Rating: 
Summary: Focus? Covers lots of VB but has little depth on DCOM
Review: A quick look at the Table of Contents of this book will show you that this book spends lots of time discussing things other than DCOM. If you take out the chapters on Windows Interfaces, ADO, WinSock, the Mom & Pop video store DOM (if you read the book you'll know what I'm talking about), creating ActiveX controls, ASP, IIS applications, ActiveX documents, and the chapter on Microsoft FTP & Web Browser controls there isn't all that much in this book. Obviously, you can skip these chapters but just be aware there is lots of padding in this book to try to make it 680 pages. It's not so much that these chapters exist, but that the chapters on DCOM are all pretty much introductory and never really attack the difficult issues. This book would be better if it dealt more in depth with design issues of creating object models that can best exploit the benefits of a COM/DCOM architecture.Obviously, I felt somewhat cheated by this book because now I feel like I need to go buy another book to learn the tough stuff. On the positive side, this book is easy to read and has clear code examples that make it easy to learn THE BASICS of whatever topic the author is teaching. The best/most helpful chapters in this book were on "Creating ActiveX Controls" and "Implementing an Object Model". Notice, that second chapter is only about "implementing" not designing. If you know a moderate amount about COM & MTS and aren't interested in the fluff chapters, this book can be summarized in a sentence, "DCOM is just COM, distributed." Instead of using the following line of code: set myObject = CreateObject("SomeComponent.SomeClass") you use: set myObject = CreateObject("SomeComponent.SomeClass", "MyServerName") where MyServerName is the name of the server that the DCOM object is registered on. If you store the server name in the registry then you can use a variable for your server name and your COM object can now be run using DCOM.
Rating:
Summary: Focus? Covers lots of VB but has little depth on DCOM
Review: A quick look at the Table of Contents of this book will show you that this book spends lots of time discussing things other than DCOM. If you take out the chapters on Windows Interfaces, ADO, WinSock, the Mom & Pop video store DOM (if you read the book you'll know what I'm talking about), creating ActiveX controls, ASP, IIS applications, ActiveX documents, and the chapter on Microsoft FTP & Web Browser controls there isn't all that much in this book. Obviously, you can skip these chapters but just be aware there is lots of padding in this book to try to make it 680 pages. It's not so much that these chapters exist, but that the chapters on DCOM are all pretty much introductory and never really attack the difficult issues. This book would be better if it dealt more in depth with design issues of creating object models that can best exploit the benefits of a COM/DCOM architecture. Obviously, I felt somewhat cheated by this book because now I feel like I need to go buy another book to learn the tough stuff. On the positive side, this book is easy to read and has clear code examples that make it easy to learn THE BASICS of whatever topic the author is teaching. The best/most helpful chapters in this book were on "Creating ActiveX Controls" and "Implementing an Object Model". Notice, that second chapter is only about "implementing" not designing. If you know a moderate amount about COM & MTS and aren't interested in the fluff chapters, this book can be summarized in a sentence, "DCOM is just COM, distributed." Instead of using the following line of code: set myObject = CreateObject("SomeComponent.SomeClass") you use: set myObject = CreateObject("SomeComponent.SomeClass", "MyServerName") where MyServerName is the name of the server that the DCOM object is registered on. If you store the server name in the registry then you can use a variable for your server name and your COM object can now be run using DCOM.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book for learning VB DCOM implementation!
Review: Clear, complete and concise. Includes all required administration in the distributed environment (screen shots, code, etc.). Highly recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: A Practical Book for Visual Basic Developers!
Review: Everywhere I go I find developers that want to know what multi-tier application development is all about. As far as I know, this is the only book written by a practicing developer and that covers all aspects of multi-tier application development. It's not just about the Internet and Active Server Pages, although there's plenty of that, along with a chapter on building Internet IIS applications. This book is really about building a complete suite of applications centered around a set of stateless, scalable objects deployed server-side under MTS - and doing it right (the only thing worse than a "hack" is a "distributed hack"). In this book, I cover all the tiers of multi-tier application development, including one you may not have heard of - the "client-side persistence layer" (or object model). I also cover advanced presentation layer (user interface) development. There are two complete chapters on MTS, and everything is backed up with examples, including a fully implemented application in both 2 and 3-tier versions - I don't think you'll find any book with more code examples. Plus, errata and FAQ's will be posted on my web site, www.jmalco.com.
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding resource for COM/DCOM development
Review: I cannot say enough about Maloney's unique ability to tutor the "serious VB6 programmer" on the intricate details of developing and distributing COM applications. Maloney's book is both broad in its coverage of the many options developers face as they strive to meet the varying requirements placed on them, and narrow in its focus as it takes the reader step by step through the several processes of development and deployment -- thus, affording the reader an excellent educational resource. This is a must have for all developers looking for solutions using the COM/DCOM architecture.
Rating:
Summary: You will know VB COM after this book
Review: I had read "Beginning VB6 Objects" by Wrox...mistake. Thankfully I was re-programmed by this book on vb com and able to distribute an n-tier app across a large network. Without Jim's book I don't know how it would have happened. There could have been more MTS material since it is a pretty big part of distributing an app, but the MTS chapters in here give you enough to get by.
Rating:
Summary: You will know VB COM after this book
Review: I had read "Beginning VB6 Objects" by Wrox...mistake. Thankfully I was re-programmed by this book on vb com and able to distribute an n-tier app across a large network. Without Jim's book I don't know how it would have happened. There could have been more MTS material since it is a pretty big part of distributing an app, but the MTS chapters in here give you enough to get by.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad...
Review: I was expecting lots of discussion on MTS and DCOM which are the the areas an intermediate VB programmer lacks necessary knowledge. But MTS and DCOM were discussed each in one relatively short chapter. A great majority of the book deals with stuffs that an intermediate VB programmer should have already know about, such as classes, UI design, creation of objects, etc. Also, many pages appear to be a "programmer's reference" in using the example application, explaining quite in detail the usage and purposes of the sample objects as if you have purchased a new software that you will be using in real life (much like when you purchase an ocx with user's manual). Well, if you are planning to setup a video store, this will be a great help. When I started to read the book, I literally can quickly browse the pages that in one night, I reached chapter 11 (DCOM step by step) which is one of the areas I am interested in. While I browsed quickly, I noticed an error in page 41 concerning the CreateObject. If you bought the book, go to this page and go down at the bottom and I'm sure you can figure out yourself what this error is. There can be several errors in the whole book if I just read slowly. However, if you came from VB3 or you are new in object oriented features of VB, this book is a helpful starter. Many VB programmers still codes the VB3 way (e.g., using public variables for passing data between objects and modules) and this book will be a good inspiration on why you should start to change the way you code. As for the included CD, I have not opened it because I am planning to return the book, unless I found a co-worker who is willing to pay half the price for this book.
Rating:
Summary: A first-class book!
Review: If you are an experienced Visual Basic programmer and want to learn how to build and deploy complex enterprise applications, this book is invaluable. A+
Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive
Review: Jim Maloney covers allot of ground and he does it without being cute, like some other authors. It sounds like he's been dealing with students in many seminars. This book is a very good introduction to many important subjects. It's a great place to start learning about VB6.
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