Computing Internet Books

Nick Barclay and Adrian Downes did it again! After writing their first and great guide to learning and deploying Business Scorecard Manager, these two brilliant consultants wrote the great guides to PerformancePoint Server (one for Planning and one for Monitoring and Analytics).

These books are easy to read and make the technology very approachable. Additionally, the authors collaborated very closely with the development team so you know that the content you get is true to its original intent!

Couple this with the authors first hand's experience with the product and long time expertise in this space and you get two books, which are MUST reads for anyone who wants to get started with PerformancePoint Server and with Microsoft Business Intelligence.

I have been involved in architecting and designing Microsoft based business intelligence solutions for the past 8 years. I was very excited when PerformancePoint was launched because it filled a very real need in the Microsoft BI platform. It is always a challenge to find training material when a new product is launched so Adrian and Nick's books have been released at just the right time.
I enjoyed both books(The Rational Guide To Planning with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 (Rational Guides),The Rational Guide To Monitoring and Analyzing with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 (Rational Guides)) for the following reasons:
They are clear and simple to understand
They highlight the most important techinical and functional considerations without being too high level
They are practical and not theoretical even though the first few chapters set the scene
You don't need to be a subject matter expert to understand them
They are short so you can read them very quickly

They are great books that will allow you to get up to speed very quickly on PerformancePoint Monitoring and Analytics as well as Planning.

I have a bad tendency of purchasing technical books and never reading them until I have a problem where I need a technical reference. However, I found myself reading this book cover to cover. I have been using PerformancePoint Server (PPS) 2007 Planning since prior to the software release, going back to May 2007. I have also attended a four day long PPS Boot Camp. Even then, I learned a great deal from this book. I found it easy to read and it covers all the technical topics necessary to implement a PPS solution. Before buying a different book, I would recommend checking to see if it covers all the major aspects of Planning, including topics like Business Rules, PEL (PerformancePoint Expression Language), and Data Integration. Data integration is often forgotten or purposely left out due to its complexity, but authors Adrian Downes and Nick Barclay include an entire chapter dedicated to this subject (43 pages). In addition, once you register the book with the publisher online, there's a great deal of bonus materials available for download. These materials include many SQL examples for data integration. You can cut down your development time by modifying the SQL they provided. Also included in the bonus materials are four additional chapters to the book.

This book is great if you're new to PerformancePoint Server Planning or if you've been using it for awhile. I'm using it to study for the PPS exam to gain certification. My employer has tasked me with coming up with a PPS curriculum for other consultants to learn PPS. I'm incorporating this book and "The Rational Guide to Monitoring and Analyzing with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007" into self study for my peers wanting to learn the software. Both books incorporate a step by step approach that aid in learning.

In summary, this book is jammed pack full of good tips for both new and experienced PPS developers and has a good price point. I highly recommend it.

Excellent. Every bit as good as the co-authors' companion book, "The Rational Guide to... M&A w/ PPS. This learning guide's effectiveness is especially noteworthy in light of the completely new Performance Management (PM) sophistication that the PPS Planning Module unleashes on Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) developers of all experience levels and, of course, the essential clarity with which this guide introduces it. Although future books will, we hope, delve deeper into specific topics (especially Integration and Business Rules), this one sets a high standard with succinct, authoritative explanations and thoughtful skill-building exercises in every major functional area. As a side-note, this book showcases to experienced performance management technologists just how much sophistication and value Microsoft has introduced into the performance management product marketplace.

PART I - INTRODUCTION: The authors begin by introducing the roles that planning and budgeting processes have been intended to play in the business environment, describing how traditional business processes and technologies have inherently limited their real-world effectiveness in terms of the tasks effecting employee workflow, data accuracy, security, and ease of use, and then explaining how each of those tasks is optimized as planning and budgeting roles integrate into a business intelligence information framework. Armed with this high level perspective, readers are mostly prepared to learn how to actually accomplish this, albeit in ways unexpected by most traditional MS BI developers. Specifically, we will now be building automatically recurring write-back mechanisms so that planning, forecasting and budgetting workflows will write-back data to data marts and, by extension, cubes. We will also be incorporating more types of data sources, not as an unfortunate alternative to good ETL, but on a planned, best-case basis as performance management work-flows require. Lastly, we will be highly leveraging Analysis Services' unary operators and account dimensions.

