If you decide to use Intrabuilder as your Web application development tool, this book might give you the best (and the only one) resource for learning. A good book worth buying.

This is a great book. It takes you by the hand and leads through all that is IntraBuilder. The problem is: IntraBuilder isn't a very good product. It's not put together well and the interface is anything but intuitive. However, the book does the best it can with showing you the ins and outs of building Web apps with IB. Henderson's chapters in particular are quite good. I have a couple of his other books and know his style of writing. It's refreshingly honest and straightfoward, even when showing a lemon of a tool.

If you find yourself needing to learn IB, get this book and read it cover to cover.

While SLfD is easy to follow when you have all the popular devices and cards, it doesn't leave room to explain how to overcome problems during installation. Ie, devices (printers) or cards (sound) not being recognized. There is a page or 2 in the back that says where to check the compatibility lists. By then is way too late, you've either given up or did some research, fixed the problem yourself.

I did the latter for my video card, sound card and printer and by then I no longer required the book. SLfD refers to packages but doesn't take the time to mention that not everything comes in a fancy package. So, I also had to learn how download and compile the source for drivers and libraries that weren't pre-packaged.

SLfD also has a very bad habit of comparing everything with RedmondWare. When it mentions reading something on the CD's it uses "drive letters" and backslashes in true RedmondWare fashion. It also assumes that we are installing onto a system that has RedmondWare running.

Believe it or not, I actually liked SLfD. It was a good place to start but I guess i was expecting too much from it. It also was written for slackware, unlike the other books I've looked at which give the impression that Red Hat is the only flavor of Linux.

This book did an excellent job of getting me through the setup process successfully and teaching me something in the process.

I decided to 'learn' Linux a few weeks ago and brought this book home for a 'weekend install' project. The book is perfectly designed for this kind of project. The book walks you though the setup process, step by step. I now have a fully operating Linux machine with an XWindows graphic interface. Not bad, in my opinion.

I very much liked the author's attention to detail and accurate anticipation of what I would encounter during the project. For example, one of the first steps the author demands of the reader is backing up everything you currently have on your machine. A few hours later, that back up became very important. Sure, everyone should think of that, but it certainly wasn't on my mind as I got started. A host of little things like that made the book work.

Additionally, there is an adequate amount of 'introduction to UNIX/Linux shell commands.' This taught me enough UNIX to figure out a few problems on my own. Every computer system is a bit different, so a 'single' list of instructions just isn't going to help everyone through the set up. My multiple SCSI hard drive setup took me off the 'normal' track (the book is written for someone with a single IDE hard drive). Despite these problems, I had learned enough to fight my way through, anyway.

Just in case you are wondering how long this newbie took to install Linux, it took 16 hours of full concentration over two days. This includes reading the entire book as I went through the project, completely reinstalling my Windows system from backups and reinstalling Linux a second time to change my hard drive partition scheme. Now that I know my computer and how the Linux install works, I could 'reinstall' it in an hour or two.

This book really goes into detail, unlike the other Dummies books for popular Linux distributions (like the Red Hat, Suse and Caldera books). It tells you how, and also why. It is certainly much better than the manuals I got from the boxed Caldera, Mandrake and Suse sets.

In other words, it is a dummies book that really works. If it had been out a couple of months ago, I would have used Slackware instead of Caldera. Slackware "gets you under the hood" more than the GUI automated installers in Mandrake, Caldera, Suse and (ugh!) Corel.

I am a beginner, but I learned DOS and don't want a GUI to mask the intricacies of learning a new system. If you just want a desktop alternative to Windows, as close to a Mac as you can get, try Caldera, Mandrake or Suse. But this Slackware will actually teach you Linux as you get it installed, and the book is concise, well organized and easy to follow. I wish I had had it two months ago. My introduction to Linux would have been much less painful.

Short of buying a naked CD, this is the cheapest way to get Slackware and has the best documentation. The write states he has been using Slackware almost exclusively since 1995 and the depth of his knowledge is evident.

Highly recommended.

