Microsoft Books

I had seen this book listed in the back of one of my MS-DOS books, and my employer happened to have a copy of it. I took it home for the weekend and was blown away. I IMMEDIATELY bought a copy. This is much more than your average book on interrupts. He goes into some serious detail. You want to know a HUGE list of interrupts and how to use them? Need the pinouts for a PS/2 power supply? How about the pinouts with a description of EACH PIN for the 8086 up to 80486 CPU's and co-processors? It's all in here. Exhaustive list of tables, pinouts, little known secrets, listing of ROM BIOS functions, all the referencing to it, and MUCH more. This is one COMPREHENSIVE book. It was written at the time of DOS 5 and Windows 3.0, so remember, it's not new (1991), however, a HUGE amount of information still applies. Anywhere from the XT to 486, from MDA to VGA, from hard disk tables to EMS, and from expansion slot pin outs to card sizes, this book has it all. He has taken the technical information from DOZENS of books and included it in one large volume.

I use this book whenever I need to look up details of software interrupts, cabling, connectors, backplane layout, data structures, and many more things. This book exceeds any other I have used for internals of software and hardware for the PC.

When you attempt to get into a new area of coding, it is best to have an authoritative reference. Confidence in your source really helps in getting through the inevitable rough spots. "Excel with VBA & .NET" seems to fill the bill. It certainly does not hurt to know that the author was on the Microsoft OLE Automation team when VB was added to Excel.

The "comprehensive" half of my review title comes with the packed 1100 pages. All the programming basics, all the programmable objects, all the usable features are covered. In addition, the book covers extending Excel with add-ins and dealing with security.

My own interest in programming Excel objects is related to my job as a GUI interface developer for browser-based applications. As more information and functionality goes to the Web, the convenience of taking HTML data displays and exporting them to Excel is finding an expanding and demanding market. I was somewhat disappointed that the book did not approach more topics from the perspective of this modern trend.

A friend preparing to teach Excel VBA next fall grabbed the book from my desk and had a look. She was certain "Excel with VBA & .NET" would be an excellent platform and reference for that class. That high recommendation certainly trumps my quibble about not having more material on browser implementations.

"Programming Excel with VBA & .NET" is certainly a very 'weighty' tome. At around 1100 pages you certainly get a lot of paper for your money! However, do you get value for your money? I have yet to read a book on this topic which is more comprehensive in its coverage in terms of the description of the Object Model and the properties and methods, in many cases complete with useful examples. So in that regard it is an excellent reference. The benefit of the author being part of the Microsoft OLE Automation team when VB was added to Excel is very clear. The book also covers VBA itself in good depth. However, I feel that much of this could have been usefully relegated to a reference Appendix. If you are buying this book to learn VBA as such then there are many other excellent choices. The value in this book is in the application of VBA to Excel. You should not consider this book unless you are already very comfortable with VBA. If you are only just learning VBA but try to go on to read the rest of the book, you might find it hard going.

I have read other books that devote more space to and explain better the use of Ranges in VBA code; "pictures are worth a thousand words". If you cannot assimilate this aspect of VBA programming with Excel then you will struggle. Because of the recursive nature of Range references in Excel it can be a difficult concept to understand. I know personally that when I got the hang of that and how to use relative referencing with the R1C1 notation and to use the Cell object my productivity went up tremendously, and my frustration level dropped accordingly. Excel is probably the most difficult and complex application of the Office products when it comes to the Object Model and accordingly programming in VBA. On balance I would have no hesitation in recommending this book as part of your Excel VBA programming arsenal. Typically no one book can give you all of the insight that you need. Accordingly I feel comfortable in giving it 5 stars.

Cheers
Graham Jones

This book provides an introduction to programming the windows api and then jumps into MFC. It has a quick pace and is a good read.

I am a C programmer with little knowledge on C++. Previous to reading the book, I know nothing about Windows API, not alone MFC. After spending about 6 hrs to read through the first 7 chapters, I can already write applications with some dialogs controls and feel confortable enough to look up information in help files to learn other MFC objects. This is all because of the effective outline and clear explanations presented by the book. In conclusion, this book is ideal for people with programming background to learn Windows API and MFC.

MS Project is a difficult application to learn (at least for me!)

The workbook format includes a CD that allows the user to "simulate" using the various main aspects of the application (user does not have to own the real MS Project application; the CD provides a simulation). If other trainings include this approach, I haven't seen it. User is asked to respond with the actions she/he would normally use while navigating through MS Project. The visual, auditory and interactive aspects of the simulation engaged me. "Lessons" are very short (couple of minutes). A one question quiz at the end of each lesson is reinforcing and encouraging.

This should NOT be the primary way a user learns MS Project, but it certainly helped me by "holding my hand" as the screen visually walked me through using parts of the program.

Don't let the comic book appearance of the cover scare you. The content of the book is well written. It is not written like a comic book.