Before jumping into the "how to do it" section, I caution readers, and especially experienced MS Analysis Services 2005 OLAP developers, that, in light of the new PM requirements just described, PPS Planning will have you building both relational and OLAP objects in ways that are ...let's just say "unique". You might not have done it exactly this way for a traditional UDM MOLAP cube. Although your careful exploration of these unique SQL Server objects is encouraged, I suggest that you delay at least some of it until after you well-understand what PPS Planning is accomplishing. Fortunately, PPS Planning automates the vast majority of those nuances, such that readers, whether developers or power-user analysts, can quickly get productive.

PART II - INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION: In addition installation, this section introduces readers to the Planning Administration Console (PAC), wherein PPS Planning applications, model sites, role-based security and data sources are initially configured, and introduces Planning Business Modeler (PBM), wherein most of the subsequent work is completed. Notably, applications created in PPS Planning are instantiated as SQL Server 2005 relational databases, and Planning Model Sites become Analysis Services 2005 OLAP databases with completely-built cubes. As a side-bar, readers are advised, beginning at this point in the text, to take care to document usernames, roles and passwords as entered in this section and to pay extra close attention throughout the book to always login to Planning Business Modeler or the Excel Add-In with the username specified in each specific exercise.

PART III - SOLUTION DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION: Here, we dive deeper. Explanations, followed by respective exercises, covering the creation of dimensions, member sets, business models, model subsites, model security are aptly covered. Although Chapter 9, "Integrating Business Data" -- which will be the least accessible for non-SQL-heads -- provides a balanced coverage of the complex topic so that readers can progress by (carefully) following the cookbook, SQL/ETL pro's will want to decide when (not if) to dive deeper into learn this (by starting with product help files) and learn exactly how it relates to traditional ETL, which it does not replace. Analysts -- prepare for initial bewilderment. Chapter 10, "Defining Business Rules", takes the complimentary approach, without losing stride with excessive business-side detail (and thus losing the interest of ETL-oriented readers), it move readers through the simple use of business model properties, rules and rule sets. Specifically, the configuration of these business rules are close to a culmination of everything learned so far in that, in text examples, they orchestrate the relationship of data "actuals" to "budgets" and "forecasts" within models and thereby govern how budget forecasts and "what-if" analyses are smoothly integrated into a performance dashboard and/or written back into the data mart and OLAP cube without jeopardizing the sacrosanct "actuals" data. Without a doubt, it feels like a very slick way to avoid ever having to say to your DBA, "Well, we've completed our what-if analyses and thanks for the added permissions, but ehhr... we can't seem to find the actual data anymore. But you backed it up, right?" Relax, `cause it won't happen here. Of note, this chapter very briefly introduces "PerformancePoint Expression Language" (PEL), which is an MDX (multi-dimensional expression) short-hand just for PPS Planning. Although additional PEL detail would have been interesting, it would also have slowed the overall pace of learning. Again, see product help files.

The book's last written topic, in Chapter 11, is "Using the PerformancePoint Add-in for Excel". It introduces readers to PPS Planning Forms (and by extension, read-only Reports ) that performance-management users will ultimately use to assign, contribute, review, edit and approve workflow tasks associated with budgeting, forecasting and "what-if" analyses. As before, the book provides an effective, self-contained introduction which showcases some of Excel 2007's new-found sophistication, but which readers will subsequently want to build upon. As elsewhere, it's essential reading and mercifully succinct (unlike this review, I'll admit).

FOUR BONUS CHAPTERS: Although not reviewed here, they are each substantial, virtually essential, and are respectively entitled "Implementing Process Management", "Consolidating Data with Associations", "Operational and Management Reporting", and "Closing the Performance Management Loop". Conveniently, and along with all required databases and code samples, they are available online at no charge.

