Personal Pages Books

I was following the instructions in this book to create a new project. It just didn't work out the way as the book says.

This is a beginner's book, not a reference. It is elaborate so it must be read with a good amount of concentration. If you don't read between the lines, you might miss some good points.

This book is a good start for those who do not know anything about ASP.NET or are moving to web development. If you have some experience in web development you may find yourself skipping some chapters.

However, it is evident that the technical editing was not done properly. Chapter 18 had VB.NET code with an extension of .cs, which means it should have been a C# code.

I have not read Mastering ASP.NET using VB.NET (by the same author and publisher), but I suspect that most of the material in the C# version was just ported from VB.NET version.

I would not agree on some of the statements made about which authentication method but it does cover what's available and the book does explain some of the basics.

More lost then when I started reading. The code examples do not work without some tweaking. The assumed familiarity with the .NET framework is frustrating. This was very disappointing. I really needed to gain some quick knowledge, and it is not going to happen here!!

I have been an adult computer trainer for six years and was sadly disappointed in this book. I found it to cover too much information incompletely. I found no concrete application or practice exercises. Usually, a book like this would start by presenting the concept, move to simple and conceptual examples to demonstrate the how, and then advance to more complex and practical examples. Some areas of the book never move past the conceptual to the practical so I can't imagine a reader would know how to apply the knowledge. Some areas covered basic examples but didn't go deep enough. The authors need to take a few education classes before writing anything else that is so out there.

This book tends to become scattered, and the author seems to ramble at times. I was expecting more simple explanation by example, but what examples there were seemed to contain large amounts of code that belonged in an entirely different topic. I tended to notice alot of "I'm showing you this, but I'm not going to say anything about it in this book."...

This is not to say that there is no useful information in this book, but it is difficult and tiring to get to. The content seems to drift towards generalized advice in many areas, rather than actual instruction.

I would say that this book would be worth owning only if you have a good core of ASP.net knowledge, and want a book that will increase the dsetail of your knowledge in a wandering manner.

After many tries, I've officially given up reading this book at Chapter 17 of this 23 chapter book. This book definetely doesn't belong in the "mastering" series of sybex. I've followed along many books of this series, from SQL, to VB to Server 2003, etc, but this one just doesn't measure up to the quality of the others. Here are the problems with this book:

1. Too many samples, but not enough explanations. I'll be happy if the author presents complicated topics, as long as he explains them thouroughly. But not here, all you get, is one long-winded code after another, but only a sentense or two to explain what the heck is going on in the code. So usually as I read a chapter, I would counsult another book, so I can have some clue what was just covered. Not an ideal learning experience.
2. Too boring. The author doesn't inject one iota of humor, or any kind of real world examples, or applications for his codes. The explanations are terse and dry, and felt as if, the author doesn't really care, or care to know, that at the other end, there's another person reading this.

This is the best asp.net with c# book for beginner and experienced web developer among the 4 similar books I bought 4 momths ago, this is the only one I read trough and do it from first to last chapter. Thanks, Russell.

I have 3 other Mastering books and they are all great. This one is not in that category. Mastering C#, Mastering VB.NET and Mastering Cool Fusion 5.0 are all very good books. This author seems like a real C#/ASP.NET Guru but has no ability to convey that knowledge in a clear concise way. It seems to me like everything is just dumped on the pages instead of being built up step by step. This book might be good if you are already very good at ASP.NET and want to gleam some more insight into some of the deeper workings of ASP.NET, but definitely NOT as a beginner/intermediate book. I consider ASP.NET Unleashed a masterpiece compared to this book. After chapter 6, I just gave up and am going to purchase another ASP.NET C# book to meet my needs.

I've been trying to use this book as my primary reference for ASP.NET for a couple of months now, and I'm to the point where I'm going to go out and buy another book.

This book could be dramatically improved if it had been under the kind eye of rigorous editor, one that would have pulled all the spurious soapboxing and helped refocus the book on addressing topics the author is not favorable towards.

A couple of examples:

1) Paragraphs of prose dedicated to a lengthy explanation as to why usernames and passwords are obsolete, bordering on arrogance. Finally, begrudgingly, getting to the meat of what I need to know: how to do authenticated login. I wouldn't mind so much if the author was providing relevant insight into the directions that the industry is taking, but his proposition that smart cards and biometrics will overtake passwords is the same old rhetoric expounded over the last decade... which has not come to pass.

2) An attitude of MS Access = Bad. Yes, SQL is one of the stonger solutions for the back end, and sure, you should use MSDE if you can't do SQL, but I have a client that needs it to be MS Access. To completely short-change Access is to write yourself out of a very real segement of the market.