Mysql and Perl for the Web by Paul Dubois gives you the tools and concepts needed to transit from a basic knowledge of Perl and Mysql to actually getting the two working together in harmony.

Most of what is covered in this book can be found on the web and in mail archives BUT be prepared for many many hours of scouring obscure sites, trying not-so-hot code and out dated examples. I began working with Perl many years ago, but only in the last 2 years have I been using Perl and Mysql in production web sites.

The first thought that came to mind when I thumbed through this book was 'Man I wish I had seen this book a year and a half a go'. Most of the solutions presented I have figured out myself, but after a long time of head banging and trial and error. I've been going through my code and comparing it the methods and examples found in this book and have been able to make many improvements.

The writing is clear and code examples evolve with the concepts presented.

You should have a basic understanding of Perl before digging into this book, or at least have a good Perl reference book handy. You can also download (and try out) scripts and libraries (...)

I do wish I'd seen this book a year or so ago. It would have saved me a lot of time and effort.

-Z

As I emailed Paul DuBois, I wish there was a MySQL-PHP as good as this one. I prefer to write in PHP. (I bought and sold MySQL and PHP for Web Development by Welling and Thompson. - just didn't like it)

Even though I'm not keen on using Perl - it's a preference, this book is excellent for learning good practices in writing scripts for various tasks.

This book is best for someone who's somewhat familiar with Perl and MySQL. So far, through the first 5 chapters, it has not been Perl intensive at all which is good for me.

The coverage of forms and form elements is very helpful. I cannot wait to read the chapter about storing and retrieving images.

I found Mysql and Perl for the Web to be a great companion for Paul's MySQL book. After reading through Mysql and Perl for the Web, I finally feel I have enough working knowledge to start my first large project using MySQL & Perl (this is my first foray into using Perl). My only other "addition" was purchasing a complete referance for Perl.

As with his MySQL book, Paul writing style was extremely easy to follow (especally considering my lack of Perl experience).

I felt the examples, especially those in Chapter 6, "Automating the Form-Handling process", to be almost invaluable.
This was actually one of the best example/tutorial I have come across for Form-Handling.

I could go on & on about specific areas that helped me, but suffice it to say, if your going to be doing any work with SQL & Perl, this is a MUST HAVE book.

My introduction to this book was as a Information Technology Student at DeVry Institute of Technology in Dallas, Texas. Seeing that there is so much information simply to learn about web development (e.g., ASP, HTML, DHTML, CSS, JavaScript, VBScript), I found this book an excellent resource for both the novice as well as the experienced developer. I feel this book provides a "no nosense approach" to programming. It focuses on many of the important aspects of coding in several languages, and provides a very detailed instruction to many complicated areas of web development. I think this book could have provided a lot more examples, which are found in the complete CD/Book series package. However, for the most part, this book is well worth its asking price. And after reading many books on web development, this book provides a general overview of many areas which are crucial for those interested in web page construction.

Internet And World Wide Web Programming is the Second of Books i've bought in the "How to Program" series. This book starts from the very bottom and slowly works its way up to provide the reader with a coverage of every major topic pertaining to the internet. The examples throughout the book clarify the information and give the reader ideas for their own programs. The only downside to this work is that in some of the later more detailed chapters the authors fail to provide an accurate description of some of the fundamentals. Particularly in cgi, xml, asp, and some others. Overall though this Work surpassed my expectations right from the very start. They cover EVERYTHING! I've read many (or tried) Computer Science/Programming/IT books and in most of them all the authors do the same thing: They assume the reader knows too much. And to be a good book one must start very basic, no matter who the audience. If you loose the reader at the beginning, you'll never get them back. Perhaps that is why these authors are so successfull, because they always start basic and clarify their information with examples.

Your company wants to train you to be the corporate webmaster. You need to know HTML, ASP, DHTML, XML, JavaScript, VBScript, Perl, Cgi, Active X and so much more. Then you find you that the training budget is limited to one class, what choices do you have?

If you're like me and money is the concern that invest in a self paced, highly detailed cyber classroom instructed training course and Prentice Hall has the right application and book for you to learn from and the authors put together a program will have you programming and coding right from the beginning to the end of the course.

