Computing Internet Books

After having completed Microsoft's MCAD certification, I am using this text along with the Tom Carpenter text to prepare for MCTS and MCITP certification. Though I haven't taken the exam yet, the material appears to be covered in a thorough and in-depth fashion. Yet, it does not get bogged down in unnecessary detail.

Excellent book!

Well written and in depth, this book should cover everything necessary to pass these tests.

I have two complaints:

1) The book is laid out functionally for SQL Server, not for each test. So, for example, when you are studying for the 70-442, it may involve a portion of chapter 3, 4, 5, and 8, but all of 12 and 13. All this information is entwined with the stuff for the other tests.

2) You choose to only take one of the tests on the CD. For example - you couldn't say just test for the 70-441 test. I found the CD questions less useful than books dedicated to one test because of this.

These are minor complaints though, and I'm not really sure the issues can be avoided to begin with. Don't let them stop you from using this as your resource to pass these three tests.

For the 431 exam, I used the (Tom) Carpenter book as my primary study guide and this book as a side reference. My main reason for purchasing this book is for the next two exams (441,442). After taking the 431 test and looking up some questions I guessed at in this book, I regret not using this book as my primary study guide. This book seems to point out the exact information needed to get through the test. I look forward to using it for the next two exams. Note that the author of this book is the technical editor for the Carpenter book.

Update to previous review:
I just passed both exams (441 & 442) without difficulty and with plenty of time remaining (each exam took about 2 hours). This is definitely the book to use for these exams. The topics and sample questions are on target with the actual test. Be sure to review the topic list for each exam in the front of the book before taking the test. The 'what you need to know' section at the end of each chapter is not always accurate. Also - the explanation of cascade deletes is incorrect in the book.

The end-of-chapter exam questions were perfect for helping me know what I know and what I don't know. I already passed the 70-431 and 70-441 exams and the questions I looked at in the back of the chapters hit the knowledge needed to pass these exams.

Unfortunately I failed the 70-442 exam before this book was released. However, after reviewing the end-of-chapter exam questions, I saw exactly what I needed to brush up on. I spent several days in a marathon study session doing the exam questions in the back of each chapter for the 70-442. For anything I missed, I studied the material in the chapter. In addition to learning what I needed for the exam, I also learned a couple things I didn't know about in SQL Server 2005. I then took and passed the 70-442.

This book was just what I needed. I only wish I had it before I took the 70-442 the first time.

This book was very informative and helpful and I would recommend it to others who have handhelds and don't know its full potential. I am not very "follow the directions" literate but the book was easy to follow and step by step for the dummies in all of us!

This book does not offer what I was looking for, namely some in-depth information on the Axim PDA. There is a lengthy chapter devoted to the stupid games you can play on this device. But I was hoping to learn how (if at all possible) you can create a shortcut to rotate the display. Or how to always have Word and Excel start up at a predefined zoom level. Instead the book tells you how to play BallBreaker.

Not a bad book but the Axim is pretty self explanatory without it. It may come in handy if you want to use yours for a GPS or want to add something cool to the CF slot like a camera. Other than that, I probably could have learned just as much surfing the Web for other users.

Without more detailed information about the operating system and its methods, this book is a useless waste of time. I threw it in the trash after 15 minutes.

xim Handheld Second Edition. I thought it was a hardcopy of the Axim X51V manual that dell no longer offers so I ordered it form amazon. Well, this Second Edition was not really a manual but a hard copy of what the Axim X51V can do. It is a very nice book but since the Axim is very new to me I needed a manual of everything I could do with the axim including on how to accurately work the wireless capability. I enjoyed reading this handheld second edition and it did help me a lot in understanding the axim. But, of course it was not a true manual that is very murch needed but not offered anymore by dell because people would loose their manuals and want replacement manuals that are probably expensive to reproduce since the manual would be so large. In closing I do believe as the Dell Axim Handheld Second Edition book goes it is very nice but still it does not in detail train a person in "How to Do Everything" like a Axim X51v manual would do it you could still buy one. Sincerely Yours, Robert J Miguez

I have always been an advocate of the O'Reilly line of "...In a Nutshell" books but Sybex has tipped the scale. HTML Complete is a COMPLETE collection of markup that is easy to referrence when needed. The book is an easy (although long) read packed full of tips and tricks. Most importantly, the 1,000 page collection is under $20! Amazing.