In essence, I think this book suffers by actively distancing itself from real-world issues. A more pragmatic, non-preaching approach would have been better, one that focussed on what *I* need, not what the author feels compelled to tell me about.

Ignoring the soapboxes, the rest of the book is pretty good. The author obviously knows his ASP.NET. I'll keep this book around as a secondary reference, but I'm out hunting for a new primary reference.

I generally dislike writing reviews like this, but I dropped ... this book (a local Borders) and I would really have liked to have seen a review like this before I made that decision.

This is a great for learning the basics of HTML.

Its also great for reference, if you forget a tag or something.

I got my web page started using this book....HTML is rather easy, and this book makes it easier!

And at 1 cent a copy what really do you have to lose?

Apparently the first reviewer didn't know what Cliff Notes are: They are simply summaries of published books so that students can quickly get what they need to know form a book without fully reading it. You can get cliff notes for "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1984), if you want. Don't get the cliff notes, get and read the actual book.

Excellent price and from a respected publishing house but the book itself is, at times, unduly complex for beginners and generally has a flat, almost uininteresting style. You're arguably better off with something like Sams Teach Yourself HTML 4 in 10 minutes.

I find this book to be great help for someone who has programmed (like me) in another language who needs a quick start. I don't recommend this book for those that need hand holding, a "newbie" to programming, or want to finish the book in a day. I like the author's style of writing and enjoy the "Ask the Expert" and "Mastery Check" sections. Often times I refer to this book for pointers.

I have found this book a useful complement to the Sybex IIS/VB webclasses book--this is the best description of how to use the Application object and global.asa that I have seen so far. However, the author of the Osborne book did a sloppy job of laying out the sample projects in this book--for example, frequently he doesn't even tell you what to name the files. If it weren't for this I would give the book four or five stars.

This book has wonderful information, however, when the author lays out an example in the book it is not labled nor is it at all complete. The author jumps around A TON! This book is Not recomended to anyone by me.

It's foucs to much on the programming basics instead of the ASP technics. I think the author should not write so much on the object that ASP provided. He should give more real examples on practical use. I don't think most users would need to use so much objects. If we are want to use objects, I think users want to read the references instead of this "beginner's guide".

But the language used in this book is suitable that plain enough. And the speech is not so boring when compare to Wrox book.

The "About the Author" section explains that Dave's cat, Taffy, writes his code. He should have let the cat write the book as well. The book ventures beyond beginner level often and quickly. The code is often broken up into seperate sections, usually in a logical order, too often not. There are also too many obvious errors in the code examples, even rediculous things like opening one header size and closing with a different one. If you are going to have people pay for a product, take the time to check it. Over all, the book does a good job at explaining most concepts of ASP but is confusing when trying to learn the specifics, which is rather important in writing code.

I recently bought this book, and let me be honest it was a waist of money. The language in the book is very similar to the material you get in a crash course. Author does very little to explain a particular topic, and goes by just mentioning it.
I was particulary annoyed by the treatment of web controls, there isn't much than the documentation you get with VS.NET.
You are much better of reading tutorials on the web sites than buying this book.
I will try to return it to the book store and go for professional ASP.NET by wrox. I wanted to give this book just one star, but I am in a good mood.

I bought this book in a UK bookstore. I wish I hadn't! I wanted a book that would cover C# and ASP.net. I went for this one because it covered C# as well as VB, and because there appeared to be a lot of content. Unfortunately when I got it home I found I'd wasted my money.

1. The ASP.net web site development stuff is over by about page 300. The rest is devoted to web services.
2. This book covers far too much stuff in too little detail
3. Despite the high page count, there is very little actual content. Big print, lots of repetitive code examples, make for poor reading.
4. It's poor for C# as most of the examples are in VB. Apart from the after-thought appendix at the back, there's nothing useful for someone wanting to learn C#.

Do not buy this book!!!!

After looking through this book's table of contents at the bookstore, I thought I had found a keeper. Halfway through the book, I am bored to death. It covers a broad range of topics but provides only shallow coverage on each. I've come to the conclusion that it would be a waste of my time to finish this book.

This book is extremely frustrating for a beginner to work with, even though it claims to be suitable for a new comer to the ASP.NET world. It doesn't go into enough detail around Web Forms and is completely useless at connecting concepts with example code. It's just plain annoying becuase it half the time it provides incomplete examples and the companion web site is missing samples that are described in certain chapters. On a positive note, the introduction to overall .NET concepts is fair but you can get this anywhere on the Internet. More important than wasting Money is wasting time and this book wasted mine.

This book starts out right, because it did keep me captivated for a few chapters, until you start to write the code. The code is all wrong, it doesn't compile due to errors. Another drawback is that the book is full of the same code, repeated again and again.

