Like any other recent Wrox titles, this one contains jewels and pretenders. On the bright side, quite a few of the Java and XML chapters are strong, and I particularly liked the ones on EJB, PL/SQL-Java inter-operation, and SOAP. There is also a chapter at the end on setting up the environment to run the book samples. On the not so bright side, the PL/SQL chapters are disappointing, because they cover either fundamental stuff that anyone who calls themselves an Oracle developer should know, or irrelevant technologies like OAS PL/SQL cartridge and PSP (huh?). The chapters on JDBC and connection pooling wasted 60% of the pages by talking about the basic JDBC API and showing the details of a connection pool manager class, rather than talking more about Oracle's extensions to the JDBC 2.0 standard and optional packages API. Finally, there is one glaring omission - MTS (I am talking about the Microsoft stuff here), although it does contain an informative chapter on ASP/Oracle. One more thing: this book covers Oracle8i Release 2, not the latest 3.

With everything considered, you may still want to own this title, as it is the only book under the sun that covers all (well, almost) current distributed programming technologies that interface with Oracle (both J2EE and Windows DNA). It also covers promising Oracle proprietary technologies such as interMedia, BC4J, and Portal (aka WebDB).

This book is one of the more comprehensive I have read about Oracle programming. It has very good examples and you will find tips and information you won't find in any other books/web sites/forums etc. This book has been written by genuine Oracle developers and you will get a depth of real-world knowledge and application. I recommend highly it for the serious Oracle, Java and XML developer.

To produce this book, Wrox took twenty expert Oracle developers and had each of them write about their area of expertise. The result is that whether you are a manager, a developer, or a DBA, if you are working with Oracle 8i this book should be on your desk. This book covers virtually every topic that you need to understand about the Oracle 8i development platform. It does not cover each topic completely but it provides a thorough and in most cases sufficient introduction on each topic. For a particular topic of interest you may need an additional book but to get all the information found in this book you would need ten volumes at least. The book opens with an introduction to Oracle 8i and some of its components including Net8 (Oracle's network solution) and Designer 6i (Oracle's development environment). The next section covers PL/SQL and PSP (this is similar to JSP). This is followed by an extensive section covering Java. This section covers JDBC, SQLJ, EJB, and interMedia (Oracle's powerful search tool). The last section covers XML and includes information on DOM and SAX parsers, SOAP, XSL, XSQL, and more. Extensive case studies are scattered throughout the book. Examples show how to use Oracle tools such as BC4J to develop enterprise applications. The book even includes primers on Java and XML. As a tour of all the features of Oracle 8i, this book is without competition.

I read this book while on vacation in Kennebunkport, Maine, so it seemed appropriate for the time. Coughlin's writing style is a bit pedestrian...as if he hasn't had much experience writing. However, the story is fun to follow. Brian Kelly is a modern day hero, mixing compassion, humor, and an f-you attitude into a engaging character. The first half of the book is better than the second and the love scenes are awkward, at best, but it leaves you dying to read the sequel. If you're looking for great literature, this isn't it. But if you're looking for a good story to read while on vacation, go for it.

Since I live here in York County (just up the road from Brian Kelly) I really loved this book. The locations are all real and it is such fun to read the names of the local establishments in a novel. Some have changed since the setting of the story but most are still as described. The characters are very appealing and I cared about what happened to them. Am anxious to read the sequel.

I mostly agreed with Eric Ma. There are some areas that Wrox needs to review the whole process of publishing Java-related books. Here are some drawbacks that I can draw from reading recent Java-related books:

(1) Repeated Contents: Materials about Servlet, JSP, EJB, JNDI, JDBC, XML, etc are repeated over and over many books. This could waste time, money, and papers for both Wrox and readers.

(2)Books or Articles?: I asked myself: is Wrox publishing books or articles? Each book is written by many authors and the book's flow is inconsistent. The assessment that it is not a book but a collection of articles may partially true. It is true that a book if written by a team of authors could speed up the process of releasing it, but if Wrox editors and coordinators have to do their better jobs.

I suggest that Wrox should review its strategy of publishing books to avoid the repeating of materials over and over and thus bring down the cost associated with publishing the books. The final result is: readers and publisher will both save time and money. Otherwise, readers will loose their belief with Wrox.

