Active Books

SAMS "Unleashed" series of books have long been my favorite brand for technical literature. This book is one of several reasons for that.

The first 80% of the book goes through a lot of explanation on how to do things with the ASP web development language, with plenty of great examples, usually boiled down to your empirical needs. The last portion of the book is a very handy object reference.

Of all my technical books, this one is probably my second most-used one. This is primarily because I forget the syntax on some VBScript functions, from time to time, and the reference in the back of this book is the best I have.

Excellent content plus excellent examples!

I bought this book about a year ago and refer to it often.

I've just spent some time on Amazon researching other VBScript, SQL and ASP books to see if there was anything that offered more.

With a list of books in hand, I went to my local technical bookshop and spent 3 hours sifting through about 10 books to see if any were better.

I had a compulsion to buy something, but in the end I basically realised that this book had most of the info that really big expensive books had. And usually, they just dealt with one topic (ie., a book on SQL that didn't cover ASP, a book on VBScript that had more of a slant on Visual Basic for Windows).

For the meantime, I'm going to continue to use this book and supplement it with websites such as learnasp.com, 4guysfromrolla.com and aspin.com

On the plus side, this book provides a comprehensive coverage of most ASP topics. However, some topics like Index Server get only a superficial coverage.

However, I did find some factual mistakes. For example, the author advises against turning buffering on (Response.Buffer = True) because it will have an adverse effect on performance, but of course the reverse is true.

I'd call myself an intermediate web site designer, and this is the worst technical book I have ever purchased. In order to learn, a person must understand the "why" with the "how". This book explains none of that. There is no learning here. If all you want to do is memorize examples of code, then purchase this book. But if you want to know how and why the code works so you can extrapolate, even maybe get creative with it and develop, then YOU DON'T WANT THIS BOOK.

After reading other ASP hand-on books, I was overwhelmed and yet confused with different techniques and examples. I am glad that I discovered this book. It explains all the basics concisely and gives a global view of what ASP can do. Now I can fit all the pieces together which puzzled me earlier. This is definitely a good starter as well as a time-saving reference.

Half of each page is devoted to a picture of an almost empty screen with comments like "Position the insertion point between the quotation marks and type the name of the file you want to include".

This book is shallow.

This book is good for beginners, but may not be right for the prof. level programmers because this book mainly discussed the general, and basic knowledge about ASP. Overall, it is a good tool book.

Moreover, the graphical contents and detailed instructions do help a beginner understand ASP faster.

I'm not joking.

I'm not one to complain or even post reviews on amazon but this book needs to get thrown out of the circulation of tech books.

I'm a MCSD and I can garauntee this book is full of flaws. My roommate wanted to learn ASP 3.0 for a few projects he had lined up. He purchased this book and became more and more confused as the days went by. I reviewed each subject matter at hand and found numerous flaws inside of nearly every page.

For example: Page 71, states that the ASP page will return certain values from the Request.Form method call. The "visual" aspect of this page is completely wrong. The extension on which the page is presented (in the address bar) explicity says "index.html". Someone please tell me how the hell a beginner is suppossed to understand how an HTML file PARSES ASP? Thats right, IT DOESNT.

This is one of many mistakes throughout the book.

Save yourself the 25 bucks and the associated headaches and go get a six pack of beer and watch a bug zapper. YOu'll probably learn more than this book can teach you. (Actually go to www.w3schools.com) and look at ASP. THat site is actually correct with WORKING examples.

Pros:
- short and sweet 'guidebook'
- beginner (maybe intermediate) level
- just about every page has a different ASP topic
- brief code examples, specific to the topic discussed on that page

Cons:
- e-book is actually 16 individual .pdf files, one for each chapter (can't search a topic unless you know what chapter it was from)
- no in-depth code examples

Summary:
- good reference book that shows just about everything you can do using ASP
- need to supplement with more in-depth examples

Excellent writing and well documented with provable references. The aware and wise should learn and take heed to what is happening before our eyes.
Do the math if you doubt. I am an electrician and bioelectric researcher and I did the math.

