...the paper it's printed on, 03 Dec 2008
Books like this are a disgrace to the industry, which is serious one, and they only sell because of the laddish title. The good news is that the only people who buy them are..., you've guessed it! And no, I haven't bought it, but I looked inside when I saw it on a bookshelf. The contents and the cover match perfectly. Need I say more? Oh, yes, I have rated the book 1 star because the software wouldn't accept any less.

Brilliant, 19 Nov 2008
As a complete novice to the stock market this book is amazing. I only wish that friends who have invested in the stock market, and made a loss, had read this book in the first place. The language is very simple to understand and before you know it you'll be talking and trading like an expert before you know it. If you're serious about making money on the stock market, this book provides you with all of the tools to do so.

A Must Buy!, 12 Oct 2008
Eveything in this book is written in a way that is fun, easy to understand AND invaluable if you intend to trade in shares. It's a steal at this price. I cannnot rate this book highly enough.

Nuff said.

Excellent Book, 18 Sep 2008
This book has full of practical trading tips and summarises the top ten mistakes made by traders. The book is written in plain English, so it's easy to understand and good fun to read too. I have found this book is very useful in my trading.


Without doubt..., 01 Sep 2008
.... the best book currently around for understanding the stock market. Robbie Burns is very good at explaining all the market jargon in a friendly and humourous tone, and there's masses of advice - particularly what not to do! The webiste is well worth a look too.

...the paper it's printed on, 03 Dec 2008
Books like this are a disgrace to the industry, which is serious one, and they only sell because of the laddish title. The good news is that the only people who buy them are..., you've guessed it! And no, I haven't bought it, but I looked inside when I saw it on a bookshelf. The contents and the cover match perfectly. Need I say more? Oh, yes, I have rated the book 1 star because the software wouldn't accept any less.

Brilliant, 19 Nov 2008
As a complete novice to the stock market this book is amazing. I only wish that friends who have invested in the stock market, and made a loss, had read this book in the first place. The language is very simple to understand and before you know it you'll be talking and trading like an expert before you know it. If you're serious about making money on the stock market, this book provides you with all of the tools to do so.

A Must Buy!, 12 Oct 2008
Eveything in this book is written in a way that is fun, easy to understand AND invaluable if you intend to trade in shares. It's a steal at this price. I cannnot rate this book highly enough.

Nuff said.

Excellent Book, 18 Sep 2008
This book has full of practical trading tips and summarises the top ten mistakes made by traders. The book is written in plain English, so it's easy to understand and good fun to read too. I have found this book is very useful in my trading.


Without doubt..., 01 Sep 2008
.... the best book currently around for understanding the stock market. Robbie Burns is very good at explaining all the market jargon in a friendly and humourous tone, and there's masses of advice - particularly what not to do! The webiste is well worth a look too.

This is a book written for people who don't need to read a book about iPhone development, 26 Nov 2008
I was utterly disappointed with this book as I've been a long-time reader of Erica's posts on TUAW.com and have enjoyed her efforts on MacBreakWeekly and her less official iPhone development.

Unfortunately the problem with this book is that she is too experienced to talk to anyone but other experienced developers. With her 'Hello World' app, traditionally the first app you will learn to write in any language, you are told to throw away parts of the folder structure that Apple sets up in XCode, along with some of the pre-written code and use the code she writes with absolutely no real explanation of why. The net effect is to leave you utterly lost, not really knowing what you can and cannot do with the tools you are given.

The second problem is that it seems that Erica seems to have written the book in a huge hurry. No time is taken to explain anything. Maybe I'm not the target audience for the book but I was absolutely none the wiser about the basic tools in the SDK after reading the first thirty or so pages and I am an object-oriented ActionScript developer with some experience with the MVC design pattern so should have some affinity with the OOP code used in Objective-C (even if the syntax is a bit more alien).

I have since bought Beginning iPhone Development - Exploring the iPhone SDK by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche and have found it's pace much more manageable and feel much more able to take on the examples after reading through the theory.

Colour me unimpressed!, 10 Nov 2008
I've learned a large number of languages, toolkits and SDKs over the years and been part of the review process of a fairly well known book as well, so believe me when I say this is not a great quality book!

If you read the back cover and even the prerequisites, you might think this book is for you. The prerequisites page only mentions the following with regards to knowledge required: "Familiarity with Objective-C". No mention is made of familiarity with writing software for OS X, but by page 23 we're seeing statements like "These essential frameworks enable you to build your iPhone applications using the same fundamental classes and calls you are familiar with from the Macintosh". This is followed on 24 by a comment about Info.plist - "It works the same way Info.plist files work on the Mac." Even as early as page 7 we're seeing things like "As with the Macintosh..." This book does not stand well on its own and that will make it less accessible to some people.

Then we get to the missing stuff - in the very first project, we're instructed to "Drag the three image files from the Chapter One Project folder provided with this book..." Provided where? There's no CD in the back, and I've not found anything in Chapter 1 so far that tells me where this resource is supposed to be included.

The first code listing spans almost two full pages as a single block of text. While the code is commented, there is no in-line breakdown of what each section is and you'll find yourself flipping back to previous pages to tie what you read there back to the code being displayed. Once this two page block of code is over, you don't see it again during this chapter - there is no further discussion of the code so you have to take it on faith for now and learn about it later. That's fine for a 10 line "hello world" app, but not really acceptable for an introduction to a language / framework like Cocoa.

All in all, first impressions are not good. This is not a book to rival the kind of book we've become used to with the Aaron Hillegass definitive reference for starting OS X programming. It will serve more experienced Apple developers well, but will be frustrating for new users.

Good book, but lacking in places, 10 Nov 2008
I found this book useful, but it definitely lacks in places. I am using it as a resource for finding out little tricks or tips on how another programmer lays out their work. It's a useful resource, however it won't teach you the SDK from a beginner to an expert - grab Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X for that!

Useful samples, not for beginners however, 05 Nov 2008
I thought this book was well written but be aware it does throw you into the deep end pretty much immediately. I would recommend this book mainly to developers who are already familiar with the basics of building iPhone applications as there really isn't much of a beginners introduction here.


The book we've all been waiting for!, 29 Oct 2008
This is a brilliant book, and contains a whole host of fantastic examples that shed a lot of like on developing using the iPhone SDK. Clearly written, great examples, and covering all topics needed to create a great application. This book will take some beating.

Of course, there is much more possible with the SDK than is covered in the book but this book will give you all the knowledge you need to push forward on your own.

...the paper it's printed on, 03 Dec 2008
Books like this are a disgrace to the industry, which is serious one, and they only sell because of the laddish title. The good news is that the only people who buy them are..., you've guessed it! And no, I haven't bought it, but I looked inside when I saw it on a bookshelf. The contents and the cover match perfectly. Need I say more? Oh, yes, I have rated the book 1 star because the software wouldn't accept any less.

Brilliant, 19 Nov 2008
As a complete novice to the stock market this book is amazing. I only wish that friends who have invested in the stock market, and made a loss, had read this book in the first place. The language is very simple to understand and before you know it you'll be talking and trading like an expert before you know it. If you're serious about making money on the stock market, this book provides you with all of the tools to do so.

A Must Buy!, 12 Oct 2008
Eveything in this book is written in a way that is fun, easy to understand AND invaluable if you intend to trade in shares. It's a steal at this price. I cannnot rate this book highly enough.

Nuff said.

Excellent Book, 18 Sep 2008
This book has full of practical trading tips and summarises the top ten mistakes made by traders. The book is written in plain English, so it's easy to understand and good fun to read too. I have found this book is very useful in my trading.


Without doubt..., 01 Sep 2008
.... the best book currently around for understanding the stock market. Robbie Burns is very good at explaining all the market jargon in a friendly and humourous tone, and there's masses of advice - particularly what not to do! The webiste is well worth a look too.

This is a book written for people who don't need to read a book about iPhone development, 26 Nov 2008
I was utterly disappointed with this book as I've been a long-time reader of Erica's posts on TUAW.com and have enjoyed her efforts on MacBreakWeekly and her less official iPhone development.

Unfortunately the problem with this book is that she is too experienced to talk to anyone but other experienced developers. With her 'Hello World' app, traditionally the first app you will learn to write in any language, you are told to throw away parts of the folder structure that Apple sets up in XCode, along with some of the pre-written code and use the code she writes with absolutely no real explanation of why. The net effect is to leave you utterly lost, not really knowing what you can and cannot do with the tools you are given.

The second problem is that it seems that Erica seems to have written the book in a huge hurry. No time is taken to explain anything. Maybe I'm not the target audience for the book but I was absolutely none the wiser about the basic tools in the SDK after reading the first thirty or so pages and I am an object-oriented ActionScript developer with some experience with the MVC design pattern so should have some affinity with the OOP code used in Objective-C (even if the syntax is a bit more alien).

