This book gives a good cohesive introduction to the basic algorithms, including Nearest Neighbor, Decision Trees, Bayesian Networks, and Neural Networks. Most other books are biased by the author's bent of Statistics, Machine Learning or Pattern Recognition.

The main value of the book however is its coverage of techniques that 1) estimate a model's accuracy, and 2) select a 'good' model. This book offers the reader a solid foundation to what we are trying to achieve: to get at the objective truth.

You'll probably find this book hilariously funny until it strikes you that you paid ... for it. I'm pretty sure these guys know what they're talking about, but when it comes to talking about it they seem to have a problem. The text is choppy. The sample code is so disjointed that it's almost impossible to follow. In chapter 2, for instance, we run into something called the Contact Manager. This example uses a form with several menu items and buttons. Instead of descriptive names that'll let you understand what's going on without bringing up the program the buttons have names like "button1," "button2," etc. Names of the menu items are "menuItem2," "menuItem3," etc. Trying to learn something from this book while you're away from your computer is an exercise in futility. Save your ... and take your wife out to dinner with it.

I bought Fast Track ASP.NET and it was exactly what I needed, a fast way to bring me up to speed on useful ASP.NET. No fluff, just straight to the point. Not to mention a good price. When I wanted to update myself on ADO.NET I just went straight to the bookstore, grabbed Fast Track ADO.NET, paid for it, and walked out, no hesitation. I finished reading Fast Track ADO.NET and will continue to consider the Fast Track series for future topics.

If you have been programming for a while and are getting tired of having to deal with a 800-1,000+ page book for every one of the million topics you need to keep up with, then the Fast Track Series is for you. ADO.NET is only 300 pages long! After reading a Fast Track book you have plenty of information to start working with the technology. I did it in just a couple of days.

I do not recommend this book for a beginner programmer. If you have experience in programming then buy this book to bring you up to speed with the technology.

I like this book and recommend it. Of course, there is no lack of ADO.NET titles on market, but if you looking for concise and practical ADO.NET guide and ask me, then I recommend you pick this one.

Why?

It is concise. You are no required to read about thousand pages to gain some useful knowledge.
It is valuable. Just carefully explained essential concepts, information, and techniques. No unneeded, secondary or useless stuff.
It is practical. Main focus is always how-to apply ADO.NET in real word. There are many really working and ready-to-use examples.

Of course , there are some things that can be better, for example it is imho better, while learning about ADO.NET, start with connection's and data reader's stuff and then move to Dataset's material, but this may be just matter of taste. Also web services chapter may be written better. But on other hand some parts and examples are simply outstanding.

Summarizing, it is very solid, very good, ADO.NET title that really fulfill what it is
promise. Check it out!