PREPARATION: As with the authors' "Rational ...PPS M&A" book, the best way to deploy the entire platform to readers' PC's, for learning or light-development is to download the following from Microsoft: (A) Virtual PC 2007; and (B) BI-VPC V 5.1+, which includes tons of software, including PPS 2007, MOSS 2007, SQL Server 2005 Dev Edition. Lastly, I recommend 4 GB of RAM on the machine, and strongly discourage readers' from trying to use the BI-VPC with under 2GB RAM.

For all of the above reasons, this book is highly recommended!

This is a book of advices on how to make the system running. Not just to write and release it (no pun intended), but to keep it running after the release.

The book is about prior planning for capacity and stability, designing systems capable of handling the load while being resilient and fault-tolerant, build it in a maintainable and adaptable way, so that it lives through the years. A great deal of information in it too.

Overall, it was a pleasant reading, because in most parts it matches precisely what I'm doing on my job and what I've learned to be the right way of doing through hard experience. As always, such practical convergence with published material is very comforting.

Why did I give it 4 stars then ?

Because the book itself needs more work.

It is poorly structured and is stylistically informal. It doesn't have a plot, but it is also not a collection of independent essays or articles. Near the end it feels like the author just gave up the structure and stuffed the book with random thoughts.

Despite the author's promise for each part of the book to have a case study, only 3 out of the 4 unconnected book parts are opened with one, and the studies are of anecdotal nature. A few pages of horror in everybody's eyes to find out that a janitor had accidentally pulled the plug, something like that.

As the few architectural patterns suggested by the author reside near the middle of the book, the first half is full of forward references, like "but wait till you see the MagicPattern !". The patterns when you encounter them are useful but are explained shortly and in informal manner again.

A lot of assorted hints, ranging from TCP handshaking to stripping whitespace off web pages and wrapping a web service around a database. Interesting, but inconsistent.

It is difficult for me to be unbiased about a book like that, because, like I said, it correctly describes many of the practical considerations that I already knew in the first place.

I'd say it is the kind of book for the architects with development past. It will be useless for you unless you have a lot of practical experience as a developer. On the other hand, if you are a beginning developer, it won't help much either because it doesn't offer any analysis or any kind of formal textbook kind of information.

Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software (Pragmatic Programmers) (Pragmatic Programmers)

This book offers very sound advice, based upon Author's years of experience. Every serious developer/architect should own it. The only reason why I gave it 4 stars is that the book is devoid of code; it would have been % star plus, book had Author put some code samples there (even pseudo code or more diagrams).

Unlike many books (such as those with animal kingdom on their cover or photos of several programmers) this book is by/for a real software engineer with real life production ailments and antidotes for them. Even if all the use cases discussed here may not be applicable, if people follow at least 50% of those that apply I think there will less business outages, better user experience and a happier IT department.

On top of all the good technical stuff, this book also happens to be well written - enough to be just enjoyed for the anecdotes and such.

A must read for any software engineer of web applications!

There are dozens of technical books on my bookshelf, most of them quite good... but none as relevant and valuable an addition as Release It! If you are a professional involved in the development, deployment, and production support of modern information systems it is in your interest to get a copy of this book and (unlike many a technical manual) *actually read it*

I just completed reading Release It! by Michael T. Nyggard (Pragmatic Bookshelf 2007). It is part of The Pragmatic Programmers series. I have read the book cover to cover twice. At first, I thought that the book was just another book on how to manage projects. So What! The ideas presented in the book were common sense. I have been doing these same things for many years.

Then one day I was working on a project, and was trying to figure out how to handle a problem. I remembered what I read in Release It! about the topic. I grabbed the book off the bookshelf and looked it up; logging. The ideas presented are common sense, but how often have we missed to boat. The ideas presented in the book I implemented much to my own joy. The result was a customized deployment of the Java Logging system which is simple to maintain and does not require external libraries.

It was at that point I realized the brilliance of the book and the pragmatic side of things. I re-read the book. As an architect, project manager, developer, and maintainer of complex software ecosystems, the ideas in the book provide a "pragmatic" common sense approach to handling situations. The book is a learning tool, one person's personal perspective on software design and deployment, and a reference. It is an all-in-one book.