I have since bought Beginning iPhone Development - Exploring the iPhone SDK by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche and have found it's pace much more manageable and feel much more able to take on the examples after reading through the theory.

Colour me unimpressed!, 10 Nov 2008
I've learned a large number of languages, toolkits and SDKs over the years and been part of the review process of a fairly well known book as well, so believe me when I say this is not a great quality book!

If you read the back cover and even the prerequisites, you might think this book is for you. The prerequisites page only mentions the following with regards to knowledge required: "Familiarity with Objective-C". No mention is made of familiarity with writing software for OS X, but by page 23 we're seeing statements like "These essential frameworks enable you to build your iPhone applications using the same fundamental classes and calls you are familiar with from the Macintosh". This is followed on 24 by a comment about Info.plist - "It works the same way Info.plist files work on the Mac." Even as early as page 7 we're seeing things like "As with the Macintosh..." This book does not stand well on its own and that will make it less accessible to some people.

Then we get to the missing stuff - in the very first project, we're instructed to "Drag the three image files from the Chapter One Project folder provided with this book..." Provided where? There's no CD in the back, and I've not found anything in Chapter 1 so far that tells me where this resource is supposed to be included.

The first code listing spans almost two full pages as a single block of text. While the code is commented, there is no in-line breakdown of what each section is and you'll find yourself flipping back to previous pages to tie what you read there back to the code being displayed. Once this two page block of code is over, you don't see it again during this chapter - there is no further discussion of the code so you have to take it on faith for now and learn about it later. That's fine for a 10 line "hello world" app, but not really acceptable for an introduction to a language / framework like Cocoa.

All in all, first impressions are not good. This is not a book to rival the kind of book we've become used to with the Aaron Hillegass definitive reference for starting OS X programming. It will serve more experienced Apple developers well, but will be frustrating for new users.

Good book, but lacking in places, 10 Nov 2008
I found this book useful, but it definitely lacks in places. I am using it as a resource for finding out little tricks or tips on how another programmer lays out their work. It's a useful resource, however it won't teach you the SDK from a beginner to an expert - grab Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X for that!

Useful samples, not for beginners however, 05 Nov 2008
I thought this book was well written but be aware it does throw you into the deep end pretty much immediately. I would recommend this book mainly to developers who are already familiar with the basics of building iPhone applications as there really isn't much of a beginners introduction here.


The book we've all been waiting for!, 29 Oct 2008
This is a brilliant book, and contains a whole host of fantastic examples that shed a lot of like on developing using the iPhone SDK. Clearly written, great examples, and covering all topics needed to create a great application. This book will take some beating.

Of course, there is much more possible with the SDK than is covered in the book but this book will give you all the knowledge you need to push forward on your own.

Works for everyone & most mainstream flavours of Linux , 08 Apr 2008
So many books are thick, wordy, and conceal their nuggets of wisdom, but not this one. It's not big, so you won't find full details on (eg) all of the many Linux email clients - but they get a mention.
Works well for me (ex BSD 4.x sysop in the 1980s) as well as friends with no previous knowledge of operating systems. It's the examples that are such a help - most of the things we've needed to do are covered with a brief, relevant example. We use it with Ubuntu mainly - Debian distros are not identical to Fedora but we've not seen a problem - both are Linux and conform to the POSIX standard.
Reading it cover-to-cover is logical, informative, and highly recommended. Three times, and the info is starting to stick..... Then keep it handy to look things up when you need them! Highly recommended.

Best command line deskside Linux guide, 09 Feb 2008
If you do choose to explore the command line interface of Linux this may be the only book you need buy. True, if you are setting up a network or a LAMP server you will need much more, but if your goal is to gain an insight into what goes on under the hood of Linux or you just need an aide memoire for common Linux commands, this is the best book available. Written in a style that works both as a tutorial and a reference work its only real weakness is the absence of a simple quick reference guide to Linux commands - you have to rely on the index. Although it aims at a Fedora audience, there is probably no user of any other distro that won't find this book worth the purchase price. And it's a very convenient size to literally slip into your pocket.

Indispensable, 19 Sep 2006
Ever spent hours on the Web trying to find an accurate, comprehensive set of most-used *nix commands and features? This book saves you all that time. For its size, it is quite an achievement - nicely written and laid out. Always within arm's reach here.

No nonsense, 21 Jun 2006
If you just want to know how to use linux in 10 mins, this is the book for you. Teaches you what you need to know, without getting caught up in any specifics. As well as teaching you all the standard linux commands (and some application specific ones for RedHat), this book gives a brief overview about other things you'll need to understand about linux, such as how the file system works. Recommended.

Excellent, 02 Apr 2005
I don't envy Mr Barrett's task with this book. Everybody has a slightly different wishlist of commands to go in a book like this; it's impossible to please everybody. That said, I think he's got it about as close to perfection as possible. This book has an incredible amount of useful info in a usefully small volume. If like me you can normally remember the command, but always struggle to remember the right option (which one do you add to TAR for BZ2 files?) this book is a godsend.

...the paper it's printed on, 03 Dec 2008
Books like this are a disgrace to the industry, which is serious one, and they only sell because of the laddish title. The good news is that the only people who buy them are..., you've guessed it! And no, I haven't bought it, but I looked inside when I saw it on a bookshelf. The contents and the cover match perfectly. Need I say more? Oh, yes, I have rated the book 1 star because the software wouldn't accept any less.

Brilliant, 19 Nov 2008
As a complete novice to the stock market this book is amazing. I only wish that friends who have invested in the stock market, and made a loss, had read this book in the first place. The language is very simple to understand and before you know it you'll be talking and trading like an expert before you know it. If you're serious about making money on the stock market, this book provides you with all of the tools to do so.

A Must Buy!, 12 Oct 2008
Eveything in this book is written in a way that is fun, easy to understand AND invaluable if you intend to trade in shares. It's a steal at this price. I cannnot rate this book highly enough.

Nuff said.

Excellent Book, 18 Sep 2008
This book has full of practical trading tips and summarises the top ten mistakes made by traders. The book is written in plain English, so it's easy to understand and good fun to read too. I have found this book is very useful in my trading.


Without doubt..., 01 Sep 2008
.... the best book currently around for understanding the stock market. Robbie Burns is very good at explaining all the market jargon in a friendly and humourous tone, and there's masses of advice - particularly what not to do! The webiste is well worth a look too.

This is a book written for people who don't need to read a book about iPhone development, 26 Nov 2008
I was utterly disappointed with this book as I've been a long-time reader of Erica's posts on TUAW.com and have enjoyed her efforts on MacBreakWeekly and her less official iPhone development.

Unfortunately the problem with this book is that she is too experienced to talk to anyone but other experienced developers. With her 'Hello World' app, traditionally the first app you will learn to write in any language, you are told to throw away parts of the folder structure that Apple sets up in XCode, along with some of the pre-written code and use the code she writes with absolutely no real explanation of why. The net effect is to leave you utterly lost, not really knowing what you can and cannot do with the tools you are given.

The second problem is that it seems that Erica seems to have written the book in a huge hurry. No time is taken to explain anything. Maybe I'm not the target audience for the book but I was absolutely none the wiser about the basic tools in the SDK after reading the first thirty or so pages and I am an object-oriented ActionScript developer with some experience with the MVC design pattern so should have some affinity with the OOP code used in Objective-C (even if the syntax is a bit more alien).

I have since bought Beginning iPhone Development - Exploring the iPhone SDK by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche and have found it's pace much more manageable and feel much more able to take on the examples after reading through the theory.

Colour me unimpressed!, 10 Nov 2008
I've learned a large number of languages, toolkits and SDKs over the years and been part of the review process of a fairly well known book as well, so believe me when I say this is not a great quality book!

If you read the back cover and even the prerequisites, you might think this book is for you. The prerequisites page only mentions the following with regards to knowledge required: "Familiarity with Objective-C". No mention is made of familiarity with writing software for OS X, but by page 23 we're seeing statements like "These essential frameworks enable you to build your iPhone applications using the same fundamental classes and calls you are familiar with from the Macintosh". This is followed on 24 by a comment about Info.plist - "It works the same way Info.plist files work on the Mac." Even as early as page 7 we're seeing things like "As with the Macintosh..." This book does not stand well on its own and that will make it less accessible to some people.

Then we get to the missing stuff - in the very first project, we're instructed to "Drag the three image files from the Chapter One Project folder provided with this book..." Provided where? There's no CD in the back, and I've not found anything in Chapter 1 so far that tells me where this resource is supposed to be included.

The first code listing spans almost two full pages as a single block of text. While the code is commented, there is no in-line breakdown of what each section is and you'll find yourself flipping back to previous pages to tie what you read there back to the code being displayed. Once this two page block of code is over, you don't see it again during this chapter - there is no further discussion of the code so you have to take it on faith for now and learn about it later. That's fine for a 10 line "hello world" app, but not really acceptable for an introduction to a language / framework like Cocoa.

