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Product: Book - Paperback
Title: ASP.NET Unleashed, Second Edition Publisher: Sams Authors: Stephen Walther Rating: 5/5  Outstanding book. Contains clear explainations, great examples, and is very easy to come up to speed on ASP.NET development from ASP. Unlike other books, no need to read front to back. This book is organized so that you can read the section/chapter for the material you are interested in and then start applying the concepts immediatley. There is no CD-ROM in the book (as mentioned in serveral chapters.) However, the authors's web site does have the complete code in .zip format. I purchased the book for the great example on how to render GDI+ in a web page.
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed Publisher: New Riders Press Authors: Jakob Nielsen, Marie Tahir Rating: 1/5  In spite of the attractive cover and being publiehsed by New Riders, this book is a great disappointment. My advice for any current webdesigner is to look elsewhere for ideas. The first 33 pages of this book contain advice that seems more appropriate for a text book on writing, such as using standard capitalization, spelling out the name of a month and using standard abbreviations. The next section of the book describes statistics collected by the authors. Here, the statistics are presented in a way that strongly encourages primarily cookie-cutter websites. For example, the authors found that 84% of the websites they looked at had the company logo in the upper-left corner of the homepage. And follow this finding with "We recommend that your site include a logo on the homepage placed in the upper-left corner." As another example it criticizes sites (and even excludes them from their analysis) that do not offer a search feature. With statements such as "Unbelieveably, 14% of the homepages didn't have a search feature." seems to make no allowance for small sites where a search feature would be unnecessary and even foolish. The final section of the book provides full-color screen shots of popular website homepages and an analysis of those pages by the authors. Here, the authors "critique" pages with frequent trivial comments that seem more appropriate to a scolding teacher or parent with comments like "There should be..." or "This is odd..." or "It's never good.." I really enjoy good web design books and frequently recommend them to other designers and even clients. But I could not recommend this book even to a novice.
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: ColdFusion MX Web Application Construction Kit, Fifth Edition Publisher: Macromedia Press Authors: Ben Forta, Nate Weiss, Leon Chalnick, Angela C. Buraglia Rating: 5/5 I am a Flash Designer with a moderate amount of ASP experience. I bought 3 CF books to begin my ColdFusion quest. This one *BY FAR* was the best written, easiest to understand, and most comprehensive! With 1100 pages of learning and 400 pages of reference, this one is already tattered, highlighted, and dog-eared more than any book in my library. I have to disagree with the other reviewer stating that some content should have been left to other books like basic SQL, etc... this information is invaluable if you are like me and are treading into new territory with CF. With the code examples clearly displayed and explained, you don't need to sit in front of your computer while reading this book. You walk away understanding it without the need to load the accompanying files. From someone who has read over 30 computer-based books in the last 18 months, I highly recommend this book to anyone that needs/wants a fast start into the world of ColdFusion MX.
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Windows XP ProThe Missing Manual, 2nd Edition (Missing Manual) Publisher: Pogue Press Authors: David Pogue, Craig Zacker, L.J. Zacker Rating: 4/5  The very latest from David Pogue's eponymous publishing house [and O'Reilly]. The book goes into myriad useful tips on best using Microsoft's XP Professional. A very stable operating system, unlike some earlier efforts by Microsoft. Replete with attractive consumer level utilities. The book does go into system type aids, like showing the full power of the start menu, taskbar and control panel. All to the good. But somewhat prosaic. I suspect what is more germane to most users are things like getting onto the Internet and all that that implies. The authors go into explaining how to get the most out of Internet Explorer. And setting up your email and doing instant messaging. For many of us, browsing and email will take up much of our usage, with chat perhaps a close third. The reality is that the computer's power is often as a connection to the greater world. Which is why though these chapters are only a fraction of the book, you may want to head here first and read slowly. Understanding them may be the most productive part of the book for you.
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