Ralph Davis seems to be a very experienced author concerning networks and this book gives a very helpful introduction into network programming. He also knows well what the beginner has to know. But it would be more helpful for me if anyone could give me an adress to download the source-code printed in the book. About 40% of the books weight must be printed source code. To make further experience I would need the sources as file on my harddisk

I was busy trying to develop videophone when everything was just absent: SDKs, theories, papers, standards. The book, written by former Novell programmer who written Windows Netware drivers, was very helpful for me. I got his idea of sending messages across computer boundaries and I later implemented it in my code. That's easy: just pack it into structure and unpack it n other side!. My videophones were kept sending each other such a messages to know who is online, and that feature made a big difference..

if you know C and/or read c++ for dummies BUY THIS BOOK, this book explains streams very well as well as overloading operators ect. and in the end you go through the procces of building a REAL app. it also covers making your own streams

I have nostalgic memories from watching this film as a kid in the eightees. Along with "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "ET: the Extra-Terrestrial", this was one of my favorite sci-fi films. The concept of aliens and UFOs fascinated me. Unfortunately, it seems to have fallen out of circulation. Luckily I was able to get a copy of the VHS some time back. I hope Disney will re-release this film on DVD so we can see it in its original widescreen aspect ratio.

Joey Cramer is David Freeman, a boy living in a picture perfect Florida town in 1978 with his parents and bratty kid brother. However, he finds his life changed when he is knocked out in the forest for a few minutes, or so he thinks. When he returns home, he finds that it is 1986. David has been missing for 8 years, yet David himself has not aged. David's parents are now eight years older, and his bratty kid brother has grown up into a quite decent 16-year-old. David's quest to find out what happened to him will take him to an alien spacecraft run by a computer named Max.

The first half of the film is structured like an eerie mystery as David and the police try to piece together what happened to David. This is perfectly complemented by Alan Silvestri's eerie score. The film loses some of its mystery later on, but it's still highly enjoyable. The spacecraft looks incredible, and the scenes where David gets to fly the spacecraft are really neat. I think though I liked Max better before he assumed his Pee-Wee Herman voice (voiced by Pee-Wee himself).

The ending nicely tied things up. Too bad we don't get to see what becomes of David's crush on the local girl.

Flight of the Navigator is a far better movie than we'd have a right to suspect.

Plot spoiler if you read further:

A few minutes into this film, 12-year-old David Freeman (Joey Cramer) is on an
errand to retrieve his 8-year-old brother, Jeff, when he falls into a gulley and is
knocked out. Regaining consciousness, David returns to his house, thinking only a
few minutes have passed, and instead of his parents and brother finds a locked
door and an elderly couple living there.

Taken to the police station, David is identified by computer records as a boy
reported missing eight years before. Despite the fact that he hasn't aged, he's taken
to the Freeman's at a different house nearby, and when he sees his parents
obviously older, he faints. He returns to consciousness again on a gurney on his
way to a hospital bed. A few minutes later, while his parents are called out of the
room by a somber-faced doctor, David is left alone with his brother Jeff -- who is
now 16.

This is ostensibly a Disney movie for kids -- and later on there is a lot of comedic
Disney hijinks -- but the first half hour of the movie, as David and his family deal
with the trauma of his time relocation, are some of the most heart-rending and
chilling sequences I've seen in any film.

Spoiler over.

This movie reminded me of some of the time-relativity sequences in Robert A.
Heinlein's novel, Time for the Stars. The characters are well written and the actors
do an excellent job, particularly in the scenes between Joey Cramer and Matt
Adler, as 16-year-old Jeff. The distraught parents, Cliff de Young and Veronica
Cartwright, are also excellent -- and Howard Hesseman and Sarah Jessica Parker
round out a great supporting cast.

Special kudos are due to Paul Reubens (best known for his character Pee Wee
Herman) who was originally credited under his own name for lending his voice to a
major character in this film, but had his name removed from the credits, replaced
by the pseudonym "Pall Mall," after Reubens was arrested for alleged indecent
exposure committed in a movie theater seat. (I've never understood how Reubens
was convinced to plead "no contest" to the charge, after theater security cameras
showed him in the lobby buying popcorn at the time of the alleged offense.)
Considering that Disney's Hollywood Pictures division released Powder, directed
by a convicted and confessed child molester, Disney should show some backbone
and restore Reubens real name to the credits.

If you can get ahold of this movie, see it -- and maybe Disney will see fit to release
it again -- on DVD, I hope.