This book is light weight and very portable in the briefcase. I take it everywhere I might need to deal with the web. Very user friendly with comprehensive index to find information. It covers practically all topics regarding excellent web technologies (including perl, unix and CGI and xml) with comprehensive definitions to make the not-so-technical individuals grab an instant understanding . Brilliant HTML and CSS reference for people who don't have much time to spend hours finding quick solutions for front end coding.

HTML Complete teaches the essentials that every Web Designer should know, both beginner and expert alike. For experts it serves as a great reference book.

Beginners will find themselves interested in HTML instantly. HTML Complete breaks passed the boundary of teaching programming through text. It comes off as more of a teacher than a text book - just like it should be.

Later on other topics such as Perl, ASP, Java, and much more are introduced after a significant portion of HTML is covered. While those topics are left in the dark, they do not hinder the overall feel of the book and the knowledge it shares.

I bought this book at a local bookstore and it's one of the best computer books I've purchased. It starts from the beginnings of HTML, covers CSS and everthing inbetween, and finishes with an introduction to advanced HTML. There are also numerous reference tables (color, tags) for the more experienced web designer.

This book is not bad, but by the author's own admission, much of what is being explained is deprecated. The book is quite good at telling you what NOT to use, but keeps referring the reader to Chapt 16 (CSS). Unfortunately the CSS chapter does not show all the correct ways to implement the deprecated features (use of justification - left, right, center - in tables, for example).

One nice feature in the book was the "Widely Supported" yes/no indicator for HTML syntax in the Appendix A.

I think the author should have spent more time on non-deprecated usage of HTML and CSS, instead of saying "Here's how to do this, but don't do it this way." This book is probably useful to someone who is trying to READ older HTML code, but is not so useful for someone trying to write new HTML code.

In summary, although it has useful information surrounding the use of HTML, this book should probably be re-titled to "HTML Deprecated", or "Reading Deprecated HTML Code", or alternatively needs a much-expanded section on use of CSS.

If you're looking for an in depth book on AAA and it's associated algorithms, there's no match for this book. Much as I wish I was wrong and that I could replace the book I borrowed from my friend with a cheaper book, I'm afraid I'm about to be forced to shell out the [...] on AAA. And I'm only going to need it as an intermittent reference. There's no math (at least no Greek), but many of the algorithms used to underpin the subject are explained concisely and clearly. It's simply well written and more informative than anything else on the market. I'm a sales engineer and this book was written on the ideal level for me. Technical enough but also abstract enough. Good work sir!

This 'Triple A' set stands for Authentication, Authorization, Accounting, and the theme of this book is maintaining security in a wireless cell-phone network.

Authentication is a three way street. Is the device being used really the correct device to receive the service being requested? And is the network being accessed really the network you want to be on? The third type of authentication is on a message level. Is the message itself legit, or did someone, somehow get in the middle and send a bogus message?

Authorization is rather like the old 'need to know' aspect of security. Is the salesman out in the field that's calling in really authorized to get employee or financial information?

Accounting includes making sure that the client is billed the correct amount of time, but also includes such things as system usage analysis to help define capacity planning.

Each of these subjects is exhaustively treated in this book. Further they are handled with a casual writing style that makes the book more enjoyable to read than most. Well, maybe enjoyable isn't exactly the right word -- how about making it possible to get through it without falling asleep.

If you have a current installation of Eclipse and you are using JPA (ex: Hibernate), don't even think about using the book's update site. It will totally hose up your entire Eclipse installation and you are looking at a complete re-installation.

It's a shame, because otherwise the book seems to be very helpful. Rumor is that they are planning an update sometime late 2008, but none of the bookstores have a publication date on it yet.

I purchased 8 copies and distributed them to our team. Several team members went through each chapter, building the sample application on top of the Eclipse RCP. Each of us, whether or not we built the application, have learned a great deal about using Eclipse. I highly recommend this book to any software team that is starting a new product or that is in the throes of refactoring / recasting an old one. The book will jump-start your Eclipse experience.

I couldn't do my RCP application without this book. its example application goes growing showing everything we need to learn to make an RCP application.

