Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Unleashed

Rating:
Summary: Takes you half way there--not the whole way
Review: (actual review is 2.5 stars). Even though this book has a lot of pages, the content is pretty shallow and it suffers from an apparent desire to address to many different types of reader, from the developer to the administrator, to the technology decision maker. The result is that the book is weak in two key areas: development and administration. For readers who want reasonable depth in those areas, I suggest finding another source. For readers who want a broad brush, the book is a fine work.

Rating:
Summary: Useless for developers, administrators and users
Review: I do SharePoint administration and development and own the other five SharePoint 2003 books currently on the market. This book is useless from any perspective except perhaps as a doorstop. It just repeats the same content chapter after chapter about the features of SharePoint while offering no insight as to installing, configuring or developing. You would get more insight about SharePoint reading a product brochure or just cruising Microsoft's web site. Avoid this book!

Rating:
Summary: Solid SharePoint reference and design guide
Review: I picked up a copy of SharePoint 2003 Unleashed at TechEd and was happy that I did. It answered many of the questions that I had about the product, and included some good best practice info that I have started to use with our WSS implementation here. Only downside to the book was that it didn't go into much detail on custom programming with SharePoint, but 95% of what I needed was covered. I would definately recommend it if you were looking for a good, solid reference and design guide for a SharePoint project.

Rating:
Summary: Skip the first section and the content is excellent
Review: I was a bit skittish about buying this book based on some of the negative reviews. Having played around with the software but still having alot of questions, I wanted to judge for myself so I picked it up at the bookstore. If you can make it through the first section, which is basically fluff, there is some excellent content in the later parts of the book, particularily in the sections on Office use with SharePoint and SQL maintenance of the databases, which is not covered much at all in the other SharePoint books out today. My guess is that many of the other reviewers may have stopped reading after the first few chapters, and I can't really blame them. I would agree that it is better to skip them and going straight to the good stuff.

Rating:
Summary: Read this instead of the class
Review: I went through the official curriculum for the class and this book surpasses it by far. It explains Sharepoint in simple terms and is step by step on all instructions. Best practices spotlight at the end of each chapter which lends to a huge learning curve. Did you know if you use a teamsite with more than 2Gb you should use the Portal server? Tips like that and other great explanations make setting this server up a breeze. I highly recommend this book and have purchased it for all of my developers working on this project also.

Rating:
Summary: Read this instead of the class
Review: I went through the official curriculum for the class and this book surpasses it by far. It explains Sharepoint in simple terms and is step by step on all instructions. Best practices spotlight at the end of each chapter which lends to a huge learning curve. Did you know if you use a teamsite with more than 2Gb you should use the Portal server? Tips like that and other great explanations make setting this server up a breeze. I highly recommend this book and have purchased it for all of my developers working on this project also.

Rating:
Summary: Not a developer book
Review: I will have to put myself in the same corner as a few of my fellow reviewers, this is not a developer book, by far. It also has a lot of repetition in it. You can explain the different security groups twice, but 5 times seems like a little too much... The fact that web parts and customisations are not covered is like the biggest dissapointment to me, because that is what I am looking for in a book. How to use Sharepoint is something you can learn in the online help.

Rating:
Summary: Errors everwhere
Review: I've purchased both this book and the Resource Kit and tried to use them like lifelines because my company is going ga-ga over SharePoint (and I mostly agree). While this book has a lot going for it--it's well written and has a good teaching point of view, I've found a ton of errors in it that have caused me to lose my confidence in it. I still refer to it as a tutorial, but it's an awful lot of money to pay for a book that I can't trust. My advice is to rely on the Resource Kit as a reference and only buy this book as a teaching guide.

Rating:
Summary: Not a development book, very uncomprehensive
Review: It would be easy to mistake this book as a developer reference, having the book come from SAMS. This is not the case however. As a developer, i was extremley disappointed in the content this book contained. There are no code samples whatsoever, and no discussion of building custom web parts. Moreover, very important information has been completley omissed from the text. Things like customizing the look and feel of the portal by integration with frontpage 2003, and utilizing the complex nature of the single sign on service are not discussed for more than a paragraph, and these are very important points for anyone designing any sharepoint solution. This book can be described as a power user manual and implementation guide at best. If you're looking for a book with a lot of fluff, no examples on how to do things you are going to need to know how to do, some examples on things that are already self-explanatory, then this is a perfect book for you. Basically the information in this book is a poor rewrite of the SPS administrator manual that is on the cd. There is some helpful information in this book on certain topics, but it is not nearly as comprehensive as you would think it should be for its size.

Rating:
Summary: Not a development book, very uncomprehensive
Review: It would be easy to mistake this book as a developer reference, having the book come from SAMS. This is not the case however. As a developer, i was extremley disappointed in the content this book contained. There are no code samples whatsoever, and no discussion of building custom web parts. Moreover, very important information has been completley omissed from the text. Things like customizing the look and feel of the portal by integration with frontpage 2003, and utilizing the complex nature of the single sign on service are not discussed for more than a paragraph, and these are very important points for anyone designing any sharepoint solution. This book can be described as a power user manual and implementation guide at best. If you're looking for a book with a lot of fluff, no examples on how to do things you are going to need to know how to do, some examples on things that are already self-explanatory, then this is a perfect book for you. Basically the information in this book is a poor rewrite of the SPS administrator manual that is on the cd. There is some helpful information in this book on certain topics, but it is not nearly as comprehensive as you would think it should be for its size.