Book Description
ASP.NET allows web sites to display unique pages for each visitor rather than show the same static HTML pages. The release of ASP.NET 2.0 is a revolutionary leap forward in the area of web application development. It brings with it a wealth of new and exciting built-in functions that reduce the amount of code you'll need to write for even the most common applications.
With more than 50 new server controls, the number of classes inside ASP.NET 2.0 has more than doubled, and in many cases, the changes in this new version are dramatic. This book will alert you to every new feature and capability that ASP.NET 2.0 provides so that you'll be prepared to put these new technologies into action. Greatly expanded from the original best-selling Professional ASP.NET 2.0, this new special edition adds hundreds of pages of new coverage of advanced and new techniques relating to data and data sources, the provider model, personalization, membership, role management, localization, configuration, migration, and Altas.
Bonus CD-ROM and DVD
* The bonus DVD includes a 180-day trial of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional
* The accompanying CD-ROM features a valuable library of chapters from other key Wrox books. It contains more than 1,000 pages from more than 15 Wrox ASP.NET 2.0, C# 2005, VB 2005, .NET 2.0, and SQL Server 2005 books.
What you will learn from this book
* The idea of the server control and its pivotal role in ASP.NET development
* How to create templated ASP.NET pages using the new master page feature
* Techniques for debugging and handling errors
* How to work with data from enterprise databases including SQL Server 2005 and Oracle(r)
* Ways to package and deploy ASP.NET applications
* How to retrieve, update, and delete data quickly and logically
* How to implement the cultures and regions features to localize your web site into multiple languages for different visitors
* How to use the new "Altas" add-in for ASP.NET 2.0 to add Ajax-style capabilities to your ASP.NET applications
* An understanding of how to use and extend the new pro?vider model for accessing data stores, processes, and more
* How to keep track of your application's performance and health with new monitoring tools
* When and how to migrate your ASP.NET 1.x applications to 2.0
Who this book is for
This book is for experienced programmers and developers who are looking to make the transition to ASP.NET 2.0.
Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Focused and relevant, they address the issues technology professionals face every day. They provide examples, practical solutions, and expert education in new technologies, all designed to help programmers do a better job.
This book is also available as part of the 5-book ASP.NET 2.0 Wrox Box (ISBN: 0-470-11757-5). This 5-book set includes:
- Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Special Edition (ISBN: 0-470-04178-1)
- ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming: Problem - Design - Solution (ISBN: 0764584642 )
- Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Security, Membership, and Role Management (ISBN: 0764596985)
- Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Server Control and Component Development (ISBN: 0471793507)
- ASP.NET 2.0 MVP Hacks and Tips (ISBN: 0764597663)
- CD-ROM with more than 1000 pages of bonus chapters from 15 other .NET 2.0 and SQL Server(TM) 2005 Wrox books
- DVD with 180-day trial version of Microsoft(r) Visual Studio(r) 2005 Professional Edition
Customer Reviews:
Comprehensive but not in depth.......2007-03-09
This is a nice book for people who have the basic idea of ASP.NET. This Book covers almost all topics for .Net2.0 . It is a very good reference book for newbie.
Unfortunately, this book isn't in-depth for lots of topics, basically it just introduces most common cases, and you probably can't find what you want for some topics. (Eg implement Sorting and Pagation for ObjectDataSource, Crystal Report, memory management, ADO.NET in depth, .Net Virtual Machine etc). The source code is another down side for this book. Most of the code doesn't run, also the connection string wasn't right at the first place, I have to spend hours and hours to get it right.
In conclusion, it worth to buy, if you just want learn asp.net in a fast way. It will give you the solution for most tasks. Pretty good reference book.
Great ASP.NET 2.0 Reference.......2007-01-22
This is a great ASP.NET 2.0 reference book. It is absolutely packed with information covering all areas of the product. The book is also somewhat unique in that all code snippets are provided in both VB and C#, making it useful to all developers.
The authors are fantastic technical experts and speakers on .NET and ASP.NET. I think you can learn a lot from this book.
Encyclopedia of ASP.NET.......2007-01-21
Wrox is a great publisher of quick and massive volumes with multiple authors. I'm a teacher and look for good values that combine clear technical information and a broad range for a low cost. This is a good choice if you have experience with ASP.NET, know your web architecture (query strings, cookies, sessions, etc.), and don't want an extended tutorial. The reasoning for why you use these things wasn't clear but the details on how to use them exceeded most of the current fare which is why I chose to teach from the text recently. The quantity of code that was provided in VB and C# was excellent but the topics were out of order for classroom use. For the ASP.NET beginner, I feel it needs to be supplemented with a more tutorial based text and then this makes an excellent companion volume.
A Professional Level Book in Every Way.......2006-10-25
This is a monumental book. Almost sixteen hundred pages of hi-tech stuff. It is not for the faint of heart. It is intended for people who have at least a general understanding of how the web works with particular attention as to how a database driven web site is set up and works. Knowledge and experience with earlier versions of ASP (Active Server Pages) would be very helpful, but so would experience using other technologies such as Cold Fusion, PHP, or Java. Such knowledge is to provide you with the concepts of doing a dynamic web page consisting of a framework or template with the actual data being displayed coming from a database.
The book builds on this basic understanding to start with a very simple page and go on to much more complex tasks such as the building XML web services. Along the way every aspect of ASP.NET 2.0 is discussed.
ASP.NET 2.0 is the second major release of ASP.NET, Microsoft's main concept for programming dynamic web pages. The focus of the new release is on productivity. A major goal of the development team was to reduce the number of lines of code needed to program a page by two thirds. On the whole they suceeded.
In addition, the book contains two CD-ROMs. One is a 180 day trial version of Visual Studio 2005. The other has about a thousand pages from about 15 other WROX books that you may find helpful in looking up background information. The book is in reference format rather than tutorial. It will be very helpful for quite a long time.