All in all, first impressions are not good. This is not a book to rival the kind of book we've become used to with the Aaron Hillegass definitive reference for starting OS X programming. It will serve more experienced Apple developers well, but will be frustrating for new users.

Good book, but lacking in places, 10 Nov 2008
I found this book useful, but it definitely lacks in places. I am using it as a resource for finding out little tricks or tips on how another programmer lays out their work. It's a useful resource, however it won't teach you the SDK from a beginner to an expert - grab Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X for that!

Useful samples, not for beginners however, 05 Nov 2008
I thought this book was well written but be aware it does throw you into the deep end pretty much immediately. I would recommend this book mainly to developers who are already familiar with the basics of building iPhone applications as there really isn't much of a beginners introduction here.


The book we've all been waiting for!, 29 Oct 2008
This is a brilliant book, and contains a whole host of fantastic examples that shed a lot of like on developing using the iPhone SDK. Clearly written, great examples, and covering all topics needed to create a great application. This book will take some beating.

Of course, there is much more possible with the SDK than is covered in the book but this book will give you all the knowledge you need to push forward on your own.

Works for everyone & most mainstream flavours of Linux , 08 Apr 2008
So many books are thick, wordy, and conceal their nuggets of wisdom, but not this one. It's not big, so you won't find full details on (eg) all of the many Linux email clients - but they get a mention.
Works well for me (ex BSD 4.x sysop in the 1980s) as well as friends with no previous knowledge of operating systems. It's the examples that are such a help - most of the things we've needed to do are covered with a brief, relevant example. We use it with Ubuntu mainly - Debian distros are not identical to Fedora but we've not seen a problem - both are Linux and conform to the POSIX standard.
Reading it cover-to-cover is logical, informative, and highly recommended. Three times, and the info is starting to stick..... Then keep it handy to look things up when you need them! Highly recommended.

Best command line deskside Linux guide, 09 Feb 2008
If you do choose to explore the command line interface of Linux this may be the only book you need buy. True, if you are setting up a network or a LAMP server you will need much more, but if your goal is to gain an insight into what goes on under the hood of Linux or you just need an aide memoire for common Linux commands, this is the best book available. Written in a style that works both as a tutorial and a reference work its only real weakness is the absence of a simple quick reference guide to Linux commands - you have to rely on the index. Although it aims at a Fedora audience, there is probably no user of any other distro that won't find this book worth the purchase price. And it's a very convenient size to literally slip into your pocket.

Indispensable, 19 Sep 2006
Ever spent hours on the Web trying to find an accurate, comprehensive set of most-used *nix commands and features? This book saves you all that time. For its size, it is quite an achievement - nicely written and laid out. Always within arm's reach here.

No nonsense, 21 Jun 2006
If you just want to know how to use linux in 10 mins, this is the book for you. Teaches you what you need to know, without getting caught up in any specifics. As well as teaching you all the standard linux commands (and some application specific ones for RedHat), this book gives a brief overview about other things you'll need to understand about linux, such as how the file system works. Recommended.

Excellent, 02 Apr 2005
I don't envy Mr Barrett's task with this book. Everybody has a slightly different wishlist of commands to go in a book like this; it's impossible to please everybody. That said, I think he's got it about as close to perfection as possible. This book has an incredible amount of useful info in a usefully small volume. If like me you can normally remember the command, but always struggle to remember the right option (which one do you add to TAR for BZ2 files?) this book is a godsend.

Highly recommended!!!, 12 Jan 2008
Using just this book along with exam braindumps found online I passed the 640-802 exam. The practice exams offer hundreds of practise questions along with simulations. Very good investment

Does what it says on the tin - but don't overlook real hands-on, 11 Nov 2007
This two-book set is the new course text for the Cisco 640-802 CCNA exam, which supersedes the previous CCNA exam from November 2007.

To compare, having had a look at the two-book set for the previous exam (640-801), Wendell Odom and his team have done a pretty good job in updating this in light of new topics.

What's in the box? Similar to the old exam library, you get two books and two CDs but this time around you also get a DVD. The DVD gives content you can probably get from YouTube, but is worth a look. The two CDs provide an exam tool and 200 sample exam-tool questions, plus an electronic version of the book text. The exam tool is fine, but won't replace using the real thing when troubleshooting. But it is nice that it is included to get you going. Note that this is not the complete set of questions and the full BOSON exam question set is available to download from BOSON and is an extra cost.

As ICDN1 and ICDN2 have been re-worked, the text of volume one now refers to CCENT as the "replacement" to the ICND1 exam and has been revised accordingly. Initial review of the two books is that they are easier to read and digest. As before, they include the usual "foundation topics" and test questions at the start and end of each chapter. Don't be fooled that these test questions will enable a pass if you just know these - you will need to use the text and the real thing if you've not done this before. The previous "open ended" questions are included but have not been revised from the earlier 640-801 library set.

The stated aim is that the new exam is to focus more on design and troubleshooting rather than just facts. This is probably a good thing in that today's networks are more complex. The previous exam probably didn't prepare for the real world where wireless, VPNs and ADSL are in use.

Will these get you through the exam? Given the small industry of self-test and self-help books for CCNA, it suggests that this is but one of the tools needed to pass the exam. The honest view is that as the exam has got harder over the years, the only way to really know is to use the real thing. The two books and additional material are good, but unless it can be learnt verbatim, then you will need to use the texts with real hardware/software.

That said, this is the standard to which other CCNA books are measured.

Five stars for the revised content, but dropping one star on the basis that hands-on experience to back this up will help newcomers.

...the paper it's printed on, 03 Dec 2008
Books like this are a disgrace to the industry, which is serious one, and they only sell because of the laddish title. The good news is that the only people who buy them are..., you've guessed it! And no, I haven't bought it, but I looked inside when I saw it on a bookshelf. The contents and the cover match perfectly. Need I say more? Oh, yes, I have rated the book 1 star because the software wouldn't accept any less.

Brilliant, 19 Nov 2008
As a complete novice to the stock market this book is amazing. I only wish that friends who have invested in the stock market, and made a loss, had read this book in the first place. The language is very simple to understand and before you know it you'll be talking and trading like an expert before you know it. If you're serious about making money on the stock market, this book provides you with all of the tools to do so.

A Must Buy!, 12 Oct 2008
Eveything in this book is written in a way that is fun, easy to understand AND invaluable if you intend to trade in shares. It's a steal at this price. I cannnot rate this book highly enough.

Nuff said.

Excellent Book, 18 Sep 2008
This book has full of practical trading tips and summarises the top ten mistakes made by traders. The book is written in plain English, so it's easy to understand and good fun to read too. I have found this book is very useful in my trading.


Without doubt..., 01 Sep 2008
.... the best book currently around for understanding the stock market. Robbie Burns is very good at explaining all the market jargon in a friendly and humourous tone, and there's masses of advice - particularly what not to do! The webiste is well worth a look too.

This is a book written for people who don't need to read a book about iPhone development, 26 Nov 2008
I was utterly disappointed with this book as I've been a long-time reader of Erica's posts on TUAW.com and have enjoyed her efforts on MacBreakWeekly and her less official iPhone development.

Unfortunately the problem with this book is that she is too experienced to talk to anyone but other experienced developers. With her 'Hello World' app, traditionally the first app you will learn to write in any language, you are told to throw away parts of the folder structure that Apple sets up in XCode, along with some of the pre-written code and use the code she writes with absolutely no real explanation of why. The net effect is to leave you utterly lost, not really knowing what you can and cannot do with the tools you are given.

The second problem is that it seems that Erica seems to have written the book in a huge hurry. No time is taken to explain anything. Maybe I'm not the target audience for the book but I was absolutely none the wiser about the basic tools in the SDK after reading the first thirty or so pages and I am an object-oriented ActionScript developer with some experience with the MVC design pattern so should have some affinity with the OOP code used in Objective-C (even if the syntax is a bit more alien).

I have since bought Beginning iPhone Development - Exploring the iPhone SDK by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche and have found it's pace much more manageable and feel much more able to take on the examples after reading through the theory.

Colour me unimpressed!, 10 Nov 2008
I've learned a large number of languages, toolkits and SDKs over the years and been part of the review process of a fairly well known book as well, so believe me when I say this is not a great quality book!

If you read the back cover and even the prerequisites, you might think this book is for you. The prerequisites page only mentions the following with regards to knowledge required: "Familiarity with Objective-C". No mention is made of familiarity with writing software for OS X, but by page 23 we're seeing statements like "These essential frameworks enable you to build your iPhone applications using the same fundamental classes and calls you are familiar with from the Macintosh". This is followed on 24 by a comment about Info.plist - "It works the same way Info.plist files work on the Mac." Even as early as page 7 we're seeing things like "As with the Macintosh..." This book does not stand well on its own and that will make it less accessible to some people.

