| Title | Reviews |
| .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 | Oh, how high it strived but how far it fell! The book creates some good objects but then uses odd inheritance. Such as quoted “Since the sprite must have access to the game field background in order to erase itself, we’ll also include the Sprite Class as a derived class from the game engine in the class diagram.” And in the code the Sprite Class proceeds to inherit the GameEngine Class. The GameEngine class holds the background and the general overall game information. These two class objects should be independent not derived. A good solution to the quoted problem would be to have a property of a GameEngine class be a collection of Sprit objects. The programming was done in VB.NET and should run just as fast as C# or C++.NET but the sample games run slow and laggy. The ideas in this book of how a game should be thought out and conceptualized are great. Unfortunately the execution of the ideas is where the book fails. |
| ASP.NET in 60 Minutes a Day | The format includes boldface tips, charts of object properties, and my personal favorite, a summary at the end of each chapter that has every tip and theoretical concept that I would have used a highlighter pen to mark. For a new ASP software developer this book gives an excellent step by step guide instructing how to setup a development workstation installing all the Microsoft developer tools (IIS, SQL, Safe Source, Visual Studios, security), how to create ASP.NET pages and how to deploy the ASP.NET project. I ran into problems unzipping and using the first project. The first project was just starting an ASP.NET VS project and naming a few pages, so I followed the steps in the book to create the project and everything worked fine. I since have discovered my error and have been able to unzip ASP.NET projects and use them. On now for my favorite part about the book, which is not the book. The book’s website has over an hour of video. The book’s website has one video for each book chapter. On the videos the book’s author presents a classroom style lesson with a slide show covering the topics in the chapter. While the author seamed intimidated by being on camera he does an excellent job communicating the ideas he is teaching. I found these videos so useful I barley read the chapter afterwards. I hope that more book publishers start creating accompanying instructional videos for their books. |
| Assembly Language Primer for the IBM PC & XT | This book is one of my most cherished computer books. You learn how to use the DOS debug command to enter assembly code and save the program as an EXE or a COM file. I found the COM files the most fascinating because of their small size. You can actually write a program in 8 bytes. Not 8K of bytes or 8Mb just 8 bytes. The author explains the internal hardware workings of a computer focusing on the instruction set built into the 8088 CPU chip and how software programs interact with the hardware. |
| Assembly Language Programming for the IBM Personal Computer | This book is not as much as a “how to” book as it is “This is how it is” book. What is so neat about this book is the detail used to describe the interaction between assembly code and the computer hardware. This is one of those books that will keep you up late at night reading. |
| Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 with VB.NET 2003 | This is a good book but first I need to air my disappointment. This book’s title suggests that it is something that it is not. It is a book using the latest and greatest version of web page technology ASP.NET. It is a book using the latest and greatest version of scripting language VB.NET. It is a book using the latest but not NOT the greatest tool to build web sites. The book does not use the VS.NET IDE but Web Matrix as the development tool. But don’t despair because Web Matrix is an excellent tool just not as good as VS.NET. Web Matrix is free and you can develop ASP.NET pages on Windows XP Home Edition which is something that VS.NET cannot do. With this book and a PC a person can start creating ASP.NET web pages with no additional software costs. Making this a bargain and ideal for a student classroom environment. |
| Black Art of 3D Game Programming | Wow … Wow … WOW! This is the mother of all 3D game programming books. Over 1100 pages of shear genius. This book describes the theory, the math, the vocabulary of 3D game programming and wraps it all up nicely into C header files. This book has lots of sample games and as a bonus it challenges the reader to a contest. For the contest start with the demo game Starblazer, included on the CD and add your own creative touches to the game, then submit the game for judging. Winners can earn themselves a new C compiler from Borland and runner-ups can win more books from The Waite Group. |
| C Programming Guide | Reading this book is an excellent way to learn C. It carefully details the concepts most new programmers get confused on, pointers, unions and the syntax to use when referencing them. The book has a nice chapter devoted to common mistakes and debugging techniques. |