For the past 2 years Wrox has been publishing books dedicated to Windows-based data access (ADO etc.), but the same cannot be said about their Java/database collection. Although you find chapters on JDBC scattered all-over almost all server-side Java related books by Wrox, there was no single volume from them that teaches JDBC first, and then show how it is used by the newer dependent technologies, until this book arrived. After looking through this book, I must say the authors and editors have done a rather commendable job.

Why do I make the above conclusion? Let me give you my general impression of the book first. A theme repeated in several of my recent reviews on books from Wrox is about the problem in coherence associated with multi-author books. Well, having more than a dozen of authors for a single book seems to be a fact of life (for books from Wrox at least) now, as the publication cycle gets shorter. I was rather surprised to find out that the organization and coherence is very good in this book, i.e., there is very little overlap among chapters. Also, this books uses JDBC cleverly to tie other pieces of J2EE together, making smooth transitions from one chapter to another. If you want to know, this factor alone prompted me to add an extra star to the overall rating of the book.

Let's now run down the chapters of this book quickly. The first 115 pages deals object-oriented and database modeling, and can be skipped by any "Professional" developer. Then after your obligatory intro to JDBC API, the next chapter covers the JDBC 2.0 optional package. This is the best treatment of this topic I have seen. Then another chapter is all about SQLJ, another first. The effort of having a chapter on database performance should be lauded, where connection pooling, prepared statements and stored procedures usage are demoed. The reminder of the book is about applying JDBC in various J2EE components, such as JSP, servlets, EJB, JMS, and XML. For this part of the book, even though I accept the fact the proper stage has to be set for each one of them, I still don't believe the book found the right balance between focusing on JDBC and showing what these other technologies are about. A large number of pages are used to teach basic JNDI, servlets, JSP's, and EJB's stuff (remember there is already a book on J2EE from Wrox!). Therefore, it is up to the reader to discover the real nuggets of gold hidden in this pile, which are far and in between in places. I found that some critical issues are not highlighted or details are lacking, such as how to use connection pooling/data sources in servlets, JSP's, and EJB's, the threading issues related to sharing database connections, and good database practices in BMP EJB's. However, the one thing I cannot complain about is that the book did not forget to teach the transaction aspect of EJB with a good depth (there is a short ans sweet chapter on using JTA/JTS inside EJB). There is also a chapter on the brand-new JDO framework, even though the spec is still in a state of flux. Finally, there are 4 case study chapters in the book - although the design and implementation are limited in scope and as a whole those samples do not teach all you need to do know about enterprise scale J2EE system development, they do provide a flavor of how JDBC is used in real world, together with setting up Tomcat, JRun, Orion, and WebLogic to access MS SQL Server and Oracle databases.

Now my overall take of this book. For VB/SQL and pure back-end PL/SQL developers who are eager to jump on the Java express train and need a suitable platform (especially for the ones who learn best from playing with actual code), I recommend this book as one of several you should own. Compared to other JDBC books from say O'Reilly and Sun's JDBC Tutorial, this book is the most up-to-date, contains the most source code, and has the broadest coverage of related topics. But keep in mind some of the advanced topics such as EJB and JMS can be intimidating for new-comers. On the other side of the coin, people who are advanced in various server-side Java technologies are unlikely to benefit a great deal from this book and should look elsewhere for info (for example Wrox's J2EE and upcoming EJB titles).

Frankly, I was disappointed by "The Rackets". Thomas Kelly is an engaging writer with a fairly unique view of New York City and its social components, with an easy-to-read style and a healthy sense of social commentary. Unfortunately, he has major difficulty in resolving his plotlines; Kelly's means of wrapping things up is to start eliminating major characters, and not peacefully, either. This "last man standing" approach to writing was also evident in his previous work "Payback", another engrossing novel that falls apart towards the end.

Kelly is clearly an ambitious novelist, and we could sorely use a great urban novel for our time. "The Rackets" is not that book. One hopes that Kelly continues to grow as a writer because he certainly possesses an interesting voice. He seems to know and understand the world of which he writes, and his characters are engaging and believable. If only he could figure out where to take them in his stories.