Then we get to the missing stuff - in the very first project, we're instructed to "Drag the three image files from the Chapter One Project folder provided with this book..." Provided where? There's no CD in the back, and I've not found anything in Chapter 1 so far that tells me where this resource is supposed to be included.

The first code listing spans almost two full pages as a single block of text. While the code is commented, there is no in-line breakdown of what each section is and you'll find yourself flipping back to previous pages to tie what you read there back to the code being displayed. Once this two page block of code is over, you don't see it again during this chapter - there is no further discussion of the code so you have to take it on faith for now and learn about it later. That's fine for a 10 line "hello world" app, but not really acceptable for an introduction to a language / framework like Cocoa.

All in all, first impressions are not good. This is not a book to rival the kind of book we've become used to with the Aaron Hillegass definitive reference for starting OS X programming. It will serve more experienced Apple developers well, but will be frustrating for new users.

Good book, but lacking in places, 10 Nov 2008
I found this book useful, but it definitely lacks in places. I am using it as a resource for finding out little tricks or tips on how another programmer lays out their work. It's a useful resource, however it won't teach you the SDK from a beginner to an expert - grab Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X for that!

Useful samples, not for beginners however, 05 Nov 2008
I thought this book was well written but be aware it does throw you into the deep end pretty much immediately. I would recommend this book mainly to developers who are already familiar with the basics of building iPhone applications as there really isn't much of a beginners introduction here.


The book we've all been waiting for!, 29 Oct 2008
This is a brilliant book, and contains a whole host of fantastic examples that shed a lot of like on developing using the iPhone SDK. Clearly written, great examples, and covering all topics needed to create a great application. This book will take some beating.

Of course, there is much more possible with the SDK than is covered in the book but this book will give you all the knowledge you need to push forward on your own.

Works for everyone & most mainstream flavours of Linux , 08 Apr 2008
So many books are thick, wordy, and conceal their nuggets of wisdom, but not this one. It's not big, so you won't find full details on (eg) all of the many Linux email clients - but they get a mention.
Works well for me (ex BSD 4.x sysop in the 1980s) as well as friends with no previous knowledge of operating systems. It's the examples that are such a help - most of the things we've needed to do are covered with a brief, relevant example. We use it with Ubuntu mainly - Debian distros are not identical to Fedora but we've not seen a problem - both are Linux and conform to the POSIX standard.
Reading it cover-to-cover is logical, informative, and highly recommended. Three times, and the info is starting to stick..... Then keep it handy to look things up when you need them! Highly recommended.

Best command line deskside Linux guide, 09 Feb 2008
If you do choose to explore the command line interface of Linux this may be the only book you need buy. True, if you are setting up a network or a LAMP server you will need much more, but if your goal is to gain an insight into what goes on under the hood of Linux or you just need an aide memoire for common Linux commands, this is the best book available. Written in a style that works both as a tutorial and a reference work its only real weakness is the absence of a simple quick reference guide to Linux commands - you have to rely on the index. Although it aims at a Fedora audience, there is probably no user of any other distro that won't find this book worth the purchase price. And it's a very convenient size to literally slip into your pocket.

Indispensable, 19 Sep 2006
Ever spent hours on the Web trying to find an accurate, comprehensive set of most-used *nix commands and features? This book saves you all that time. For its size, it is quite an achievement - nicely written and laid out. Always within arm's reach here.

No nonsense, 21 Jun 2006
If you just want to know how to use linux in 10 mins, this is the book for you. Teaches you what you need to know, without getting caught up in any specifics. As well as teaching you all the standard linux commands (and some application specific ones for RedHat), this book gives a brief overview about other things you'll need to understand about linux, such as how the file system works. Recommended.

Excellent, 02 Apr 2005
I don't envy Mr Barrett's task with this book. Everybody has a slightly different wishlist of commands to go in a book like this; it's impossible to please everybody. That said, I think he's got it about as close to perfection as possible. This book has an incredible amount of useful info in a usefully small volume. If like me you can normally remember the command, but always struggle to remember the right option (which one do you add to TAR for BZ2 files?) this book is a godsend.

Highly recommended!!!, 12 Jan 2008
Using just this book along with exam braindumps found online I passed the 640-802 exam. The practice exams offer hundreds of practise questions along with simulations. Very good investment

Does what it says on the tin - but don't overlook real hands-on, 11 Nov 2007
This two-book set is the new course text for the Cisco 640-802 CCNA exam, which supersedes the previous CCNA exam from November 2007.

To compare, having had a look at the two-book set for the previous exam (640-801), Wendell Odom and his team have done a pretty good job in updating this in light of new topics.

What's in the box? Similar to the old exam library, you get two books and two CDs but this time around you also get a DVD. The DVD gives content you can probably get from YouTube, but is worth a look. The two CDs provide an exam tool and 200 sample exam-tool questions, plus an electronic version of the book text. The exam tool is fine, but won't replace using the real thing when troubleshooting. But it is nice that it is included to get you going. Note that this is not the complete set of questions and the full BOSON exam question set is available to download from BOSON and is an extra cost.

As ICDN1 and ICDN2 have been re-worked, the text of volume one now refers to CCENT as the "replacement" to the ICND1 exam and has been revised accordingly. Initial review of the two books is that they are easier to read and digest. As before, they include the usual "foundation topics" and test questions at the start and end of each chapter. Don't be fooled that these test questions will enable a pass if you just know these - you will need to use the text and the real thing if you've not done this before. The previous "open ended" questions are included but have not been revised from the earlier 640-801 library set.

The stated aim is that the new exam is to focus more on design and troubleshooting rather than just facts. This is probably a good thing in that today's networks are more complex. The previous exam probably didn't prepare for the real world where wireless, VPNs and ADSL are in use.

Will these get you through the exam? Given the small industry of self-test and self-help books for CCNA, it suggests that this is but one of the tools needed to pass the exam. The honest view is that as the exam has got harder over the years, the only way to really know is to use the real thing. The two books and additional material are good, but unless it can be learnt verbatim, then you will need to use the texts with real hardware/software.

That said, this is the standard to which other CCNA books are measured.

Five stars for the revised content, but dropping one star on the basis that hands-on experience to back this up will help newcomers.


Engaging and easily understandable, 10 Nov 2008
I've got oodles of programming books and I'd put this one up with the best of my collection. It's carefully written to ensure all levels of experience and aptitude are catered for, I'd class myself as somewhere in the intermediates with a decent knowledge of actionscript 2 and I found it enormously useful.

All examples and diagrams make perfect sense, and the explanations they use have actually helped me come to terms with other programming paradigms I'd used but never fully understood.

Thoroughly recommend this one.

Awesome..., 29 Jul 2008
After endlessly searching for a decent AS3 book but having to settle with intermediate to advanced book I found this little gem and started some research. After finding reviews on the flashblog and other resources I decided to go ahead with the purchase.

not only is this book well illustrated in full colour, it also gives you a sense that your learning at a steady pace without feeling like your missing something as you progress.

The online resource site offers all of the files needed to sit and study the chapters in the book closer.

I have also recently embarked on what I thought was a problem with one of the resource files and emailed the support group, I was astonished to get a reply within 15 Minutes, pity that I was being a fool and there was no problem. Non the less the help was amazing.

I can't recommend this book enough for anyone wanting to make the jump from AS2 to AS3 or for anyone completely new to AS3.

Thank you

Easir to follow than Big Colin, 25 Jul 2008
I really like this book, It's a lot easier to follow than Colin Mook's essential one (Which of course you do actually need as well) Pretty straight to the point, easy to read and understand although I'm probably slap bang in the middle of the target audience - intermediate user with a fairly good understanding of key concepts and how OOP works. I don't recommend it for the absolute beginner and calling it "A beginners guide" is a bit misleading but as a transitional guide, its really good.

There are quite a few typos, it must be said and some of them are quite confusing. I also found that the choice of variable names occasionally made it less clear as to what's intended.

Overall, highly recommended and pretty much the second AS3 book you should have (Although buying it before Mr Mooks is probably a better idea if you get my drift)

I generally now use this one as my main learning guide and "Essential ActionScript 3.0" as a more detailed reference

best buy fopr every actionscript level, 15 Jul 2008
If you read this book and Essential actionscript 3 i actually belive you will be able to learn just as much if not more from Learning Actionscript 3 even though essential as3 is over 3x heavyer both mentally and physicaly - based on the fact the this book delivers the content in such an lite and understanable way in full color.

Best begginer AS3 book, 04 Jun 2008
Since I got the new Flash CS3 I browse the web looking for AS3 books to help me in the transition to the new AS3, as a flash designer I found this is the best book you can get, it will let you get your hands dirty very quickly with the new AS3, it explain very nicely how it works and why.