| C# Professional Projects | I have to admit I am a sucker for application programming books. Oh how I love to read how other business application programmers structure their programs. This book quickly takes you through the VS.NET IDE (Visual Studio .NET Integrated Development Environment) and the C# language and leads you right to business application programming. This book is not for the beginner programmer. The reader needs to be familiar and comfortable with object oriented programming concepts. The book’s main focus is describing a small but realistic business application goal and then walking the reader through how to create the application. The different applications that are touched on are Windows applications, Database applications, ASP.NET applications, Web Services applications and mobile applications. I like the use of flow charts that the book used to describe the business logic behind each application. Unfortunately the flow charts tend to be at the end of each chapter after all the work has been done. A flow chart describing the workflow of the application is like a book overview. It deserves to be in the beginning section so the reader can review and understand the big picture before reading the details. |
| Delphi a Developer’s Guide | A great way to learn object oriented programming. The book’s title clearly states the purpose of the book. Delphi a Developer’s Guide. |
| Developing with Delphi | This is an interesting book. It spends a lot of time discussing proposed theoretical methods of programming then it instructs the reader how it can be accomplished in Delphi. Most instructional programming books for programming languages jump right into the task at hand and start solving the problem. In this book we take a step back and decide how we wish to handle the task in theory then step forward and solve the task. |
| DOS 3.1 Reference Manuel | This book contains a list of all the DOS commands. The best part of this book is the instructions on how to use the DOS Debug program. The DOS Debug program allows a user to decode an existing EXE or COM file into assembly, step through a running program, edit an EXE or COM program and save the changes. |
| Effective TCP/IP Programming | The subtitle of this book really tells it all. 44 Tips to Improve Your Network Programs. This book is a must read for “Effective TCP/IP Programming”. Inside this book you will find the 44 gotchas of programming TCP/IP and solutions for these sneaky problems. |
| Fractal Programming in C | In the DOS programming world nothing was cooler than fractals. And this book lays it all out for you. The programs, the code and the screen shots. The screen shots are almost a necessity because on a 286 PC some of the programs could take up to 3 days to run. The book at times deals with some sophisticated math but any book that feels the need to use the Runge-Kutta method to approximate an integral value is alright by me. The book includes programs to generate over 100 black and white fractals and 32 color fractals of all shapes and styles. |
| Graphics Programming in C | Ah yes, when the Hercules graphic card ruled the world! This is a great book on how the original graphic cards worked and a graphics program’s first task was to identify the capabilities of the graphic card and switch to the appropriate graphics mode. The book has a nice graphics library but I do wish that the book had a summary page listing of all the functions included in the graphics library. The long list of ROM BIOS calls used to communicate with a graphics card makes me appreciate the ease that the Windows OS has brought to the graphics programmer. But when I remember how 1.1 MHz PC with CGA graphics could run some graphics video games too fast, I wonder if the PC community has steered down the wrong video graphics technological path. |
| HTML for the World Wide Web | This book is part of Peachpit Press’ visual Quickstart Guide series. The instructional pages are formatted into two columns. One column containing screen shots and source code. The second column containing the author’s notes as to what is being done and why it’s being done. I like this format. It is very easy to read and to locate the exact logic used to perform a programming task. What I loved most about this book is the time it spent instructing how to professionally use images and graphics on a website. It’s tip on creating Animated GIFs using the GIF Construction Set by Alchemy Mindworks was worth the price of the book alone. I use the GIF Construction Set regularly. This book not only instructs you how to use HTML but how to make your HTML page look professional. The inside back cover has a nice color chart that displays the color and the hex color code for each color. I always have problems selecting just the right color. My bull-in-a-china-shop method of color selection is to make the background white, select the primary color that most closely fits my need, and then adjust the color by using the transparency setting. When I find just the right shade I need, I use a color swab sampler (like Paint’s pick color button) and get the color’s hex code value. |
| Java Database Programming Bible | Excellent book! After studying this book you are ready to create 2-teir and 3-teir database application in Java with any SQL database. The pages I have booked marked with stick notes are; Table 3-1 Standard SQL Data Types and Their Java Equivalents and Code Listing 4-1 a simple example of connecting to a database, executing a select statement and looping through the record set. This book is a great learning tool. |
| Java Script for the World Wide Web, 3rd Edition | This book is part of Peachpit Press’ visual Quickstart Guide series. The instructional pages are formatted into two columns. One column containing screen shots and source code. The second column containing the author’s notes as to what is being done and why it’s being done. I like this format. It is very easy to read and to locate the exact logic used to perform a programming task. This book has a nice appendix listing Java Script’s objects, properties, methods and event handlers. |