Tom Kelly's characters are so real I expected them to jump off the pages of The Rackets and stick a gun to my head - or at least ask for my vote. I picked up the book after a long trip at ten o'clock one recent morning. I didn't put it down until I was finished reading it twelve hours later. And I didn't want it to end - the ultimate sign of a great story.

This book kicked ... . I was really impressed with the way the writer developed the characters and constructed the scenes. Some people write books. Tom Kelly, on the other hand, is a genuine writer. I already loaned it to a friend.

I bought this book thinking that it would be fascinating! I read online reviews that made it seem credible. Unfortunately, many of these reviewers did not have a background in psychology but I do. I was disappointed with this author's ludicrous claims and sloppy scholarship. Some claims are loosely supported by actual studies with some validity while other claims have no valid or reliable experiments/studies to back them up. For example, Verny claims that babies that are induced are more prone to sexual sadism and masochistic behavior! He cites no study to back up this ridiculous claim! Also, Verny equates emotional health with the personality traits of openness and extroversion. To suggest that a child who is shy and introverted is maladjusted is bad psychology. Personality theory has proven that these can be innate and inborn traits. My complaints go on... PLEASE, DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS BOOK. It's muddy...some valid claims mixed with very stupid ones. It's an example of how someone with "M.D" at the end of his/her name can sell a book that the layperson believes due to the author's credentials. However, I can assure you that my graduate school professors would have given this research writer a D.

sorry for my spelling but I am from mexico
I am amazed buy the people who dont love this book, personaly I love it perhaps it lacks more proof and more studies but the information can change the life of your children I folowed all their advice for I had no maternal instinct during my pregnacy
so I did everithing the book said to bond with my child, and I can tell it is the best thing I have ever done my daughter and I have a wonderfull bond and I am rereading it again for muy second pregnacy, congradulations to the authers.

As an OB/GYN, this book is required reading for all of my pregnant patients as well as for those thinking of starting a family. Any physician who is up to date with current peer-reviewed literature in the realm of prenatal psychology would know the value of Dr. Verny's book and his work. ...

Somewhat interesting but I ran into a similar problem with another book about Ireland I read recently - it is written as if you have great familiarity with Irish history (which I don't). Very little is explored in-depth, some areas of Irish history seemed skimmed over or omitted entirely. Like the last book I read, it's okay for a review but not for the beginning "student". I'll try again somewhere else.

As a student of Dr. Duffy's I have seen the actual man in action and I do not belive this book represents in whole the genius of the man. This book in its simplicity, limits the intelligence of its reader to but a few pages in which, though well presented, are not close to touching the genius of the editor. I believe that this work, though informational and well made does not show the skill of the editor as an historian. To truly appreciate Dr. Duffy one has to read a work entirely of his own rather than this piece.

Editor Sean Duffy's Atlas of Irish history is a fine, worthy addition to your Irish-related library. Whether you're a newcomer to Irish history or a card-carrying gaelophile, this atlas has much to offer, covering several thousand years of Irish history in a concise, highly readable, and strikingly visual manner.

The concept of the Irish Atlas is simple yet highly effective. Generally one page of text is followed by a thematic map. For example, a chapter on the Viking wars of the 8th century is accompanied by a helpful map that reveals the exact location in Ireland of Viking raids, settlements, and more. In another later chapter, The Ulster Question, a fine overview of this critical and longstanding issue is followed by a map that reveals the distribution of Protestants and Catholics in Ulster, 1911. Other chapters include, but are by no means limited to, the 1798 Rebellion, the pre-famine economy, World War 1 & the Easter Rising, and 1990s Ireland.

While some readers might quibble with the rather limited text, it's important to remember this is an atlas. The text (solidly written, by the way) is meant as an overview to these pivotal events in Irish history. It should be used as a gateway to more detailed writings. (The atlas concludes with a two-page "further reading" section.) As for the maps, editor Duffy concedes they "show facts rather than influences or ideas..." But this reader found the maps instructive and creative, a fine complement to the text.

Kudos to Mr. Duffy and his collaborators on the Irish Atlas. It does indeed go "some way to explain the story of this unique and fascinating place."