One of the best thing is the online support, you get all the exercises files, and here is a fact I email a question about a piece of code, and got answer 5 min later, yes 5min!!! it cant get better than that, well maybe it was a bit of luck, but in any case is pretty good.

So if you are not a developer, how needs to understand all the fuzz about AS3 and OOP get this book.

...the paper it's printed on, 03 Dec 2008
Books like this are a disgrace to the industry, which is serious one, and they only sell because of the laddish title. The good news is that the only people who buy them are..., you've guessed it! And no, I haven't bought it, but I looked inside when I saw it on a bookshelf. The contents and the cover match perfectly. Need I say more? Oh, yes, I have rated the book 1 star because the software wouldn't accept any less.

Brilliant, 19 Nov 2008
As a complete novice to the stock market this book is amazing. I only wish that friends who have invested in the stock market, and made a loss, had read this book in the first place. The language is very simple to understand and before you know it you'll be talking and trading like an expert before you know it. If you're serious about making money on the stock market, this book provides you with all of the tools to do so.

A Must Buy!, 12 Oct 2008
Eveything in this book is written in a way that is fun, easy to understand AND invaluable if you intend to trade in shares. It's a steal at this price. I cannnot rate this book highly enough.

Nuff said.

Excellent Book, 18 Sep 2008
This book has full of practical trading tips and summarises the top ten mistakes made by traders. The book is written in plain English, so it's easy to understand and good fun to read too. I have found this book is very useful in my trading.


Without doubt..., 01 Sep 2008
.... the best book currently around for understanding the stock market. Robbie Burns is very good at explaining all the market jargon in a friendly and humourous tone, and there's masses of advice - particularly what not to do! The webiste is well worth a look too.

This is a book written for people who don't need to read a book about iPhone development, 26 Nov 2008
I was utterly disappointed with this book as I've been a long-time reader of Erica's posts on TUAW.com and have enjoyed her efforts on MacBreakWeekly and her less official iPhone development.

Unfortunately the problem with this book is that she is too experienced to talk to anyone but other experienced developers. With her 'Hello World' app, traditionally the first app you will learn to write in any language, you are told to throw away parts of the folder structure that Apple sets up in XCode, along with some of the pre-written code and use the code she writes with absolutely no real explanation of why. The net effect is to leave you utterly lost, not really knowing what you can and cannot do with the tools you are given.

The second problem is that it seems that Erica seems to have written the book in a huge hurry. No time is taken to explain anything. Maybe I'm not the target audience for the book but I was absolutely none the wiser about the basic tools in the SDK after reading the first thirty or so pages and I am an object-oriented ActionScript developer with some experience with the MVC design pattern so should have some affinity with the OOP code used in Objective-C (even if the syntax is a bit more alien).

I have since bought Beginning iPhone Development - Exploring the iPhone SDK by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche and have found it's pace much more manageable and feel much more able to take on the examples after reading through the theory.

Colour me unimpressed!, 10 Nov 2008
I've learned a large number of languages, toolkits and SDKs over the years and been part of the review process of a fairly well known book as well, so believe me when I say this is not a great quality book!

If you read the back cover and even the prerequisites, you might think this book is for you. The prerequisites page only mentions the following with regards to knowledge required: "Familiarity with Objective-C". No mention is made of familiarity with writing software for OS X, but by page 23 we're seeing statements like "These essential frameworks enable you to build your iPhone applications using the same fundamental classes and calls you are familiar with from the Macintosh". This is followed on 24 by a comment about Info.plist - "It works the same way Info.plist files work on the Mac." Even as early as page 7 we're seeing things like "As with the Macintosh..." This book does not stand well on its own and that will make it less accessible to some people.

Then we get to the missing stuff - in the very first project, we're instructed to "Drag the three image files from the Chapter One Project folder provided with this book..." Provided where? There's no CD in the back, and I've not found anything in Chapter 1 so far that tells me where this resource is supposed to be included.

The first code listing spans almost two full pages as a single block of text. While the code is commented, there is no in-line breakdown of what each section is and you'll find yourself flipping back to previous pages to tie what you read there back to the code being displayed. Once this two page block of code is over, you don't see it again during this chapter - there is no further discussion of the code so you have to take it on faith for now and learn about it later. That's fine for a 10 line "hello world" app, but not really acceptable for an introduction to a language / framework like Cocoa.

All in all, first impressions are not good. This is not a book to rival the kind of book we've become used to with the Aaron Hillegass definitive reference for starting OS X programming. It will serve more experienced Apple developers well, but will be frustrating for new users.

Good book, but lacking in places, 10 Nov 2008
I found this book useful, but it definitely lacks in places. I am using it as a resource for finding out little tricks or tips on how another programmer lays out their work. It's a useful resource, however it won't teach you the SDK from a beginner to an expert - grab Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X for that!

Useful samples, not for beginners however, 05 Nov 2008
I thought this book was well written but be aware it does throw you into the deep end pretty much immediately. I would recommend this book mainly to developers who are already familiar with the basics of building iPhone applications as there really isn't much of a beginners introduction here.


The book we've all been waiting for!, 29 Oct 2008
This is a brilliant book, and contains a whole host of fantastic examples that shed a lot of like on developing using the iPhone SDK. Clearly written, great examples, and covering all topics needed to create a great application. This book will take some beating.

Of course, there is much more possible with the SDK than is covered in the book but this book will give you all the knowledge you need to push forward on your own.

Works for everyone & most mainstream flavours of Linux , 08 Apr 2008
So many books are thick, wordy, and conceal their nuggets of wisdom, but not this one. It's not big, so you won't find full details on (eg) all of the many Linux email clients - but they get a mention.
Works well for me (ex BSD 4.x sysop in the 1980s) as well as friends with no previous knowledge of operating systems. It's the examples that are such a help - most of the things we've needed to do are covered with a brief, relevant example. We use it with Ubuntu mainly - Debian distros are not identical to Fedora but we've not seen a problem - both are Linux and conform to the POSIX standard.
Reading it cover-to-cover is logical, informative, and highly recommended. Three times, and the info is starting to stick..... Then keep it handy to look things up when you need them! Highly recommended.

Best command line deskside Linux guide, 09 Feb 2008
If you do choose to explore the command line interface of Linux this may be the only book you need buy. True, if you are setting up a network or a LAMP server you will need much more, but if your goal is to gain an insight into what goes on under the hood of Linux or you just need an aide memoire for common Linux commands, this is the best book available. Written in a style that works both as a tutorial and a reference work its only real weakness is the absence of a simple quick reference guide to Linux commands - you have to rely on the index. Although it aims at a Fedora audience, there is probably no user of any other distro that won't find this book worth the purchase price. And it's a very convenient size to literally slip into your pocket.

Indispensable, 19 Sep 2006
Ever spent hours on the Web trying to find an accurate, comprehensive set of most-used *nix commands and features? This book saves you all that time. For its size, it is quite an achievement - nicely written and laid out. Always within arm's reach here.

No nonsense, 21 Jun 2006
If you just want to know how to use linux in 10 mins, this is the book for you. Teaches you what you need to know, without getting caught up in any specifics. As well as teaching you all the standard linux commands (and some application specific ones for RedHat), this book gives a brief overview about other things you'll need to understand about linux, such as how the file system works. Recommended.

Excellent, 02 Apr 2005
I don't envy Mr Barrett's task with this book. Everybody has a slightly different wishlist of commands to go in a book like this; it's impossible to please everybody. That said, I think he's got it about as close to perfection as possible. This book has an incredible amount of useful info in a usefully small volume. If like me you can normally remember the command, but always struggle to remember the right option (which one do you add to TAR for BZ2 files?) this book is a godsend.

Highly recommended!!!, 12 Jan 2008
Using just this book along with exam braindumps found online I passed the 640-802 exam. The practice exams offer hundreds of practise questions along with simulations. Very good investment

Does what it says on the tin - but don't overlook real hands-on, 11 Nov 2007
This two-book set is the new course text for the Cisco 640-802 CCNA exam, which supersedes the previous CCNA exam from November 2007.

To compare, having had a look at the two-book set for the previous exam (640-801), Wendell Odom and his team have done a pretty good job in updating this in light of new topics.

What's in the box? Similar to the old exam library, you get two books and two CDs but this time around you also get a DVD. The DVD gives content you can probably get from YouTube, but is worth a look. The two CDs provide an exam tool and 200 sample exam-tool questions, plus an electronic version of the book text. The exam tool is fine, but won't replace using the real thing when troubleshooting. But it is nice that it is included to get you going. Note that this is not the complete set of questions and the full BOSON exam question set is available to download from BOSON and is an extra cost.

As ICDN1 and ICDN2 have been re-worked, the text of volume one now refers to CCENT as the "replacement" to the ICND1 exam and has been revised accordingly. Initial review of the two books is that they are easier to read and digest. As before, they include the usual "foundation topics" and test questions at the start and end of each chapter. Don't be fooled that these test questions will enable a pass if you just know these - you will need to use the text and the real thing if you've not done this before. The previous "open ended" questions are included but have not been revised from the earlier 640-801 library set.