Book Description
Sick of creating web sites that reload every time a user moves the mouse? Tired of servers that wait around to respond to users' requests for movie tickets? It sounds like you need a little (or maybe a lot of) Ajax in your life. Asynchronous programming lets you turn you own web sites into smooth, slick, responsive applications that make your users feel like they're back on the information superhighway, not stuck on a dial-up backroad.
But who wants to take on next-generation web programming with the last generation's instruction book? You need a learning experience that's as compelling and cutting-edge as the sites you want to design. That's where we come in. With Head Rush Ajax, in no time you'll be writing JavaScript code that fires off asynchronous requests to web servers... and having fun doing it. By the time you've taken your dynamic HTML, XML, JSON, and DOM skills up a few notches, you'll have solved tons of puzzles, figured out how well snowboards sell in Vail, and even watched a boxing match. Sound interesting? Then what are you waiting for? Pick up Head Rush Ajax and learn Ajax and asynchronous programming the right way--the way that sticks.
If you've ever read a Head First book, you know what to expect: a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works. Head Rush ramps up the intensity with an even faster look and feel. Have your first working app before you finish Chapter 1, meet up with the nefarious PROJECT: CHAOS stealth team, and even settle the question of the Top 5 Blues CDs of all time. Leave boring, clunky web sites behind with 8-tracks and hot pants--and get going with next-generation web programming.
"If you thought Ajax was rocket science, this book is for you. Head Rush Ajax puts dynamic, compelling experiences within reach for every Web developer." -- Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path
"A 'technology-meets-reality' book for web pioneers on the cutting edge." -- Valentin Crettaz, CTO, Condris Technologies
Customer Reviews:
Head Rush Ajax (Head First).......2007-09-07
Very nice book. I am enjoying reading it. It brings new view to asynchronous web javascript using non formal approach. I like Head First series.
Not my style.......2007-05-21
For me, all the information in this 400 page book could have been effectively presented in about 50 pages, using a normal page layout with illustrations. While reading this book, I felt like I was wasting my time. Eventually, I found myself skimming the pages for nuggets of useful information buried in all the fluff (handwritten notes, arrows, and pictures of dogs and guys in ribbed sweaters.) I am willing to consider that perhaps the style of this book is just not right for me. But even for someone who likes/is compatible with this style, I believe the limited amount of actual information contained in this book makes it not a good value.
Contains some good information, but..........2007-05-06
The top-most declaration on the front page of Head Rush Ajax is "Get it in your brain, FAST". A more appropriate comment would be: "Get it in your brain after taking a tedious journey down a long, winding road". I found some useful information about Ajax, but only after being frustrated by having to wade through an excessive amount of fluff, even if the dog pictured so often is really cute. Head Rush Ajax typically uses about 20 pages to present and explain material that anyone with any coding experience at all can learn in a paragraph or two. So, if you are an absolute beginner, this book might be just the thing, with entertaining inserts to give you a break if you need one. But if you're even a little experienced with html, css, javascript or php you will probably find the pace to be way too SLOW.
Smug Style and Questionable Content.......2007-04-21
The content of this book is a little odd. It rushes through introductory topics for the browser side at the beginning to get you going, but has no discussion of what you might set up as a web server to model the back end for which they provide PHP code. This is especially odd given the emphasis on active learning; you can't actually model the whole system from their instructions without other references. Having configured enough open source servers, I know this isn't hard and could be handled in a short appendix. The comment in the editorial review to the effect of "have your first app working before the end of Chapter 1" needs to be evaluated in that light.
The Head Rush book series is likely something you like or hate. I find the tone of the authors smug and self-satisfied, and for me it works against their stated goal of really engaging the reader. The pedagogical concepts are not particularly new, but they have a theory they think is revolutionary so they have an overly assertive style: a "conversational" tone that is self-consciously hip, hard-to-read handwritten comments, and cheesy photographs and jokes. The same pedagogical methods could be presented in a much more neutral fashion. The style also means that this would be a poor reference after you gain some skills.
Nice book for AJAX beginners.......2007-04-11
This book does one good thing, and that is introducing the reader to AJAX.
Compared to other Head First books it is a little more repetitive, takes longer to get the reader's head around the topic at hand and finally it has external requirements for the reader to be successful in going through the book in follow by example mode.
The external requirements of the book are:
1) You need to be able to understand PHP on a very basic level in order to follow through the examples in the book.
2) In order to follow step by step the book, you need to set-up your test box as a WEB/PHP server.
Requirement #1 is not problematic, #2 may be problematic to some folks, to others it may be even fun -- BTW: The page at [...]
I would have given this book four stars for beginners if the instructions for #2 would exist, at least in the head first site, but they are not there yet by 4/10/07.
Additional notes:
- Chapter 3 example runs dog slow in FireFox and does not render properlyin IE7.
Average customer rating:
- Poor Index, Missing key concepts, Garbage...
- Who are you writing this book for?
- A good reference book
- Not much different than Crystal's own manual
- Not so great
|
Crystal Reports 8.5: The Complete Reference
George Peck
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Workplace
| Organizational Behavior
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| SQL
| Databases
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Databases
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Programming
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Business
| Software
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Software
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
All Amazon Upgrade
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Business & Investing
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Computers & Internet
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Crystal Reports: A Beginner's Guide
-
Crystal Reports 8 for Dummies
-
Crystal Reports Professional Results
-
Crystal Reports 8.5 Quick Start Workshop
-
Crystal Reports 8.5 Power User Workshop
ASIN: 0072193271 |
Book Description
The most definitive resource on Crystal Reports available! Create presentation-quality reports using the most powerful data analysis tool and this comprehensive guide. Crystal Reports 8.5: The Complete Reference explains in detail how to use the software to analyze and format data, generate reports, and perform advanced interactive reporting from the Web. Also, learn to develop custom applications and incorporate any Crystal Report into your Windows applications.