This book provides a great tutorial on how to manage complex projects for the novice, and a gentle practical reminder to the seasoned architect/project manager.

The book is divided into 4 major sections: Stability, Capacity, General Design Issues, and Operations. The first two sections provide the basis for the remainder of the book. The Stability and Capacity sections have divided the topic into an explanation, followed by general design patterns and anti-patterns. It explains in enough detail how to implement good patterns and recognize bad ones.

The section on General Design covers items like Administration and Security. There is nothing earth shattering in these sections, but they do provide a basis for a "check list" of items to make sure you consider in your designs.

The final section on Operations is the one where you will make friends with your administrators and keep your sanity. The portions on designing for monitoring including logging will be your savior at 2:00 AM in the middle of a blizzard. The discussion on designing for the future does not get enough attention in our modern get it out the door now world. This may be the push you need to think about it.

This is a book to have on your bookshelf. Mine is full of tabs and post-it notes.

I have found this book to be very helpful, with easy to find answers to my questions.

I was very happy with my purchase. It was very easy to order. The item arrived on time and it was in exactly the condition as stated. I would purchase from this buyer again.

It was just what I was looking for, and just as I expected. He assumes you know NOTHING and goes from there. Another good book in the Dummies series.

I am an accountant. I was extremely disappointed in this book. Not well structured at all. It doesnt seem to know if it wants to be a reference book, a book for beginners or a book for those that have Excel knowledge and want to figure out the different features.
In the end the book is a help to no one.

I was disappointed. Although it is good for very basic beginners, I was hoping it would help with functions that are more difficult. The Dummies Books are so good at explaining things in friendly terms. I was looking for the friendly terms to help me understand complicated functions. I was out of luck. I would only recomment this product for the very basic beginner.

It has been proven over the past few decades that physical security is one of the most over sighted areas in Information Security. It a system can be physically accessed, all the firewalls and other network devices mean nothing.

This book and its authors are all experts in their prospective areas of security. I can state that I have had the pleasure of interacting in one form or other with most of the authors over the last few years and I can attest that knowledge that is shared within the cover are only a glimpse of their individual knowledge set.

This book capitalized on the mind set of a hacker by thinking "outside of the box".

Johnny Long does it again! This book is a scary read into the world of underground penetration testing. The different ideas he and his henchmen use to gain physical access into very secure buildings is scary and ingenious, especially the cloth on the hanger trick! This book is a very easy read! I sat down initially and read the first 40 pages before lunch! Go out and get this book, if it doesn't scare the hell outta you, then you either don't work in computer security, or you are a moron!

I ordered this book after reading the description which said that it was a 480 page book, I recieved the book and it was 285 pages which ticked me. Although its a good book with a lot of useful information, I was hopeing to get more out of it. I Give it a 2 star rateing

Johnny Long's book, "No Tech Hacking," brings new attention to overlooked aspects of information security. In his book, Long reveals how simple threats can cause serious problems, even in organizations prepared for a Mission Impossible-style attack scenario.

Long recounts how he and his team of ethical hackers consistently access sensitive information with no special equipment or technical skills. In fact, Long reveals how the ordinary (coat hangers, hand towels, drinking straws, baby powder, and aluminum cans) can result in extraordinary breaches of organizational security.

Long shares real world stories and cell-phone photographs from his adventures in people watching, shoulder surfing, dumpster diving, and vehicle observation.

Long and his colleagues go to great, conspicuous lengths to collect non-public information. While their targets should notice almost all of their activities, most do not. The closest thing to a consequence or confrontation they encounter is a glare from an airline passenger.

Why isn't Long confronted when others observe him surreptitiously taking pictures? Some people don't like to confront an unfamiliar person or don't know whom to report their concerns to. Others are complacent and don't expect negative events to occur. Action invites risk: risk of an awkward or unwarranted accusation, that one won't be taken seriously, and possible personal embarrassment. Sometimes, people feel that the safest action is no action at all. Unfortunately, that feeling of security is deceptive.