| Joe Celko’s SQL for Smarties | I use this book all the time. Whenever I get in a tight spot with SQL code I look up the appropriate topic and read up on the strategies of how to tackle the problem. |
| Kick Ass Delphi Programming | I like this kind of programming book. It’s not an instructional book but a book that examines cool and some times off-the-wall topics. It describes the goal, the challenges and then the solution. Not every topic will personally strike you as interesting but when the right topic is presented it’s magic. My favorite topic from this book was the fractal landscapes, a topic that I had previously never considered with Delphi. |
| Mastering Windows 2000 Programming with Visual C++ | This book takes the casual Visual C++ programmer to the next level. The topics covered are diverse and interesting. These topics include creating networking applications using WinSock 2, Handling Multimedia files, creating Internet utilities and creating COM+ objects. This book focuses on the changes that were introduced with Windows 2000 and how these changes can be used in a Visual C++ program. |
| Mastering Windows NT Server 4 | The book is very useful for learning and navigating through the process of setting up an NT server. My favorite section of the book is on the inside of the back cover where it has a list of “How do I… ” This reference section list all of common tasks for setting up a NT server. |
| Mastering Windows Server 2003 | The book is an excellent tool for learning how to install and maintain a Microsoft Windows Server 2003. My first use for the book was to find out how to add users to Server 2003, which I could not find without the help of the book. Microsoft hid this basic feature by moving it from one place in the previous window’s server version to a different place in this window’s server version. Like a game of hide-n-seek. This hiding of basic utilities reminds me of Novell’s NetWare upgrades, especially NetWare version 3.x to NetWare version 4.x. Not that network administrators can’t re-learn how to do simple tasks but playing hide-n-seek with these utilities demonstrates that the OS manufacturer does not value their customers and feels secure in their monopoly of a market. This attitude did not bode well for Novell let’s hope that Microsoft does not keep on the same track. Enough of that, now for more of this book. Mastering Windows Server 2003 ships with a CD that is a fully searchable electronic version of the book. To prevent illegal electronic copies of the CD book, to use the electronic version you must have the CD in the CD drive. This is a fair means to prevent unfair consumer practices of distributing/uploading/copying/making illegal electronic copies. The electronic book can be read and text searched using Adobe Acrobat Reader. In my opinion the Adobe Acrobat PDF file format is the best way to distribute an electronic book. The only problem with this book is the size. With over 1600 pages an electronic search for the phrase “add user” took over 3 minutes to find the first usage of the phrase which happens to be on page 712. I would recommend this book for all windows 2003 server administrators. |
| Microsoft Excel 97 Step by Step | This book is for the person that thinks they know all about Excel. It’s just a spread sheet application after all, well not quite. With the introduction of programmable macros for Excel this little spread sheet app now handles advance topics such database connectivity, file IO and embedded VB routines. If you think you know what a spread sheet application is all about look again. |
| Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Professional Step by Step | I enjoyed this book. It was easy reading and gently instructs you how to use VB 6.0. The book succeeds its training purpose of mastering a core set of VB capabilities. |
| MS-DOS 2.1 Programmer’s Reference | Quite an interesting reference book. The book lists all the operating system function calls with examples written in assembler and it is well documented. It is interesting to find that the system calls included some backward compatibility calls for CP/M programs. The second chapter in the book covers the topic of device drivers and has source code listings for the 5 ¼ diskette driver and the VT52 Console driver. |
| Numerical Analysis | This book is for the real die-hard mathematician but it’s chapter on rounding errors in electronic devices is a must read for all. After reading this book you will have a good understanding of why a calculator or computer gives you a result of .99999999 when you know the number should be 1.0. The chapters spent on the Runge-Kutta method for calculating integrals is fascinating and gives you a clue as to what NASA undergoes to calculate a path of a projectile. |
| OpenGL Superbible | OK , I have to admit I have always had a soft spot for OpenGL. This book is fantastic. It has is a great reference guide to all the OpenGL functions. The glossary is useful for all the new terms that are introduced in the programming world of 3D graphics. The only problem I found with this book is I could not make the Delphi version run by following the instructions at the back of the book. Most of the book is using C++ as you would expect. |