I'm a sci-fi fan from way back. I've got in my collection, War of the Worlds, WestWorld, Forbidden Planet, Alien(s), and many, many more. Flight of the Navigator is an enjoyable movie to watch. My son and I went to the 1st showing of it in our town. We also went to several other showings of it. While many of the other reviewers remember seeing this as a child, I'm here to tell you, It's NOT a kids movie!
Flight of the Navigator is on a level with the Ray Harryhausen movies, if you're familiar with them. They're movies that are clean enough for the whole family, thought provoking if you let them, and just plain entertaining, without being dull, boring tripe!
If like to watch movies over, and over again. And you'ld like to watch them by yourself, or with your family, get this movie. It's an enjoyable break in your day.

Although the "Dummies" title implies a "Beginner" book, this book falls into the "Beginner to Intermediate Developer" range. This is a good book for Visual Basic developers who want to make the conversion to C# or for the beginner. Like all Dummies series, there are ample examples and the author does a great job of explaining the C# language. Windows forms are covered in Chapter 17 and 18 but there is no discussion about Web development or using C# with Active Server Pages (ASP).

Starting in Chapter 6 (Collecting Data - The Class and the Array) there are several really annoying errors, for example, on page 105 the author uses "for (int i = 0; i < 11; i++)" to iterate thru a 10 element array. In the section below this (Array bounds checking), the author uses exactly the same code and says this will fail. The first code should be "for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)". These errors are scattered through out the book. Still this is a good book and I would highly recommend it.

I bought "C# for Dummies" for myself and "C# and Game Programming" for my son.

This book is a MUST for absolute beginners. It contains more code examples than any of the other ten C# books combined (I own the O'Reilly and Wrox books also). Furthermore, the Visual Studio IDE bonus chapter (on the CD in pdf format) is worth the price of the book itself. The principle strengths of this book are the disciplined coding techniques modeled by the author, the excellent inline documentation techniques modeled by the author and how this book is strictly focused on C# basics (not ASP.NET, Web Services, ADO.NET, etc.). Get this book if you want to learn C# well in a very short time.

A good starting point for C++ and object-oriented programming with quite good coverage of the features of the language, but the author tends to only explain things in detail if there is an opportunity to try and be funny. Maybe 10% of the jokes in here are okay if you haven't heard them before, but most of them are lame and distracting, particularly on the second reading. Some concepts are woefully over-explained like the part on Classes which takes 2-3 pages to say "a class is a category of variables" and the reminders throughout the book which provide suprisingly obvious information when you dont really need it. Other things are not explained at all, like the chapters on Operator Overloading which begin by saying that 'this is an advanced part that you might need to use later' and then go straight into syntax and very minimal one-line explanations, completely without any context or saying exactly what operator overloading is all about. The last few chapters are uninspired and difficult to make sense of, however the treatment of other parts such as functions and classes is informative. The For Dummies books owe much of their popularity to their very reader-friendly appearance, however the content could benefit a great deal from a more sophisticated approach to programming ideas without sacrificing the overall casual/friendly tone. Introducing the concept of editing to the production of this book would also have been an improvement as errors are abundant, and many readers will be amazed that a Byte is refered to several times as being four Bits. Overall this book is informative and a good starting point in C++ and OOP, and you will benefit from reading it. But be prepared to overlook both the errors and the author's self conscious over-indulgence in making jokes that aren't funny.

Ok, so there isn't much consensus in all these reviews so this book obviously isn't for everyone. But I, for one, loved it. If you don't already know C as I did you might want to look to a different book, but there are lots of people out there wanting to migrate from C to C++ and for these people I highly recommend it. (Why would anyone else buy it? It says "Ideal for C Programmers Migrating to C++" right on the cover, and section 1 is titled "A Review of C"!)

Despite what I've seen in some other reviews I think the material is very logically presented with just the right level of detail and well thought-out examples. Best of all it is an interesting read; this guy is funny. I learned C++ years ago with this book and it still serves as a great reference when I program.

Well you might even be one!
But if you want to qualify as a dummy capable of learning C++..
I'd say you better have done programming before, or maybe you're more intelligent than most people I can think of.
Otherwise you'll be a very confused dummy?

With that aside - WOW!

I've done about 6 years programming in all sorts of "lesser" scripting and languages and now I feel like I'm on my way to - ENLIGHTENMENT! Now, really.. I'm 2/3 throught the book and I say thank you, thank you, thank you (or was that the copy copy copy constructor chapter?).

