Rating: 
Summary: Excellent all around resource
Review: I bought this book as a resource to study for the MSCD exams. I am very satisfied with it. It is an invaluable study guide for the exams, and it can teach you a lot about some of the ancillary technologies in Visual Basic. PROS: Excellent self test on the CD. This test can help you prepare for the test as much as the book itself. In depth discussion on ADO CONS: Inconsistancies in the labs, and a presumed development environment. Make sure you load your software as they suggest in the book. Any variations may cause some issues with doing the labs. They tend to presume you've installed things a certain way. TIPS: Take the sample test until you get 100% on it.
Rating: 
Summary: Passed 70-176
Review: This book alone is not enough to pass the exam. I did it using this book and Transcender. First I went through the entire book, did all the exercises, and took notes to use for study. When finished, I did the Transcender simulated exams. I took all of the simulated exams (flunked all the first time through), then went back and studied the answers and why the answer was correct. I passed the real exam the first time. A lot of material is not covered by the book, but the book exposes you to areas of Visual Basic that you don't use in your work environment. As one example, the exam covers Package and Deployment in much more depth than the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good for exam 70-176
Review: If found this book very useful. It's very readable. You should read this book slowly and carefully and supplement it with VB 6.0 Help whenever you are in doubt, if you totaly understand the context. Pefect combination with this book is to take Transcender's test exam.
Rating:
Summary: Very nice for exams (with MSDN)
Review: I used this book and I passsed today. I only needed to supplement with MSDN Online (or VB 6.0 Programmer's Guide). Both are referenced by this book and reader is even advised by the authors as to which points of the book they can seek the further reading. Book is very readable and the Labs are the highest points of the book. Lowest point, however, is the simulated questions. They are far below the standard of the real exam and gives false confidence. It should have been more case-oriented and should cover more trivial sub-topics. An online copy of the book in an accompanying CD would be very good for availability everywhere for mobile readers. Overall, it is adequate for 70-176.
Rating: 
Summary: Preperation for Beginners
Review: I failed the test after reading this book for 1 1/2 months. I believe the book is good for beginner programmers who are learning VB but not so good for passing the MCSD exam.
Rating:
Summary: MCSD Training Kit - Not!
Review: I bought this book to attempt to prepare for the VB certification. It is definately not the way to go. The questions at the end of the chapters are not focused on passing an exam at all. After studying the entire book, I was only able to answer 1/2 the questions on a simulated exam. (And I knew VB before I started)In contrast, I purchased "The Complete JAVA 2 Certification Study Guide" by Roberts, Heller and Ernest and was able to pass the JAVA certification in 2 1/2 months, even though I knew no JAVA when I started. This book is a good book to work through and learn some more Visual Basic. It has good labs, but as far as a preparation for the Certification Exam, you'll need to look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: finding the errata
Review: The link to the errata for this book is http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q228/8/33.ASP . In spite of the errors, I would recommend this book. I am a relatively new programmer who learns more by working thru examples than just by reading. (the API calls stuff is what led me to the above page. It doesn't work as written, and I was getting a real complex about API stuff, :-) )
Rating:
Summary: Not for starters to pass the exam
Review: This book has nice layouts, and good concepts for VB programming. I bought this book mainly for exam purposes. As I'm new to VB but not a freshman to programming since I have more than a year experience in Java. It doesn't help me to prepare for exams. I was very confident when I finish this book, I felt that one try was sufficient for this exam. I'm glad that I took the transcender simulation test before registering for the real one. I failed badly in transcender, got around 500 only. Good luck if you are new to VB.
Rating:
Summary: If you want to take the test, buy this book
Review: Very well written, pricise, to the point, and light. Covers exams objectives, and doesn't go beyond that.
Rating:
Summary: Novice User - Passed 70-176 with this book
Review: To prepare for the 70-176, I used primarily this book and the Courseware from the Microsoft Course that covers most of the topics for 70-176. Between the two, and the little knowledge I have using VB, I passed the test on the first try. I found the labs very helpful as they showed the same concepts from the course that I attended but used MS Access as the datasource instead.
| 