| Oracle Programming with Visual Basic | The book covers the complete topic of Oracle programming with Visual Basic. The book will get you up and running a VB project that connects to an Oracle database in no time at all. It has instructions on how to setup the Oracle server, how to setup the developer’s workstation and how to successfully retrieve a record set in a VB program. My only complaint with the code style is that the book uses the ‘with’ statement. In my opinion the ‘with’ statement can make the code less readable and possibly confusing or worse if more than one ‘with’ statement is in scope the compiler may not perform as expected. Never write code that may work or should work, write code that always work. |
| Osborne Windows Programming Series | Even if you know everything about windows programming this series is a good read. It nicely organizes all of the windows API calls so the reader can better understand all that goes on behind the scenes and what the programming possibilities are. |
| Perl and CGI for the World Wide Web | SheBang! If that doesn’t make you smile then you should read this book and find out what you are missing. This book is part of Peachpit Press’ visual Quickstart Guide series. The instructional pages are formatted into two columns. One column containing screen shots and source code. The second column containing the author’s notes as to what is being done and why it’s being done. I like this format. It is very easy to read and to locate the exact logic used to perform a programming task. This book has a nice index not just for words but also for listing the symbols used in the programming language. Too often I find programming books overlook the necessity to index the symbols used in the language. Unfortunately the most important symbol #! is missing from this index. SheBang! |
| Peter Norton’s Guide to UNIX | You may be asking yourself “What does Peter Norton, the PC man, have to do with UNIX?” Well this book is written for DOS users who are learning UNIX and it does its job well. The book is loaded with sidebar hints for DOS users. These DOS user hints are all collected in the C appendix. My favorite quote from this book is “Many Unix experts are not familiar with PC’s or DOS. You will have to learn to speak their language” |
| Professional Visual Basic 6 Databases | I was disappointed with this book. First I will tell you why I was disappointed then I will tell you what is good about the book. My first disappointment is the book’s use of the ADO Data Control Object in the VB IDE. This object is only useful for small databases and in my opinion should not be used in a professional environment. The ability to slide through a table record by record has no use in a ten million record database. And a ten million record database is not a big database. My second disappointment was in the code. Object oriented programming is great! Because each object is independent of all the other objects. The book’s code circumvented this very fundamental idea of object oriented programming by making all the button’s OnClick events call the same OnClick event and then used a case statement to determine what button was clicked and what action needs to be taken. Only objects that perform the same function should share a common called event such as a menu option of “Find” and a button option of “Find”. In this book all buttons share one event with the only common thread between the objects is that they have the same form as a parent. That being said let me tell you what I liked about this book. This book does a good job illustrating the concepts and ideas behind databases, database connectivity, how database information is transferred to the user interface. The first couple chapters of this book has an excellent set of step by step instructions of how to make your first database connection. This book would be well suited for a database classroom environment where a student could learn and experience a quick and dirty way of database programming. |
| Programming Microsoft Access 2000 | The code is well documented but I found the occasional variable name cryptic. A self-explaining variable name is most important in an instructional book. I do not like use of the ‘With’ statements that the author uses in the sample code. The ‘With’ statement can make a command that would otherwise be concise into an uncertainty to a reader and even worse to a compiler. |
| Red Hat Linux 8 Bible | First of all the book comes with the Linux OS, MySQL the database server, Samba server which provides the means to create and manage a MS windows usable volume, Apache web server and all the other server software expected to run an office server and internet server. Linux 8 also includes an office suite of software with word processing and spread sheets. I have to admit I have gotten pretty use to all the windows server GUI setup programs. So when I was faced with the option of a text based install verses a GUI based install I chickened and used the GUI base install. You will not be able to setup a complete Linux server without getting use to DOS based command again. For Unix users these are old and friendly commands, for DOS users the transition is not too hard. The crib notes I created for myself only has a few entries. For a DIR command type ‘ls’, for a HELP command type ‘man’, for a SHELL HELP type ‘man bash’ and remember everything in Linux is case sensitive. I found the coverage of the Samba Server weak. Samba server is a big topic so I ended up purchasing another book just on Samba Server, Samba Unleashed. I managed to get all the other server utilities up and running using this book and would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning Linux. |