The stated aim is that the new exam is to focus more on design and troubleshooting rather than just facts. This is probably a good thing in that today's networks are more complex. The previous exam probably didn't prepare for the real world where wireless, VPNs and ADSL are in use.

Will these get you through the exam? Given the small industry of self-test and self-help books for CCNA, it suggests that this is but one of the tools needed to pass the exam. The honest view is that as the exam has got harder over the years, the only way to really know is to use the real thing. The two books and additional material are good, but unless it can be learnt verbatim, then you will need to use the texts with real hardware/software.

That said, this is the standard to which other CCNA books are measured.

Five stars for the revised content, but dropping one star on the basis that hands-on experience to back this up will help newcomers.


Engaging and easily understandable, 10 Nov 2008
I've got oodles of programming books and I'd put this one up with the best of my collection. It's carefully written to ensure all levels of experience and aptitude are catered for, I'd class myself as somewhere in the intermediates with a decent knowledge of actionscript 2 and I found it enormously useful.

All examples and diagrams make perfect sense, and the explanations they use have actually helped me come to terms with other programming paradigms I'd used but never fully understood.

Thoroughly recommend this one.

Awesome..., 29 Jul 2008
After endlessly searching for a decent AS3 book but having to settle with intermediate to advanced book I found this little gem and started some research. After finding reviews on the flashblog and other resources I decided to go ahead with the purchase.

not only is this book well illustrated in full colour, it also gives you a sense that your learning at a steady pace without feeling like your missing something as you progress.

The online resource site offers all of the files needed to sit and study the chapters in the book closer.

I have also recently embarked on what I thought was a problem with one of the resource files and emailed the support group, I was astonished to get a reply within 15 Minutes, pity that I was being a fool and there was no problem. Non the less the help was amazing.

I can't recommend this book enough for anyone wanting to make the jump from AS2 to AS3 or for anyone completely new to AS3.

Thank you

Easir to follow than Big Colin, 25 Jul 2008
I really like this book, It's a lot easier to follow than Colin Mook's essential one (Which of course you do actually need as well) Pretty straight to the point, easy to read and understand although I'm probably slap bang in the middle of the target audience - intermediate user with a fairly good understanding of key concepts and how OOP works. I don't recommend it for the absolute beginner and calling it "A beginners guide" is a bit misleading but as a transitional guide, its really good.

There are quite a few typos, it must be said and some of them are quite confusing. I also found that the choice of variable names occasionally made it less clear as to what's intended.

Overall, highly recommended and pretty much the second AS3 book you should have (Although buying it before Mr Mooks is probably a better idea if you get my drift)

I generally now use this one as my main learning guide and "Essential ActionScript 3.0" as a more detailed reference

best buy fopr every actionscript level, 15 Jul 2008
If you read this book and Essential actionscript 3 i actually belive you will be able to learn just as much if not more from Learning Actionscript 3 even though essential as3 is over 3x heavyer both mentally and physicaly - based on the fact the this book delivers the content in such an lite and understanable way in full color.

Best begginer AS3 book, 04 Jun 2008
Since I got the new Flash CS3 I browse the web looking for AS3 books to help me in the transition to the new AS3, as a flash designer I found this is the best book you can get, it will let you get your hands dirty very quickly with the new AS3, it explain very nicely how it works and why.

One of the best thing is the online support, you get all the exercises files, and here is a fact I email a question about a piece of code, and got answer 5 min later, yes 5min!!! it cant get better than that, well maybe it was a bit of luck, but in any case is pretty good.

So if you are not a developer, how needs to understand all the fuzz about AS3 and OOP get this book.


Good survey, but recent development trends burdons, 27 Jul 2007
Good book. Covers a lot of ground and gives a good survey of the field. Time is on its back, however. The use of web frameworks such as Struts or Spring, and the use of ORM tools such as Hibernate or JPA makes much of the book "redundant". Such tools although solving a lot of practical problems, also introduces many new ones. Maybe a new edition of the book should cover such ground.


Useful but J2EE biased, 30 Jul 2006
I'm a .NET developer and, since the book advertises the fact that it covers .NET as well as J2EE I had high hopes. By and large it lived up to them but in some places I think it let itself down.

In particular the majority of the code is in Java. I don't mind mentally mapping from Java to C#, however its the differences between the framework libraries that creates the problem as I simply cannot do that mapping.

Despite this the book is OK, if you concentrate on the patterns themselves then your fine but I think Java developers will get far more from it as they're going to learn not just the patterns but details you need to be aware of when applying them.

key book for enterprise patterns, 29 Jul 2006
Even if you find enterprise stuff immensely dull, dealing with databases and web pages is a pretty common task, most of the action in software development revolves around it, and who wants to be completely ignorant of the the alphabet soup of various technologies the IT blogs, books and websites are floating in?

So if you must immerse yourself in this area, what better than a Martin Fowler book? The code is mainly in Java, with a fairly large smattering of C#. It would probably help if you understood some basics of enterprise development in those languages, e.g. servlets and JDBC for Java.

The patterns in this book cover organising domain logic, database mapping and access, web presentation, concurrency, and the book finishes by covering base patterns, a mixture of lower level abstractions of the sort covered in Fowler's first book Analysis Patterns (e.g. Money) and those that bear a close resemblance to the classic vanilla Gang of Four patterns, with an enterprise twist (e.g. Plugin and Gateway). Nearly all the other patterns refer to these, so I don't know why these didn't appear first. Apart from that though, the book is very well organised. And the opening essay, that discusses the trade offs of every pattern and how they fit together in an application, is immensely helpful.

Wizened enterprisers looking for new material will not find much new here, but surely the point of patterns catalogues are to get down on paper the practices of those same wizened enterprisers, not to strike off in new directions. Therefore, an experienced developer should see this as a way to organise what they already know, and maybe in doing so, reveal some new insights.

A newcomer to enterprise development will definitely get a lot out of this, as the underpinnings to the plethora of modern enterprise applications are laid bare. You're not going to become a Hibernate, Struts or EJB expert from this book, but you should at least have a clue about what problems they're trying to solve.

As usual, Fowler manages to be a model of clarity, while still injecting regular touches of wry humour, quite an achievement given the potentially bone-dry material. If you want to know the basics of enterprise software, start here.

Save time! Pragmatic, simple and effective, 15 Mar 2006
A very well written and pragmatic book about software architectural patterns.

For all the different approches, defines clearly the context of the solution, and, in a critical and structured way, shows the differences among then.

Is a book about structured and patronized solutions for typical problems in every day life of all programmers. So instead losing precious hours in front of a computer trying to reinvent the wheel, read this book and learn the some of the best practices from some of the best programmers in the world.

Good for high level summary. Not complete picture though, 08 Jun 2004
Don't really like the way book describes a method in one class then a method in another, then switches back to first class after some explanatory text. Would have much preferred to see complete listings, with section headings and explanatory text with same section headings. It's only when you assemble everything together you find there are a lot of missing pieces that are never described. I dived right in to O/R Mapping section and found a lot of method calls and classes that were not discussed further making for only half the picture.
Plus I was a bit disillusioned that author now states on his web site he doesn't have time to respond to emails, so I'll think twice before purchasing another of his books.

Since the earliest days of Internet scripting, Web developers have considered JavaScript: The Definitive Guide an essential resource. David Flanagan's approach, which combines tutorials and examples with easy-to-use syntax guides and object references, suits the typical programmer's requirements nicely. The brand-new fourth edition of Flanagan's "Rhino Book" includes coverage of JavaScript 1.5, JScript 5.5, ECMAScript 3 and the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 standard from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Interestingly, the author has shifted away from specifying--as he did in earlier editions--what browsers support each bit of the language. Rather than say Netscape 3.0 supports the Image object while Internet Explorer 3.0 does not, he specifies that JavaScript 1.1 and JScript 3.0 support Image. More usefully, he specifies the contents of independent standards such as ECMAScript, which encourages scripters to write applications for these standards and browser vendors to support them. As Flanagan says, JavaScript and its related subjects are very complex in their pure forms. It's impossible to keep track of the differences among half a dozen vendors' generally similar implementations. Nonetheless, a lot of examples make reference to specific browsers' capabilities.

Though he does not cover server-side APIs, Flanagan has chosen to separate coverage of core JavaScript (all the keywords, general syntax and utility objects such as Array) from coverage of client-side JavaScript, which includes objects, such as History and Event, that have to do with Web browsers and users' interactions with them. This approach makes this book useful to people using JavaScript for applications other than Web pages. By the way, the other classic JavaScript text--Danny Goodman's JavaScript Bible--isn't as current as this book, but it's still a fantastic (and perhaps somewhat more novice-friendly) guide to the JavaScript language and its capabilities. --David Wall

Topics covered: the JavaScript language (version 1.0 through version 1.5) and its relatives, JScript and ECMAScript, as well as the W3C DOM standards they're often used to manipulate. Tutorial sections show how to program in JavaScript, while reference sections summarise syntax and options while providing copious code examples.

