Rating:  Summary: THIS BOOKS ...! Review: I started doing the first few lessons in chapter 1 to get used to the new features of MX. Most of them dont work! Plus I had a whole folder flash files (the files for chapters 1-7) that would not open in Flash. The site for this book ... really bad. Its not made in Flash, which show how much the authors really know, LOL. The files are just thrown in their, leaving you to have to browse through arcane named files that usually dont make sense anyhow. The way the book is written, the authors/flash novices seem to expect you to know what files you need. Its a constant steam of read, download file, read a little more, download a file or two, read a little more, etc. etc. I'm sure its a great book overall, but when I find myself getting frustrated for several hours and still being on the same lesson, I say forget it. I'm taking it back and buying a better book, one that whose authors know how to explain stuff.
Rating:  Summary: The paper in this book is better off as toilet paper! Review: If you are thinking about buying this book, don't. If you have already purcahsed this book, as I have, return it immediately. If it is too late to return it, the unethical thing to do is sell it to someone else, but you know what I would really recommend.The organization of the book looked enticing to me, which is why I bought it. The book covered everything I wanted it to, while providing specific examples for the development environment I was going to use. However... While working through the examples I thought I was either going totally insane, or that I had gone completely stupid. This book is inacurate, inconsistant, and generally flawed to the point where a third grader could do a better job of proofreading it. The reason I bought the book was because the table of contents matched my needs in a comprehensive Flash MX book, as well as a general trust in Sams Publishing materials. This book has really let me down! Had I first read the feedback here -- before buying the book at [a local store] -- besides getting a better deal, I would have saved myself many hours of frustrating toil. From now on the first thing I do when shopping for a book is to come to amazon.com and read customer reviews. Save the Trees! Recycle this Book! Go buy ActionScripting in Flash MX by Philip Kerman. You'll be happy you did!
Rating:  Summary: Excellent! Fast, Friendly, and Complete! Review: If you want to be PRODUCTIVE with FLASH in a MINIMUM amount of time and avoid flipping through multiple reference books, then this is the book to read!! Matt has been able to simplify a very complex technology in an extremely friendly and motivating way. The examples and exercises are so clearly explained and well illustrated, that as you go through the exercises you are able to recall key concepts and "how tos" -- the very first time you create your own Flash application. You won't have to read the book twice! The exercises are presented in a manner that makes learning fast and fun -- It's exciting to see creative, interactive results so quickly! An absolute winner of a book written not just by a great trainer but a great teacher! UNLEASHED will definitely keep your interest, inspire your creativeness and get your productivity on the track fast!
Rating:  Summary: This book deserves 5 stars! Review: Macromedia Flash MX Unleashed by the author, Matthew Pizzi, walks you through integrating Flash with back-end applications created with ColdFusion, with Microsoft Active Server Pages applications, PHP and MySQL. This book concludes with a thoughtful discussion of Flash server integration, which include Active Process Models, implementation issues, serving active content, configuring movies to load network data and many more. Very useful book, highly recommended!
Rating:  Summary: Well written, lots of mistakes however Review: Overall I found this book to be well written and a good source of quick instruction. My major complaint would be that many of the examples have mistakes in them, some of which are significant. For instance, in one sample he tells you to insert a "frame" but he means to say "keyframe". It was a fairly obvious mistake but a newbie who follows the instructions verbatim may be left wondering why the sample doesn't work. I can let a few mistakes go, but the number of mistakes in this book is unacceptable, especially considering the $50 price tag. Still, this seems to be one of the better Flash Mx books out there.
Rating:  Summary: Horible! The Autor recomeds returing it, no lie. Review: The multitude of errors in this book have coused me countless hours of wasted time. I was so frustrated trying to make the most simple action work that I contacted the makers of the book who apologiezed and blamed the technical editors then recomended returning the book and getting Action Scripting in Flash by Philip Kerman. There are several corrections on the website but this represents only a fraction of the errors in the book that range from bad code, files in exercizes misnamed to the wrong images used in examples and that can all be found in one exercize! Do NOT BUY THIS BOOK !!!!!
Rating:  Summary: I can't give this book anymore than 3 stars Review: There is good about this book and there is bad about this book. The good: This book has many examples and explains to the reader how to do lots of different things with flash. Take a look at the contents of the book and you will see that it covers a great deal. The bad: This book is full of mistakes. The editor should be fired for what he did with this book. One or two mistakes in a book is OK BUT this book has an average of 1 mistake per chapter and this is NOT acceptable in a professional book. My advice is: If you can find another Flash MX book that will cover all of the same topics as this one, then get it otherwise buy a USED copy of this book.
Rating:  Summary: Steamy piece of ... pie! Put a minus in front of that star Review: There must not have been a proofreader available in all of the land when they put this hunk of confusing junk together. Top it off with a barely useable companion website and you have one of the lamest excuses for a learning tool I have seen. You may as well just try to learn Flash MX by hitting your keyboard with a baseball bat and except the resulting output with a big stupid smile on your face. Take a match to the money you would spend on this book. You will get more out of it.
Rating:  Summary: Great Learning Tool Review: This book has proved itself as one of the top books in the market. Great examples and great covergae of the application. This books covers all Flash topics and may prove to be the only Flash book you'll ever need. If you need to learn Flash, than you can't go wrong with this book
Rating:  Summary: OK content, bad presentation Review: This book is an OK introduction Flash MX. Specifically, I have to build a game with it, and the one chapter that leads you through constructing a game is very enlightening. However, it is not a very good reference; often points are glossed over entirely, and you only have a vague sense of how to complete your task. Additionally, there are tons (and I mean TONS) of editorial mistakes. Here are some examples: 1.) On Page 765, a paragraph starts mid-sentence. I have no idea what the first half of this paragraph was supposed to say, but it isn't there. 2.) On page 622, the name of the website has not been inserted where it should have been. Instead you see: "". That is laughably poor.Additionally, the web site is not even finished! They don't include the content from chapters 21 onward yet (the link is inactive). That's ridiculous! How much effort does it take to post a .zip file with all the material they've supposedly already written? If I were you, I'd purchase someone else's Flash MX book. I can't recommend one, as I spent [money] on this one, and I don't plan on doing that again.
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