I have Sybex and this one. I like this one because it has a lot of exercises. After I pass the examination, I can have confidence to handle the job which is given by my boss.

This book is an outstanding resource for both the 8i and 9i exams.

CITY OF MY DREAMS conveys the way of life--its textures, rhythms, smells, patterns, trials, and joys--of the poor but proud in 19th C Stockholm. It is not a historical novel in the usual sense, but a deeply contemporary reconstruction of the past by a writer who was in love with the city in which he spent his life and knew everything there was to know about it. Framed as a series of sequences that accumulate in emotional power and grip the reader ever more tightly, it is compulsively readable and deeply moving.

Although it is set in Stockholm and details Swedish life with loving care, the author's vision is so universal that the reader ultimately forgets its foreigness. The translation is sensitive to the music of the original and creates a strong English equivalent that makes it seem it was written in English to begin with--you forget you are reading a translation. You forget, in fact, that you are reading, and get lost in the story.

City of My Dreams, the first book in Per Anders Folgelström's five-volume Stockholm Series, broke the Swedish record for best sellers. A compelling storyteller known for his narrative sweep, his acute characterization and the poetic qualities of his prose, Fogelström was highly acclaimed even before he wrote the series. Ingmar Bergman made one of his earlier novels, Summer with Monika, into a film that is now a classic.

After reading his series in Swedish, Jennifer Brown Bäverstam, an accomplished translator of Swedish and French, married to a Swede, she vowed to make these books available in English. The skill of both author and translator brings into English this superb telling of the tale of Henning Nilsson and his family, a family whose origins and growth in the underclass of nineteenth century Stockholm mirrors the growth of Stockholm itself into a modern European metropolis. Beginning with the arrival in the city of fifteen-year-old Henning, barefoot and penniless, on the eve of the industrial revolution, it continues with the story of an impassioned struggle for a fully human life. Powerfully written, City of My Dreams sweeps the reader along in a historic saga of fortune, love, and acceptance of the existing order of things in a society experiencing great social and political upheaval. Clearly a masterpiece of historical realism, this novel transports the reader into the inexorable drama of another person's life. A favorite among Swedish readers of all ages, this translation is a welcome gift to English readers.

Very good book about one of the most important figures in modern conservation. Marshall was one of the co-founders of the wilderness society and was instrumental in helping create the national wilderness preservation system. He also helped with places such as the Adirondacks and the immense Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska. This book provides an interesting summary of this man's extraordinary life, including his famous 40 and 50 mile day hikes!

This is my most cherished book. Bob Marshall should be on Mt. Rushmore, but he would not want to be. James Glover tells the story of Bob Marshall in a way that allows the reader to "see" his life. We are with Marshall as he climbs all of the peaks in the Adirondacks above 4,000 ft. We go west as a young forester, exploring and surveying all of the last great roadless areas in the United States. We over-winter in Alaska as Bob gathers material for "Arctic Village", his book that chronicles the lives of a fading frontier. We move in and out of the halls of official Washington bureauacracy, as Bob tirelessly fights for wilderness. It is an amazing story. Bob Marshall did more for the natural landscape than Thoreau, Muir, or any other naturalist. Indeed, his actions transcended his early and untimely death. James Glover tells the story with vim and vigor.... Buy this book, and learn of someone who worked within the system and accomplished more than could ever be expected. When you enter a wilderness area, you should thank Bob Marshall.....

I have been using this book to prepare for the OCP Developer Exams. The book covers about 80% to 90 % of what you need to know (which is typically enough for you to pass the exam). I have just started reading the forms portion of the book and it seems to be inclusive enough for one to pass the exams. The information for the second exam (Programming PL/SQL Units) is not completely correct, especially the areas concerning what happens to related procedures and functions when you recompile related PL/SQL programming units. What I found VERY useful was to order sample test problems for each exam and use these in conjunction with this book. That way, I not only got a good review of the material from the book, but got at chance to look at actual exam questions (which in term identified the areas in the book that are lacking). Again, buy the book to help get you through the exams, but order test questions as well.

Phew! The last OCP exam is behind me now, and I passed all 5 on the first try. I didn't even know Developer before buying this book! Now I'm in a new job building Developer forms and reports.

