Keogh keeps an excellent balance between material for "complete idiots" and material for engineers. He uses simple metaphors (lots of highway traffic comparisons) to explain the "why" and "how" of networks, and anticipates reader's questions fairly well. The book is up to date, and covers just about any subject you need to be familiar with if you want to talk to engineers using their vernacular. The industry overview, covering major players, was particularly useful. There is one flaw, whose importance depends on your own reading habits: the writing style is atrocious, and it looks as if the book never went through an editor at Prentice Hall. While the conversational style makes the material easier to absorb, there is a good number of spots that would be marked in red all over if this was an English 101 paper. Still worth it, though.

I'm a big fan of the Dummies series and never thought I'd find anything to compete with it except for the Idiot's Guides. I was wrong. I found this book covers the topic much better than the Dummies and Idiot's guides. The author writes in my kind of language - plain and simple so the average guy can understand. And the indepth coverage of the industry is a bonus. I really like the author's down to earth style of writing. This is a buy.

I always found computer networking mystifying in the way it can transport my words around the world in a fraction of a second. I've read a lot of books on the subject, but this is the only one I found that clearly explains this process. The book is full of networking jargon, but that shouldn't scare you because each is explained in a way anyone can understand. He uses the highway metaphor, so if you understand how cars travel the highway then you'll easily relate to how words and pictures travel on a network. I recommend this book hands down.

The book is an excellent tool that allows all to enter and enjoy the wonderful world of Fantasy Baseball!!!!!

This book covers all the beginner aspects of the fantasy sports game. It offers the necessary steps to beginning your own league and if your a seasoned veteran helpful hints to get the winning edge. I can attest to the George Griefs and the Jermane Allensworths from my own experiences.

This a book which enables a group of people to have fun following a sport. It teaches you what to look for and how to prepare yourself. It is a book that will help not only the so-so sport fans but also the very hard core sport fans. The one thing that I would have added to it would have been Chapter 23 How to go from 9th place in your league to 1st in the last five weeks of the season, but then again that's me. If you have a group of friends who like sports and don't know how to set up a league this is a great book to buy.

I run one of those few start ups that has survivied. I've had several offers from competitors in the brick and motar world to buy my business. Some offers were very interesting and others I've since learned were less than honest. Keogh's book helps me identify good candidates for purchasing my company and shows me serious pitfalls to avoid. This is a good little book that explains all the ins and outs about e-mergers and buying and selling a company. I highly recommend this book.

I owned one of those start up dot coms that found a niche in the market and actually made a profiting when funding dried up. I had offers from a number of established traditional companies to take over my business. Fortunately, I stumbled over this book in time to avoid making potentially costly mistakes. I strongly recommend anyone thinking of selling their e-business to read this book before looking for buyers. You'll avoid a lot of pitfalls.

Ken Allard of Jupiter Media Metrix is correct when he says this book is a comprehensive guide to M&A for anyone who wants to acquire cheap assets and build a winner from the rubble. Keogh walks you through all the fine details of buying and selling a dot com. I found particularly interesting the coverage of real world experiences of those who have worked through their own deals. It's as if you're getting the how to's and what worked what to avoid all in one very readable book. Good job.

Computer technology is a challenge to understand. It keeps changing quickly and its difficult to gain a basic understanding of it. However, I think Keogh's laid-back easy to read writing style brings technology down to a level that the average Joe on the street like me can understand. He starts with the very basic concepts then gradually brings you into the latest technology without skipping a beat. I found myself say, "that's how its down. It's so simple why do they make it sound so complicated."
And best of all he covers digital video, digital audio, and other technologies that you don't think of as being computer hardware. I can't wait for his next book on technology.

I was pleasantly surprise to read the wide variety of computing devices covered in this book. Not only did the author bring me up to date on the latest PC technology, he also covered PDAs, digital cameras, MP3 devices, wireless devices, scanners, practically anything I wanted to know about. Best of all Keogh explained how these technology work in a way anyone could understand it. Another advantage I found over other books is that Keogh provided an insight into the entire technology industry - company by company. I give this two thumbs up. Good job!

This book hit the nail on the head for me. A good, easy to understand guide to all kinds of computer hardware. I particularly found the author's treatment of PDAs, digital cameras, and mobile computing devices very useful. Most other books on computer hardware only cover PCs. This book covers PCs and nearly every kind of computing device on the market. I give the author two thumbs for covering more than PCs.

Keogh provides tons of tips and tricks for avoiding those nightly battles to get a child to do homework. Best of all he provides cram notes on every subject so parents can brush up on math and other subjects. Keogh's method makes every parent look like a professor in the eyes of their child. I also enjoyed his down to earth stories that I think every parent can relate to. This is a great follow to his other book Getting The Best Education For Your Child. I highly recommend this.

I have not read this book so far. Does this book cover the new MIDP 2.0 and CDLC 1.1 API features ?

If you want a thorough understanding of J2ME than this is the book for you. I have learned a lot in just three short chapters. I can't wait to finish tearing through this book. Although big, Keogh delivers. A must have for serious developers.

I have several books on J2ME. Yet, as good as those books are, I've found myself using only this book. This book does not simply gloss over or "introduce" you to concepts. Every chapter provides enough coverage to really get you programming. Keogh is informative in his concise writing style. You won't be disappointed.

This book can be a good addition to your C++ library. But, you will need a good C++ programming book which explains contents of this book in more details. This book does have good examples but what good are the examples if they are not explained very well.

I recommend getting:

The C++ Programming Language Special Edition
by Bjarne Stroustrup with this book.

With so many c++ books on the market, not one explains c++ the way programmers like to lean. At least until now. I found this book a well worth addition to my library. You lookup the functionality you want, then look at a fully working - short - program showing how to code the functionality. Best of all the authors use callouts to describe every aspect of the syntax. I really like the programmer's notebook style.