HAARP stands for The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. The goal of this program is to further advance our knowledge of the physical and electrical properties of the Earth's ionosphere which can affect our military and civilian communication and navigation systems. The HAARP program began in 1990 and operates a world-class ionospheric research facility located in Gakona, Alaska. This book tends to focus on the darker, more sinister side of the project. There are claims that the US Navy is performing experiments that would shock, frighten, and possibly outrage the good people of Earth. There are, in fact, some compelling "facts" and arguments that WILL make you pause and think for a while.

HAARP is an innocuous research station designed only to help mankind. It's a radio transmitter probing the secrets of the ionosphere for our mutual benefit, right?--Wrong.

Dr. Nick Begich teamed with Jeanne Manning to write Angels Don't Play This Haarp, the book that exposes the potential dangers (and there are many!) of the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project in Alaska.

Manning and Begich substantiate their theories and concerns with extensive research, documentation, interviews, and scientific facts. Some of the geopolitical and mega-corporate connections they have uncovered are as frightening as HAARP's possibly disastrous impact upon our planet and our lives.

The military has invested heavily in HAARP. Why? Begich and Manning have supplied some very scary answers.

HAARP's high-energy research system may very well have serious consequences for planet Earth. Its true purpose and actions must be revealed, and toward that end, Angels Don't Play This Haarp has fired a first and powerful salvo for "We, the People."

Using electromagnetic energies to control the weather, tamper with the capacity of the mind to think clearly, etc., is not science fiction. The great scientists, Albert Roy Davis and Walter C. Rawls, themselves world renowned experts in electromagnetics, wrote in their fourth book, "The Magnetic Blueprint of Life" (1979), that electromagnetic energies could be used to do exactly that. They stated in the book that the communications disruptions throughout the world in 1977 (1977 blackout?) were, they believe, due to experiments the Russians were doing, blasting enormous amounts of electromagnetic energy into the atmosphere, just like HAARP does. They also wrote that they believe that the upper strata atmospheric winds that control the weather have been changed (global warming?).

In addition, Davis and Rawls stated that powerlines in the U.S. are above ground, unlike in Great Britain and other countries where they prefer to put them underground, and they will eventually cause a change in the protective ozone layer that surrounds the earth.

We're still laughably told in the media and on TV programs that nuclear weapons are the most powerful weapons in the world. So in fifty years we haven't developed weapons that are more powerful? Consider how far computers, aircraft, communication systems, etc., have come in fifty years. All of that money spent on the military, and a fifty year old technology is still the best we have. Somehow I ain't buying it.

The ultimate weapons of the 21st century are various forms of electromagnetic weapons. HAARP is one of them, and likely one of the most lethal.

Man's desire to be god will eventually lead him to the unltimate self-destruction and the demolition of the planet he inhabits. "Angels don't play this HAARP" is a book that must be read by every citizen who cares about the condition of this planet. It will help the reader learn about man's manipulation of mother earth, and the possibility of rendering this gift into ruin....

The book and chapters looks great, however it is impossible to run the samples, I got a lot of wrong messages. I tried a lot of time without result. Do not buy this book.

I was allotted money by my boss to get books to learn ASP to expand our websites capacity. I got the SAMS Active Server Pages 3.0 and this book based on reviews I'd read. I ALMOST NEVER USED THE JUMPSTART BOOK! Any time I flipped through for an answer to a problem, I found the book wasn't really laid out to help me. I was greatly disappointed. I threw this book away and learned all I know from the SAMS book.

It's really a very very useful tool for the people who want to master ASP.NET through specific examples. The book works like you have a live teacher who understands your thoughts and questions. The writting is extremely clear and focuses on what you expect to learn. I know Ken from the past (I own all Acces Dev. Hand Book series) and Paul from Access VB Adv. Mag. Here simply they continue a successful tradition. Congratualtions!

As a co-author on this book, I feel compelled to respond to Andres' review. I've never done this before, but this review is so slanderous as to cause both Paul and me great distress.

Every book has typographical errors--that's the way the business is. If we're alerted to them, we're That's the great part about not having a CD--the samples can be updated "on the fly".

As opposed to Andres' comments, the samples DO work, if installed correctly. Getting ASP.NET up and running prior to installing the book samples is crucial. Many, many readers have used the samples without incident, and have told us so.