For the SQL exams, I also bought Oracle Press's PL/SQL Handbook. Didn't need any help in the Forms exams - everything was covered in the book - but for the Reports exam I had to get the sample database from the author (jcouchman@mindspring.com). I also got an errata list from the other author (databasedude@netscape.net) that was helpful.

Best investment I've made in a LONG time!

I want to say that this book is a must to get certified by Oracle. This week I passed the last exam (the Report one), and I can say that without this book you will never certify. I have finished all the five exams (from the first time-Thanks God) using this book as my main study tool (along with the Sideris manuals as a minor references). I can say that this exam guide will cover %95 of the material tested in exam 3&4 (Forms), 80% of exam 5 (Reports-which in my opinion is the most difficult), 80% of exam 2 (procedure features), and 90% of exam 1. As it is clear from this figure the material covered will help you pass all exams. For the report exam I think you should have supplementary material (like Sideris) for two topics tested: Matrix report and lexical parameters) but even without that you can pass the exam. In short, buy this book if you want to be OCP-Application Developer. I highly recommend it. Excellent work by Oracle Press.

I have read this book since last Oct. At that time, there were not too much CCIE books you could choose and I was kind of new to this area.

Last month I passed the CCIE Written Test and now is head on lab exam preparation with sold foundation about internetworking system.

As I looked back to this book and the reviews on this site, I felt that this book really provides something helpful in the way for troubleshooting methodoligy and frame relay. But for CCIE lab or Written Test, it might not be helpful too much.

You have to look for more resource to prepare yourself. Everyone with diierent backgound may have different view about this book. I'm sure that once you find something different from couple months ago about this book, you really learned a lot of things !

The internet has over 25 million routers attached to it. There are countless bridges and switches also connected and Cisco is the name of choice. The certification process is long and the exams are difficult, yet hundreds try every day. This book can really make a difference in success and failure.

Caslow cover the CCIE exam with the utmost detail and gives you a book that will surely be a necessary reference in your quest for the CCIE certification. This book is highly informative, yet for those starting out in the CCIE arenas, you might find this book a little more advanced.

The book is broken down into several levels and each level builds upon the one before. The book gives you everything you would need to pass the exam, including test-taking tips along the way. Your job is to organize the note and study.

The $69.99 price tag may appear to be a hefty price, but the information is well worth it. What the Author may want to do is include a cd with practices test and possibly a CBT program to follow the book. Overall I think this book is just what the Cisco Professional needs.

This is the best Cisco-related book that I have read so far. The author presents the topics in a very logical manner; one topic flows into the next, without missing a beat.

Caslow does a fine job of tying the different parts of the Cisco IOS together in a manner that makes it easy to understand. The way that he carefully points out potential problems and creates lists for the steps in each process is refreshing when compared to other books.

BRS was intended for CCIE candidates, but it would be perfect for any Cisco specialist, whether or not you are pursuing certification. The in-depth understanding of each topic will be very useful on-the-job as well as for test preparation.

The Exam Cram books are great. I've used many of them and have the entire series.

I think this one leaves a little to be desired in that it needs to be bigger, with more sample problems. Never-the-less, this is the book I would and did choose to start studying with.

I recommend that anyone using this book supplement their studies with practice tests, flash card questions, and other books.

Index:

1. Microsoft Certification Tests

2. Concept and Planning: TCP/IP and Windows NT 4

3. Installation and Configuration

4. IP Addressing

5. Subnet Addressing

6. Implementing IP Routing

7. IP Address Resolution

8. Host Name Resolution

9. Domain Name System (DNS)

10. NetBIOS Name Resolution

11. Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)

12. Windows Internet Name Service (WINS)

13. Connectivity

14. Implementing the SNMP Service

15. Performance, Tuning, and Optimization

16. Troubleshooting

17. Sample Test

18. Answer Key to Sample Test

I took the test and passed w/ a 948. In addition to this book, I read the New Riders and MS Press titles. This book is definitely worth the read. But, by no means should it be the only thing you read before taking the test. A couple of the chapters are really sloppy, and there's some outright wrong information contained. This one is definitely not on par with the other Exam Cram books. But, as a final review, it is still the best thing available. I would recommend this book and the MS TCP/IP books, in addition to the Transcender tests to give a knockout blow to the exam.