Customer Reviews:
Poor Index, Missing key concepts, Garbage..........2005-01-18
I frequently use these reviews to select books of all types. I consider myself a power user able to learn rapidly from good texts. This book has not been very helpful for my work in Crystal Reports.
I need to be able to program Crystal Reports to perform a variety of complex reporting on databases that are completely denormalized. Thus, the ability to parse strings and execute stored procedures is critical.
This book completely fails to provide the information about built-in commands that I need. For instance, no information about string commands is present. No discussion of the use of arrays in Crystal Reports is provided.
I was deeply disappointed with this book.
Who are you writing this book for?.......2003-11-13
After reading positive reviews of this title, I decided to purchase the complete reference and was extremely disappointed. The most common problem with crystal books (or any other software application manual-excel, access, etc.) is that the author try's to appeal to all crystal report's users. There are generally three types of software user's out their, 1. database administrator/computer programmers who want reference manuals with excellent indexes. 2. Basic users who can get by with your classic "for dummies" title. 3. User's who don't understand VBA or SQL but want to be able to create reasonably advanced adhoc reports.
This title is to basic for the database administrator who would have to read 4 pages of babble to find the specific piece of information they need. There are no practice assignments for the beginner/intermediate report writer to do just that "practice". And when you do find a title that contains tutorials/assignments they are often to basic and lack real relevance in the business world. With the number of access, excel, crystal, etc. titles on the market you would think that there would be enough room to specifically appeal to the different types of software user's out their.
A good reference book.......2003-03-30
I develop financial reporting applications for various companies using VB and VBA. Recently I have completed a financial reporting system completely within Access 2000 making extensive uses of Access's report objects.
Although the Access report object does its job well, it lacks a lot of power features, i.e., limited grouping capabilities, formula in text boxes is limited to a simply expression unless you make a call to UFD, then you would loss your object encapsulation, etc, The Data Report object is VB6 is still some what of a joke, but let not open this can of worms. Thus, I have chosen Crystals reports for my developing needs.
I find George Peck's Complete Reference series very helpful. The book has 800 pages to teach me every nuance of Crystal. This book does not teach me anything about VB coding nor does it contain a reference to the object model within the RDC or any of the other object models in Crystal. I didn't buy this book to learn how to code. The author noted in page 659 specifically that the book is not meant to teach you Visual Basic.
Overall, this book gets me up to speed quickly and it's a good reference source for my future needs. Personally, I don't find the crystal help files very helpful.
Not much different than Crystal's own manual.......2003-03-15
I purchased this book as a reference. Fortunately, I had a separate training course for learning the Crystal application. And I now teach the product.
It's a good reference. I truly haven't had a question yet regarding basic or advanced procedures in the application that I couldn't find. But I would not recommend it for learning the application. It is dense.
I'm also disappointed that it is not very different from the CR 8.0 manual published by Crystal Decisions. The layout and procession of the book are virtually the same! It could have included more tutorials, too.
One thing that I would love for any CR reference/manual to include is a list and description of all the formulas in the system. To my knowledge, this does not exist anywhere, even in Crystal's own documentation.
PURCHASING RECOMMENDATION
If you need a solid reference and didn't purchase manuals with Crystal, this will work. If you need to learn the product, get something else.
Not so great.......2002-12-11
As you become more and more proficient, this book is more and more frustrating. There are so many things just touched on and not explained or not in the book at all!
Average customer rating:
- Explanation of the Google Api
- GOOGLE HACKS comes packed with usage tips not to be found elsewhere.
- "Google Hacks" is highly technical
- A SIMPLE GOOGLE SEARCH!!
- A Must-Have
|
Google Hacks: Tips & Tools for Finding and Using the World's Information (Hacks)
Rael Dornfest ,
Paul Bausch , and
Tara Calishain
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Privacy
| Business & Culture
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
Blogging & Blogs
| Business & Culture
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
Network Security
| Networking
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
Online Searching
| Internet
| Home Computing
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Programming
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
Web Browsers
| Microsoft
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Software
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
Web Programming
| Programming
| O'Reilly
| By Publisher
| Books
General
| Programming
| O'Reilly
| By Publisher
| Books
Internet Security
| O'Reilly
| By Publisher
| Books
Look Inside Computer Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Google Pocket Guide
-
Google: The Missing Manual
-
Spidering Hacks
-
Google Hacking for Penetration Testers, Volume 1
-
Google Maps Hacks
ASIN: 0596527063 |
Amazon.com
Everyone loves Google, and it's the first place many people turn to locate information on the Internet. There's a big gap, though, between knowing that you can use Google to get advance information on your blind date and having a handle on the considerable roster of fact-finding tools that the site makes available. Google Hacks reveals--and documents in considerable detail--a large collection of Google capabilities that many readers won't have even been aware of. Want to find the best price on a pair of leg warmers? Try the Froogle price-searcher that's hidden within the Google site. Interested in finding weblog commentary about a particular subject? Tara Calishain and Rael Dornfest call your attention to the special Google syntaxes for that purpose. This book makes it clear that there's lots more to the Google site than typing in a few keywords and trusting the search engine to yield useful results.