The only good use of this book is learning the basics in pseudo code, without actually writing real ASP.NET code.

Before this I have purchased and enjoyed a few others of the Weekend Crash Course books - never again though!
There are typos, there are bad code examples, there is missing code examples, there are repeated paragraphs, there is lack of flow sometimes, there is lack of information (if you are doing some of this for the first time). I am sure that I have found close to a problem per page - and the book is about 300 pages!
I cannot believe how this book got out to the shelves and worse more I cannot believe an Amazon user like myself bought a book without reading the reviews first. If you are reading this, heed the warning of myself and the other reviewers - don't waste "your weekend" on this book.

After reading through the first 20 chapters, in which no programming occurred until Session 16, I finally gave up. When I hit the first source code error in a simple form validation program I chalked it up to a simple typo. In Session 20 I couldn't get their program to work at all, to say nothing of the source code not even appearing on the CD-ROM!

Whatever you do, DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS BOOK!!!... As has been said before, if I could give it zero stars I would.

This book is already miserably, and painfully, out of date upon purchase. Be prepared to read half of the book before the author addresses the topic of "Building Your First ASP.NET Page". At that point, I had so many questions while reading the first 145 pages that I was completely confused. All of this could have been avoided with simple examples at the very beginning of the book.

Furthermore, typos are in abundance, the grammar was unclear, look for repetitive source code, missing code or completely wrong code through out the entire book. For instance, the listings on the CD were also incorrect or missing (Session 20 did not have a complete listing, instead referring the student to the CD where Session 20 was non-existent).

Don't waste your money on this poorly written book, instead go to the ASP.net website and use their free tutorials to learn about ASP .NET.

I really didn't have many complaints about the book during the first few chapters. In fact, I appreciated reviewing some of the history of the past technologies, even though I had used those technologies. I also didn't mind that the book doesn't discuss "Visual Studio .Net" since I already know how to use it. I forgave some of the small typos along the way. However, at about Session 20, everything really broke down.

Code was missing or just plain wrong from that point on. The listings on the CD were also incorrect or missing (Session 20 did not have a complete listing, instead referring the student to the CD-ROM. This was the first time I used the CD-ROM during the course ... and Session 20 was missing!). And where are the Web-based errata? If you go to [url] you are told to visit [url]. If there are errata there, they are well-hidden. Using online resources and those included with Visual Studio, I was able to come up with my own solutions to the problems presented. However, by the time I had finished the course, it was no longer a "Weekend Crash Course". To add insult to injury, the included testing software also has typos and grades the questions incorrectly.

In conclusion: There are a lot of good books out there now that are based upon the released version of ASP.NET. Use those. This book is already miserably, and painfully, out of date.

I wasted several hours on an Example from Chapter 4 that I couldn't get to work. In frustration I thought I'd check out Amazon's Reviews and saw a reader says that Chapter 4 is "way off the mark". I wish I had read these reviews before I got this book. If the book had a website that listed "corrections" to the book, I would have been more forgiving and continued on but I'm through with this book. (I've never seen a book get such a bad rating from several people).

I tried about 5 examples out of this book and the only thing works is the debugger on visual studios telling me I have errors everywhere. Please avoid.

Bought this in a bookshop while browsing.

This book is poorly organised and gives information too quickly without giving the reader a chance to practice. Code snippets are incomplete.

Maybe there are some good things in it, but I'll have to buy another book to learn from and maybe go back to this one later.

Don't buy!

This book is horrible, it seems to assume that the reader has no knowledge of web development at all (it has sections called "ask the experts" that consist of really elementary HTML questions and questions about the web), yet, if the reader has no knowledge of web development, why would they want to read something specifically about asp.net? It references examples before they occur in the book, and it seems as though the author has no grasp at all on what he's talking about. It's amazing how this book can be as long as it is without actually saying anything. Any other asp.net book is better than this.

This book doesn't even attempt to teach you ASP.NET.
First of all the book is not even close to be "A Beginner's Guide". It's a good thing that I have a descent background in programming and it didn't take me much to understand what the author "tries" to say. However, I don't think that beginner could easily comprehend the content.
From a teaching style that author uses you get the feeling that he attempts to make an idiot out of everybody (the terminology + explanations makes you say "WHAT?!!!")
And of course, this book is as far from .NET as you can get. ASP maybe but not .NET. The author doesn't even attempt to take object-oriented approach in tackling the applications.
Oh yeah, by the way most of the code doesn't even work.

Not enough in depth information. I ordered this book as soon as I purchased Keynote, but by the time it came (one week later) I already knew everything the book covered! The section on charts is a joke! It tells you nothing! Very disappointing.