In addition, either Andres contacted other authors, or sent email to the wrong addresses--both Paul and I respond to each and every email we get--usually, within minutes, if not seconds. Implying that we ignored his email is, to us, quite painful. One might accuse us of many things, but not answering email is NOT one of them.

We welcome user comments and questions, and have corresponded with many readers of the book. Our email addresses are prominently displayed within the book itself, and in many other places online. Please, if you're one of the very small minority who is having trouble installing or running the sample applications, let us know. With ASP.NET and Visual Studio .NET set up correctly, the samples install and run without a hitch.

Obviously, this is not the correct forum for discussions involving these reviews, but being incorrectly accused of ignoring a reader's email is inexcusable.

I think that Getz and Sheriff's reputations in the VB community are peerless. Their countless magazine articles and numerous books have helped me personally over the past decade, and their names are ones I look for and know I can count on.

This includes ASP.NET Developer's Jumpstart. I admit that getting the environment to sit up and beg is tricky, but I'm pretty sure I read in the Introduction that the basics wouldn't be covered. There are many texts and KBs to help with that.

If you have ASP.NET installed correctly, the samples run as described. This text was a big help to me, especially with its treatment of VB.NET in ASP.NET. The ADO.NET treatment was equally valuable. I couldn't recommend this book more highly.

Perhaps my expectations of this book were too high, but as a survival book author and experienced wilderness explorer myself I found it mostly disappointing. Aside from the communication section, I found most chapters to display an ample talent for generalization and/or stating the obvious. There is some useful stuff in here though(such as the method for mailing a letter and making it seem that it originated in a totally different city - simple and effective).

The sections on navigation, food, shelter, etc. are just re-hashes of the same old stuff that every survival book author since Lofty Wiseman has been spewing and re-spewing over many decades. The old " telling direction using your watch and the sun" (inaccurate most of the time as a reliable method), and the old "creating a makeshift compass from magnetised silk (which nobody ever carrries in a pack), a blade of grass and a piece of thread is here too (and is even less reliable than the watch trick).

I would have preferred a more detailed variety of long-term shelter options than what was provided - such as scout pits, etc. The author has only skimmed the surface of this potentially fascinating subject, and the result is a lightweight effort. The best things about this book are the low price, and the title, which sucks you in to buying it...

If you've read a handful of other US Military manuals you'll recognize this book as being heavily influenced and derived from the same sources. It's not really any new information or presentation techniques. It's not a bad book, it's just nothing special.

I'm not a wilderness or survivalist enthusiast; I'm doing research for a novel that I'm working on. So I can't vouch for the expertise of the writer. But the information is clear, reasonably well written and interesting. Even for the lay reader there is valuable info.

This is a must have for any survivalist. I give it a 6 out of 5 stars. No filler pages whatsoever. Every word found in this book is useful. Thanks for making this info available!

This was a basic overview. I read more about shelter and basic survival than exact techniques on evasion. I guess they do go hand in hand but I thought this was going to be a little different.
It was easy to follow though and very understandable for being in my opinion so basic.

I t was an excellent purchase! I got it before what I expected and new!=)

I got the item about 10days after placing its order. The book came in condition describled. Good purchasing experience, however if it came a little earlier then would be great

As an undergraduate student, I found this text to give reasonable coverage in several areas- especially expectations based models and investment theory. The explanations are fairly clear, but not quite as intuitive as Mankiw which I often reviewed at the library before tests (had his principles text, perhaps this conditioned me in his parlance). Overall, the book is fairly comprehensive, but lacks clarity in certain respects. Teachers may want to offer some supplementary materials with more concrete explanations. Don't make us buy it though, this book costs enough as it is!

Excellent book very educational and particularly suitable for non economists.
Macroeconomics (4th Edition)

The book is generally a good text. However, I have a lot of problems with how illustration of ideas by calculus is handled. I find several inconsistencies which even my instructor have problems in explaining. I recommend it to the mathematically challenged person not to mathematical enthusiasts.

I've recently finished building all the examples in this book from scratch, using both EditPlus and VS.NET2K3 on my workstation, and storing and testing the apps on my Win2K3/SQL2K server. Once I got the security settings and connection strings figured out, I was able to get all the examples to run properly.