If you're a programmer--or even just familiar with a HTML or a scripting language--Google opens up even further. A large part of Google Hacks concerns itself with the Google API (the collection of capabilities that Google exposes for use by software) and other programmers' resources. For example, the authors include a simple Perl application that queries the Google engine with terms specified by the user. They also document XooMLe, which delivers Google results in XML form. In brief, this is the best compendium of Google's lesser-known capabilities available anywhere, including the Google site itself. --David Wall
Topics covered: How to get the most from the Google search engine by using its Web-accessible features (including product searches, image searches, news searches, and newsgroup searches) and the large collection of desktop-resident toolbars available, as well as its advanced search syntax. Other sections have to do with programming with the Google API and simple "scrapes" of results pages, while further coverage addresses how to get your Web page to feature prominently in Google keyword searches.
Book Description
Everyone knows that Google lets you search billions of web pages. But few people realize that Google also gives you hundreds of cool ways to organize and play with information.
Since we released the last edition of this bestselling book, Google has added many new features and services to its expanding universe: Google Earth, Google Talk, Google Maps, Google Blog Search, Video Search, Music Search, Google Base, Google Reader, and Google Desktop among them. We've found ways to get these new services to do even more.
The expanded third edition of
Google Hacks is a brand-new and infinitely more useful book for this powerful search engine. You'll not only find dozens of hacks for the new Google services, but plenty of updated tips, tricks and scripts for hacking the old ones. Now you can make a Google Earth movie, visualize your web site traffic with Google Analytics, post pictures to your blog with Picasa, or access Gmail in your favorite email client. Industrial strength and real-world tested, this new collection enables you to mine a ton of information within Google's reach. And have a lot of fun while doing it:
- Search Google over IM with a Google Talk bot
- Build a customized Google Map and add it to your own web site
- Cover your searching tracks and take back your browsing privacy
- Turn any Google query into an RSS feed that you can monitor in Google Reader or the newsreader of your choice
- Keep tabs on blogs in new, useful ways
- Turn Gmail into an external hard drive for Windows, Mac, or Linux
- Beef up your web pages with search, ads, news feeds, and more
- Program Google with the Google API and language of your choice
For those of you concerned about Google as an emerging Big Brother, this new edition also offers advice and concrete tips for protecting your privacy. Get into the world of Google and bend it to your will!
Customer Reviews:
Explanation of the Google Api.......2007-03-30
1. Word order matters
2. repetition of words ignores the repeating words with no search results
3. inanchor, inurl, intitle, site
inanchor:oreilly -inurl: oreilly -site: edu
oreilly in anchor text
oreilly not in the url
site is not edu (limits to a certain domain)
intitle:OSTEOPOROSIS inurl:links
OSTEOPORSIS in the title
links in the url
OSTEOPOROSIS in the anchor text
intitle:biology inurl:help
Takes you to a manageable size of 602 for help in biology.
4. Google does not support stemming (moon, moonlight, moonshot)
Google does support wild card pattern *
Google does have a ten word limit
three * mice
returns
three Blind mice
three white mice
5. daterange:startdate-enddate
[...]
6. Phonebook searchs:
phonebook: searches the entire google phonebook
rphonebook: searches residental listings only
bphonebook: search business listings only
phonebook:nelson id
7: Finding articles
[...] "ADO" or "ODBC"
Searches the site www.listensoftware for all articles about ADO
"ODBC"
8. Searchable directorys
"what's new" "what's cool" directory SAUERKRAUT
"what's new" categories sauerkraut (recipe)
"what's new" listings sauerkraut (links to recipes)
9. GAPIS
[...]
Standalone application that takes advantage of the Google API search component.
GOOGLE HACKS comes packed with usage tips not to be found elsewhere........2006-11-07
Almost anyone who uses a computer knows that Google is a superior search engine - but do you know it also offers ways to organize and manipulate that information? The updated third edition of GOOGLE HACKS: TIPS & TOOLS FOR FINDING AND USING THE WORLD'S INFORMATION tells how, with chapters covering not just search techniques or advanced search strategies, but what to do with the information once it's found. From building a customized Google map for your web site to handling RSS feeds, news listings, blogs, and even using Gmail as an external hard drive, GOOGLE HACKS comes packed with usage tips not to be found elsewhere.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
"Google Hacks" is highly technical.......2006-11-05
This book is an excellent reference for someone with special research needs. However, it is not for the average user as it requires above average technical knowledge. This should be pointed out more directly in the description.
A SIMPLE GOOGLE SEARCH!!.......2006-09-19
Do you want to make your Google searching experience more fruitful? If you do, then this book is for you! Authors Rael Dornfest, Paul Bausch and Tara Calishain, have done an outstanding job of writing a third edition of a book that goes beyond the instruction page to the idea of hacks.
Dornfest, Bausch and Calishain, begin by describing the fundamentals of how Google's search works. Then, the authors show you how to measure Google Mindshare, range farther across the Web, twist and recombine your queries, squeeze the last drop of results out of every search, and even go beyond the bounds of Google's index. Next, they show you how to use a combination of Google tools to gather the latest news and opinions from across the Web. The authors continue by showing you how to integrate Google into your toolbar, desktop, and browser. They also show you how you can use Google Maps to learn about your neighborhood and your world. Then, the authors discuss the proper and improper uses of Gmail. Next, they show you how to use Google's infamous PageRank, how to clean up for a Google visit, how to make money with your pages, and how to make sure your pages aren't indexed by Google if you don't want them to be. Finally, the authors introduce you to the wonders of the Google Search Application Programming Interface (API), which underlies many of the hacks in this book.
This most excellent book is not an exhaustive manual on how every command in the Google syntax works. But, rather, this book shows you some tricks for making the best use of a search.
A Must-Have.......2006-09-01
Nobody browses the web anymore - we all search for whatever we want. This book helps you understand the dark secrets of Google and makes your time on the web more valuable. I only wish I'd bought it sooner!