Thankfully, Long offers useful advice. He recommends that companies should:

1. Provide incentives for reporting suspicious activities, and
2. Make the desired response well-known and easy-to-do.

To follow these recommendations, organizations need to ensure that everyone knows what information to disclose and what information requires protection. Foremost, all organizations should create policies for verifying the identity of anyone who requests non-public information and adequately train all employees to recognize these situations and take appropriate actions.

In the next edition, it would be great to see more of the practical tips (perhaps even a detailed checklist for each chapter) about what do to protect against these simple, but damaging, threats.

Summary: This is a useful book for creating and spreading awareness of important and often overlooked aspects of information security.

No Tech Hacking (NTH) again demonstrates that the fewer the number of authors a Syngress book advertises, the better the book. With security star Johnny Long as the main author, the book adds a section in Ch 5 (Social Engineering) by Techno Security organizer Jack Wiles. The "special contributors" no doubt worked with Johnny to answer his questions, but it's clear that relying on a primary author resulted in a better-than-average Syngress title. (Harlan Carvey's Windows Forensic Analysis is another example of this phenomenon.)

I liked NTH. The book makes a good companion to titles like The Art of Deception and The Art of Intrusion by Kevin Mitnick, and The Art of the Steal by Frank Abagnale. (Mitnick wrote the foreword for NTH.) Johnny Long is a great author who knows how to tell a story in a captivating way. I agree with some of the criticism levied by previous reviewer Chris Gates about the badge story on p 24. If you aren't supposed to display a badge outdoors (true), and you aren't supposed to display it indoors (false), where do you display it? Maybe Johnny meant a badge-wearing employee should have noticed someone photographing her badge?

I dropped one star for two reasons, and could have dropped two stars if I didn't think Johnny Long is a great author otherwise. First, I was very disappointed to see 75 pages of Google Hacking reprinted as Ch 6 of NTH. The 285 page NTH would have been 210 without Ch 6, and definitely would not have merited the price on the back cover. This reprinting tendency is another Syngress problem.

Second, this book should have been published in color. A great deal of the book shows photographs or screen captures taken by the author while conducting penetration tests. The impact would have been much greater in color. Consider keeping the same price but removing Ch 6 and publishing in color next time. If Syngress has anything like a star author, it's Johnny Long. People attending his No Tech Hacking talks would snatch a color edition up without thinking twice. If you need a good example of a modern color security book, check out Security Data Visualization by Greg Conti, published by No Starch.

Overall, anyone who has some military experience in OPSEC (operational security) will recognize most of the vulnerabilities and exposures identified in NTH. If you need a way to teach your employees how to resist No Tech Hacking, this book is a great teaching tool.

I loved this book. It is well outlined and well written. And it is very topical in today's business marketing world where small businesses can use YouTube to enhance their online marketing efforts significantly. The book has 16 chapters divided into the following five parts:

I. Marketing your business online with YouTube (1-3)
II. Producing Your YouTube Videos (4-8)
III. Managing Your YouTube Videos (9-11)
IV. Working with YouTube Video Blogs (12-13)
V. Promotion and Monetization (14-16)

And each Part is concluded with a "Profile" which applied what had been discussed in the chapters preceding it. I found these profiles very helpful and informative. Not too long ago I read and reviewed "Show Me: Marketing with Video on the Internet" (ISBN: 1884230016). I had high hopes for that book and wanted it to be like the instant book being reviewed. Unfortunately it fell short of my expectations. However, after reading "YouTube for Business" this other book might be a good companion read?

Internet marketing today seems to be about putting together successful ways to generate traffic to your company or nonprofit Web site. You can do this by performing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. You can do this by creating lots of content pages in your Web site. You can do this by writing articles and posting them on free article-posting sites online. Each article will have a by-line directing traffic back to your site. You can generate traffic by creating one (or more than one) blog which will direct traffic back to your site. And after reading this book you can generate traffic by creating simple videos you post on YouTube that will direct viewers back to your Web site.

The really neat thing about YouTube traffic generation is that it not only generates traffic, but it allows you to get your face and voice in front of people as though you were standing there talking with them. You can become three-dimensional rather than just two.