In the book you find screen shots of the finished code, you'll find actual coding examples to follow along with and you'll find everything you need to make short work of the Web design. You will have to practice in order to master the techniques, but the self-pacing of the course gives you as much time as you need.

There are also 2 cd-roms included with the package. The first included Microsoft PWS, IE5, Paint Shop Pro (trial version) and Adobe Acrobat Reader. The other cd is the cyber classroom, packed with examples practice questions and tips for more interactive learning as you go.

Prentice Hall has proven to be a leader in the e-training arena and this package is a first rate example of that commitment to excellence. Visit Prentice Hall's web site for even more books and training courses, you won't be disappointed.

I bought this book and found the first 3 chapters usable. They devote over 100 pages to Appendicies that aren't all the useful. The remaining chapters(beyond the first 3 or 4) are useful in gaining an understanding on how to attack business problems, but lack a real solution or 'good' code, which they even say themselves isn't what you would use in corporate life. Not even a good book ... Complete waste of $ in my opinion.

JavaServer Pages (JSP) is one of the hot Java technologies. For the experienced Java developer, JSP is not difficult to learn. For the inexperienced Java developer, JSP is not a good place to start. Which leads me to wonder who might be the target audience for "Instant JavaServer Pages". There are serious holes in what this book covers that will leave most developers looking for additional resources. Some examples:

* The author spends less than one page discussing taglibs, most of which is simply taken from the version 1.1 specification.
* Although using JSP with XML is prominently featured on the cover of the book, the author spends more pages discussing how to install and configure PostgreSQL to run the examples than he does on XML.
* On page 4, the author tells us that JSP can be used to generate WML but no examples of this are to be found in the book.

If this book was 200 pages long I might understand this missing material, but the author spends 500 pages explaining no more than the basics of using JSP. That being said, the book is not all bad. The author repeatedly demonstrates the proper use of JSP for creating a user interface. His many examples stress that business logic should be placed in Java Beans and those beans invoked by a JSP. The fact is, however, that although the author does well with the material covered, there is too much material left out for me to recommend this book.

I read every page of this book, studied all the code, set it up, and made it all run. It was my first introduction to JAVA and JSP. I had a very complex site running within 2 weeks! I'm now using much of the modified code in a site I'm developing. It runs well under a reasonable load although I think some of the database beans blow up if the JVM runs out of memory. I got a fast and thorough, hands on, understanding of how to build a dynamic web site with database support. As the author says, certain parts of this code may not be industrial strength, but it isn't far from it - I'm having no problems after just a little tweaking. Extremely easy to read and thoroughly explained code. This is not a book for reading on the couch; this is a book to consult while you are sitting at your computer, developing your site.

Platform: Sun/Ultra OS:Solaris 8 HTTP: Apache latest JSP: Tomcat 3latest DB: MySQL 3.23 Java: 1.30 JDBC: mmMySQL 2.04

I had to create some important code workarounds for MySQL (the book uses PostGRE). All in all, I made only about 17 changes to the original code, including about 8 errors I found. If you want a great book with ready to use code to put together your own dynamic site with database support, this is it. Use Linux and PostGRE and everything else he uses.

I've bought numerous books on Flash and the Dynamic Scripting that can be intermingled with Flash.... Flash 5 ActionScript F/X and Design, Flash 4 Creative Web Animation, and different Wrox books on ASP, ASP databases, and ADO. This book ties ALL of them together. It explains motion scripting for beginners, and then it shows how to import variables from ASP, PHP, Perl, and Cold Fusion. These 1000+ pages contain EVERYTHING you want to know about Flash, it it with out a doubt, THE BEST FLASH BOOK EVER CREATED!!!! It even branches out Flash to other programs like Dreamweaver UltraDev and Generator, it explains how to display information from databases using Flash Turbine. If you read this book, you will be a master at Flash.