I just finished passing the MS TCP/IP exam with a score of 90% using this book as a study guide and, while this was not my sole study material (I also used the Sybex Network Press MCSE TCP/IP for NT Server 4 Study Guide and the Transcender exams), I thought the book was exceptionally good at explaining subnetting, routing, and address resolution. I have read the other reviews of this book and, while I generally agree, I can't imagine that anyone who had done even token preparation for the MS TCP/IP exam wouldn't have immediately discounted the fairly small number of trivial errors and gone on to appreciate the elegant explanations of some otherwise confusing topics. In addition, there is simply no way to say enough good things about the Transcender tests. I have used them for five exams so far and have found their value to be incalculable.

If you have some Java experience under your belt (academic or real-world), you could probably read only this book, take its sample exam (and several other free ones available on the net), and then pass the Programmer's Exam. There is no "fluff" in this book. It ONLY covers the official exam objectives. A better overview of the Java language in a book that is also designed to help one pass the exam is Mughal & Rasmussen's book. That book also has review questions and a sample exam. (I read both in preparation for the exam and passed yesterday with an 85%...I have little real-world Java experience).

The review questions and the sample exam in both this and the other book mentioned are most definitely harder than the real exam. This is a good thing. My lack of good marks on these practice questions made me nervous, but when I sat down to take the real test and saw how relatively easy the questions were I had immediate confidence. Don't waste you time on the Roberts/Heller/Ernest book: it's not detailed enough, and the questions are too easy.

NOTE: The exam objectives (avaiable from Sun's site) changed along with the test on 10/4/00. The new passing grade is 61% (because it's a harder test). Make sure you print these to ensure you are covering each objective!!!

To prepare for the SCJP exam, I started by programming and reading the Complete Java2 Certification Guide (by Heller) first, followed by using this book about just 10 days before the exam. These two books focus on topics differently and certainly make up for the weak part of each other. In fact, the Java2 Exam Cram offers some insight on Java in addition to the coverage of the SCJP exam itself. The sample questions are more difficult in this book while some questions on the real exam are trickier. If you can score 75-80 on the final exam in both books, you should be ready for the exam (passing score is 60). This book has good coverage on Thread, Event, Garbage collection, inner class, Flow control and Exception. Make sure you understand everything in the book so that you will feel very confident on the real exam day. Good luck.

On December 15, 1999 I took the JAVA 2 Programmer Exam for the first time and passed with a score of 85. Although I've had exposure to simple OO concepts for about 10 years, I've only been involved with Java for a couple of months and preparing for the test seemed like a way to get a solid foundation in Java fundamentals.

The Java 2 "Exam Cram" really helped me to "bring together" the Java language and class library skills learned from other sources (most notably "The Java Programming Language" by Gosling et. al and the "The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide" by Roberts, et. al).

The "Exam Cram" really brings focus to the objectives that are required to pass the test. It also contains an EXCELLENT practice exam that gives the reader a very good idea of the methods the actual exam uses to ellicit your knowledge of Java. This is a key benefit, because one could be very fluent in certain aspects of Java and still not pass the real Exam because of the breadth of material involved.

I highly recommend this book as the "guiding resource" in the final days of your exam preparation.

I used to this book to study for the programmer's exam (I got an 88%), and it was very useful with the fundamental topics. The explanations are clear and concise, without all the fluff. I would recommend anyone interested in studying for the exam use this book.

This book by itself should be sufficient to pass the exam, but you need to do more than just read the book. Here is what I did:

* Wrote "practice" programs to illustrate many of the concepts. I found this very helpful.
* Read through the javadoc in detail for the java.lang, java.util, and java.io packages.
* Read language and jvm specification while reading through the text for more details on how / why things worked as they did.
* Took _extremely_ detailed notes throughout the process that were very organized. I eventually just studied my notes - no more need for the book once I had it in a format I understood well.

I don't believe as others say that you should buy additional study guide(s) to cover the portions of the test that this book is weak on. There is plenty of information on the public domain to fill in the blanks. If you need to be painted a picture to figure it out, then you shouldn't be trying to learn this stuff. A little bit of self exploration once you have a strong foundation will end up making you a much stronger programmer in the end.

I already knew Java pretty well, but I'll be changing jobs soon and I wanted to put certification on my resume to make keyword-grepping HR bots happy. (Sigh.) I figured I could pass the test cold but didn't want to bet money on it, so I bought this book.