This is for the new "newbie" MS Project user; not good for advanced topics.

Learning to use Microsoft Project is one of those things I know I *should* know but don't. Project 2003 Personal Trainer by CustomGuide has now become the latest "just in case" addition to my bookshelf at work...

Content: The Fundamentals; Entering the Task List; Entering and Assigning Resources; Viewing the Project; Working with Tasks; Working with Resources; Working with Costs; Balancing the Project; Updating Project Progress; Checking Project Progress; Working with Reports; Working with Multiple Projects; Index

As a software developer, I work on a number of projects. But fortunately, the type of development I do is normally not such that it requires the overhead of having to use Project to plan it out. And if it does, I've been lucky to have a project manager to handle all that. I know at some point my luck will run out, however. Project 2003 Personal Trainer is a practical, example-/exercise-driven approach to learning the basics of the software. The philosophy behind CustomGuide is "I listen, I forget; I see, I recall; I do, I understand". Therefore, the entire book is set up to have you actually *do* stuff with Project in order to understand how it works and to learn how to make it go where you want. There's a CD included that is a Project 2003 simulator, so you can still learn the software even if you haven't plunked down a check to Microsoft for Project. This is really nice, in that it gives you maximum flexibility on where you can set up your learning environment regardless of software licensing issues. I can't think of too many better ways to get up to speed more quickly than with this material.

Don't expect that this book will be a long-term reference volume, though. If you are a full-time project manager who is going to live in Project, this book will get you moving quickly. But if you want to learn the fine intricacies of a Gantt chart, you'll need to look elsewhere. That's not to say that this book falls down in that area. It's just not meant to be the end-all repository of all things Project. Get this book, get your feet wet, develop some basic competency, and then decide if you need to go deeper.

I'll be keeping this book on my work bookshelf and watching it closely to make sure it doesn't disappear...

Clearly explains important concepts. Though not updated for V5.0, this is the book to have for rapid understanding of VFP, especially if you're a 2.x developer. It's the kind of book you *wish* was included in the product package.

This is a book you will not want your employer to buy for you, because you'll want to own this book! Of the 896 pages in this book, there is almost no fluff ! In fact, this book is so good that I readily agree with one of the authors when he says, "it's a really good idea for you to read this report" (book), "more than once." Given the opportunity, I plan to re-read this book at least once. There is simply too much good material to absorb in just one reading.

I have finished three of four sections of this book, and I'm partly done with the fourth section. The section I have not finished is Robert Green's report on Developing Client/Server Applications with Visual FoxPro and SQL Server. The only reason I have not finished that section is that it is not immediately relevant to my employer...but it will be relevant later.

The three sections I've finished are: Visual FoxPro Data Dictionary by Doug Hennig; Visual FoxPro Form Designer by Stephen A. Sawyer; Object-Oriented Programming with Visual FoxPro by David Frankenbach.

Visual FoxPro Data Dictionary by Doug Hennig, covers: An introduction to the Data Dictionary; Databases; Tables and Indexes; Relations; Buffering and Transactions; Referential Integrity, Triggers, and Stored Procedures; Connections and Views; Extending the DBC; and other miscellaneous stuff.

Visual FoxPro Form Designer by Stephen A. Sawyer, covers: Visual FoxPro Forms - An Overview; The Form Designer; Common Members; The Form Object; The Form's DataEnvironment Object; Basic Control Objects; The List Controls - ComboBox and ListBox Controls; The Grid Control Object; Special-Purpose Control Objects; Form Coordination and Interaction; and Potpourri.

Object-Oriented Programming with Visual FoxPro by David Frankenbach, covers: Object-Oriented Programming Concepts; Techniques and Details; Applying Object-Oriented Programming; The Object Inspector; Advanced Topics; and other miscellaneous stuff.

With the advent of Visual FoxPro we now have not only many new capabilities but in some respect a new vocabulary and way of thinking. This book covers each of these all of these. The authors compare and contrast FoxPro 2.x with Visual FoxPro in order to clarify issues and to help FoxPro programmers to rapidly become productive in any version of Visual FoxPro. They explain well the difference between Databases and tables, and the importance of local and remote views. They explain how FoxPro was a graphical, and event driven, relational database management system, and how Visual FoxPro is Trigger sensitive, Wizard enhanced, Object-Oriented, Client/server, relational database management system with OLE controls, Transaction processing, Data buffering and a Data Dictionary enforcing Referential Integrity.

On a purely intellectual level the section on Object-Oriented Programming is probably the most important. However, the section on the Data Dictionary, at least in the near term, will be far more practical and useful! Both sections deserve to be read at least twice. The section on Object-Oriented Programming will probably need some concentrated effort, and to fully take advantage of it and Visual FoxPro's new capabilities will require a change of mindset. Object-Oriented Programming is perhaps the greatest advance in software development in 15 years and I'm glad that FoxPro now has its share of the pie.