An excellent book! Well worth the investment! It transitions well from more basic concepts to more complex topics -- With lots of substance for people at all levels of experience. Even those with more expertise can learn a thing or two from the different conceptual approaches presented. The book is not just about "here's how to do the same old boring X, Y & Z, just in the updated version of Flash", it also says "here's some different ways of thinking about solutions that takes greater advantage of new features of Flash". I also really enjoyed the mini math and geometry lessons... it's good to know that years of high school algebra and geometry could be put to some use!

The interface design chapters were particularly outstanding; judging by how awful so many Flash sites are at integrating interactivity, PLEASE!! I BEG YOU!!! everybody read the chapters on designing interfaces! They are a "must read" for anyone who wants to improve their site's interactivity.

The game design chapters are also incredibly helpful as well, and I think are some of the first useful explanations of game design I've ever seen for Flash. Even if you're not designing games in Flash, using a familiar game like Asteroids as a vehicle for explaining some pretty clever design elements works very well. Not to mention, it's very cool to be able to make your own video games! Flash isn't just for dull corporate websites anymore!

I'll be incorporating the lessons learned from those chapters into all the stuff I do... even though I only get to do very boring stuff for a corporate site. And if I use what this book teaches, maybe someday I can get hired to make games and do cool interfaces!!! :)

If you are a newbie,......their are other alternatives that will get your feet wet, but if you are a practicing Flash developer and have a firm understanding of ActionScript...this book will inspire you to build real dynamic Flash apps. It touches on Flash Javascript methods, Flash and textfiles and goes into server side middleware solutions like, CGI,Perl and PHP. It also introduces you to database integration. This book gives you real world solutions, which maybe a bit elementary, but overall it lays the foundation for you. I found this book to be inspiring and to be the book which pushed me to learn CGI,PERL,PHP and MySQL. If your looking to build real dynamic/interactive Flash applications or websites this is the book.

I have about 1 dozen books on .NET, generally focused around ASP.NET and VB.NET, but also with Troelsen's C# and Wahlin's XML books. Almost all of the books are written from a .NET framework perspective with no VS.NET IDE. That's fine, but since we want to work in the VS.NET IDE AND come up to speed in .NET then we need something else.

Of the books that do post-date the release of the IDE, this one is the best I've found that you can simply follow sequentially, load the samples, make the edits from the books and see it all work.

This is what I expected from PDSA since they are notable instructors in the .NET world, and this is what I got (finally).
I'm about half-way thru the book thus far. I expect to complete it in a week.

There are some minor editting issues, and mis-matches between text and sample code but nothing earth-shattering. The sample code directories take a bit of getting used to but they do work as advertised.

Bottom line: Buy the book, spend a week or 2 or 3, going thru it and Voila, you will finally have some logical, hands on mentoring for building apps in .NET. Then move on to some other books that have more in depth discussions, examples etc.

I don't really know what was on the mind of the first reviewer, but this book is just great and better than the other book he mentioned. Believe me, I have both books, and as a computer science student I know what I'm saying.

This book will help you on developing real world applications. It will not waste your time giving you examples of codes, that you will never need or implement in your life.

Even though, the book says 'developers jumpstart' you don't need to be experience on with .NET. The book is great for starters with the .NET Framework, as long as the starter is serious and disciplined to learn it. You will just need experience on any object-oriented language. If you know VB it will be great.

This book is a most buy!

This book is designed for developers who want to create real world business applications that take advantage of many new capabilities provided by the .NET platform. The book will guide you step-by-step to building a web application using ASP.NET, SQL Server, ADO.NET, Web Forms, and Web Services.

Whether or not you have some previous web programming experience, you will get alot out of this book. To get the most out of the book it is recommended that you have some previous programming experience in either Visual Basic 6 or VB.NET, however it is not required. It is also recommended that you have some familiarity with relational databases, such as Access or SQL Server.

The book is divided into four parts. Part one provides an introduction to ASP.NET and the .NET Framework. Part 2 covers data handling using ADO.NET, Web Forms, stored procedures, and other data handling tools. Part three teaches some additional web development techniques. You will learn how to use Crystal Reports to display information from a database, create user controls, state management, web security, and how to create mobile web applications. Finally, Part four shows how to create and consume XML Web Services.