I think it's a pretty good book, but I haven't read any other Java certification books so I have no basis for direct comparison. It's seems a bit dated, but the Programmer exam hasn't changed much in a couple of years (still based on JDK 1.2 without Swing) so that's okay -- adding more coverage of newfangled stuff that isn't on the current test would not please the intended audience. The one big change in format versus the sample test in this book is that the current test tells you how many answers to check on the more-than-one-choice multiple-choice questions. (Poke around some Java certification web sites.)

It covers both the Programmer and Developer exams, so it's thicker than books that only cover the former. I haven't taken the latter, so I don't know how on-target that part is, but it was an interesting read. (Certainly more interesting than the half of the book that focuses on the Programmer exam, but that reflects the nature of the two exams. The Developer exam is about writing real code, while the Programmer exam is about being a human compiler and language lawyer.) The Developer section does not give a complete solution, though, just hints. I understand why the Sun-employed author doesn't want to do that, but they could have invented a problem similar to but not identical to a real assignment and then solved it completely.

The Programmer exam is a multiple-choice test based largely on memorizing a bunch of exact rules about how the language works. Some of them are things you really need to know (e.g. what private and final mean), and some are just stupid memorization. (Do you remember the exact nested constructors of all those Writers and Readers and Streams in java.io, or do you just look them up in the handy online API help?)

My one criticism of the book is that, perhaps because the main author works for Sun and is directly involved with the certification exams, the book isn't blunt enough in places. If I wrote it, I would say things like "I know it's idiotic, but memorize every single method signature in Thread and which ones are deprecated" rather than just teaching what really matters about Threads, because the exam unfortunately focuses on both equally rather than on the important parts. People buy this book because they want to pass a test, not because they want to learn the language. They've already done that using other sources. So the book should teach more directly to the test. Maybe the non-Sun-affiliated books are better in this regard.

The book comes with a CD. It has a Java-based program that lets you take the chapter exercises and sample test (only one, unfortunately), which IMO beats taking it on paper. The text of the book is also available on the CD, in encrypted PDF, but unfortunately you have to run a Windows-only setup.exe to install it. Yes, a book about a portable language, stored in a portable document format, with a non-portable installer. Some people just don't get it.

By the way, I passed the Programmer test, but it was harder than expected. I would not have passed it cold. My advice is to buy a certification book (can't say which one since I only read this one), study, and make sure that you can pass a couple of sample exams by a comfortable margin before you drop money on the real thing. If you don't already know Java pretty well, I don't think you'll be able to pass this exam via just studying a couple of books (unless you have a photographic memory) -- write some real code first. Even if you do know Java, write some small test programs dealing with areas you might be weak in (threads, AWT if you've done primarily non-GUI work, collections if you mostly use arrays, inner classes, exceptions) to cement what you've learned.

I bought this book, read it, and didnt have alot of confidence in it, so I went and bought another more indepth book and used that as the main base of my studies. I went back after the exam and realized probably 80-90% of it was spelled out in this book(The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide). The version of this book I had only covered the 1.2 exam, so it had alot of extra [stuff] I didnt need (IO, AWT and a bout half the other book(it covers the developer exam too i think)) and its lacking a few things you need to know for the 1.4 exam, such as assertions, Wrappers, and Collections (which all 3 probalby make up about 15% of the test). This book, with the help the addition of a few java websites, like javaranch.com can get you a good passing score. I scored an 83% but realized that I could have gotten alot higher if I didnt spend so much time concentrating on the other book which had more indepth information than needed.

Bottom line:
This book (with the additional exam material that can easily be found online) will get you atleast a good passing score. Its probably not gonna teach you java or make you a great java programmer, but the goal is to pass the test, and it does that.

First the BAD NEWS. It's hard to believe that a bookset that's had as many as 9 revisions can still contain so many errors. (Check out www.examcram.com and look at errata info) I spent several hours cutting and pasting the errata updates into my books. After spending 5 hours on NT 4.0 WKS, the first book in the core-four set I worked on, I got mad and emailed Coriolis. One woman blew me off saying "if I purchased the books directly from Coriolis (at full retail price) then she'd be glad to ship a free replacement set". A second woman was more helpful and sent a free replacement core-four set. However, I looked at those books in the new set and one of them was currently in need of updates. Within 6 months they all needed more updates.