...the paper it's printed on, 03 Dec 2008
Books like this are a disgrace to the industry, which is serious one, and they only sell because of the laddish title. The good news is that the only people who buy them are..., you've guessed it! And no, I haven't bought it, but I looked inside when I saw it on a bookshelf. The contents and the cover match perfectly. Need I say more? Oh, yes, I have rated the book 1 star because the software wouldn't accept any less.

Brilliant, 19 Nov 2008
As a complete novice to the stock market this book is amazing. I only wish that friends who have invested in the stock market, and made a loss, had read this book in the first place. The language is very simple to understand and before you know it you'll be talking and trading like an expert before you know it. If you're serious about making money on the stock market, this book provides you with all of the tools to do so.

A Must Buy!, 12 Oct 2008
Eveything in this book is written in a way that is fun, easy to understand AND invaluable if you intend to trade in shares. It's a steal at this price. I cannnot rate this book highly enough.

Nuff said.

Excellent Book, 18 Sep 2008
This book has full of practical trading tips and summarises the top ten mistakes made by traders. The book is written in plain English, so it's easy to understand and good fun to read too. I have found this book is very useful in my trading.


Without doubt..., 01 Sep 2008
.... the best book currently around for understanding the stock market. Robbie Burns is very good at explaining all the market jargon in a friendly and humourous tone, and there's masses of advice - particularly what not to do! The webiste is well worth a look too.

This is a book written for people who don't need to read a book about iPhone development, 26 Nov 2008
I was utterly disappointed with this book as I've been a long-time reader of Erica's posts on TUAW.com and have enjoyed her efforts on MacBreakWeekly and her less official iPhone development.

Unfortunately the problem with this book is that she is too experienced to talk to anyone but other experienced developers. With her 'Hello World' app, traditionally the first app you will learn to write in any language, you are told to throw away parts of the folder structure that Apple sets up in XCode, along with some of the pre-written code and use the code she writes with absolutely no real explanation of why. The net effect is to leave you utterly lost, not really knowing what you can and cannot do with the tools you are given.

The second problem is that it seems that Erica seems to have written the book in a huge hurry. No time is taken to explain anything. Maybe I'm not the target audience for the book but I was absolutely none the wiser about the basic tools in the SDK after reading the first thirty or so pages and I am an object-oriented ActionScript developer with some experience with the MVC design pattern so should have some affinity with the OOP code used in Objective-C (even if the syntax is a bit more alien).

I have since bought Beginning iPhone Development - Exploring the iPhone SDK by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche and have found it's pace much more manageable and feel much more able to take on the examples after reading through the theory.

Colour me unimpressed!, 10 Nov 2008
I've learned a large number of languages, toolkits and SDKs over the years and been part of the review process of a fairly well known book as well, so believe me when I say this is not a great quality book!

If you read the back cover and even the prerequisites, you might think this book is for you. The prerequisites page only mentions the following with regards to knowledge required: "Familiarity with Objective-C". No mention is made of familiarity with writing software for OS X, but by page 23 we're seeing statements like "These essential frameworks enable you to build your iPhone applications using the same fundamental classes and calls you are familiar with from the Macintosh". This is followed on 24 by a comment about Info.plist - "It works the same way Info.plist files work on the Mac." Even as early as page 7 we're seeing things like "As with the Macintosh..." This book does not stand well on its own and that will make it less accessible to some people.

Then we get to the missing stuff - in the very first project, we're instructed to "Drag the three image files from the Chapter One Project folder provided with this book..." Provided where? There's no CD in the back, and I've not found anything in Chapter 1 so far that tells me where this resource is supposed to be included.

The first code listing spans almost two full pages as a single block of text. While the code is commented, there is no in-line breakdown of what each section is and you'll find yourself flipping back to previous pages to tie what you read there back to the code being displayed. Once this two page block of code is over, you don't see it again during this chapter - there is no further discussion of the code so you have to take it on faith for now and learn about it later. That's fine for a 10 line "hello world" app, but not really acceptable for an introduction to a language / framework like Cocoa.

All in all, first impressions are not good. This is not a book to rival the kind of book we've become used to with the Aaron Hillegass definitive reference for starting OS X programming. It will serve more experienced Apple developers well, but will be frustrating for new users.

Good book, but lacking in places, 10 Nov 2008
I found this book useful, but it definitely lacks in places. I am using it as a resource for finding out little tricks or tips on how another programmer lays out their work. It's a useful resource, however it won't teach you the SDK from a beginner to an expert - grab Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X for that!

Useful samples, not for beginners however, 05 Nov 2008
I thought this book was well written but be aware it does throw you into the deep end pretty much immediately. I would recommend this book mainly to developers who are already familiar with the basics of building iPhone applications as there really isn't much of a beginners introduction here.


The book we've all been waiting for!, 29 Oct 2008
This is a brilliant book, and contains a whole host of fantastic examples that shed a lot of like on developing using the iPhone SDK. Clearly written, great examples, and covering all topics needed to create a great application. This book will take some beating.

Of course, there is much more possible with the SDK than is covered in the book but this book will give you all the knowledge you need to push forward on your own.

Works for everyone & most mainstream flavours of Linux , 08 Apr 2008
So many books are thick, wordy, and conceal their nuggets of wisdom, but not this one. It's not big, so you won't find full details on (eg) all of the many Linux email clients - but they get a mention.
Works well for me (ex BSD 4.x sysop in the 1980s) as well as friends with no previous knowledge of operating systems. It's the examples that are such a help - most of the things we've needed to do are covered with a brief, relevant example. We use it with Ubuntu mainly - Debian distros are not identical to Fedora but we've not seen a problem - both are Linux and conform to the POSIX standard.
Reading it cover-to-cover is logical, informative, and highly recommended. Three times, and the info is starting to stick..... Then keep it handy to look things up when you need them! Highly recommended.

Best command line deskside Linux guide, 09 Feb 2008
If you do choose to explore the command line interface of Linux this may be the only book you need buy. True, if you are setting up a network or a LAMP server you will need much more, but if your goal is to gain an insight into what goes on under the hood of Linux or you just need an aide memoire for common Linux commands, this is the best book available. Written in a style that works both as a tutorial and a reference work its only real weakness is the absence of a simple quick reference guide to Linux commands - you have to rely on the index. Although it aims at a Fedora audience, there is probably no user of any other distro that won't find this book worth the purchase price. And it's a very convenient size to literally slip into your pocket.

Indispensable, 19 Sep 2006
Ever spent hours on the Web trying to find an accurate, comprehensive set of most-used *nix commands and features? This book saves you all that time. For its size, it is quite an achievement - nicely written and laid out. Always within arm's reach here.

No nonsense, 21 Jun 2006
If you just want to know how to use linux in 10 mins, this is the book for you. Teaches you what you need to know, without getting caught up in any specifics. As well as teaching you all the standard linux commands (and some application specific ones for RedHat), this book gives a brief overview about other things you'll need to understand about linux, such as how the file system works. Recommended.

Excellent, 02 Apr 2005
I don't envy Mr Barrett's task with this book. Everybody has a slightly different wishlist of commands to go in a book like this; it's impossible to please everybody. That said, I think he's got it about as close to perfection as possible. This book has an incredible amount of useful info in a usefully small volume. If like me you can normally remember the command, but always struggle to remember the right option (which one do you add to TAR for BZ2 files?) this book is a godsend.

Highly recommended!!!, 12 Jan 2008
Using just this book along with exam braindumps found online I passed the 640-802 exam. The practice exams offer hundreds of practise questions along with simulations. Very good investment

Does what it says on the tin - but don't overlook real hands-on, 11 Nov 2007
This two-book set is the new course text for the Cisco 640-802 CCNA exam, which supersedes the previous CCNA exam from November 2007.

To compare, having had a look at the two-book set for the previous exam (640-801), Wendell Odom and his team have done a pretty good job in updating this in light of new topics.

What's in the box? Similar to the old exam library, you get two books and two CDs but this time around you also get a DVD. The DVD gives content you can probably get from YouTube, but is worth a look. The two CDs provide an exam tool and 200 sample exam-tool questions, plus an electronic version of the book text. The exam tool is fine, but won't replace using the real thing when troubleshooting. But it is nice that it is included to get you going. Note that this is not the complete set of questions and the full BOSON exam question set is available to download from BOSON and is an extra cost.