| Samba Unleashed | Samba Server is a big topic. It manages your shared hard drives, shared printers and network security. Samba is all about your smb.conf file. Once you have your smb.conf file setup correctly, BACK IT UP! Before using this book I found myself lost within the complexities setting up my Samba Server. This book walked me through the changes I needed to make to configure a file server and instructed me on tools to use to create my smb.conf file. |
| Sams Teach Yourself Java 2 | Well done! That’s my opinion of the book. Well done! This book teaches you how to create stand alone Java applications and Java web sites. If you are a VB programmer it may take you a while to get into the Swing. Pun intended. If you did not get the pun then you should definitely take the time to read this book. |
| Sams Teach yourself Visual C++ 6 in 21 days | This book is a good starter book for someone who is familiar with programming and would like to learn Visual C++. The book covers many different topics but never focuses on any one topic in depth. If you are use to programming in VB 6 you will be surprised at how many extra steps there are just to add an object to a form. After reading through this book and coding the projects you will have primed your brain with Visual C++ knowledge and also injected a thirst for more details on specific topics of your interest. If you plan on writing a large Visual C++ project you may want to search for additional books that will cover more specific details concerning your project. |
| Scientific and Engineering Problem-Solving with the Computer | This book is sooooo hard to put down. Each chapter is filled with great programming ideas for ther computer hobbyist. My personal favorite chapter is about monkeys typing on typewriters, where the books ask questions such as what kind of monkeys and what kind of type writers are these? German, French, English of the 1500’s or current English. What if the typewriter keys are not equally distributed and some keys are more likely to be pressed than others. I personally spent hours writing programs exploring the results of the different monkey cases. |
| Secret’s of Delphi 2 | This book is for those programmers who know Delphi and are ready to take the next step and dig deeper into the workings behind Delphi. Discover how you can tap into those behind the scenes resources for your own programming benefit. |
| Simulation Using GPSS | The language is way cooler than the book. The book will put you to sleep but the GPSS language is an eye opener. GPSS (General Purpose Simulation System) is a queue modeling system. In just 4 lines of code you can create a simulation of people waiting in a line and calculate all the statistics of how long it takes for them to get served. Try that in C and see how many pages of code are required to do the same task. |
| Special Edition Using Oracle 8/8i | The only part about this book that I liked was the CD. The CD has Oracle 8i Personal Edition for NT. The CD and the book do not compliment each other. Oracle 8i Personal Edition for NT is good a version of Oracle for an individual to learn from (which was my task). The book itself is targeted for an audience that is already proficient in Oracle and needs to learn more about the special features within Oracle. Too often I found the book listing commands that did not exist in this version Oracle or existed in a different place. The pages I did bookmark for reference were the default SYS and SYSTEM user passwords and the pages that describe how to use the SQL*Loader. |
| Teach Yourself Delphi 3 in 14 Days | This book certainly takes you through ALL of Delphi 3, in a blistering 14 days. But for the life of me I don’t understand why almost 2 pages are wasted on the topic of the GOTO statement. I guess, for the matter of completeness? A book covering an object oriented language should condemn it’s use not just be ambivalent to it’s use. Why, I even once slapped a fellow programmer on the wrist for including a GOTO in a Delphi project. Never use a GOTO! If you repetitively feel the need to use a GOTO, Change careers! |
| The Pocket Guide to TCP/IP Sockets | First of all it’s not a Pocket book. It is a full sized paperback programming book, just not as thick, 130 pages in all. The book has excellent explanation of how sockets work and how to use them in C. The C code has the best documentation I have ever seen. Not only is the source code well commented but each header file included in a program has a comment line that lists the functions used by the program that the specific header file is supplying. Every C instructional book should do this, it is very nice touch. |
| Turbo Pascal 7 Handbook | A fine reference book for the Pascal language. This book does a good job explaining the programming topics that a new programmer needs to know, such as structured programming, link lists and object oriented programming. |
| Using UNIX | This book covers the very basics of how the UNIX system works and the general command line utilities of UNIX which are all the same in Linux. The information in the book is well laid out. My two favorite sections are the command line reference chapter and the DOS-to-UNIX appendix. The command line reference is nicely laid out with one command per page in alphabetical order. The DOS-to-UNIX appendix is a two page table listing DOS command then the UNIX equivalent. |
| Windows NT Resource Kit | The book includes software tools to monitor, manage and calibrate Windows NT version 3.5. It is truly for the very die-hard NT tweakers. |