Payback by Thomas Kelly In the 1980s, New York City is benefitting from a construction explosion. However, not everyone is enjoying the fruits of all the new buildings being built on Manhattan. The Irish mob has for years controlled the construction industry, especially in Hell's Kitchen on the West Side of town. However, now two new intruders are intruding on this historical turf. The Mafia seeks a piece of the action and the Feds want to shut down the action.

Paddy and Bill Adare are brothers working in the construction business. Paddy is a mob enforcer, while Billy digs tunnels in order to earn money to go to law school. The loyalty towards each other as members of the same Irish family is being viciously tested by various potent external forces who avariciously want to control the Manhattan construction industry, worth billions to the winner. From the Irish mob to the Mafia to the FBI to the neighborhood streets, the two siblings struggle to find a house for themselves in a growing wave of violence that targets anyone in its path.

The real estate in New York City makes for a backdrop to an exciting, extremely realistic novel of greed leading to unchecked violence. The story line is great and th Adare brothers interesting. I would recommend it for adults because the language is amazing.

STATE OF GRACE feel to an Irish mob type of thing on the west side of ny. ends kind of too cliche-ish. good writer though. hopefully the next one will be a little more original

I never heard the word "sandhog" before I met Thomas Kelly on a plane. I bought Payback the next day. Now, driving through a tunnel, or taking the subway or something as simple as turning on a water tap in New York City will never be quite the same. A gripping thriller set in a New York underground water tunnel and the bars of Hell's Kitchen, the book deals with union politics, graft and the struggle of the common man who must risk his life to earn a paycheck, keep the union alive and functioning, keep his family relatively intact, get an education and earn a place in a society that doesn't really care or know about the struggle. If I wondered about who dug those tunnels and at what cost, I think I know.

Once again Cisco has produced a very poor quality book. I have now purchased all the CCNP books produced by Cisco and this book is no different to the rest of them. Poor quality, No proof reading, mistakes everywhere, repeated paragraphs/tables and in this book in particular a real lack of detail. This book can be likened to the old Sunday night homework, very little planning, very little content and insufficient detail, by far the worst book in the course. I know from the other books in the CCNP range that the book will cover all subjects in the exam, but is that really good enough ? I for one don't think so.

Luckily Cisco networking products are not of the same quality as there books otherwise there would be no Cisco!

Today I passed Cisco Support 2.0 exam and got 864 (passing score was less then 700). I did it using only this book as study material. If you're looking for a single book - that's it!

Some comments. This book is based on Cisco training course and it gives you very good explanation of Cisco vision of troubleshooting. It's a serious book written by experienced proffecionals and it really helps you in your work not only in passing the test.

Why did I give 4 stars not 5? First, there are a lot of annoyng mistakes like illustration content may be completly different from its title. They are annoyng but not dangerous. It looks like technical editors checked all commands and their explanation but didn't look at pictures and other additional stuff at all.

Another reason that it was included in CCNP preparation library but it doesn't include CD, test examples, test description and other standard features for such books. I had to spend few hours in Internet searching for the exam details and questions samples.

I'm pretty satisfied by this book. Probably you can find something better, but this one is enough to pass test too.

I bought this book to study for the CIT exam (which I passed), but I found it a great reference to have on the shelf by my desk. It is chock full of the output of router and switch "show" commands and fully explains each screen.

It also has one of the best explainations of route caching I have read.

Well worth the money.

The CID book by CCIE Matthew H. Birner is a good reference for the CID test however, it lacks any information on the Cisco WAN products you need to know about. Specifically the BPX, AXIS (redesigned the MGX 8220) IPX, and IGX Carrier class units. It is a good source of SNA information that you will need both on-the-job and to pass the test. As for use on the job, I didn't think that this book covered the actual design procedure, documentation, and fact gathering checklists anywhere near as welll as the CiscoPress CCDA Exam Certification Guide did.

I would recommend to anyone wishing to pursue a CCDP, to wait for the new release of the CiscoPress CID Exam Certification Guide by Mike Crane and Reggie Terrell. It is due out in mid-September and should have all of the new and updated information needed to pass the test.