My favorite part of the book was Part II where the author goes into some depth into how to produce videos for posting on YouTube. And it is these same videos you will want to paste into your main Web site and your blog posts. I highly recommend this book for just about any small business owner who wants to make a name for themselves better and quicker. 5 stars!

PS. Take a look at the Search Inside material offered by Amazon so you can examine the Table of Contents of this book and more fully understand what this book has to offer.

I was not familiar with GIS system and I got this book to figure out how things work. The book turned out to be a great help for me. Since everything was very new to me I ended up spending a lot of time to learn about the PostGres database, it PostGIS extention and Geoserver. So do not take it as a complete walk through tutorial but it certainly great help when you get stock somewhere. Bear in mind that I am quiet computer savvy and familiar with linux, java and such. Overall, I recommend this book if you are a web developer that wants to deal with spatial data and his needs are beyond things that can be done simply on google Map, yahoo map and such.

GIS (Geographic Information Systems) is one of the most important development technologies to be applied in the past few years. By using GIS concepts you can learn to apply geographic code to any and all applications easier and better than ever before. With 'GIS for Web Developers: Adding 'Where' to Your Web Applications' you can learn the ins and outs of how and why you will want to add a GIS presence to your application. With plenty of maps, code samples, and a look at the different GIS viewers and editors out there in the world today, this is a good book for any developer that wants to learn more about GISs and their relationship to GPSs.

Good introduction to the technology.

**** RECOMMENDED

The book is a *solid primer* for understanding GIS data and its usage.

It will walk you through vectors, projections, and rasters. You'll be introduced to spatial databases and OCG (with a focus on Open Source tools).

This will get you going... places :)

We have a hard time as software engineers mastering our own concepts. Once we are asked to work in a non-trivial domain like geospatially-enabled environments, it is easy to get lost (pun intended). This book acts as a map to the world of maps. It shows you where you are; in this case, building web-based applications that need to visualize spatially-oriented data. It shows you where you can go without taking too many trips down unnecessary rabbit holes. In short, Scott walks masterly on the very fine line of theory and practice making it both useful and instructive.

In addition to the informational content, the book is one of the more beautiful computer books I've seen recently. The decision to go with color plates for the images is key. In order to fully appreciate the power of visual contexts like this, you have to see the richness of the data.

I worked on one of the first "whole Earth" environments 14 years ago and would have gone bananas for a book like this. The field has changed pretty dramatically since then with the emergence of both the Web and rich and complicated standards like those we are seeing from the OGC. This book lays enough foundation of the theory and catches you up to the new and sexy tools available to us now.

We are not genetically-programmed to stare at words and tables. We are visual creatures and gain real insights when we can see relationships literally laid out in front of us.

Do your customers and users a favor and add some "where" to your applications. Do yourself a favor and pick up this guide to help you along the way.

Prior to reading this book, my experience with mapping technologies was limited to writing Google Maps applications and using its geocoder. I didn't even really understand what a geocoder was.

Scott Davis provides a friendly, easy-going assist to learning the bizarre complexities and conventions associated with real mapping technologies. I was frankly dismayed at the state of the art, with its odd compromises and incomplete, conflicting tools. But Scott leads the reader through the maze quite effectively.

If you're ready to move beyond simple markers and lines, this book shows the way to _real_ mapping applications.

This is a great book for anyone who wants a detailed guide on KPI's for web analytics and multi-channel marketing measurements.

Multichannel marketing is an excellent resource to learn about how you can combine on and off line marketing integrating it and providing metrics to evaluate campaigns. This is great for seasoned professionals or for those starting out in their career. Highly recommended read to expand your knowledge.

This book is written with excellent real-life examples and specific information. And it's written in a tone that's easy to digest, with a voice that's marketer-to-marketer. It's good to take a step back and understand how online and offline campaigns affect each other, especially if you don't actively do both for your job. I'm not finished with the book yet, but I've already subscribed to Akin's Blog (www.multichannelmetrics.com) and sent the link to my team!