Ok, maybe 4 stars is nasty but let me try explain.
Jumping from arrays into advanced pointers by presenting a linked list program without much explanation is nasty too!
(I got over that one, but will you the reader?)

On the other hand, if you want to learn concepts and semantics - get this book. Maybe not everything is explained in detail(that's where you could have done programming before).
Also, can a relatively small book (400 pages) really cover that much in a lot of detail?
On the other hand, what is explained is explained very well - to my opinion. And its fun too!

Maybe Mr. Davis does not have a sense of humor that'll reach everybody - but after a truly hectic chapter I find myself laughing my head off. That's where I pick up on the author's own asides - my neighbour?
I'm really scared of what he thinks of me laughing out loudly by myself..

I'm now ready to hack C++ and understand concepts and semantics that i didn't 4 days ago. I'm not scared of C++ any more!!
Maybe you should try it?

Also, Mr. Davis, thanks for the nacho recipe - the microwave is ready!!

The book is wonderful, except I got my package shipped with the CD seal already broken and a Visual Basic compiler CD inside, instead of the C++ compiler CD.

I was disapointed with this kit! I couldn't look through the book becuase it was shrink - wrapped with the compiler, so I had no way of knowing that it was for experienced users of the C language. The author himself suggests that you "put the book back on the shelf" if you aren't already programming in C. So I was completely lost from chapter 2 and beyond. Although he gives some great examples of Object - oriented programming concepts in the beginning, this book will collect dust on my shelf until I am able to learn the language from another source. Not a good way to start with C++.

This book provides a great intro to C++ if you first have an understanding of C (prior programming knowledge is necessary!). I have learned a little C in the past and have been a programmer for quite a while so I had no problem breezing through this book. It basically follows a couple of examples (one small for snippets and one "project" at the end of each section) and expands them as you learn each new topic.

'Hockey Stories for Short Attention Spans' is a better title for this book. The stories are only short anecdotes and many of them aren't even a page long. A reader could finish the entire book in under three hours. It's not very satisfying, either. It doesn't reveal much that fans haven't already heard about, nor does it discuss anything in depth. It offers little more than a small collection of cute factoids and famous quotes. There are also some mistakes. One of the most glaring is the description of the front cover photograph containing Leafs' Ponikarovsky and Senators' Magnus Arvedson. The description says the picture is of Mario Lemieux and Nevin Reid. I'd recommend this book to any fourth grade hockey lover with a book report due the next day. For rest of us, this bone offers hardly any marrow.

This book is full of hockey trivia and factoids. To me the most interesting parts were about the famous players, whom I already know. However, the book contains stories about players from the turn of the 20th century a lot of whom are probably known only to hockey encyclopedia buffs.

The author does have a pretty good sense of humor (e.g. Texas is an exotic place for ice hockey). However, sometimes the author's word choices may be awkward, repetitive and a little annoying.

If you are looking for a non-technical easy-to-read book about hockey legends this is a 3-star book for you, but don't expect much more from it.

Well, I can't agree with the only review here of this book and I'm not usually one to put my thoughts on review, but I gotta disagree here.

Ok, I'm a girl, so what do I know about hockey? Well, quite a lot, actually.

While it's true that this book is short, quick and quipped, I think it's packed with a wide assortment of interesting points of significance. I'm a self-taught historian who has a great love for the old PCHA. The stories about the Patrick's and how they formed the league went beyond what I've read in many past histories.

And then there's the Bernie Morris story! Come on! I have wondered for years about the status of Bernie Morris and why he seemed to just "disappear off the map." Well, this book solved that little mystery, and I'd never read any of it anywhere before.

I have always chuckled when I read about Link Gaetz, but I'd forgotten all about him. Well, Mr. Duplacey et al answered that little quiz for me as well. And if anyone didn't have a gawfaw when they read about King Clancy's room check, the special life of minor leaguers on the road and on the ice and all those weird trades and escapades and great lines from "Slapshot", well, where's your sense of humor?

OK, not everything's original and spick-span new, but all least all the great quotes we've heard and loved are gathered here in one place.

Hey, I'm a gal who loves hockey and I like to laugh about it too. And I laughed, big time. So do yourself a favor, buy it. So what if you can read it in an hour and a bit. Like, hockey fans have a wide attention span? This is an hour you'll enjoy. I know I did.