A friend at work gave me this book. It's a great little intro to excel basics and gives you a taste of the more advanced functions as well. This is a great overview for anyone interested in exploring the basic functions of excel. I used what I learned to build some nifty spreadsheets for my department. Before I started with this book I had very limited experience with Excel and this got me proficient with the basic range of excel functions and more. Even used my knowledge in a job interview test and I got the job!

I had tried reading through the entire list of Excel tutorials at the local library. All of them were disappointing to me, as they spent so much time extolling the glories of Excel that they never stopped to tell you what Excel was actually good for! And then they jumped right into complicated snippets of examples that were unrelated to anything in the real world, or even each other. These snippets were again designed to show off the glories of Excel, not to do anything practical, like build an actual real-life spreadsheet.

As a programmer by profession, I always liked to "roll my own" solutions, using Visual Basic, MS Access, C++, whatever was at hand. And I've done some pretty fancy applications, including using MS Chart for graphing purposes. But those were mostly custom applications that Excel couldn't handle.

I must say, however, now that I've read this book and have actually discovered what Excel is good for, it can certainly handle much more than I had supposed! I will be using Excel from now on for various financial applications instead of relying on my programming skills with VB and Access.

The book begins with a basic spread sheet, which carries you all the way through to the final chapter, much like an accounting project in junior college might. And that was a welcome relief from those other tutorials. No dis-jointed jumping around from one unrelated example to the next exists here (as a reference guide might use). You follow the basic spreadsheet from chapter one all the way through to the final chapter, which builds in complexity, complete with pivot tables, and your understanding of Excel is added to as you go.

If you want to learn the basics of Excel, or just understand what this program is good for (as I wanted to know) this is the book for you. You can easily master the material in two weeks, or less, especially if you already have a basic understanding of computer programming.

All in all, an excellent primer.

Very simple and helpful for beginners and those with more PC knowledge. Covers many, many subjects in easy-to-use, easy-to-read format.

This book is another success for Cox and Dudley. If you have Word 6 then you won't need this, but if you are learning Word 7 then this is the way to go. Simple and easy exercises to follow. Useful tips and shortcuts to performing tasks. Easy reading and it does not take a month to digest. As a I am a computer instructor this is one of the best sellers

I like this author's no nonsense to the point approach. This book takes the mystery out of the database design process and makes it easy for everybody to understand. As an IT analyst, I needed a book that makes it easy for me to understand the theory and the practical of the database design. I already bought three books and each book had its problem. Some were too long and not having the final product at all. In some the example database is so simple that hardly you can learn anything from it. This book uses "Customer order entry" database. This is a complicated database and makes it a good example to teach someone how to design a database. Microsoft uses "Northwind" as a sample database in its database products which is a Customer order entry database.
Just the second chapter about database theory covers so much information and with so much ease that other authors hardly cover in a whole book.

I wished I bought this book in the first place and saved my money on the other three.

I found this book very helpful. It starts with a brief introduction to the different components of a relational database. Then it goes deep into relational database theory describing Entity relationship and Normalization in detail. Next a business using a paper based system is discussed. The skills developed in the previous chapters are applied to the business and an ER diagram is drawn. Next Microsoft Access is used to build a database. The Tables for the database are based on the ER diagram drawn in the previous chapters. Once that is done, Forms, Queries and Reports are discussed in detail. The knowledge gained from these discussions is applied by creating queries, forms and reports for the database. The last part of the book discusses a switchboard and how to bring together the different components of a database to create a user interface.
In my opinion, if you are new to the database field, this is the best book I have seen in the market.

I have worked with C# for some time now. I really wanted to learn about .NET Remoting and I did not have much idea about building distributed systems. This book gives you a step by step approach and it does require you to have some basic knowledge in any OOP language. Knowing some C# would be beneficial.

Thanks to the author for publishing this book! Excellent!

Very well written. I recommend this book to others that need to work with remoting.

Trudi Reisner has truly put together a practical guide to using the intimidating--to me at least--Microsoft Excel program. Unlike other guides which insist you learn the history of the program since 1944 (or whenever it was), this aid has you just jump right in, get you started, show you the right way to do things, and show you the short-cuts which are just as useful. I only wish they didn't promise this 24 hour goal to learn Excel. It took me three times as long. But hey, I learned it, and I use it now. Highly recommended.

I have NO previous experience with Excel or any other spreadsheet program. I have no programming experience of any kind. Reading the lessons and following along at my computer was very easy. All the lessons were 'bite-sized' so as to only take about an hour, which is just enough studying for me after a hard days' work. By the time I finished the book I wrote my own budget and expense program using cross references to multiple pages with pie charts. All the basics are covered, you will be using Excel easily after completing this book. This book is not intended to cover VBA programming, that is a whole 'nother matter. I highly recommend this book!