I stumbled into Eclipse when researching OSGI as a framework for a system I was designing. I was not looking forward to the drudgery and complexity of building all the required infrastructure over OSGI to build an actual product - what a wonderful discovery to see this gleaming system with smoothly integrated parts ready to do my bidding!
The authors make the apt analogy of launching a payload into space - so much of the work goes into the launch vehicle and ground control,etc, whereas to the payload designer the only interesting work is at the very tip of the rocket. As software developers we love generating the cool idea (the payload) and are not so excited about the other 90% which makes the real product - complex UI workflows, help, update, packaging, etc. Eclipse provides all the mechanisms and plenty of automated assistance for putting together your total system.
Perhaps you will find some disparities between the book and your downloaded version of Eclipse (I haven't yet) but this is not Visual Basic, this is a relatively deep but elegantly designed system which does require a certain level of understanding before you really get cooking with it, but this book does an excellent job with that. Once you get going, it's like having a team of 10 great programmers at your command.

This book is a very detailed and at the same time hands on treatement of what the RCP paradigm is all about. It begins with how to create using Eclipse a very functional and easy to do Chat application. As it is this
application shows the most generic and neccessary aspects of how to start an RCP application all the way to branding and packaging within it's first serveral chapters. Its' full of suggestions and tips of why you're doing various things to what not to do and why.

This book is for anyone from someone just wanting to know how it's done up to a professional Eclipse developer level. The chapters are nice and short which helps when you want to read it between work and home.

It does read as though there was thorough thought and planning from a number of sources in the layout and planning of this book.

it also will satisfy anyone wanting to know the deeper meanings of why they had to do what they did in the first several chapters further on into this material.

To me the total material ranges from easy-do-it-yourself application build kit material to A-1 college material that could be used in a semester course of RCP and eclipse.

It also offers at the end several references to things like the OSGI model that eclipse is modeled on now as well as other interesting items you never knew but form the basis of this wonderful platform called eclipse.

Once you read this book and look at the references of what people have done with Eclipse (specifcally RCP) from Nasa to the banking industry,
you'll realize that Eclipse RCP is to Windows, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Linux and MacOSX as VisualStudio is to .NET

I am about 3/4 of the way through at this point. It is a fantastic book with a lot of good information. I would highly recommend it for anyone looking for a good methodology for network design. There is also a lot of good hints for things to keep in mind while designing the network.

This book is a very comprehensive reference source and working guide for 3G mobile networks. If you're only going to buy one book on the subject, this is it.

I purchased this book with the intent on gaining a further understanding of the network design process. I really didn't expect the book to give me as through an understanding of network design as what has turned out to be the case. Coming from the network support side this book has been a tremendous compliment to my support and logic in how traffic flows from A to B. I feel now that after having read the book which is an EASY READ that I have come away with enough knowledge to auctually design and implement a small to midsized company network. The authur does an outstanding job of presenting to the reader the many processes involved in through network design, network logic, and what exactly happens when your pc 1st boots and why it takes so long for the logon screen to appear "if this is the case on your network", and countless other topics. If you are just getting into network design or have been in the field and are a seasoned veteran I highly recommend that you add this book to your networking library.

Like the carpenter, the network designer does well to develop a plan before purchase. The title, Top-Down Network Design, is accurate because the author's key approach throughout the book is to consider what works best for the end user and meet the goals of a Request for Proposal. Priscilla Oppenheimer has presented a well structured textbook that covers every facet of networking in general with the intent of training the reader in the best practices of network design. The point of this book is to discourage going straight to product catalogs and picking out hardware when assigned a network project. Even if the customer is not given an RFP, the designer should present an overview of the project that includes the goals and how those goals will be measured.

The reader should have some basic knowledge of networking. However, this would make an excellent text book at a university or trade school since Oppenheimer covers all of the logical concepts and physical aspects of modern networking. The well read and experienced network engineer will find it a good review with a unique insight or tip sprinkled just often enough to make it worth the read. Except for the CCDP exam, the book is primarily a supplement to the student, but a must have reference for the consulting and design professional.

Oppenheimer gives well thought through, easy to read descriptions of technologies. For example, page 208 gives the most succinct explanation of how IPv6 works I have ever read. Another practical lesson is her definition of the "Heisenberg uncertainty principle" as "the act of observing something can alter what is observed." Consultants should be careful that their analysis doesn't become a problem in itself. Top-Down Network Design is a reference you will want to check yourself and those you hire.