This book can provide good additional practice for beginners to ASP.NET, after you've been through an introductory book, like Wrox's "Beginning ASP.NET with VB.NET 2003" (ISBN 0764557076), or it's C#.NET 2K3 equivalent, ISBN 0764557084.

The book is OK as far as it goes, but you have to get all the way up to Chapter 11 before they show you an example of an object-oriented application that interacts with a relational database. And even then, they don't run through all the code in the book, they just give you the simplest files and tell you to download the rest of the example application from the web site.

One big hole in the book is that it really should have a chapter on setting up and testing connections to various databases under various server scenarios. It's just a personal opinion, but I've always felt that it's important to run a test app that tests the database connection and read/update functions before you start to build anything else.

Another drawback is that both the Beginning books, and this database book, have examples of ASP.NET server controls which don't quite render properly in any browser except Internet Explorer. Each of these books should have a section that discusses how to test in various browsers, and how to tweak the code so the pages will render properly in Firefox, Safari, etc.

One big advantage of this particular book, however, is that they don't rely on any server controls that are available only in the Web Matrix design environment and only seem to run in a Web Matrix server. This is one big flaw in the beginning books.

It's probably also important to note that no combination of the beginning books and/or this book will really get you quite up to the skill level you need to have in order to do real ASP.NET database application development. Once you're ready to start doing that, Wrox's "Professional ASP.NET 1.1" (ISBN 0764558900) is an excellent reference source. It's not a tutorial, but it's got pretty comprehensive coverage of most of the issues you'll need to know about. Go through one of the Beginning books, then do this book, then get the Pro book and you'll be ready to start developing.

This was my first book on .NET and I think it was a great tool to help me learn the basics of database programming. After building on the basic concepts it goes on into deeper knowledge and real world examples. This book was the only resource I used to not only get started but to continue using as my desktop reference. The book has lots of examples and it's very detailed on the explanations. The authors have a clear and concise style that does not overwhelm the reader with extremely complex details. I recommend this book if you are a beginer on ASP.NET and I also think it serves as a good refenrece.

I have enough programming books that if weighed would weigh as much as a car.

I love this book.

The best part is that I can read it and follow the examples without having to sit at my computer.

The key word in the title is beginning. I have found it to be a great foundation book on its subject matter.

The authors should get an atta boy for this one.

My guess is that the reviewers who gave this text five stars did not actually attempt to reproduce working versions of all the examples. The quality of this book is mixed, as is common for the multiple-author Wrox editions. Some of the chapters are exceptional, and deserve five stars, having clear and logical instruction as well as examples that work as described. Chapters 5 and 6 are examples of the best authoring, and it appears that the author with last name Ferracchiati has written some of the best chapters in the book. Other chapters are nightmarish excursions through incomplete and poorly explained code, with examples that don't work, and with files missing in the downloaded code. Examples of such chapters are 7, 9 and 10, with chapter 10 being so incredibly bad that it has permanently soured my outlook toward this text. To summarize - there is some useful information in the book, but don't pay more than a few dollars for it, and don't buy it if your own time is worth more than a few dollars per hour.

I've been reading some of the other reviews on this page, and I can't believe they are reading the same book. I have had problems running the code in several of these exercises, particularly with any code that has the DataGrid control. I've also noticed I'm not the only with this problem, since I have browsed the Wrox website forums and found others who were having the same problems with the code. I even submitted code from Chapter 3, page 67 to Microsoft Support, after receiving nothing but a blank page when I ran it. Microsoft noticed that the code was MISSING a required clause! The exercise in question is the FIRST exercise in the book. If the first exercise you attempt fails even though you made no typos, it's frustrating. I can easily see a novice programmer getting discouraged and giving up. I'm an experienced ASP programmer and even I was getting fed up!

I've been a big fan of other books by Wrox, but this one leaves a lot to be desired.

Before reading this book, i read couple of other books but was never satisfied with them.
Also i didn't get the overall picture of AD in Windows untill i read this book.

The language is easy to read and understand.The content was presented in a very interesting way.
I couldn't stop reading page by page, chapter by chapter continuosly.