Bill Dyszel, Author, Microsoft Outlook for Dummies
Book Description
The Google Maps API remains one of the showcase examples of the Web 2.0 development paradigm. Beginning Google Maps Applications with Rails and Ajax: From Novice to Professional is the first book to comprehensively introduce the service from a developer perspective, showing you how you can integrate mapping features into your Rails-driven web applications.
Proceeding far beyond simplistic map display, you'll learn how to draw from a variety of data sources such as the U.S. Census Bureau's TIGER/Line data and Google's own geocoding feature to build comprehensive geocoding services for mapping many locations around the world.
The book also steers you through various examples that show how to encourage user interaction such as through pinpointing map locations, adding comments, and building community-driven maps. You'll want to pick up a copy of this book because
- This is the first book to comprehensively introduce the Google Maps application development using the Rails development framework.
- You'll be introduced to the very latest changes to the Google Maps API, embodied in the version 2 release.
- It is written by four developers actively involved in the creation of location-based mapping services.
For additional info, please visit the author's reference site for this book.
Customer Reviews:
Not really rails oriented.......2007-05-25
A good guide if you are new to google maps. If you are an experienced google maps developer trying to integrate RJS or other cool rails techniques, this book is not very useful. I'm coding rails and google maps applications daily and I haven't picked this book up more than twice since receiving it.
Excellent Book.......2007-05-15
I would highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in using Google Maps with Ruby on Rails. My expectations were exceeded and I believe it lives up to its sub-title "From Novice to Professional".
I develop Rails applications and became interested in Google Maps in conjunction with a Real Estate application I was working on. In particular, I was interested using Google Maps for visual analysis of large data sets. Knowing next to nothing about the Google Maps API, I was truly at the Novice level. The book started off at the basics and quickly built on example and technique to the point where there was a working example of a problem similar in scope to mine. Along the way, the trade offs and techniques were well presented and explained in detail. Not only did I gain the knowledge and confidence to tackle my particular problem, but I was also inspired by all the other potential applications of this exciting new technology.
This book was well organized and written. I was obvious that the authors had worked through the examples and I especially appreciated many of the best practices and hints they gave. Chapter 7 "Optimizing and Scaling for Large Data Sets" was particularly interesting for me and my application. It included code and examples for several server-side and client-side techniques and as well as a clear explanation of their uses and trade offs.
If you are a Rails coder and you want to master Google Maps, this is a must have book
Building Google Maps application in Rails, get this book.......2007-05-01
I was worried when I ordered this book that it would just be a reference book of the Google Maps API, but thankfully I was wrong. This book is an excellent reference to anyone wanting to build a Google Maps enabled Rails Application.
The first four chapters take you through building an application, similar to the author's hotspotr application where a user can save Wifi hotspot information. For many people this may be all they are looking for, a way to create maps, save information and geocode addresses.
Chapters 5-8 deal with larger datasets and the example they use is from the FCC Antenna Structure Registration, which has 120k records already geocoded for you. It then takes you through different presentation methods. If you want to see the output, go to book dot earthcode dot com chapter seven, server custom tiles. It's a very impressive result, similar to the pictures of earth at night.
The rest of the book gives other advanced uses and apis, I have not read all the way through that but it looks interesting. The other thing I like about the tone of the book is the conversational style. For example in Chapter 5 where they are using the FCC dataset they talk about the advantages of using a mysql import instead of going through the ActiveRecord layer, resulting in importing the data in less than a minute compared to 1.5 hours with ActiveRecord. This is the type of information that usually only comes from time spent trying different methods, so it's nice for us to be able to leverage their hard work.
In general I have been impressed with the Apress books ( no pun intended) them and Pragmatic Programmers have really started giving O'Reilly a run for their money.
Book Description
There is much to like about this book. The explanations are straightforward, the code is readable, the examples are relevant, and the writing style is approachable.
— Michael J. Ross, Slashdot contributor
Until recently, building interactive web-based mapping applications has been a cumbersome affair. This changed when Google released its powerful Maps API. Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax was written to help you take advantage of this technology in your own endeavors--whether you're an enthusiast playing for fun or a professional building for profit. This book covers version 2 of the API, including Google's new Geocoding service.
Authors Jeffrey Sambells, Cameron Turner, and Michael Purvis get rolling with examples that require hardly any code at all, but you'll quickly become acquainted with many facets of the Maps API. They demonstrate powerful methods for simultaneously plotting large data sets, creating your own map overlays, and harvesting and geocoding sets of addresses. You'll see how to set up alternative tile sets and where to access imagery to use for them. The authors even show you how to build your own geocoder from scratch, for those high-volume batch jobs.
As well as providing hands-on examples of real mapping projects, this book supplies a complete reference for the Maps API, along with the relevant aspects of JavaScript, CSS, PHP, and SQL. Visit the authors' website for additional tips and advice.
Customer Reviews:
An absolutely excellent roadmap to Google Maps API Integration.......2006-11-10
This book was an absolutely incredible guide to the nuances of the Google Maps API. It clearly goes from simple integration, to geocoding to more complex functions such as overlays etc. I found it absolutely invaluable for my project, and I'm sure you will too.
Understandable.......2006-11-03
I found this book to be very readable and easy to follow. It doesn't just rehash old ideas but gives new ways to do things with clean code. I am a beginner in maps and have got so much out of this book already.
Great book, but check author's website for a few corrections.......2006-09-23
I should have given this book five stars because it is such a treasure chest of information and most of it is error free. The authors also maintain an awesome website with corrections to a few instances where something got missed. If something doesn't work right in Internet Explorer with the script debugging tool turned on, check the website for updated code. For example, the overlays respond to clicks with the map event handler. Only the map should respond to the map click event handler, not the overlays. It's easy to fix, by testing to see if the overlay exists before executing the click handler on the overlay. If the overlay exists and the click is on the overlay, it should not execute the map click code.
