Please look elsewhere for a good MSSQL7 text
346037
This text contains nothing beyond what you'd find in the microsoft online references.  The book is useless, both as a learning tool and as a reference for experienced DBA's.
4151285
This 'book' is an incomplete list of Java 7 features. I would recommend getting this information directly from the 'horses mouth' instead [...]
130167
This book is not well explained overall.  As I It is hard to find a book convined MySQL and PHP, but I recommend to look for another book.  Even I have other programming languages and databases knowledge, it is hard to follow this sloppy book.
4146836
Its a good book if you don't refer to MSDN frequently. But all the content in this book can be found on MSDN. I am disappointed as the authors have not added more any more value to the book based on their experience. There are instances where the mistakes are also copied from MSDN. Check the chapter for creating Custom BCS solutions  and compare with <...>..Note below the variable is declared as p and used as sap..

BdcServiceApplicationProxy p =
  BdcServiceApplicationProxy)SPServiceContext. Current. GetDefaultProxy(
  typeof(BdcServiceApplicationProxy));
DatabaseBackedMetadataCatalog catalog = sap. GetDatabaseBackedMetadataCatalog();
2718645
As an experienced Sql Server person, I was looking for a book that just describes new features in 2008.  This book does that, but I would have preferred more details.  The editorial review on Amazon describes it as "a concise yet in-depth look."  Maybe I should have paid more attention to the word "concise."

Excluding appendices, it is 186 pages.  Those 186 pages get eaten up quickly by filler such as 6 pages listing the different Sql Server editions that are available, 2 pages showing rudimentary sql use of the new operators; and many pages with 1/2 the page filled by a screen shot.  Does such a concise book really need to dedicate a full page to showing what a standard "file download" and "save as" dialog box look like?

But having said that, it does itemize the most important of the new features.
828689
I bought an SP book from Amazon 8 years ago (which was excellent) when I was using SAP.  I was away from the program for awhile, and needed another reference.  I bought this, and was extremely disappointed.  The price is reasonable, but you will get what you pay for.  It may help you with a few basic transactions, but that is all.  Keep looking for another reference.
4240197
Book is not close to anything worthwhile paying for. This title should be changed to 'Some stuff about databases'. Has a M$ bias as shown by using access as database. Using jdbc to odbc as connection type with little to no examples. If the whole book was a here is how to use java to connect to and use data from a database he 'Jim Keogh' might have produced something worth the title and price. Mr. Keogh is Chair E-Commerce Track of Columbia University? That is scary. This book should be a no thanks I will pass.
1146921
I started this book with a background in both VB and classic ASP, with the goal of upgrading my knowledge to ASP.NET.  I'll state that I think this book is just bad.

It seems that half the book presupposes that you have extensive knowledge of classic ASP, and the other half assumes that you've never used any sort of scripting language before.  The examples are horribly simplistic to the point that they have absolutely no relation to modern web applications.  But, you won't understand large parts of the book unless you have a background in programming.

The first two parts (six chapters) could actually be somewhat useful to a true beginner.  They start slow and build up some very basic skills.

Part 2 is a little different.  Chapter 7 on web forms is fairly decent, but could use to be longer.  Chapter 8 on server controls is just poorly written.  Chapter 9 on accessing date is AWFUL.  It presupposes you have a fairly good background in traditional database access with something like ADO, so it's definitely not for beginners.  For instance it compares the DataReader object to a read-only forward-only cursor, but if you don't have a background in data access you aren't going to understand how cursors work.  This is right next to where he explains that the password key "Specifies the password to use to log into the SQL Server database."  Yeah, DUH.  Also, a bulk of the chapter is devoted to working with XML data but the chapter sets out to work with databases.  For a 68 page chapter it conveys surprisingly little actual new information.  No time is given to explaining how databases have traditionally been accessed and used in actual working applications.  I just wanted to scream as I read it.

Chapter 10 on creating custom server controls and chapter 11 on creating web services are very brief introductions to some fairly advanced and complicated topics.  They provide simplistic examples and then expect you might be able to actually use the knowledge you gained in the chapters.  Yeah right.