Top-Down Network Design, Second Edition is both a new terrific book and still a terrific book. The original took a systems approach to designing a network which could provide the service the people paying for it expected, partly by getting them to clarify their expectations and needs. The new Second Edition does this, too, but it includes material relevant to the networks being implemented today, and they are very different networks than we saw even three or four years ago.

New technologies, such as VPNs, VoIP, IPv6 as well as v4, Gigabit Ethernet and 10GigE, etc. are covered as part of a networking solution, not just as cool and sexy technologies to be rolled out for that reason. Likewise, new business emphases like reliability, redundancy, resiliency (which are not the same thing), security, and even survivability are addressed. Not all new technologies will help solve these problems, and, more often than not, they aren't even necessary. Thoughtful planning is far more important, and working with the network as it is now, toward what it is desired to become, is how you can really solve these problems.

I think one of the greatest techniques you can learn from TDND, 2e is to characterize the flows of traffic on the network. Priscilla Oppenheimer gives several examples of developing such analyses in a variety of situations - campus networks, WANs, a design testing scenario, and so forth. The Appendix with workstation bootup traffic information is especially helpful - the only thing I would have liked to see that I didn't was a little more detail on the contents of the various packets involved, but it is an Appendix, and using a sniffer will let you see them for yourself.

I have both the original and the new Second Edition - and getting the new one is definitely worth it. Networking has changed, and this book will help you handle the new material.

I have never built a web form. Using this book, I built a simple site that includes a contact form and a registration form. I happened to find
JimCo books and tutorials on this website [...]. The tutorials in conjuntion with the book, solved my problem. I am not a web developer, but I am cheap and these tools were the best I could find anywhere on the web.

I have been doing ASP.NET for a few years now and still find introductory books helpful...this book was the exception. I found the chapters that are suppose to cover a facet of ASP.NET lacked much meat at all. Many of the chapters were under 10 pages and I found that instead of offering anything concrete the author went overboard with the external links to articles, help pages, or other books!

In the books defense it will give you a limited working knowledge in topics like the ASP.NET provider model introduced in ASP.NET 2.0, as well as data enabling your web app. However this still isn't enough for me to rate it any higher. The book may be sufficent for someone with a very limited knowledge in ASP.NET however you'll find there is no depth in this book and after you are done you probably will need to continue searching for more. Leave this book alone.

my-2-cents

Although this book is not as well written as his book on Expression Web it is still a very good training book for Expression Web Developer.

I must have purchased 10 books on how to develope a website from the ground up. Within the first 5 chapters, without fail, something integral to the entire website that they take for granted working, wouldn't work for me, and after a week or two of trying to fix the issue, I would normally give up. I repeated this process for about the past 6 months.

Some background on me, I'm 28, I have a BS in computer science, but generally learned nothing in college, of business value anyway. I am lightly familiar with coding/designing, if given enough time I could read the code and tell you about what most things do in C++ or VB, (And their .net equivalents), but ask me to program something, and I wouldn't even know where to start. This is why I am heavily dependant on any programing examples in a book working...

This book is definitely more a designers guide to building a website, but by that, I mean it shows you how to create a website from the ground up, and every short cut possible where you can have Visual Web Developer (VWD) button, or option do the work of coding. This is like a god send for people like me, that want to learn coding, but not as badly as we want to learn how to create .NET websites. I didn't get stuck for more than a few minutes anywhere.

There are no "stories from the trenches" that many books put in just to fill in space and bore you inbetween what you actually want to know. This book is VERY concisely written telling you what you need to know. This book does not go into great depth in any great part, it briefly touches on just about everything you could need to run your own website though and makes recommendations for either websites or books to purchase to get additional information.

In conclusion, this book is great for beginners, and I would, and have recommended it to everyone I know who, similar to me, wants to create a professional looking website, that doesn't have the programing skills to make it happen. I'd imagine though, if you are above beginner level, this book would not be for you.

The title of this book is a little misleading. It deals with Visual Web Developer Express Edition 2008 and does an excellent job of addressing the new features in the 2008 release as well as a valid tool for someone just starting with Visual Web Developer. It takes you through the development of a sample ASP.NET website using Access databases along with user security. It is an excellent reference as well as a tutorial approach for a begginner to intermediate web site creation.

I hate Microsoft Press books. While I've always found them to be pretty mediocre, this is the book that drove me to hatred.

