Book review summary: Saved me the one thing I don't have much of

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Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Active Directory Cookbook for Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Robbie Allen
Rating: 5/5

Saved me the one thing I don't have much of - Time

Having ploughed through the mammoth "Windows 2000 Scripting guide" I was inspired to automate just about everything but left without answers to solving the real challenges. After getting tired of wading through Google results, I bought the AD Cookbook and was enlightened. It provided effective explanation and solutions to my Scripting issues in the best format possible - Brief.
It has saved me and several of my colleagues many hours and has earned a place among a few select well-thumbed references that I value.

Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 2000 DTS Step by Step (Step By Step (Microsoft))
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Carl Rabeler
Rating: 3/5

Too many "step by step"

I have gone through half the book.
The good part:Walks you through many areas step-by-step. Repeats steps in other excerises. You will learn a lot.
The bad part:The book doesn't teach you a process from the making of a connection to processing a cube. I need to Extact, Transform, & Load, and then process a cube. The book teaches ETL. Try another book.
TC

Product: Book - Paperback
Title: The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography
Publisher: Anchor
Authors: SIMON SINGH
Rating: 5/5

The code book

This in an excellent book that shows how messages were written, sent and intercepted through different ages, what were the implications of being/not being able to decipher them and what is the latest in security. It is fascinating and you can't put it down. The only thing to be aware of is that for the last third of the book you must at least like computers.

Product: Book - Paperback
Title: C++ in a Nutshell
Publisher: O'Reilly
Authors: Ray Lischner
Rating: 5/5

Perfect reference, doesn't try to teach at all

If you're famililar with the Java "Nutshell" books, they go half-way towards trying to teach you Java, assuming you might know a C-syntax language already, but not Java. This book does not waste space trying; it assumes you know C++, and have a fairly good proficiency with it. It is impossible to sit down with this C++ nutshell book and just read it for the heck of it; I tried, but there is just no casual, conversational language to curl up with and space out. And that is a good thing, because the book doesn't try to do two things at once, and it doesn't waste space on material you will only read once and then wish wasn't there.
Well over half the book contains terse descriptions of classes and functions, organized by header file. The earlier third does have chapters on I/O, chapters on templates, and things like that, but most of the earlier chapters are named things like "Statements", "Declarations", "Expressions", etc. It's the kind of thing you flip open to, skim until you find the few paragraphs you want, and then put down and get back to writing code. It is wonderful; every C++ programmer must have 5 or 6 long-winded books full of professor's lectures and hand-holding examples, Strotroup's being the obvious example, but this one just sits on your desk until you want it, then goes away until you want it again. Saves tons of time!!