As ICDN1 and ICDN2 have been re-worked, the text of volume one now refers to CCENT as the "replacement" to the ICND1 exam and has been revised accordingly. Initial review of the two books is that they are easier to read and digest. As before, they include the usual "foundation topics" and test questions at the start and end of each chapter. Don't be fooled that these test questions will enable a pass if you just know these - you will need to use the text and the real thing if you've not done this before. The previous "open ended" questions are included but have not been revised from the earlier 640-801 library set.

The stated aim is that the new exam is to focus more on design and troubleshooting rather than just facts. This is probably a good thing in that today's networks are more complex. The previous exam probably didn't prepare for the real world where wireless, VPNs and ADSL are in use.

Will these get you through the exam? Given the small industry of self-test and self-help books for CCNA, it suggests that this is but one of the tools needed to pass the exam. The honest view is that as the exam has got harder over the years, the only way to really know is to use the real thing. The two books and additional material are good, but unless it can be learnt verbatim, then you will need to use the texts with real hardware/software.

That said, this is the standard to which other CCNA books are measured.

Five stars for the revised content, but dropping one star on the basis that hands-on experience to back this up will help newcomers.


Engaging and easily understandable, 10 Nov 2008
I've got oodles of programming books and I'd put this one up with the best of my collection. It's carefully written to ensure all levels of experience and aptitude are catered for, I'd class myself as somewhere in the intermediates with a decent knowledge of actionscript 2 and I found it enormously useful.

All examples and diagrams make perfect sense, and the explanations they use have actually helped me come to terms with other programming paradigms I'd used but never fully understood.

Thoroughly recommend this one.

Awesome..., 29 Jul 2008
After endlessly searching for a decent AS3 book but having to settle with intermediate to advanced book I found this little gem and started some research. After finding reviews on the flashblog and other resources I decided to go ahead with the purchase.

not only is this book well illustrated in full colour, it also gives you a sense that your learning at a steady pace without feeling like your missing something as you progress.

The online resource site offers all of the files needed to sit and study the chapters in the book closer.

I have also recently embarked on what I thought was a problem with one of the resource files and emailed the support group, I was astonished to get a reply within 15 Minutes, pity that I was being a fool and there was no problem. Non the less the help was amazing.

I can't recommend this book enough for anyone wanting to make the jump from AS2 to AS3 or for anyone completely new to AS3.

Thank you

Easir to follow than Big Colin, 25 Jul 2008
I really like this book, It's a lot easier to follow than Colin Mook's essential one (Which of course you do actually need as well) Pretty straight to the point, easy to read and understand although I'm probably slap bang in the middle of the target audience - intermediate user with a fairly good understanding of key concepts and how OOP works. I don't recommend it for the absolute beginner and calling it "A beginners guide" is a bit misleading but as a transitional guide, its really good.

There are quite a few typos, it must be said and some of them are quite confusing. I also found that the choice of variable names occasionally made it less clear as to what's intended.

Overall, highly recommended and pretty much the second AS3 book you should have (Although buying it before Mr Mooks is probably a better idea if you get my drift)

I generally now use this one as my main learning guide and "Essential ActionScript 3.0" as a more detailed reference

best buy fopr every actionscript level, 15 Jul 2008
If you read this book and Essential actionscript 3 i actually belive you will be able to learn just as much if not more from Learning Actionscript 3 even though essential as3 is over 3x heavyer both mentally and physicaly - based on the fact the this book delivers the content in such an lite and understanable way in full color.

Best begginer AS3 book, 04 Jun 2008
Since I got the new Flash CS3 I browse the web looking for AS3 books to help me in the transition to the new AS3, as a flash designer I found this is the best book you can get, it will let you get your hands dirty very quickly with the new AS3, it explain very nicely how it works and why.

One of the best thing is the online support, you get all the exercises files, and here is a fact I email a question about a piece of code, and got answer 5 min later, yes 5min!!! it cant get better than that, well maybe it was a bit of luck, but in any case is pretty good.

So if you are not a developer, how needs to understand all the fuzz about AS3 and OOP get this book.


Good survey, but recent development trends burdons, 27 Jul 2007
Good book. Covers a lot of ground and gives a good survey of the field. Time is on its back, however. The use of web frameworks such as Struts or Spring, and the use of ORM tools such as Hibernate or JPA makes much of the book "redundant". Such tools although solving a lot of practical problems, also introduces many new ones. Maybe a new edition of the book should cover such ground.


Useful but J2EE biased, 30 Jul 2006
I'm a .NET developer and, since the book advertises the fact that it covers .NET as well as J2EE I had high hopes. By and large it lived up to them but in some places I think it let itself down.

In particular the majority of the code is in Java. I don't mind mentally mapping from Java to C#, however its the differences between the framework libraries that creates the problem as I simply cannot do that mapping.

Despite this the book is OK, if you concentrate on the patterns themselves then your fine but I think Java developers will get far more from it as they're going to learn not just the patterns but details you need to be aware of when applying them.

key book for enterprise patterns, 29 Jul 2006
Even if you find enterprise stuff immensely dull, dealing with databases and web pages is a pretty common task, most of the action in software development revolves around it, and who wants to be completely ignorant of the the alphabet soup of various technologies the IT blogs, books and websites are floating in?

So if you must immerse yourself in this area, what better than a Martin Fowler book? The code is mainly in Java, with a fairly large smattering of C#. It would probably help if you understood some basics of enterprise development in those languages, e.g. servlets and JDBC for Java.

The patterns in this book cover organising domain logic, database mapping and access, web presentation, concurrency, and the book finishes by covering base patterns, a mixture of lower level abstractions of the sort covered in Fowler's first book Analysis Patterns (e.g. Money) and those that bear a close resemblance to the classic vanilla Gang of Four patterns, with an enterprise twist (e.g. Plugin and Gateway). Nearly all the other patterns refer to these, so I don't know why these didn't appear first. Apart from that though, the book is very well organised. And the opening essay, that discusses the trade offs of every pattern and how they fit together in an application, is immensely helpful.

Wizened enterprisers looking for new material will not find much new here, but surely the point of patterns catalogues are to get down on paper the practices of those same wizened enterprisers, not to strike off in new directions. Therefore, an experienced developer should see this as a way to organise what they already know, and maybe in doing so, reveal some new insights.

A newcomer to enterprise development will definitely get a lot out of this, as the underpinnings to the plethora of modern enterprise applications are laid bare. You're not going to become a Hibernate, Struts or EJB expert from this book, but you should at least have a clue about what problems they're trying to solve.

As usual, Fowler manages to be a model of clarity, while still injecting regular touches of wry humour, quite an achievement given the potentially bone-dry material. If you want to know the basics of enterprise software, start here.

Save time! Pragmatic, simple and effective, 15 Mar 2006
A very well written and pragmatic book about software architectural patterns.

For all the different approches, defines clearly the context of the solution, and, in a critical and structured way, shows the differences among then.

Is a book about structured and patronized solutions for typical problems in every day life of all programmers. So instead losing precious hours in front of a computer trying to reinvent the wheel, read this book and learn the some of the best practices from some of the best programmers in the world.

Good for high level summary. Not complete picture though, 08 Jun 2004
Don't really like the way book describes a method in one class then a method in another, then switches back to first class after some explanatory text. Would have much preferred to see complete listings, with section headings and explanatory text with same section headings. It's only when you assemble everything together you find there are a lot of missing pieces that are never described. I dived right in to O/R Mapping section and found a lot of method calls and classes that were not discussed further making for only half the picture.
Plus I was a bit disillusioned that author now states on his web site he doesn't have time to respond to emails, so I'll think twice before purchasing another of his books.

Perhaps its me?, 04 Apr 2007
I have owned this book for some time and I can honestly say it is unique. This is the only manual I have encountered that has been consistent in its inability to answer any query i have. Admitedly I am a Javascript novice but that's why I purchased this manual in the first place to help me understand javascript. The internet has quickly answered all my queries with ease and clarity, I really don't understand why this massive book is unable to do the same.
As I said above it's probably me, as you can see there are many glowing reports for this book. In my defense I have been involved in the IT world for many years and have relied on manuals to help successfully resolve issues.
This book continues to remain a mystery to me and I am seriously thinking of banishing it to the great library in the sky.

Definitive ? Absolutely, 27 Feb 2007
After many years struggling with rudimentary JavaScript and never being able to find a sensibly structured book on the subject, a colleague recommended
'JavaScript - the Definitive Guide'. O'Reilly have never really impressed me as a publishing house but this book is the best there is. The coverage is as extensive as it is complete. Especially noteworthy is its carefully documented chapters on the relationships between functions and objects which other authors shy away from. Want to be as good as Dean Edwards ? This is the book to get you there.

A needed update for an excellent guide, 15 Jan 2007
The 5th edition of the one and only bible of JavaScript, by the language guru David Flanagan, is not a surprise, but a beautiful confirmation. The 4th edition, which I've been using until a few days ago, was (and is) an invaluable reference even though it started to become a bit outdated. The new version is even more "biblic" than before, featu