As the online and the offline worlds collide from a marketing perspective, practitioners need to be fully prepared to leverage the wealth of opportunities this creates. The Multichannel Maketing book is targeted to this exact cause.
As an online marketer myself, I found this book extremely engaging and useful as we delve into combining our online and offline marketing efforts.
Since the only way to prove that our marketing efforts are paying off is measure, measure, measure, the measurement and metrics section of this book gave me a good grounding on what I need to do in terms of metrics.
Overall, it's a great book, especially if you are looking at multiple channels to achieve your marketing goals.

As a consultant, I interact with marketers everyday. Everytime I begin a new engagement, I spend volumes of time creating a common language and understanding around what "multi-channel marketing" means in today's world...certainly not an efficient investment of my time or my client's dollars.

FINALLY, there is a book that meets MY standards on both the theory and practice of multichannel marketing. Akin's book "Multichannel Marketing: Metrics and Methods for On and Offline Success" provides unique insight and understanding to help marketers either begin the process of executing more complete multi-channel marketing efforts, or refine existing programs.

What I found especially compelling about Akin's book was the very natural and organic progression within each chapter. Chapters open with a quick summary of a business challenge/opportunity. His descriptions (often complimented by case studies) are direct and to-the-point...easily consumed by the multi-channel newbie. As he digs deeper into each topic he offers perspective that even the most seasoned CMOs will find actionable nuggets of wisdom in (I LOVED the Chapter 6 on Measuring Lift Between On-line and Offline).

In closing - is there value in Akin's first book? No matter what your currently level of expertise is...this book will make you a better marketer.

This book is excellent! I am a Web developer who has seen SQL code from other developers in my sites for years. I didn't understand any of it. I bought this book in the hopes of being able to work with database information myself.

In just a few minutes of reading the book, the light suddenly came on and everything became much clearer! I am happily writing my own SQL scripts now and I went through half the book in one night and the other half the next day! I've never learned so quickly from a book.

I especially appreciated that the author provides links to the SQL scripts you'll need throughout the course. And the appendix that described how to execute the scripts depending on which database you are using is fantastic!

If you need to learn SQL quickly this is THE book for you.

The book builds on the concepts of using SQL linearly, and quite well. There is almost no point where the author must reference a future concept in order to cover the current topic. The book was logically arragned, easy to read, and successfully taught me how to query an SQL database.

The final few chapters moved a little too fast, and didn't really teach how to accomplish the more in depth topics of transactions and procedures, but they were well explained at a high level.

The book is clear, specific, and everything I needed to introduce myself to the ins and outs of structured query language. It has 22 chapters, each introducing, and providing specific examples of progressively advanced sql commands and techniques.

It also provides short cut tips, and points out common errors for you to avoid. I'm sure I'll be using this as a great quick reference until I master sql commands when doing data analysis.

Highly recommended.

Ben Forta has a commendable honesty about him. He explains the intent of his books clearly in their Introductions and then proceeds to deliver just that. In this instance, Forta is clear that the book is for those new to SQL and who quickly want to learn how to get the most out of SQL. He is equally clear that the book does not cover every last aspect of SQL.

The book is becoming a bit long in tooth since it has not been updted since 2004. DBMSs covered are IBM DB2, Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL (Version 4), Oracle, PostgreSQL, Sybase Adaptive Server. Some of the information is now outdated and MySQL v5 has added new capabilities. On the whole, though, everything Forta presents here is still usable.

In 22 chapters, Forta teaches the reader the basics of SQL, more than enough to deal with perhaps 80% or more of common SQL requirements. Beyond that and you're in the realm of system architects and administrators who are simply not the audience for this book.

Be sure to download the sample databases and errata from the author's website.

On the whole, one of the best introductions to SQL available.

Jerry

When I went for a job interview a few months ago all I knew about SQL was that it had something to do with databases. When I informed the interviewer I didn't know SQL, the look on his face let me know I was doomed. So as soon as I left that interview I got online and purchased this book determined to learn as much as I can, in an inexpensive way, and quickly. Wow! This book turned out to be all of those things. It is very easy to understand and made SQL seem like a breeze. I loved the examples and plan to purchase an intermediate-advanced SQL book very soon. Hope SAMS Teach Yourself can help me out with one of those too. With their help I think I can add 'knowlege of SQL' on my resume.