I found the book extremely easy to read and understand. After reading the book and completing the ASP.NET sample application, you will have the knowledge and confidence to begin building your own ASP.NET web applications.

I got this book because it had advanced info on integrating MS Access databases into web sites. In fact, after spending days with other books, I figured out how to insert the database within one hour, and it worked perfectly. No other book even came close for that task.

Now that I know how to build the database interactivity, I was hoping for more advanced tips, but unfortunately the book seems to stop after that. Of course, the book covers all the basics for most users, but is actually more easy to read than the other 4 books I tried.

This book is Phat with a P, I read it and I still use it to publish great websites and this is by far the best HTML Resource book I have ever read. It gives quick instructions on what info i may need and everything is easy to find and very informative. I recommend this book to anyone who is advanced or still a beginner with the HTML web publishing language.

This book is perfect for a new comer who want to make a professional look web pages. For the advanced user, this book gives you a good techniques to communicate your html base web pages with a database and other third party plugin web tools to enhance your web pages presentation. If you want a one book reference for creating an effective and yet fast web design, this could be the one.

This was a good book as an introduction to developing ASP with VI. I had come from a "code everything by hand" approach and VI unleashed has given me a great introduction to the visual developement capabilities of InterDev 6. However, the major drawbacks are Chapter 23 and 24. I learn best by doing and while the steps in creating the example online catalog helped me to learn how to use DTCs, etc in the end the examples did not work. Examples that don't work are very frustrating. I want to see the program I did in the examples work, not chase down bugs. Also adding to my frustration is that there are no online resources where fixes and updates to the text exist. All in all though, the book presented the material well and helped me get a good grasp of VI6.

I restrained myself from buying other books on Visual InterDev 6 and I am glad I did so. This book focuses on the more practical uses of VI6, but doesn't leave out the more obscure topics. It explains a task at the hands on level, but also takes the time to explain the theory, and help you to decide the best way to do something. On a side note, the database chapters focus on SQL Server 7, with Oracle and Access mentioned very briefly. This formula met my needs perfectly, and I recommend the book to anyone who wants to get something specific done quickly, but get a general working knowledge of the product at the same time.

This book is a gold mine for anyone trying to use Visual InterDev. It covers all of the related technologies that most other books simply ignore. There are quality examples about DHTML, CSS, debugging, security, data access, JavaScript, VBScript, MTS, Index Server. There are chapters dedicated to building real life web sites with catalogs and e-commerce being the focus. It also contains a complete reference section for HTML, JavaScript, VBScript, ASP, T-SQL and the Scripting Object Model. This book is an InterDev Bible!

I had to use this book for a class and it was extremely disappointing. Don't expect Deitel to explain the code examples very well, and expect to get confused and led-on.

There is some useful scripting content, but absolutely lousy at teaching anything to someone who doesn't know it already. The book does NOT teach XHTML or XML. You will not read this book and come out with a decent understanding of XHTML or XML at all.

This book is an over-complicated tour of internet scripting. It really should have focused more on Javascript, VBScript and XHTML than anything else.

Deitel & Deitel should learn how to teach, then their books would be really good.

I recently used your Programming for the Internet book and Cyber Classroom ("Internet & World Wide Web - How to Program" by Deitel, Deitel & Nieto) for a course that I took a few months ago and it was a tremendous help. I really enjoyed the tools that are employed in each course, which helps students grasp the material from several sources. I would read a section and then listen to Paul lecture on the same material. No wonder you guys are the leaders in the industry. The bar has definitely been raised, and I don't see anyone near you. Keep making those great books and material.

One of very few assigned textbooks which has proven practical both inside and outside of the classroom. The authors provide numerous examples on each topic presented, and the progression of topics within the book is logical. The material is relevant to modern technologies, and this book is actually fun to work through. Where errors or difficultiesd have been found in the book or the enclosed CD, the Deitel website has been all that was necessary to fill the gaps. Hats off to Deitel!