Ed Wilcox CCNP, CCDP, CNE, MCSE, and Nortel NNCSS

I found this book to be an excellenent reference text, and one that I expect to refer to for a few years to come.

I have only 2 criticisms to make: (i) As it is the Cisco book designed for the certification exam, it should have a CD ROM with practice exams, like the older certification books had (ACRC, CLSC, etc); (ii) It was scanty on the Stratacom section, although it did cite useful documentation on the subject and provide URL's to such.

I found the explanations and diagrams to be thorough, and picked up additional information when rereading topics. As mentioned above, URL's to additional information were spread throughout the book, and the URL's that I checked took me to treasure troves of information. Appendix E consists of a design and implementation guide for OSPF, direct from the Cisco website, and this is the best description and reference material of OSPF that I have ever come across.

The exam is now 100 questions over 2 hours with a pass mark of 755, and I used this book and some Boson study tests to prepare. Subsequently, I didn't find any surprises on the exam.

Many reviews stated they saw questions on the exam that they did not see in the book. Sorry, the CID is an application type test.. not meant to pass the same way 25 other paper cert test were passed ... simply memorizing facts.... Excellent prep for the knowledge necessary to attack the CID but, you still must have the experienced recommended by Cisco... I reccommend this book for any serious network professionals desiring the title Cisco Certified Design Professional or for that matter someone wanting a better understanding of Network Design.

If you are looking for "Flash Cards" then you might be mislead by this the title of this book. These aren't "cards" in the normal sense of the word. Instead it is a spiral bound book with each page broken up into 2 sections. Each section has a question. On the back of each section is the answer to the question. This is what they authors call "flash cards".
Also, the answers to the questions are not in a multiple choice format, the format that is used in the CCNA tests. It is just the answer to the question.
I also had a problem with the type of many of the questions asked on the "Flash Cards". For example: What is a routing protocol? How do distant vector routing protocols function? How do you configure IPX on a Cisco Router? These are conceptual questions that you would not see on the CCNA exam. The majority of the questions on the CCNA exam are formated for, and presented in a multiple choice type format. The authors should have stuck to this format in their book to more closely represent what is on the CCNA exam.
On the plus side, all of the topics are covered that you will see on the CCNA exam, and the charts at the back of the book are helpful.
In summary... if you want actual Flash Cards, don't buy this book. If you happy with a book covering topics that might be found on the CCNA exam, then this book does that.

I'm using this flash card set to help me get solid on using Cisco internetworking devices and so far they're great.
It's a spiral-bound book so it lays flat, which is nice when you are doing other things while you study.
The content is pretty well structured and laid out by topic so you can focus on your weak areas.
The CD is nice and comes with software for palm and palmtop device computers for studying. I have yet to install it on my Windows CE.
People may denounce these cards as incomplete but no single method for studying is complete. From hands-on exposure and practice to books to online study these make up a good portion of my preparation for the CCNA and enterprise work with interconnecting cisco networking devices.
I would recommend also the #640-607 (ISBN 1-58720-055-4)CCNA exam preparation book by Wendell Odom and the ICND book (interconnecting cisco networking devices by Steve McQuerry.
(ISBN 1-57870-111-2 or newer ICND book)
These two books along with these flash cards will get me certified.

My neighbor and I split the cost of this "book" to help us pass the CCNA exam. Even though the "flashcards" where on spiral bound paper, I found them pretty good. I thought the palm pilot version was the best part of it. What my neighbor and I did was we went over every question until we had them memorized, two days before I took my test I went over the sheets in the back, which were really good. I passed the exam with a 851 and my neighbor scored in the 900's. I saw some questions on the exam that were very close to what are on the flash cards, but this book mainly helped me memorize the info to pass the test. Even though I had many diff questions on the CCNA exam I knew the info from memorizing this.

I was kind of bugged by the other reader saying it only helps with 10% of the exam, do you want every question on the exam written for you? Plus what are you doing talking the CCNA when I looked at your reviews you marked great points for all of Todd Lammel books and bad for Cisco and the books you marked where for the CCNP exams?!

Any way for others it is a good buy for the money, it help my neigbor and I pass! Now on to the CCNP!