GoGirl

This book is relatively useless unless you intend to write the programs he has made into examples in the book. Nothing is explained or defined, many explanations are missing as far as terms, ideas, or even how or what something does. I would not recommend this book.

Although the "C++ Weekend Crash Course" is a decent starting point for C++, it doesn't deliver as promised. Digesting the content of the book will take much more than the proposed 24 hours. Triple or quadruple that if you've never programmed with C++ before and you'll have an accurate estimate as to how long it takes to complete this book.

Good points: 1 - includes DJGPP and RHIDE (a compiler and environment) so that you can work on coding right away. 2 - covers classes quite thoroughly, and devotes several chapters to debugging. I can say quite confidently that I can debug my own code properly. 3 - 500 pages of info is bound to benefit you.

Bad points: 1 - The code contains errors. Once you figure out how to work around them (use "cin >> whatever" instead of "cin > whatever") you'll have a lot more success. It -is- frustrating for the novice, however. 2 - There's no real reference in the book. Unlike some titles, there's no decent list of functions, variable types, etc. You'll need to invest in something like that separately. 3 - Most sections are fairly chaotic. Although the author does have a basic pattern to his chapters consisting of "introduction of topic, practical coding, conclusion/summary", the practical coding section is a mishmash of coding and an assortment of unorganized points that the author couldn't put into a chapter.

Overall, some readers may feel confused after having read this book. A complete novice to C++ may still not know when to use a pointer instead of a global variable, and there were sections in the book that were too advanced for the time they were presented (such as bitwise operations). If you're already a programmer fluent in another language, this book might work for you. If you need to review C++ before an exam, this is your book. For complete newbies, however, skip this one.

I see many folks saying it's not a good C# book because the author didn't teach you how to use VS.NET, ADO.NET, Web Services, etc. Just remembering that IMHO, a C# book is supposed to teach you the aspects of the programming language and Not how to use an IDE or anything else.

This book concentrates entirely in the C# OOP aspects and will give you a good foundation on how to use OOP in the .NET world.

I give 4 Stars because A weekend is not enough time to learn it all, although I could Read the book in a weekend but needed more then that to learn and do the examples.

Another good thing is that the lessons/chapters are time based (an average of 30minutes each) and they are very straight and compact.

Note : The other reader comments seem to be from C++ Weekend Crash Course ?:(?

I initially bought this book for a friend but then used a couple of times for reference when the person I leant it to asked questions... After a couple of times reading sections I quickly noticed a style in the author I had seen before. Not realizing it was an author I had read before and swore I never would buy a book from again I missed it... but here he is again parading through the book like he is some programming genius and you are some idiot who should not be learning to program in the first place. The book title fits the way he treats his reader... I found his technique to be even more insulting and arrogant.

Well yes, I mean exactly what I have written in title. Windows 98 programming is definitely not for dummies. You ought to know a good deal of C programming before you start programming for windows else you will find this, otherwise real-interesting, field a difficult one to an extent where you will feel more or less discouraged. So, if you think you are dummy don't buy this book. If you are determined to buy this book knowing that you are one of the dumb fellow then at least go through its page 1 and page 2. When I bought this book, I thought it's about windows programming using win 32 API (the original way of programming windows). Nevertheless, I felt very disappointed to see that it's all about MFC after chapter 4. In addition, there too, book lacks a lot. There are so many shortcuts (this is one of the major reasons "why not to buy?" for those DUMMIES out there). Chapter 1-4 are not bad but I think the work is more or less sum-up version of matching chapters written in Charles Petzold book. After these start MFC. I think even mastering visual C (a bad book near me) has more to say here then this book. Why I haven't given this book one start? Only because of it's price but I tell you it's not worth of even this price. So, stay out and clear. To add to the injury "part of 10" is worst among all I have seen so far in dummies' series. I was really missing our dear writer when I was reading page 295, which was telling me about "telephone help" and "divine intervention" in "Ten Help Resources" chapter. I am still thinking of giving it one star. Any way last no least this is the worst DUMMIES series book I have ever read. DON"T BUY. Instead go for Charles Petzold if you are interested in WIN32 or else buy teach your self visual C++ in 21 days if you want to dive in ocean of MFC.

this is not stephen r. davis's best work, it just skims over windows programming, if you have a copy of MSDN, good beacuse your gonna need it. it covers MFC but that part isn't very helpful. there is alot of very help full information in there (i can program in windows now).

BTW: the first example is missing a line wndClass.Size = sizeof(WNDCLASSEX); it won't compile without it.