This book was written by many different authors, and I would bet that they were given at least some of the exact same instructions. Then some lazy editor put all of each author's work into the book, without reading it. I actually read the first half of this book word-by-word, before I started skimming it. This is what is expected of you. Not reading, but skimming.

Instead of giving you a 200-page book that would suite your needs via normal reading, Microsoft gives you a 1200 page book with 200 pages worth of information. Then they repeat the "marketing" parts 100 times, so that when you "skim it", you will receive the full marketing message that a person who carefully read a much smaller book would have received.

That aside, this is a pretty detailed reference on IIS... although not in a reference format. Anyone familiar with IIS 5.0, and wanting to learn about IIS 6.0 can almost certainly find everything they need from a small, free, whitepaper on Microsoft's website. Very little has changed.
1. Application Pools
2. Web Service Extensions (Managing scripts /executables)
3. Metabase is now in XML instead of binary

Covers all topics required for successfully planning, designing, deploying, troubleshooting and tuning IIS. You can't claim to be an IIS expert without this book!

This book is great for those who are managers and won't ever actually do any real programming/web mastering or do anything but just want to know how IIS operates, or just want to claim you read a book on IIS. If you are a webmaster or want to learn about IIS specifics, you've come to the wrong place, this book is not for you.

If you are looking for a how to guide, this book is painfully underdeveloped. The authors are great for saying, if you want more information, use the IIS help and not discuss anything in great details. Most of the book mentions different aspects of the IIS without really delving into the details of the options. Parts on setting up mutliple websites is limited to 2 pages without telling you how to specifically do it. Instead they mention the various options and pros and cons for the different options. Beyond this, they say absolutely nothing. This is a fantastic no help book and is one of the worst books written from Microsoft press. Very disappointing.

My biggest objection to this book is the tone used by the authors in talking to the reader. Presumably this is a book that will be bought and used by professional persons with an above-average intelligence, but the feeling I get when reading many passages in this book is that the authors are talking down to someone who they don't expect to be very bright.

There is a lot of repetition and a lot of trying to describe something that is intrinsically complicated in a way to try to make it sound simpler than it is. This is presumably done because the authors are afraid that the reader will otherwise not be able to follow the descriptions at all.

Another thing that I don't like about this book is that references from one place in the book to another place do not use page numbers. Here's a typical example:

'For more information about how to back up the Web server, see "Back Up and Restore the Web Server to a File or Tape" in "IIS Deployment Procedures" in this book.'

Because there isn't any page number reference you have to go to the table of contents and find "IIS Deployment Procedures" (which is an appendix) and then scan the contents of that appendix for "Back Up and Restore the Web Server to a File or Tape", and then you find the page number.

Another problem is that you can't be 100% sure that what it says in this book is correct. I haven't found all that many errors, but I have found a few.

For example, on page 10 it says, "When IIS is installed, it is locked down by default so that it can serve only static content." This is not true, at least not for Windows Server 2003, Web Edition, which has ASP support enabled by default.

Another example: On page 22 it says, "When you complete installation of Windows Server 2003, Manage Your Server automatically starts." This is not true, at least not for Windows Server 2003, Web Edition.

Two CD-ROM's are included with the book. One CD contains an evaluation version of Windows Server 2003. The other CD contains several searchable online versions of IIS documents and Help files, and 14 IIS tools. Incidentally, you don't need to buy this book to obtain the tools, as they are also available for download on Microsoft's web site.

This book contains a huge amount of very detailed information about IIS 6, and if you really need this information then this book is "the only show in town". My advice though, is to consider carefully if you really need all this advanced information, or whether you can perhaps get along with one or two of the less comprehensive books about IIS 6.

Rennie Petersen

Microsoft's development groups appear not to talk to one another, and for Internet Information Server that longstanding bad habit is a critical problem. IIS intersects systems, programming tools and applications (Windows Server 2003, Visual Studio and Internet Explorer). The Resource Kit is written from a systems perspective and has little to say about the other main actors. With the introduction of Visual Studio 2005, release 2.0 of the .NET framework, Small Business Server R2 and most recently Vista the material is badly outdated.

[...] As with other items written by Microsoft marketing staff, it is heavy on coverage, light on technical information and hard to use. Unfortunately IIS is a niche topic and so far has not attracted a skilled and knowledgeable writer who can integrate the several technologies and perspectives needed to explain it.