Microsoft Books

I bought this book to refresh my memory of the statistics class I took in college and also to master how to use the ubiquitous Excel program for statistical analysis. I was not willing to try any other statistical analysis softwares.

This book exceeded my expectations in both regards. It explains key concepts very well, backed by real-life examples to illustrate their practical aplications using Excel. I have had an easier and more enjoyable time both reviewing my statistics and learning Excel.

Before I conceded the bar I went through profound mathematics courses through "Yale's Professor Challenge Program." Dr. Gerbing and his book have brought me back to brilliant years in the statistics classroom; this book brought me up to speed on the innovative computer technology that is premeditated for statistics. I was astounded how thorough this masterpiece is such auxiliary. By extreme, the book went more in depth than the professors at Yale. I would definitely advise this book; it will be sitting on my bookcase in the oval office very shortly.

This book accomplishes a great deal - it moves the reader from basic, descriptive statistics to inferential statistics quickly and logically. Each chapter is organized so you can repreat the steps using Excel functions, the Excel Data Analysis Add-in, or using traditional notation. The data are included on a disk, so you don't have to re-key. Also included are Dr. Gerbing's own templates, which include important tools that the Redmond Raiders left out.

I was fortunate enough to have had a course with Dr. Gerbing; I know that he has spent the last five or so years refining his teaching methods, so MBA students can learn AND apply statistics to their business lives. This book is truly a great accomlishment and a contribution to business people who want to use regression analysis - or just have a better understanding of the components that make for solid market research. In an age where we all spend thousands on research studies, it is more than a good idea to know what questions to ask of the syndicated research we're offered, or how to set up the framework for a proprietary study. As a marketing professional, I have found this text very useful. Now - if you can get Gerbing to market the powerpoint slides ...

The projects are very good, and you learn a lot just reading about them -- you don't have to do all 21 of them! The writer's style is very conversational and easy to read, you could actually read this book for pleasure, unlike most computer books. The title says it takes 21 days to learn it -- not really true. I got through it in about 10. You can skip the parts that cover apps you don't use, or read the whole thing to learn all about Office. You'll feel so powerful after you go through this book. There are creative ideas for using Office that I'd never thought of, and I had no idea all the things you can do with Word! I recommend this book to new and experienced users.

I don't have time to take a class and don't have the patience to sit still that long anyway, so I thought a book called "Teach Yourself" would be the next best thing. It was better.

If you learned Office by trial and error, this book will correct your mistakes and show you the right way to do things. You'll learn more stuff than youthought you could. You don't realize how much stuff you're learning until you try to do something on your own and realize you can!

Get this book!

This is a really good book. Before reading this book my experience with Office was mixed because we had Office 97 but I only used parts of it. I knew Word pretty well, but not much about Excel or PowerPoint, and I knew nothing about Access. When we upgraded to 2000, this book taught me things I didn't know about Word (and I thought I knew alot to begin with!) and now I'd feel safe saying that I know and can sucessfully use the rest of the suite too. I've been tracking our production schedules and employee data in Excel, and I put together a presentation in PowerPoint based on what this book taught me, and everyone loved it. I was very proud of myself! I've even started training some of our people, just based on what I learned in this book.

I recommend this Teach Yourself book because it really does let you learn at your own speed and its a great place to look things up if you get stuck. The explanations are clear and I liked the examples because they helped me think of practical ways I could use the software in our office.

I think this book is excellent. I found the material accurate and easy to follow. I brought this book for my whole project team, I thought so highly of it meeting it's title claim. I was able to take a topic and actually learn it in the alloted time. The beginning chapters provide a good overview of the topics and using MS Project, setting up the project, and good structured project design. When I have a team I need to get up to speed quickly on MS Project, I will again use this book as the tool.

This is one of the best software manuals I have ever used. If you want to learn the essential basics of MS Project quickly and easily, buy this manual. He uses the online templates to walk you through the steps to build a project. It was easy to follow his instructions. I had the outline prepared for my own project. Begining with chpater 3, I used the manual to build my project as I progressed through each chapter. This was a great hands-on learning experience!

This is one of the best software manuals I have ever used. If you want to learn the essential basics of MS Project quickly and easily, buy this manual. He uses the online templates to walk you through the steps to build a project. It was easy to follow his instructions. I had the outline prepared for my own project. Begining with chpater 3, I used the manual to build my project as I progressed through each chapter. This was a great hands-on learning experience!

Technical books are often preachy. 'This is the ONLY way to this. You've been doing this wrong ALL your life.' We've all read one of those. These three books are like gentle friends discussing what one might need/want to do to survive successfully through a software project. My favorite book out of the trio is the Survival Guide. It has all sorts of checklists I have been able to modify for use in my projects. Additional support/tools is/are offered through the author's website. I like the 'contingency planning' aspect that this book offers, and a lot of others miss. A great read overall. I didn't sleep at all through this one. ;)

Anyone aspiring to be (or in the current position of) project lead or project manager should get this set. These help you understand, accept, and shape to your advantage many of the "soft", human, non-technical factors in software development.

Also - be sure and get "Code Complete" - it is a comprehensive collection (and interpretation) of many of the great ideas from notable gurus such as Yourdon/DeMarco/Constantine, Kernigan & Richie, Dijkstra, Meyer, etc. etc. (plz excuse the spelling errors!) Every programmer needs a copy of "Code Complete" and the companion, "Writing Solid Code". Software Standards and QA groups should use these texts as references and standards.

