Rating: 
Summary: Excellent way to teach all of the api's at once
Review: Another Appleman must have! Definitely 5 stars. And to be honest I think the person who complained about how few api's were covered misses the point of this book. It's like the old proverb about "teaching a man to fish rather than giving him a fish". This book helps you understand how api's work - that way you can use any of them by simply looking at the signatures.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Companion
Review: As a VB programmer you should have at least 2 books on yourshelf: Dan Appleman's Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to the Win32 APIand this one. The former teaches by showing - serving as a reference book when you are trying enhance the functionality of your VB application. The latter teaches by doing - allowing your mind to actively grasp the concepts behind API calls, structures, and pointers, instead of mindlessly hacking through APIs, tossing in variables, hoping for success. The puzzles in this book allow you to learn from your mistakes. Mr. Appleman explains his own logic as he works through the problem. For me, this is more valuable than just being told the answer as many books in this genre do. This book is vital to help train a VB programmer to become a designer, rather than a developer. It helps you understand the importance of visualizing the solution to the problem before writing a single line of code. In sports they say that you need to visualize the goal before you actually play the game. I think the same goes for coding. This book is the ideal companion for that exercise. If you are a technical team lead, go ahead and assign these puzzles to your developers so that they can not only hone their skills, but also sharpen their minds. In addition, Mr. Appleman's writing style of light bantering and humor is a nice relief from the dry technical-journalistic writing of other Visual Basic authors. ...this book is not a cookbook...it can be better thought of as Ingredient Book. By understanding the fundamental ingredients towards cooking up a VB/WinAPI program, it helps you become a better chef. You need to understand what goes into a creation before you can anticipate what comes out. ...this book is not meant to serve as a comprehensive reference guide to the API. For that try Mr. Appleman's API book or Bock's Visual Basic 6 Win32 API Tutorial.. END
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Companion
Review: As a VB programmer you should have at least 2 books on yourshelf: Dan Appleman's Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to the Win32 APIand this one. The former teaches by showing - serving as a reference book when you are trying enhance the functionality of your VB application. The latter teaches by doing - allowing your mind to actively grasp the concepts behind API calls, structures, and pointers, instead of mindlessly hacking through APIs, tossing in variables, hoping for success. The puzzles in this book allow you to learn from your mistakes. Mr. Appleman explains his own logic as he works through the problem. For me, this is more valuable than just being told the answer as many books in this genre do. This book is vital to help train a VB programmer to become a designer, rather than a developer. It helps you understand the importance of visualizing the solution to the problem before writing a single line of code. In sports they say that you need to visualize the goal before you actually play the game. I think the same goes for coding. This book is the ideal companion for that exercise. If you are a technical team lead, go ahead and assign these puzzles to your developers so that they can not only hone their skills, but also sharpen their minds. In addition, Mr. Appleman's writing style of light bantering and humor is a nice relief from the dry technical-journalistic writing of other Visual Basic authors. ...this book is not a cookbook...it can be better thought of as Ingredient Book. By understanding the fundamental ingredients towards cooking up a VB/WinAPI program, it helps you become a better chef. You need to understand what goes into a creation before you can anticipate what comes out. ...this book is not meant to serve as a comprehensive reference guide to the API. For that try Mr. Appleman's API book or Bock's Visual Basic 6 Win32 API Tutorial.. END
Rating:
Summary: A great book by a great man.
Review: Dan Applemans style is hard yet solvable. Being a friend of his i read a lot of his other books. All of those are good
Rating: 
Summary: Unclear on the concept
Review: Despite what has to be just about the longest and worst title of any book I've seen, the Puzzle book packs some worthwhile content between its covers. The puzzles themselves were only of limited scope and interest, but the second half of the book - the tutorials - are worth the price of admission. Anyone who wants to go beyond the basics of the Win32 API and utilize exported DLL functions will appreciate the sections on DLL calling conventions, C++ header conversion, and passing structures/UDT's as parameters. If you don't own a copy of Dan's Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to the Win32 API, buy that book first. It's an absolute essential for your library. However, the Puzzle book makes a nice addition as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Different, but worthwhile
Review: Despite what has to be just about the longest and worst title of any book I've seen, the Puzzle book packs some worthwhile content between its covers. The puzzles themselves were only of limited scope and interest, but the second half of the book - the tutorials - are worth the price of admission. Anyone who wants to go beyond the basics of the Win32 API and utilize exported DLL functions will appreciate the sections on DLL calling conventions, C++ header conversion, and passing structures/UDT's as parameters. If you don't own a copy of Dan's Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to the Win32 API, buy that book first. It's an absolute essential for your library. However, the Puzzle book makes a nice addition as well.
Rating:
Summary: Limited in APIs included - Not worth the money
Review: I was very disappointed in the small scope of the book. Very few APIs were included. Of course, the ones I needed were not in the book. For me, a total waste of money. Might be OK for someone wanting help with very simple APIs.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book!
Review: If you use API's, or want to use API's, then I suggest getting this book. There are so many API calls out there, that no book contains them all. This book helps you solve the API so you can use them in your applications. Definately a "must have" for any programmer out there worth his salt.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book!
Review: If you use API's, or want to use API's, then I suggest getting this book. There are so many API calls out there, that no book contains them all. This book helps you solve the API so you can use them in your applications. Definately a "must have" for any programmer out there worth his salt.
Rating: 
Summary: Exciting new title from Dan Appleman and APress
Review: Intended as a companion volume to "Dan Appleman's Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to the Win32 API," this new title offers a fresh approach to programming with Win32 API and Visual Basic. Thirty-two puzzles allow programmers to gain hands-on experience. Eleven in-depth tutorials cover every aspect of declaring and calling Win32 API functions from Visual Basic. Challenging and fun, this title is destined to become a classic among Visual Basic programmers. If you have read and found the Appleman's programmer's guide useful - you should buy this book. Accompanying CD-ROM contains: -Sample code for all puzzles,solutions, and tutorials -Visual Basic 6.0 and 5.0 compatible source code -An API function database and search utility that makes it easy to find and insert function, type, and constant declarations into your VB application -A 30 minute video presentation by the author -Fully functional demonstration programs from Desaware: Desaware's Spy Works, Version Stamper, Gallimaufry and StorageTools
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