THE GOOD NEWS ! Once you get the errata in the books updated, they are one of the finest study guides out there. I especially like their ALERTS and TRICK QUESTIONS throughout the book.

I just took the Workstation exam, and passed with a high grade. I used the Exam Cram, NT Workstation 4.0 by Sybex & transcender test. I feel the Exam Cram book was extremely useful for the review, although I don't think I could have read only this book & passed. However, the authors themselves recommended the Sybex book, and state clearly that the Exam Cram books are not to be used as your only study material. There were some errors (including on the review card where they say that winnt.exe /b is for an installation using boot disks - it's the opposite, a bootless install!), but the errors were obvious, and didn't cause me any problems - if you knew the material at all, they jumped out. All in all, a worthwhile investment. I also highly recommend the transcender tests. Server test is next!

I have passed a total of 4 exams using the exam cram books and 4 without their help... these books are cheap at twice the price and they saved me literally hours and hours of studying and hundreds of pages of reading - assuming you also have some experience.

The Exam Cram pack saves you $20 from buying the books separately and buying them from amazon saves another $20, and you also get a cd of test questions that were pretty good as well.

There are some minor typos but show me a technical manual without them.

Anyway, I can't rave enough !!! Buy these books now !!!

They helped me pass networking essentials, NT Workstation, NT Server, and Frontpage 98 on the 1st pass! What more can I say.

Good Luck on you studies.

The benefit of this book is that it provides an intelligently structured approach to reviewing the material needed to pass the VB exams for the MCSD certification.

On the other hand, the text itself is rife with errors of fact, which is not acceptable in a technical manual and especially not in a book that purports to help you review for technical exams that may be worth thousands of dollars to you. For example, chapter 9, exam question 7 has no right answer because none of the T-SQL code samples actually work!

In a backward sort of way, this book will prepare you for exams 70-175 and 176 because you'll reference Microsoft's documentation so often to correct errors in the text that you'll know your subject by the time you've worked your way through the book.

Two stars for the review outline, but there's probably something better on the market.

This book will help you pass the exam if you are diligent and already fairly VB-savvy. On the bright side, it does cover all of the exam material. However, many topics are covered at a VERY shallow level or are discussed in confusing terms. Worse still, other areas seem to have been written by someone who had read Microsoft documentation but hadn't actually taken the time to understand what they had read or to test out the stated concepts thoroughly. Particularly obnoxious is Chapter 12. The author is clearly way out of his/her depth when it comes to designing and implementing COM components. The lab exercise to implement a callback procedure for asynchronous processing is laughable, as the steps it leads you through never kick off an asynchronous process (clearly showing that the author doesn't really understand what asynchronous processing is). The author thinks that because the windows message queue remains responsive, it proves that asynchronous processing is being used. Oops, sorry, wrong answer.

If it's important to you to really explore these concepts and learn something useful, supplement your use of this book. If there is anything that you read here that seems contradictory, or unclear, or is just plain new to you -- pull up keywords in the MSDN library and go to town. Get hands on to try things out in VB if something in the Hawhee sounds fishy or if you've never had real-world experience with a particular concept. Get the Appleman book for a reference on the Win32 API(you should have it anyway). Take a look at the Pattison book (Programming Distributed Applications with COM and VB6) for information on COM and how VB fits in. These two books will serve you well as references for a long time.

If you just want to pass the exam, and don't care about actually understanding and being able to apply the information that you're being tested on, just buy this book. You'll probably slide by, even if you have to give it a couple of tries. Just please don't ever come work for my company -- I'm positive I wouldn't enjoy working with you.

Now that I have completed the MDSD certification, I feel qualified to render judgment on the ton of books that I read. This one was simply the best. Many of the books out on the market are of very poor quality - including many that carry the Microsoft "Approved Study Guide" logo and many published by Microsoft itself. This one stands out from the crowd as being comprehensive, on point, well-written and relatively error-free. I was particularly impressed by the fact that the publisher had a web site where error corrections are available. I was initially skeptical about the idea of covering two exams in one book, but it turns out that there is a great deal of overlap between the two exams and it makes a lot of sense to cover all the material in one book. The practice exam software on the CD was realistic, although I wish it had a larger inventory of questions. Supplementing the book with Transcender software is a good strategy. Also, since this book is a bit ponderous, I would recommend the Exam Cram series for a final review.