and software a useful set of tools. It assumes familiarity with basic statistics and Excel, and builds on them to develop a powerfull ability to analize data and make decisions from it. I experienced no trouble with the software install or operation.

The text book is great. I have many of Winston's other books and they are all great. The Palisade stuff works just fine. However, the StatPro Addin that accompanies this text does not work with MS Excel 2000. I contacted the IT guy that the authors directed me to--he was stumped. He just gave up and suggested I return my book for a refund because he could not figure out it out. Again, the book is great but the StatPro Addin sucks!

I was very happy with my purchase. The book was in perfect condition, shipped quickly, and cost much less than my university's bookstore.

It is full of errors. The explanations are difficult to follow. There are few highlights in the text which makes scanning for a quick review impossible. There is no chapter summary. The book presumes a thourough knowledge of Excel which many students do not have. Stay away!

By incorporating Microsoft Excel spreadsheet examples of the problems, the authors have managed to make self-study management science possible. I'm absolutely convinced this is the best way to learn MS.
Anyone that has responsibility for making business decisions should keep a copy of this text nearby.

Previous reviews inspired me for the purchase. This book is NOT MBA material. I would rate it at Business 101 book. Most spreadsheet models are basically the same using the SOLVER function in excel. There are better tutorials online.

Used this book in B-school and loved modeling using @Risk (@Risk is the modelling software that comes with the book - pretty much self intuitive). My only complain with this book is that it was very focused on getting to the answer fast than really exaplaining the process and modeling techniques. After doing few examples you start to develop the intuition ... but I feel that the author could have done a better work in explaing the process behing modeling.

My stereotype of accounting texts before taking an accounting class and using this book was they were all focused on the mechanics of accounting, which are dull to most students. This textbook, on the other hand, emphasizes the usefulness of accounting in the real world before delving into all the rules and regimentation. Therefore, some subjects, like debts and credits, receive less attention than they might deserve, especially for serious accounting students. The textbook's diagrams are quite colorful and useful, and its language is simple enough for your average student to understand. Hence, I recommend the book to any introductory-level business student, but I think that more serious accounting students might prefer a more advanced or in-depth textbook.

Disappointed with the comments from the seller, believed to be unused new, actually previously used with writing in it. Will buy new next time from a seller with a proven track record.

Received in about 14 days from the US to Japan. Had a slight delay in shipping but book came well within time period and in perfect condition.

If you have been out of accounting for a while or starting from scratch it is a good book to start with. Of course the main focus is of getting an overview for the balanced sheet, income statement and cash flow. For someone who is starting in accounting the section F2 gives an inside for financial interpretation and another good point is a lot of cases and calculation examples are included in this revision. But if you are looking for a more deeper insight than this book will only help you the half way to get their.

If this book is required for your class beware! There are still questions in the self study questions, through out the book that after 6 editions are still are wrong. The book will say one thing in the chapter and then want you to do another in the chapter questions, without the benifit of telling you how or giving an example. I took my course online without the benifit of an instructor to ask questions face to face. This proved to be difficult. I am sure if you have a GOOD understanding of accounting this is a good book however with out a little background it can be a little trying.

The book is overall quite good as an introductory text for accounting, but there are other books out there, equally good, that come a lot cheaper.

I am using this book for a MBA class at a Top 20 school. Our class is focused on students who have not had any formal background in statistics. This book lacks in depth explanations for its problems. Its solutions manual is marginally helpful because it also does not explain how it reaches the answers.

Granted this book is mean to be used with excel, but it relies too much on Excel to do the computation. Thus the student is limited in building a strong basis in statistics.

Unfortunately, my whole MBA class is going through is agony with this book.

Best for an MBA textbook or very dedicated self-study for quantitatively oriented business analysts. You learn a lot of Excel skills and how to produce practical tables, charts and other exhibits in Excel.

Using traditional statistical software such as SAS, SPSS, Statistica, etc. makes the teaching and learning simpler. Using specialized software is the way to go if you are going to learn heavy-duty statistics (PhD research or Stats major). However, if you are an MBA student, you probably will not have access to specialized statistical software, since the jobs for which that is cost-justified generally are staffed by stats majors. Thus, learning to do a great analysis job using Excel is beneficial in the job-market "afterlife".

This book isn't an "easy read," as you will need to work carefully *all* the examples to really understand what is going on, especially with the early chapters. A common problem is skimming over the examples, then running into a wall in later chapters. If you really study the heck out of each example, things seem to go well. The book comes with the data files for all the examples. The instructor's edition comes with excellent solutions for all the problems. The author really knows how to make Excel do anything!

I earned an MBA many years ago from a top ten MBA program and worked in business after that, including owning my own business. Later I returned to school for a phd degree and now teach stats in a b-school.

There are a lot of typos and errors in this book. It is like the editor didn't even do any editing. Not only did they incorrectly publish their web address -- there are multiple problems that are incorrect. So many, in fact, they have a section on their website dedicated to corrections -- but some very blatent ones I found aren't even there.

The worst one yet is in chapter three. The ledger for closing entries in the solutions (pg F104) for self-study problem #3 (page F102) is different from the ledger of closing entries in Exhibit 11 on page F97.

For the self study problem, it should debit/decrease Sales Revenue and increase/credit Retained earnings. The solution on page F104 for the self study problem shows debiting/decreasing Retained earnings and increasing/crediting Sales Revenue.

The complete opposite of a closing entry. The book is full of errors like these.

And the crazy page numbering should be another concern.

Not an impressive book. Confusing for students. If your professor is asking you get it -- beg him to get ANYTHING ELSE.

Oh and the website 'student resources' section is pathetic. Solutions on the web don't match questions in the book. Sample quizes are poorly written and difficult to understand, also.

This accounting book is the worst that I have ever seen. I don't know what the authors were thinking when they wrote it. They all need to be fired from what they do. My class is 22 people and every one of them struggled through the class. Even the teacher could not believe how bad it was. The homework examples did not follow any example in the book. Where do they find these people to write books??????? I hope that one of the authors stumbles on to this review

The study guide part and the multiple choice questions are helpful, but the "forms" (particularly in chapter 2) contain many mistakes.