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering is a book on software project management by Fred Brooks, whose central theme is that "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." This idea is known as Brooks's law, and is presented along with the second-system effect and advocacy of prototyping. The work was first published in 1975, and republished as an anniversary edition in 1995 (ISBN 0-201-83595-9) with the essay "No Silver Bullet" and commentary by the author.

Brooks's observations are based on his experiences at IBM while managing the development of OS/360. He had mistakenly added more workers to a project falling behind schedule. He also made the mistake of asserting that one project -- writing an Algol compiler -- would require six months--regardless of the number of workers involved (it required longer). The tendency for managers to repeat such errors in project development led Brooks to quip that his book is called "The Bible of Software Engineering" because "everybody reads it but nobody does anything about it!"

I have read this book twice now. Once in college and once again now 5 years later. While I did not get much out of it 5 years ago, now that I have been in the industry a few years, it is a VERY good re-read.

30 Years later this book is still highly relevent. If your project is in trouble, don't add bodies!

Fred Brooks, the author, is the individual primarily responsible for the IBM System/360, arguably the most successful computer software system built to this point. He is also primarily responsible for the IBM OS/360, which was not as successful. You may find that his frank and honest assessment of why one was successful and one was not provides a map of a right way to develop software and an alert system for what can go wrong. Because of this and the distilled thought and experience present in the book, it would be difficult to find a resource that could better prepare you to develop good software.

I have been a software project manager for many years. One of the biggest problem that I encountered was what the author called as "Second System Effect". Some times, architects were unable to discipline himself to avoid over-designing systems in the second project. Their goals were to build perfect systems that would streamline all processes without considering the costs and patience of business groups. To convince others that they were right, they could come up with various reasons that sounded very reasonable. Unfortunately, they were not aware of the cost, time window for product delivery, and etc.

This books provided insightful view about this effect. If our architects could have read this book, they could avoid such problems and became more successful.

Groovy - it's not the philosophy of the 1960s, it's a programming language, and a good one too. "Programming Groovy: Dynamic Productivity for the Java Developer" is a thorough and educational guide to this programming language, which can bring developers many things they need and want to do in their programs. With tips on how to effectively mix both Java and Groovy, and with plenty of advanced programming techniques, "Programming Groovy: Dynamic Productivity for the Java Developer" is a top pick for community library computer collections and for any Java programmer.

I can't add much more to Neal Ford's great comments but I just want to say that I also am truly enjoying Venkat's book. I have seen him and Neal in several NoFluffJustStuff conferences and this book honors that tradition. He does a great job at introducing language features without any unnecessary stuff.

I started reading his beta copy in PDF from the Pragmatic Bookshelf and being relatively new to Groovy I now feel quite a bit more prepared to tackle problems that are difficult and a bit clunky with Java. I suddenly feel like I have a chance of doing some of that 'cool stuff' that the Python and Ruby dudes are always bragging about.

Thanks Venkat!

With 'Programming Groovy: Dynamic Productivity for the Java Developer', Pragmatic has quickly become THE choice for Groovy and Rails resource books on the market. This book is another fine release in the Groovy set of books (Pragmatic has released a few previously) and I can easily recommend this if you program with Java + Groovy.

**** RECOMMENDED

Overall, a very good book on Groovy. Great simple examples to work from. I was very impressed with the chapter on Closures which can be a difficult subject for those coming from primarily a Java background. Wanna learn Groovy? Get this book. [...]

Venkat does a fantastic job of explaining what Groovy is, how it evolved, why you would want to use it, and how to integrate it with your Java projects.

He has a fantastic sense of humor, which really shows through in this book. If you ever get the opportunity to see him speak, take it. He's an incredibly intelligent, articulate programmer, and probably the most language-agnostic programmer I've ever met.

One caveat: if you are a Java zealot, this book may send you into little fits. In the first section of the book, he converts standard Java code (groovyc can compile most Java code, so it's actually Groovy code that looks like Java) into Groovy. There are a lot of comments that may make Java zealots throw little fits.

If you're stuck using Java, get this book.