Well done.......2006-09-13
I am using this book to build a mapping application. I'm a beginning-intermediate web programmer and find the book well designed. There are nice sections on improving the user interfaces of map applications, updating maps with data queried from a database, and plenty of good examples (also posted on the book's website). It's a good all around case study in developing dynamic websites with JavaScript, custom controls, databases and PHP. There is a positive review on Slashdot as well.
Book Description
Want to find every pizza place within a 15-mile radius? Where the dog parks are in a new town? The most central meeting place for your class, club or group of friends? The cheapest gas stations on a day-to-day basis? The location of convicted sex offenders in an area to which you may be considering moving? The applications, serendipitous and serious, seem to be infinite, as developers find ever more creative ways to add to and customize the satellite images and underlying API of Google Maps.
Written by Schuyler Erle and Rich Gibson, authors of the popular Mapping Hacks, Google Maps Hacks shares dozens of tricks for combining the capabilities of Google Maps with your own datasets. Such diverse information as apartment listings, crime reporting or flight routes can be integrated with Google's satellite imagery in creative ways, to yield new and useful applications.
The authors begin with a complete introduction to the "standard" features of Google Maps. The adventure continues with 60 useful and interesting mapping projects that demonstrate ways developers have added their own features to the maps. After that's given you ideas of your own, you learn to apply the techniques and tools to add your own data to customize and manipulate Google Maps. Even Google seems to be tacitly blessing what might be seen as unauthorized use, but maybe they just know a good thing when they see one.
With the tricks and techniques you'll learn from Google Maps Hacks, you'll be able to adapt Google's satellite map feature to create interactive maps for personal and commercial applications for businesses ranging from real estate to package delivery to home services, transportation and more. Includes a foreword by Google Maps tech leads, Jens and Lars Rasmussen.
Customer Reviews:
Good information that's out of date.......2007-01-27
The book is interesting and has many good ideas and some valuable information. Be aware, however, that the advanced hacks (those dealing with calling the API from your own code) are based on a now obsolete version of the API. So, for example, Hack 62 that tells you how to find that longitude and latitude of an address doesn't tell you that you can accomplish the task via Google now. Hack 58 (Find the right zoom level) has one (of three) technique that uses an undocumented API that has, apparently, gone away. And, of course, it doesn't provide the easy way to do it using the current API.
I'm not faulting the authors for not seeing into the future. The book is well written and engaging. Just be aware that parts of it are already out of date.
Valuable content from all perspectives.......2006-09-08
I've read both this and the ExtremeTech "Hacking Google Maps," and both have their place, but I found this one to be much more valuable.
It doesn't contain any introductory information to the API, which some may be looking for, but it's not something that I would expect to see in a Hacks book anyway. With the v2 release of the API in April 2006, Google's own documentation has gotten a lot better, and it's the best place to go for a tutorial.
The book contains a great collection of hacks from all perspectives: users looking to get the most out of Google Maps, power users looking to push the functionality in new ways, and developers using the API. There's also a good overview of some popular mashups from the mashups' developers perspectives, and extensions to the API (e.g. TLabel, TPhoto).
Because there are so many contributors, you'll notice a change in tone and writing style throughout the book; and different coding practices are easy to spot, e.g. one code sample might use a standard, documented JS call, while another uses a homegrown function to accomplish the same thing. Another drawback is that the book is written to v1 of the API, which was replaced months ago, although is backwards compatible. This doesn't affect readability or value, but several of the undocumented features in the book are in fact documented in v2!
Great book, filled with useful information.
VERY VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!.......2006-08-27
Google Maps Hacks: Tips & Tools for Geographic Searching and Remixing (Hacks) (Paperback)
Are you a Google application developer? If you are, then this book is for you! Authors Rich Gibson and Schuyler Erle, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that shows you how to take full advantage of the mapping capabilities in Google Local.
Gibson and Erle, begin by showing you how to look up locations, get driving directions, look at satellite pictures, share links to maps in e-mails and on web pages, generate links to maps from a spreadsheet, and use del.icio.us. Then, the authors show you how to put a map on your page, capture user clicks, create a slideshow connected with a map, create custom icons, and measure distances. Next, they cover a variety of mashups, from mapping the news, to seeing where criminals "work," to weather maps, to answering the question: where is the Space Telescope right now. The authors then help you find the cheapest gas near you, load driving directions into your GPS to take with you, look at your GPS track logs, explore hiking trails, figure out why your cell phone doesn't work at home, and even beat a traffic ticket. They continue by showing you how to geocode your photos on Flickr, set up a blog that knows about place, geocode literature, and examine the choices that go into which satellite images are included. Then, the authors show you how to tweak and extend the Google map. Finally, they show you how to use a clustering algorithm so that your own points fit properly on a map, create your own map tiles, connect to a database, use web standards to display other data on your maps, an even figure out if your kids are likely to barf.
This most excellent book will show you how to make the most of Google Maps. More importantly, you'll find the tools and inspiration you need right in this book!
Where are the basics?.......2006-08-07
The collection of apps here are fascinating. But I looked for a tutorial telling me "this is how you embed a map, select several points of interest, and label them.". It was not visible.
DIY Cartography.......2006-04-03
Everyone knows Google Maps. Google has gone out of its way to make Google Maps something that everyone knows about, uses, and talks about. There are blogs that are just about all the mash-ups and hacks people have come up with for Google Maps.
And now, O'Reilly has released Google Maps Hacks, showing how anyone can use the Google Maps API for their own benefit, with a little help.
The book starts off with a basic tutorial on how to add a Google Map to your site - if you're going to mash up, you have to have something to mash, after all! It also (in Hack 27) shows you how to use Greasemap to add Google Maps functionality to any web site (assuming you've already got Greasemonkey and Firefox is your browser). As with all hacks books, Google Maps Hacks includes some basic hacks that just about anyone can do (and points to some great places to see great hacks already done!), and some that are going to require a bit of work and some programming skill.