I highly recommend this book for any one who wish to know about AD.
This is a book for people who wants to understand the complete picture of AD in W2K but not for them
who wants screen by screen explantion so that they can complete the job in hand
very quickly without bothering much about the larger picture and knowledge.

If you are beginning your quest to learn more about Active Directory, going beyond the basics of what a MCSE class or training kit can teach you, this is a great start.

Very clearly written. Lot of indepth coverage - which is expected. I think very few Microsoft Press books have the style and clarity of purpose that this author displays, and I value it for that. A great addition to your Windows 2000 library.

Bharat Suneja
MCT

In my opinion, a must-have for everyone interested in detailed documentation and best deployment and administration practices for Active Directory. The author (David Iseminger) does a great job explaining the various Active Directory topics througout the entire book.

David's unique way of explaining makes reading this book feel like you're sitting in a classroom. Eventhough he covers complex and real-world challenges consultants and engineers alike are faced with when deploying Active Directory solutions, he puts things in a way that are easy for everyone to understand and to put in perspective at the same time.

This book does an excellent job of intergrating theoretical information with the real world implementations it might take on. If you want a concise explanation of the nuts and bolts of Windows 2000 I would reccomend checking it out. For those interested in schema extentions and programming against ad this book presents an overview of the parts of ad and how they function together. If you are a programmer this book won't suffice as a programming reference. For that you are better off with msdn or a book specifically addressing programming for Ad.

Oh and take into consideration that this book was written in advance of the Active Directory Migration Tool, so you won't see reference to it. Emphasis is on the Cloneprincipal and LDIF.

While the author is certainly very knowledgeable with the subject matter he tends to forget from time to time that we, the readers, may not be. I purchased this book right around the time that Windows 2000 was coming out -- before being familiar with active directory, and before the hundreds (if not thousands) of TechNet articles came out explaining the directory in detail -- and I found the book somewhat lacking in it's explanation. I use it occasionally as a reference book, however, the Index and style of writing does not lend it to being a quick reference (you usually have to read two or three pages to get to the information you desired). I recommend it, perhaps as a supplement to, or with supplement from the articles on Microsoft's TechNet. It is, however, very well written and enjoyable book to read!

Out of the dozen or 15 Wrox Press books we have at the office, this one is the only one I regret buying. If you own any other Wrox Press ASP books, DON'T BUY THIS ONE -- IT'S REDUNDANT to the nth degree! Truly, if you own ANY ASP books, or have any ASP experience, whatsoever, this book's probably not worth your money.

It's one thing to learn ASP, it's another to put its many techniques into practice on a real commerce site.

Homer's book is really about the Wrox site, and how it is set up and maintained. It's full of useful tips, and its eclectic coverage is exactly what you would expect for this type of study. As other readers have noted, it's not an ASP tutorial, but advice for those who already know the subject. Several of the techniques discussed have since found their way onto sites I maintain.

I would have to say it's one of the most enjoyable and stimulating technical books I've read in quite a long time.

This is a book for webmasters without a high speed internet connection. Wrox's library for ASP is excellent but this book stands out as a brick (I'm currently using it to keep my stack of takeout menus from falling over). Many of these techniques can be found online at many fine ASP websites. Its not a bad book. It lacks focus and many of the topics can be easily covered in a few articles.

If you are a webmaster or a ASP developer who deals with the whole project, from design to deployment, this is the #1 book I would recommend to you! It helped me a great deal for the work I have done. The book covers all the aspects of the ASP-based packages that webmasters and top ASP team leaders concern about.

If you are a new programmer trying to learn ASP syntax, however, it might help more if you read Professional ASP Programmer's Reference, another book in the series, before using this book.

It's useful if you have full control and access to a live web server. Since I have some background in ASP, IIS 4 and site management, I only found some information is useful.

Before all I want to say that many topics are given for granted and I find the book not really easy for a beginner. Markets have changed a lot since this book was written and many chapters need revision having in mind that many readers are non native speakers of english and have no idea of many topics given for granted

I bought the book based on excellent reviews here and very attractive description.

