Books

I often get asked about what books to read. This page will attempt to address this issue. Basically, we are talking about books on the subjects of hardware, networking, and Microsoft Access and its programming language. I have done quite a bit of shopping around, and for starters I have to say that the best selection that I have seen yet are on the shelves at PC World.

Hardware

There seems to be lot quite a lot on this, ranging from titles such as "PCs for Dummies" to more sophisticated volumes. Basically, I have yet to see anything from which I could learn something. For absolute beginners I would definitely recommend the series "Building and Maintaining your Own Computer". All of the "For Dummies" series seem to be padded out with garbage. A promising volume was "PC Hardware in a Nutshell", one of the O'Reilly series of books. This unfortunately is more academic than practical. This is a shame, as the O'Reilly series are generally good. I would like to get my hands on a a volume that explains the practicalities of building and setting up LAN and WAN servers, and the mechanics of wide area networking etc. If anyone out there can recommend anything, please email me.

Networking

Here we are talking about local networking. The only volume that I think is worth mentioning is the Microsoft MCSE Networking Essentials Plus. This book is excellent. 2 annoying areas. It is intended as a set of course notes for the MCSE (Microsoft Certified System Engineer), and is therefore written in that style. The other is that it does tend to cover a particular subject, and then later in the book return to that same subject in greater depth. I find this annoying. It is however a very useful book, I tend to regard it as my LAN "bible". LAN yes, unfortunately its coverage of wide area networking is somewhat thin.

Microsoft Access

One of best that I have seen is the Microsoft volume "Building Applications with Microsoft Access 97". This was available on the Office 97 Professional disk in the "valuepack", and as a printed volume with the 97 developer package. If you get a change to grab a copy, go for it. Access 2000 has nothing on the disk, but you get the "Microsoft Office 2000 Visual Basic Programmers Guide". This is quite a tome. Access 2000 has a lot of new stuff in it, the books more about Visual Basic Code than Access development. A rather cheaply priced "must have" is the O'Reilly series "Access Database Design and Programming". This is REALLY good, although I think that its chapter on Access relationships could be somewhat simplified.

Visual Basic (Visual basic for Applications)

Visual Basic is a packaged software product that is a RAD tool. (Rapid Application Development). The Visual Basic we are talking about is actually Visual Basic for Applications or VBA. This is the actual programming "code" of all Microsoft Office applications (except Outlook) and the Visual Basic RAD tool. There are however, many differences in the code used in the RAD tool and the code used in MS Office. I thought that is was necessary to get this out of the way because its a source of a lot of confusion. Three books here worth mentioning. One is another Microsoft book included in the Office 97 Developer package. "Microsoft Office 97 Visual Basic Programmers Guide". Worth mentioning because it was in the developer pack, however its coverage is rather thin. If you don't have it, you haven't missed much. A good volume is "Beginning Access 2000 VBA", however remember that if you are working in 97 a lot of code will require modification. (see my Access 2000/XP page). Another is the O'Reilly series again. (No, I'm not on commission from them!). Their "VB & VBA in a Nutshell" covers hell of a lot in a small volume. It tends to go into the code in some depth, one can even learn more about simple If and Then evaluation methods. Again, some may think a lot of it is academic, however when one is talking basic code, nothing is academic.