There were several hacks in the book that I really loved. First, the book pointed me to a site promising to show me where I could find cheap gas. They've integrated Google Maps with GasBuddy to create something incredibly useful, though I wish it were updated more often. (My local station hasn't been updated since September of 2005!)
To use the really good hacks, you'll need a GPS. Many of the mash-ups are best used when you're out on the road. (Hack 35 shows how to dump Google Maps data to your GPS system, and #37 shows how to reverse that process and import your GPS Tracklogs to Google Maps.)
The most useful part of the book, though, is when we get to see how various mash-ups work. It's one thing to see a great use of the Google Maps API, it's another thing completely to understand how that's done so that you can do it yourself. And that's really what's valuable about the Hacks books - you're shown how something is done, so you can take that understanding and apply it to what you want to do. That's what hacking is all about - information and application of that information in new ways.
Book Description
The Book of JavaScript teaches readers how to add interactivity, animation, and other tricks to their web sites with JavaScript. Rather than provide a series of cut-and-paste scripts, thau! takes the reader through a series of real world JavaScript code with an emphasis on understanding. Each chapter focuses on a few important JavaScript features, shows how professional web sites incorporate them, and takes readers through examples of how they might add those features to their own web sites. This thoroughly updated 2nd edition includes new chapters on Ajax, revised appendices, and new examples throughout. Summary sections and assignments close each chapter, making the book perfect for use in college courses or independent study. CD includes code and images for every example, answers to assignments, script libraries for hard-to-program applications, and many useful software programs.
Customer Reviews:
If you're more advanced this book is not for you..........2007-09-01
I bought this book becuase I read several reviews that stated this book would be great for those who are more advanced in scripting as well as the beginner. I did not find that to be the case. The one good thing I will say is that it was clear and easy to read, so if you're new to the world of JS, this book will suit your needs.
a very useful update.......2007-06-13
As someone who learned JavaScript from the first edition of this book, I was excited see what Thau! had in store for the second edition. He did not disappoint! Once again, he explains the most complicated concept clearly, and makes programming a breeze. The new reference section is especially useful. Thanks, Thau!!
Finally!.......2007-06-13
This book was really fantastic. Dave Thau clearly knows what he's talking about AND knows how to explain it clearly to others. This book gets a big thumbs up!
Great Book!.......2007-06-09
I've been reviewing quite a few books recently to use in my JavaScript course that I teach. Finally, I've found a book that explains all the important concepts and does it in a way that's a breeze to understand.
The author has a friendly, relaxing "voice" that puts you right at ease, even with the most challenging concepts.
If you are wanting to learn JavaScript, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Good first read--but watch out for the textual errors!.......2007-05-06
This book seems to be written for someone almost entirely new to programming/scripting. A good deal of the concepts are explained just as thoroughly as they need to be for him to cover the subject he is covering.
As such, I would not recommend this book for someone already experienced in programming/scripting.
In response to some other posts, which criticize him for teaching document.write instead of the more modern approach (working directly with the DOM), I disagree. I do acknowledge that it is better to work directly with the DOM, but that is far from a concept that can be taught to someone completely new to programming/scripting without boggling their mind.
Also: BEWARE THE ERRORS! This book is chock full of errors in the code snippets they display. The error in the numbered snippet on page 36, probably the 3rd or 4th error I've seen so far, is what actually motivated me to write this review. That in mind, if you're paying attention, the errors can actually be turned to an educational purpose--debugging! :)
Final advice: If you're completely new to this field or want to treat yourself as if you're completely new, then get this book. I would not recommend sticking solely with this book, though. Get this book and some others (JavaScript: The Definitive Guide and probably another instructional book such as one of the WROX Javascript books).
Book Description
- This interesting guide covers all aspects of Google Earth, the freely downloadable application from Google that allows users to view satellite images from all points of the globe
- Aimed at a diverse audience, including casual users who enjoy air shots of locales as well as geographers, real estate professionals, and GPS developers
- Includes valuable tips on various customizations that users can add, advice on setting up scavenger hunts, and guidance on using Google Earth to benefit a business
- Explains modifying general options, managing the layer and placemark systems, and tackling some of the more technical aspects, such as interfacing with GPS
- There are more than 400,000 registered users of Google Earth and the number is still growing
Customer Reviews:
Great Book for Beginners and as a Reference.......2007-08-04
I had a lot of questions about the nuances of Google Earth, which is why I purchased this book. The Google Earth tutorials are nice, but only go so far in explaining how to use it. "Google Earth for Dummies" goes a long way for explaining the application, how it works, it's nuances, and how to use it for maximum benefit.
As with many of my "for Dummies" books it is a great reference manual that is well organized, well thought out, and well researched that makes finding answers to questions a snap. I use it when trying to decide how to do animations for presentations and how to most effectively illustrate points that need to be made through placement of different elements either from the 3D library or custom 3D items from Google SketchUp (there is even a short tutorial on how to use Google SketchUp).
In short it covers all the bases, is very informative, is intuitive and well aid out, and it functions as a great reference. Mr. Crowder deserves a "well done" for his efforts, and a "Thank You". It is well worth it's price and the time to learn what's in it.
Two Tech Books for One Earth Price.......2007-05-06
This book is a well written introduction to Google Earth. The fact that it doubles as a wonderful introduction to Google Sketchup means you're getting two outstanding technical primers for the price of one.