I have read all three of Steve's books, and they ALL are worth ten times their price!

If you are SERIOUS about making software a career, buy this set!

Before purchasing TYV MS Word 2000, I would just be hunt and pecking my why through a document. Now, I zip through twice as fast with usually no mistakes. Clear and concise is the trademark for the entire series of teaching aids! So far it appeasrs that every book in this series is a WINNER!

Everything you need to know about Word 2000. Clear, easy to understand, great photos, step by step instructions. Find what you need---fast. Keep it by the computer, you'll reference it often, especially for the rarely used stuff that's easy to forget.

This book cannot be overpraised. Through the use of step-by-step text and pictures, with expert use of colors, numbers, callouts, and what not, the book makes the learning process easy and pleasant. This is THE book for beginner--look no further! (Also the font size in the pictures is not so small that I have to use a magnifying glass, as I had to do with another publication of the same series). A MUST FOR THE BEGINNING WORD USER!

I want to get the program code in this book

This book teaches you the nitty-gritty old fashioned way of writing Windows C++ code. You learn how to code without frameworks (MFC or OWL). It's a lot tougher to learn, but you get a deeper understanding.

Topics were covered from a realistic and helpful prespective. The chapter projects helped to re-enforce the information covered in the chapter. Good incrementing from the basics to the more complex. Got me up and running and helped to separate the useless information from the useful information.

This book is plain Awesome.

As an IT Pro with over 10 years experience supporting Microsoft Technology, Networks, and teaching classes, I find myself wishing that I had this book when I was starting out, and developing lesson plans.

It covers every aspect of troubleshooting, reviews many tools and their useage from both MSFT and some third parties.

What it didn't include, but will most likly have in future releases is the following.

Networking Tools the new MSFT NetBIOS / Browsing troubleshooting tool isn't covered because it is new.

No SQL coverage. More and More admins are supporting MSDE or SQL 2K lite technology, I think he should include a chapter about that.

No IIS coverage. More and More admins and helpdesks are gonna need skills troubleshooting IIS technologies. Look for a book from Brett Hill coming out soon.

No Exchange or SMTP coverage. The reason many people setup Microsot Networks in the first place is do provide groupware.

No Clustering Information. This guy works for Comm Vault. You would think he would cover clustering technology and troubleshooting.

Now for the Raves!

1. Great Tools review.
2. Great Os TS tips
3. Great Office TS Tips.
4. Great Network and Net service TS tips (DNS,WINS,DHCP,RRAS)
5. Great section on AD, and GPO's
6. Current, Covers Windows 2003 and XP.

BUY IT NOW!

This book is becoming my first reference when I need something explained or I need to troubleshoot. Written in a straight forward manner that is easy to understand. Lots of command-line tools explained. Included disk has good third-party tools. The fact that it also includes Windows 2003 and XP makes it relevant for today's Microsoft networks.

As the reviewer below noted I also wished it was more extensive. This author has done an outstanding job; everything that was covered was covered very thoroughly. Every technology in the book is covered from a troubleshooting perspective. There isn't the usual fluff about new features and installation. This book has a permanent place on my desk for quick reference

I have 2 other books on WIn98SE. Neither one comes close to the depth of content that this book has, and both cost more. I should have bought this one FIRST!

So good I'm reluctant to recommend this book to my fellow support tech's. I've been coming off like a 98 support genius since picking it up and I don't want the competition on my job. Some really cool stuff here.

WHEN WILL WE SEE NT / 2000?

This is the best Windows book I have read. It's no nonsense get down to business approach is refreshing compared to the other books that force you to wade through chapters of reading in order to find an answer to your question. I highly recommend this book to better understand Window 98.

This book should be a required text for all programmers intending to become developers!!! It bridges the chasm between programming and large systems development. It accurately describes the problems encountered in industrial strength Enterprise development and presents methods to resolve those problems. It then provides excellent examples to illustrate each point. I am not aware of any another book that explains this process in such pragmatic fashion. I can't wait for an updated version, but until then, Eventhough a little outdated, this is still the best software development book around.

This was one of the first books on really developing 3 tiered apps with VB 4. The author is working on an update expected to be out late this year(98). (After reading some of the reviews of Jenning's book on MTS; I wish this author could kick this one out the door a little sooner. (Since the update will include MTS which the original book did not. But one problem expressed by readers of Jennings book was the fact that it was almost like a beta. The author wanted it to hit the beach first with MTS 2.0 info and therefore lacked depth and through examples. So I guess I can understand the wait on Goren's new edition; since it is rumored that the wait is to make sure the book provides complete in depth coverage of VB5/N tiered deveopment with MTS.)

Visual Basic 4 Enterprise covers just about every aspect of building three-tier Client/Server systems with Visual Basic. Each tier is discussed in detail from design to implementation. OLE Automation is also discussed at length. This book should be read by anyone developing enterprise level applications with Visual Basic.

This book was the suggested reference in a college-level VB class I took. It is easy to find each command by the index tabs, and the examples are easy to understand. I especially appreciated the "cautions" section included with each command. And best of all, Amazon.com is $10.00 cheaper than the college bookstore!

This book is really good (atleast for me) for programming reference. If maybe you forget something, just look it up in this book. Not a book for newbies to Visual Basic though.

This book seems to have every command line's syntax with many usuable examples. Coming to Visual Basic programming from Clipper, I use this book all the time.