However, I have been very disappointed because the content does not reflect the attractive title and description. The book is almost 100% for daytraders trading with level II screen. This is not said anywhere. "Online" does not mean exclusively daytrading to my opinion. It keeps on repeating "be disciplined" to fill space. One of the example of trade record given does not fit the explanation given in the text. For example, the trader made most of his profit in a single swing trade lasting several days whereas Nassar wants to show us that the guy is a good daytrader...

Another interesting thing: This book is not for beginners but it describes in fact very general basic rules... in a tough style that assumes that the reader already knows almost eveything.

When you read the table of contents, it looks great: how to enter, to exit, etc... but none of this is given in the book. No techniques are given.

Conclusion: This book could be fine if the description was fitting the content. It is for daytrader watching level II screen and who trade instinctively.

Although this book has a copyright date of 2001, it apparently was written in early 2000, just at the start of the NASDAQ crash that ultimately resulted in a loss of over 75 percent of its value. Consequently, the author refers to a period of time when stocks traded in fractions, and high-flying tech stocks trading in the triple digits were "momentum" traded by daytraders. After the crash, many of those tech stocks trade in the single digits, all stocks now trade in decimals, and the "momentum" daytraders and their daytrading brokerage firms are now history. The author makes numerous references to "shadowing the axe" using Level II quotes to determine who is on the inside ask or bid. Nowadays, ECNs virtually always sit on the inside ask and bid, making it impossible to utilize that strategy. Even if a market maker had a large enough position to sit in front of the ECNs, he most likely would route much of his order to an ECN where it would appear anonymously in order to disguise his intentions.

The problem with writing a book about trading strategies or systems is that the markets are constantly changing, and trading systems become obsolete and must evolve over time. What doesn't change is the emotions and psychology of the people who compose the markets. The author states numerous times that trading is about 90 percent mental. While this is in fact correct, he then only briefly touches on the mental and psychological barriers that must be overcome in order to trade successfully. The best books on trading understand this, and are devoted almost totally to this subject.

There are also numerous inaccuracies. At one point, he details a month of trades from an "anonymous" daytrader who allegedly made 731 trades during the month, of which 377 were winners, with those trades averaging $93.03 profit. He then claims the trader netted $68,001.35 for the month. If you think about it for a minute, this is a mathematical impossibility. Also, he makes the typical mistake in believing a broadband connection is necessary to receive timely streaming quotations. Broadband speeds up downloads only with large size files. Streaming quotes do not fall into this category. I have timed my quotations against a T1 connection using an atomic clock accurate to 1 millionth of a second and have detected no difference. I do not use broadband, as it is not available in my area.

If in fact the author is a successful trader, it would have been much more productive for him to detail his own evolution as a trader, as well as the evolution of other specific successful traders he has known. This is the information that would be most useful to new traders. Unfortunately, the author only briefly discusses a few of his own trades, and gives no information whatsoever on the path he traveled to reach competence, assuming he has reached that level. It would also be interesting to see how he is trading in the post-bubble market, if in fact he is still trading successfully.

I have read lots, and lots, and lots, of trading books. Most of them are not that great but contain a few valuable nuggets here and there, so they are all worth reading to me.

This book is nothing BUT valuable nuggets. It is well thought-out and well written by a widely recognized successful trader/trainer/manager. It really captures the essence of what short-term trading is all about, of which daytrading is a major component. It's a trading book for traders by a trader. Those just wanting to swing-trade, well, ...good luck. Professional traders trade, period. Good swing trades are found by actively trading, from a daytrading perspective.

Yes, the trading landscape has changed when we went to decimals - for the better! What is discussed in this work transcends the eras. Therefore I consider it to be a 5-star classic. It is not for beginners, it is for stock traders who are constantly wanting to improve. It does not give specific trading set-up tactics that become outdated.

Not much has fundamentally changed in the markets since the tech bubble. Those mastering the concepts in this book will be ready to get rich from the next wave of irrationality in the market, whichever way it goes, and in the meantime can still make a nice living. It belongs on your shelf if you are serious.

[...]

if you read these books and follow his fluff then you will be robbed of your money by professionals like me. trading takes advanced and sophisticated methods not capable of being properly expressed in a book targeted to the masses. people spend years educating themselves to be able to pick money from the inexperianced, like those who buy this book. best of luck and you can find good use for the book proping up a table of starting a fire after your done reading it