As a Google Earth fan from its beta days, I thought a dummies book wouldn't give me enough information to warrant the price of the book, particularly given the abundance of tutorial materials freely available online. This book, while valuable to its base of novice users, offers enough for an intermediate user to justify a thorough reading. For example, while beginners will appreciate the information about geographical terms such as defining latitude and longitude and familiarizing themselves with GPS jargon, other users may find the more comprehensive knowledge about the program's KML file structure and the explanations about the various layers in Google Earth more worth their reading time.
Now again, the addition of the materials on Google Sketchup, a 3D modeling program more likely once intended for CAD and landscape enthusiasts, means that even more accomplished users can use this as a tool to explore Google Earth's more advanced features. I myself had only cursory knowledge of Sketchup before reading this book and was sold on it when I saw how quickly I could get started with 3D modeling and put it to immediate use on Google Earth. Had this book not included the Sketchup section, I would probably have relied on web sites to fill me in on GE's other features. By reading the chapters on Sketchup, I was able to download the program with the confidence that I could begin using the program quickly. I even showed the program to several of my advanced fifth graders who themselves were playing with the program in no time at all.
As a consequence of reading this book, I am a much more capable member of the Google Earth community but I can also now boast some knowledge of 3D modeling. That's not too bad for an Earth dummy.
Book Description
This one-of-a-kind resource contains 500 pages of jaw-dropping hacks, mods, and customizations. These include creating mashups with data from other sources such as Flickr, building a space station tracker, hacking Maps with Firefox PiggyBank, and building a complete community site with Maps and Earth. Now you can map out locations, get driving directions, zoom into any point on the globe, display real time traffic, and much more.
Customer Reviews:
Good book - a bit techie.......2006-12-31
good book - it was a touch too technical for me. But I learned a good amount - if you have more computer experience - its a great read
Already out of date, but still worth the read.......2006-11-19
Although I really enjoy this book, it's too bad that it's already out of date (as mentioned in other reviews).
As someone with very little previous experience with JavaScript, I found this book to be really helpful it describing how to make stuff happen. I personally have found the Google Maps API Documentation to be far too terse and difficult to figure out; kinda like reading a dictionary to learn how to write.
This book takes the simplistic Google examples and builds on to them to give you a better idea of how you might actually build an application.
True, "Hacking Google Maps" might not be the best title for the book ("Introduction to Google Maps" might be more appropriate) but it was a very well written and useful book for getting my own Google Maps mash-up going.
Organized, clearly written, but misleading title.......2006-08-31
While I enjoyed the author's clear writing style, and I was pleased to see that the level of detail and explanation given in each chapter is consistent, I did not find the book's content to be particularly valuable.
The book is organized very well, and it reads like a Google Maps tutorial, rather than a hacks book. The flow from chapter to chapter is similar to the Maps API online documentation, which makes following along with Google's documentation a breeze while reading the book.
The first 100 pages were introductory, describing Google Local, the Maps API, ways to store and share information, and so on in very general terms. This puts all users on equal footing, but it seemed odd to see so much basic information in a book about hacking Google Maps.
One thing that shocked me, especially given the approach taken in the first 100 pages, was to see all of the examples written in Perl. If the introductory lessons are needed by anyone, chances are that programming / scripting is new to him/her, and I don't see Perl as the appropriate language to learn at that point.
Version 1 of the API is used throughout the book, but version 2 was released in April 2006. Version 2 is largely backwards compatible, but Google has asked everyone to move to version 2, saying that v1 support can be turned off at any point. This doesn't take away from the value of the lessons, but it does add some overhead. I consulted Google's documentation and adjusted all of the books examples for the api changes as I read.
Another thing that particularly surprised me was the mention of using scraping techniques to extract geocoding data, without mentioning the drawbacks to doing so. Personally, I avoid scraping like the plague. There's no better way to break an app than to scrape its data. Geocoding is part of the v2 api, btw.
To summarize, the book is a clearly laid out introduction to using the Google Maps API, and it is written well, but I wouldn't recommend it to a friend. For an introduction to maps, I would consult Google's much-improved online documentation, and O'Reilly's "Google Maps Hacks" is a better read for what I would consider hacks (also written to api v1).
Faltou profundidade nas infromações.......2006-08-25
Muitas dicas interessante, mas sem profundidade. Livro interessante para iniciantes, mas fraco para quem já conhece os recuros. Faltou também informação sobre o Google Earth.
Limited info on Google Earth.......2006-08-11
If you are primarily interested in Google Earth, use Web based resources. Material on Google Earth is limited and appears to be appended to a book written on Google Maps.
Books:
- Remote Sensing and Image Interpretation, 4th Edition
- Resources of the Earth: Origin, Use, and Environmental Impact (3rd Edition)
- Riemannian Geometry and Geometric Analysis (Universitext)
- Spatial Data Analysis: Theory and Practice
- Statistics: A First Course
- Temperatures Rising
- The Art of Shelling : A Complete Guide to Finding Shells and Other Beach Collectibles at Shelling Locations from Florida to Maine
- The Biblical World: An Illustrated Atlas
- The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography (8th Edition)
- The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
- Sign Babies ASL Flash Cards, Set Three: Animals
- Love and Hydrogen: New and Selected Stories
- Instant Gratification: Ornaments: Fast and Fabulous Projects
- Interlude In Death
- Inferring Phylogenies
- It's Easy Being Green: A Handbook for Earth-Friendly Living
- The Smithsonian Guides to Natural America: The Northern Rockies: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming
- In the Kingdom of Coal: An American Family and the Rock That Changed the World
- High Seas Confederate: The Life and Times of John Newland Maffitt
ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming: Problem - Design - Solution (Programmer to Programmer)
Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Security, Membership, and Role Management (Wrox Professional Guides)
Professional ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX (Programmer to Programmer)
Pro Ajax and the .NET 2.0 Platform (Pro)
ASP.NET 2.0 Instant Results (Programmer to Programmer)