I read many books while trying to learn c++ and I found the C++ programmer's notebook one of the best on the market. There are hundreds of little programs with each having callouts that point to syntax and tell you what's happening. You don't have to read pages and pages of text to understand how to use c++. This book gives you c++ programs in a "picture" like way. More book should be written this way.

J2EE, The Complete Reference guides you through the fundamentals and the advanced aspects of J2EE and Web Services. He doesn't just teach how to write J2EE and Web Services code, he teaches how to think and program in J2EE and Web Services. This is a highly recommended text and is designed for those familiar with J2SE. He covers coverage J2EE technology such as JDBC, EJB, and JSP and similar in depth coverage of web services. He includes details on XML and XML databases. He also covers passing/returning objects and running multiple concurrent subtasks. This is an integrated teaching and learning methodology that emphasizes, first and foremost, the reduction of complex code through the use of easy to understand code components that can be assembled into a working J2EE Web services application.

I was scanning the Web the other night and looking for a book that shows how to build web services application using J2EE when I stumbled upon Keogh's book. This is exactly what I was after. This book is a well-written, old-style tome in the tradition of the programming classics, and it belongs in your library.

The J2EE, The Complete Reference is arguably the best book ever written on the J2EE and Web Services programming. But the book is not only code. The descriptions themselves of the code are practical and helpful. There is a tremendous amount of detail in this book about every aspect of J2EE including JDBC, JSP, and JEB and equally as impression of the detail about every aspect of Web services including XML and SOAP. This is a must buy for anyone seriously interested in developing Web services using J2EE.

Looking at the picture on the cover, and seeing a description elsewhere of this book, I expected that it would be three-ring, or at least spiral-bound. It is not in any 'notebook' format.

I was also interested in the material related to Y2K but found there was nothing included of any value. The Y2K 'checklist' had, I believe, two items - barely qualifying itself as a 'list'.

I also quickly came across typos, which is a serious concern for me with books which are dealing with technical subjects. I confess that I did not spend long with the book before deciding to return it, so I do not have more detail.

I truly wish I had bought this book when I was in college and learning COBOL for the first time. It is a really good book for those starting out or for those seeking a "refresher" of COBOL. The examples in the book are very good. A very good reference tool!

This book is consise and to the point-you can find what you need without reading a lot of text. It saved me in a college COBOL II class-I was one of three that got an "A". Definitely get this one!

This book is a GREAT example of really bad C++. This is not a flame or an "out of place" accusation, it is plain truth. The C++ examples in this book are very, very bad C++. They absolutely should not be used or taught to beginning C++ programmers. Buy this book to teach yourself and others what NOT to do in C++. Of course, there really IS NOT much C++ in this book. Rather, it consists mostly of C library functions and C "containers" and doesn't even once touch on the C++ standard library containers. In fact, the queue and stack used herein are NOT std::queue and std::stack (from the C++ standard library), rather, they are simple C implementations of these "containers," which have no intelligence (one of the important reasons why we use C++) to them at all.

For an example of just how bad the C++ is...

Keogh creates a "student" class that inherits from a class called "course." A student is a kind of a course? You would properly be able to use a student wherever a course was needed? This is one of the most common and blatant misuses of inheritance in any OO language, and the author exploits it to its fullest "potential" in this work. Similarly bad "logic" is used throughout the entire book. From a look at the TOC of the second edition, I can say that perhaps the author recognized some of the fatal flaws in this "work" and at least added a discussion of a copy constructor, exceptions and more "things you gotta know" if you're going to program using C++.

The author's "oversight" of anything representative of real C++ continues into chapter "Storing an Array of Objects on the Heap." As a C++ programmer, you might think that he really is talking about storing an array of Objects (not primative data types) on the heap using new and delete AND certainly NOT calloc/malloc and free! Looking further into it, we find that he is really using a standard C function call to calloc() to zerio initialize a char pointer then uses another standard C function call gets() to fill the memory at the address of the char pointer. Of course, this is just fine for C, but where is the new operator?! If you're really going to title a book using "C++," one might think that there would actually be something relevant to the way things are actually done in C++ and not just a rehashing of C. The absurd use of the mentioned chapter title suggests C++ and the contents further mislead by containing absolutely NO C++ at all! None! De Nada! In fact, the #include directives use only standard C library functions!

You wouldn't think that an example of The Bubble Sort would be found in a C++ "programmer's notebook." Perhaps a discussion of iterators and algorithms...but, like the rest of the C-specific content of this book, you'll also find a Linked List and NOT a std::list. Even though copyrighted in 1997, there is no excuse for such poor C++ coverage and the coverage that you do get is just plain wrong.

Interesting concept of explaining C++ through the use of diagrams and pointers to code segments. Really useful I must admit despite what others say.

Each area of C++ is concisely explained with examples on e next page. Great for QUICK references. HOWEVER, its filled with minor spelling errors.... this can be quite disappointing, but hey, its not that bad. What area of C++ is explained? Just the usual stuff, but nothing to do with library definitions, but more on e basic stuff like arrays, enums, OO and others.

Definitely a SHORT and QUICK reference book, but for such a thin book compared to the other massive volumes of C++ programming books out there... you might want to look else where. This book is definitely for BEGINNERS ONLY. But the minor errors might cause some confusion.....so watch out.

You'll love this style if you want to quickly learn c++. This is not a tutorial, but an excellent quick reference. You simply lookup the functionality that you need. The right hand page shows the functionality in short, working code. And best of all the author using callouts pointing to each piece of the code explaining what each piece does. The left hand page contains a narrative that is less useful than the right hand callouts. It's really a very nice touch.