Rating: 
Summary: I feel disappointed with Osborne's exam titles
Review: I bought a few exam books from Osborne for my Oracle and MCAD exams. The oracle one, I have nothing else to say but "incomplete" coverage. Well, I thought it might be the author's issue, so I bought this book for my 305 again. After reading the first half (350 pages), I feel my $ was wasted again. The content is not well organized at all and errors are everywhere (I even doubt the authors speak English well). For code example, forget about it. I have to buy another Wrox book, "Professional Vb .Net (2nd)", to make sure I'm OK with the test objectives. I think Osborne is shooting its feet for publishing this "rush and dirty" books without serious review. For me, this is the last book from them, definitely.
Rating: 
Summary: Better Books Probably Published Now
Review: I purchased this book (a while back) because it was one of the first couple that was available, and as is usually the case with books that are rushed to market, it contains a number of mistakes. Probably one of the worst areas is in the last chapter of the book, concerning URL security. I feel this is a big let down because a lot of test questions concern URL authorization. Maybe at this point, the editor just got tired of reviewing material. A number of mistaken and contradictory statements were made here, that led me to be very confused. Basically, I had to go to the source (MSDN) to figure out that the book was wrong in several places. Maybe they have fixed some of these errors by now. As well, a lot of the "Practice Questions" were vague and not well thought out, and acutally a couple were misprinted entirely. The practice exam that comes with the book's CD is pretty much worthless, buy Transcender or Measure Up instead. This being said, they do cover all the basic study material, and if you are planning on getting everything you need out of your study book, there is a good chance you will fail anyway. However, as stated previously, I would look for some of the more recently published books, as they are probably more accurate than this one.
Rating:
Summary: Better Books Probably Published Now
Review: I purchased this book (a while back) because it was one of the first couple that was available, and as is usually the case with books that are rushed to market, it contains a number of mistakes. Probably one of the worst areas is in the last chapter of the book, concerning URL security. I feel this is a big let down because a lot of test questions concern URL authorization. Maybe at this point, the editor just got tired of reviewing material. A number of mistaken and contradictory statements were made here, that led me to be very confused. Basically, I had to go to the source (MSDN) to figure out that the book was wrong in several places. Maybe they have fixed some of these errors by now. As well, a lot of the "Practice Questions" were vague and not well thought out, and acutally a couple were misprinted entirely. The practice exam that comes with the book's CD is pretty much worthless, buy Transcender or Measure Up instead. This being said, they do cover all the basic study material, and if you are planning on getting everything you need out of your study book, there is a good chance you will fail anyway. However, as stated previously, I would look for some of the more recently published books, as they are probably more accurate than this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Solid Book
Review: I think this book is excellent. Yes, it could have been edited a little better, but I thought the information was presented extremely well and in an interesting way. I have passed the 70-306 exam and think that this book will definately help me pass the 70-305. I have absolutely no regrets in buying or reading this book cover-to-cover. I feel I am learning from every chapter.
Rating:
Summary: Good Solid Book
Review: I think this book is excellent. Yes, it could have been edited a little better, but I thought the information was presented extremely well and in an interesting way. I have passed the 70-306 exam and think that this book will definately help me pass the 70-305. I have absolutely no regrets in buying or reading this book cover-to-cover. I feel I am learning from every chapter.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: The feeling I got when I finished this book was "where was the proof reader during the publishing process?". Maybe I'm being a little hard on the publisher, but this is supposed to be a book designed to prepare the reader for an exam, and as such, should be carefully reviewed for errors. It has the potential to be a sound review given the breadth of topics covered, but the number of typos damage its credibility. I've worked with this technology for almost a year in the working world, and found the misprints annoying at best. I shouldnt have to debug the examples, as didactic as it may be, and I can only imagine how someone with less experience would feel navigating this book. My recommendation: Fire the proof reader, correct the mistakes and publish the errata. Then you'll have a useful text.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: The feeling I got when I finished this book was "where was the proof reader during the publishing process?". Maybe I'm being a little hard on the publisher, but this is supposed to be a book designed to prepare the reader for an exam, and as such, should be carefully reviewed for errors. It has the potential to be a sound review given the breadth of topics covered, but the number of typos damage its credibility. I've worked with this technology for almost a year in the working world, and found the misprints annoying at best. I shouldnt have to debug the examples, as didactic as it may be, and I can only imagine how someone with less experience would feel navigating this book. My recommendation: Fire the proof reader, correct the mistakes and publish the errata. Then you'll have a useful text.
Rating:
Summary: Not checked for accuracy
Review: This book contains a number of errors, both in the text itself, and in the programming examples. The errors are obviously confusing and frustrating, since you're trying to learn the material and prepare for the test - the last thing you want to be doing is trying to figure out the authors' mistakes. The core material *is* covered in the text; it's just that you'll be spending time going back and forth between pages trying to reconcile contradictory statements, or going nuts trying to figure out why step 3 in some exercise doesn't produce what the authors said it would. If you already know ASP.NET and ADO.NET fairly well, you should be able to guess what the authors were shooting for, and this may be a decent exam prep for you. I wouldn't try actually trying to learn from this (i.e., if you're under a tight deadline to learn the material and get certified).
Rating:
Summary: Not checked for accuracy
Review: This book contains a number of errors, both in the text itself, and in the programming examples. The errors are obviously confusing and frustrating, since you're trying to learn the material and prepare for the test - the last thing you want to be doing is trying to figure out the authors' mistakes. The core material *is* covered in the text; it's just that you'll be spending time going back and forth between pages trying to reconcile contradictory statements, or going nuts trying to figure out why step 3 in some exercise doesn't produce what the authors said it would. If you already know ASP.NET and ADO.NET fairly well, you should be able to guess what the authors were shooting for, and this may be a decent exam prep for you. I wouldn't try actually trying to learn from this (i.e., if you're under a tight deadline to learn the material and get certified).
Rating:
Summary: Excellent study guide for 70-305
Review: This book covers all the material you will need to pass the 70-305 exam. In order to follow this book you will need previous knowledge of Visual Basic, it is certainly not for beginners. It is an excellent book for people who want to migrate from VB to VB .Net. It has lot of Exercises that give you hand on experience with code, while going through the chapters.
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