Chapter 13 is aimed at beginners on deploying ASP.NET applications.  Chapter 14 on tracing and debugging is actually not bad.  (Not good either.)

Also the book is based on using Visual Studio .NET.  I'll state that I have a bias against using IDEs for simple scripting, so I won't comment on appropriateness here.  But be forewarned that three-quarters or more of the examples involve VS.NET.
4618284
I am not new to T-SQL, got this book for picking up some missing parts of the language that I am not familiar with

Frankly,  I don't like the presentation/writing style of this book, for

1. Guess english is not authors first language.

2. This book uses quite some quirky terms( invented by authors himself) that haven't been used elsewhere but this book, such as "Logical Precedence Among rows". If you google "Logical Precedence", all the pages will refer to things about this guy..What the hell?? these awkward terms make some of the simple ideas more difficult to get.

3. Basically, T-SQL is based on ANSI SQL, and SQL itself is based on relational algebra as well as semantics of your business requirements. This book talks too much about syntax details of in microscope level, while too little on how to interpret the business demands in elegant T-SQL. i.e. how to map it into algebra equation.

This book separates join and intersection things into 2 chapters, which might not seem to be necessary for my part.

Hardly can say this book is enjoyable to read, but its OK for a T-SQL supplement.
4199910
I only bought this item because it was the required text for a course I'm taking.

I dislike this entire series of Oracle 10g books. They are written in a scattered way that makes them relatively useless as a reference. If you're not required to buy this book as part of a course, skip it.
2551882
Teach yourself Oracle8i goes on for page after page with charts of technical data and facts without ever explaining how to use these.  In the creating a database section, for example, charts of Oracle parameters are  merely listed in table form without any explanation about what they mean or  how to decide upon what to use in any given implementation scenario.  Difficult to read.  We need teach yourself people who can write good  English prose.  No organization.  Useless!  Besides, the book uses an  outdated Beta 3 version of Oracle8i.
4620844
It doesn't even mention foreign keys until several chapters into the book. Not what I expect out of a database book. I used it for school and it left a lot to be desired.
1127972
Not bad, but I've wasted massive amounts of time trying to format labels in Access. Drivers keep resetting to unwanted labels.
2187677
Very poor book (not the worse) for a Microsoft endorsed book.

The SSIS book also by Microsoft was much, much better (K. Haselden)

There were very few real work examples and step by step process.

Very mechanical description of report building process and deployment.

Did not clearly explain some of the more subtle aspects of constructing

more complex reports.

Probably a good reason why it is not available.
4108441
This book is a laundry list of features and how to implement them - not the place to go if you're looking for best practices or even the best choice among a few options.  For that use something like Professional SQL Server 2005 Performance Tuning (Programmer to Programmer).
1905416
I agree with several of the other reviewers that this book provides good information and insight about SharePoint development.  However, if you plan to build the exercises, or download the code, you will be disappointed!  It is likely that the book was written before the final version of SharePoint 2013 was released.  As such, the directions are no longer valid and the code simply doesn't work. In some cases the directions are also incorrect and leave out important steps, code and variables needed for the examples to work.  Unfortunately, the errata hasn't been updated to reflect the necessary changes and a recent download of the code was 'almost' worthless.  I waited two months, as it bothers me to write a negative review, but I am doing so in case other customers plan to rely upon this book to quickly meet a project objective.  That said, if you have plenty of time, and if you can get the authors to respond to questions on the Blog, this book may provide you with limited value.  However, if you expect the code to work and the exercise steps to be complete, then do not buy this book!
2518129
A rigorous treatment of structured query language. Unfortunately it reads a whole lot like Murach's other SQL tomes and sometimes the boilerplate gets in the way of what could otherwise be a much more useful reference. This is SQL 'flavored' with MySQL. But perhaps that is inevitable and my criticisms are unfair. It's just that I had re-read Murach's reference on SQL Server right before starting this book and the content of some (but not all) chapters is nearly identical. Still, the content is solid.