A number of books out there look at Visual Basic for Applications, but this is the only one so far that focuses on the newest version of Access. I found this book to be invaluable in cutting through the clutter and getting me straight to the practical applications of VBA. The authors take you through basic programming tenants but don't dwell on them. Rather they jump into examples that are very interactive and instructive. Their examples are clear and are good starting points to expand from on your own. It is not an exhaustive reference, but you benefit from it more if you have some decent Access experience. If you don't know a database, you are not going to learn here. But in just a few weeks after reading this book, I find myself going again and again into the examples as starting points for my own projects. And it is amazing how a little bit of programming will impress the users.

There are a couple of mistakes in the book that can inhibit your code from running. In addition, the database supplied has dates of 1998 and 99, but the book uses dates in 2001, so you have to adjust your code in order to get results. And unfortunately WROX has shut down its errata area so you can't really get help with these problems. So don't assume if your code doesn't work, it is your fault. This is where the code on the CD can be helpful - if it doesn't run right it's the program, not the programmer.

Overall with a little patience and work, you can get a huge amount of help from this book.

Immaculate research and superb translations from Spanish archive material turn this into both a scholarly research vehicle and a concise history of the Spanish colonies and the Treasure Fleets.
A good part of the narrative is in the words of a Spanish Padre sent out to Chile to minister to the colonists; this tells us first-hand of the vast mountains of silver that were being exported from South America, and of the nepotism, greed, dishonesty and cowardice that seems to be the product of any get-rich-quick scheme - and Spain had more than its fair share in the 16th & 17th Centuries. The rest of the story is supported by quotes from sailors and court officials, while Mr.Horner fleshes out the story with historical facts and some surmise - the many notes are detailed as appendix and are not intrusive, while there is other useful information contained in other appendices.

Our Padre seems unusually unlucky in being shipwrecked twice, and on the way home the fleet is ambushed in sight of Cadiz and he, along with two ships and 4 million pesos (38 cartloads!) are captured in a brilliantly described battle that Hornblower would be proud of.

However, he lives to tell the tale; his memoirs are so detailed that we have a better idea of the actual wealth contained in the treasure fleet than the manifests admit - also the position of the wrecks is so well decribed that Mr.Horner was able to locate the sites and recover valuable artifacts (and of course, silver).

As a bonus, we are treated to a superb description of the daringly successful 1657 British attack on the treasure fleet holed-up in Santa Cruz, in which the whole Spanish fleet was destroyed, with the loss of no ships and only 60 men on the British side. This effectively crippled Spanish hopes of sea-rule and bankrupted Seville.

The final chapter warns us of the perils of dealing with the red-tape and gung-ho journalism that inevitably accompanies any salvage, not to mention the thievery when there is treasure involved.

A very worthwhile read. ****

Mr Horner does a good job of describing the attempts of a Spanish monk to get back to his homeland and the ememy attacks that he is forced to endure on his voyage. The descriptions that he gives of his modern day salvage adventures is also very interesting. A good read.

Set in Virginia, Florida, Ecuador and the Bahamas, there are no clear winners in this story, and Horner aptly entitles one of his chapters "Treasure is Trouble", something befitting the 17th-century Spaniards who met a tragic fate on the waters of Ecuador and the Bahamas, as well as the modern-day treasure hunters whose greed has brought them nothing but "trouble". The exception remains Dave Horner whose goal was clearly the quest for historical truth and the dissemination of valuable historical and archaeological data, something he achieved with eloquence. A captivating book and a lesson to be learned... again