MCSD Visual Basic 6 Distributed Applications Study Guide (Exam 70-175)

Rating:
Summary: Frustrating practice exam
Review: The book itself was not too bad; maybe a little too focused on details. But the test was worse than useless; it had a lot of errors and flaws. All questions reffering to code samples lacks the code, making them impossible to answer. Don't buy this book if you're interested in the test.

Rating:
Summary: insufficient information
Review: The crunch topics-ADO ,etc are not covered in detail. Too verbose, have to go thru a number of pages to understand one concept. Dont go for it

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Summary: Provides the Info you need.
Review: The information in this book helped me. It wasn't a 5 star, as it does have some errors. I gave it a 4 because it has quality information, and I loved the format with it's two minute drills, and exam watches. I gave it a 4, as well, because the errors I found in the book were posted on their errata site. The book isn't perfect, but it does the job for me.

Rating:
Summary: Don't bother
Review: There is no excuse for errors, no matter how small or obvious. Some in here are glaring. For example: how logical design effects performance has to do with issues like distributing application logic to multiple servers, which optimizes scalability but will have a slight negative effect on performance. Logical design has nothing to do with what data types you use for performance optimization. That's a physical design issue! The authors did not understand this. They also do not understand how to make a point without rambling. This book is barely readable compared to the many technical books I've read. I normally don't like to write negative reviews, but this book was very bad in my opinion, and I've been doing VB6 middle tier programming for a couple years. I just took the 70-175 exam and passed by a wide margin. You are much better off spending your money on MCSD Nutshell. It is excellent. Even the MS MCSD training kit was significantly better than Syngress' book.

Rating:
Summary: Don't depend on this book only.
Review: This book gives a pretty good overview of the exam. But it doesn't provide enough details on various softwares the Microsoft will be testing you on. Be sure not to just depend on this book like I had done.

Rating:
Summary: Not good enough!
Review: This book is definitely not recommended to actually learn and absorb the material. Of course, it would have been awfully naive of me to expect to actually learn something from a study guide! However, it did not even perform its stated objective-to cover the material from an "exam cram" viewpoint. I just (narrowly) passed this exam and in my opinion, an "exam cram" book is totally useless for the new track exams. Almost all the questions were practical scenario based questions. I was better served by the Microsoft Mastering CD's and books like GASullivan's "Building Enterprise Solutions" or the Wrox press MTS/MSMQ book etc. In summary, don't waste your money on this or any other study guide - try to actually learn the material by reading other books and practising applications. (Novel concept!)

Rating:
Summary: The best I have seen - ever.
Review: This book is so far removed from the standard cut and paste guides as to make for more than simply a tool to pass the test. This is must read for any developer serious about what it is he is doing. Don't just pass the test, become an expert!

Rating:
Summary: Wow...
Review: This book is so full of mistypings, wrong answers, figures not showing what the author(s) were talking about, and the list goes on and on. This book is just annoying. Stay far away from this book and get something else. It seems like they pushed this book out so fast that they had Tarzan edit the book. They didn't even have time to update the chapter with SQL Server to 7.0, they just talk about 6.5. But yet the 70-176 book by this company was able to get the latest information on SQL 7... What happened?

Rating:
Summary: Pathetic, Worst book I've ever read
Review: This is the *WORST* technical book, no, the worst book I've ever read. It is so poorly put together, with, as the other reviewers mentioned, so many mistakes, etc., that I had to get a different book to feel comfortable with the exam material. This book could barely even be called a cursory overview of the topics you'll find on the exam, with absolutely no discussion or explanation. I'll read you an example... "To use the single-threading model on in-proc servers, select Single Threaded on the project properties box. For out-of-proc components, you must select Thread pool setting and give it 1 thread in the pool." That's it. No more. What in the world do these options mean? What are the implications? In what situation would I want to use one threading model over another? You won't find that info, or much other info of any value, in this book. Thank god I had a background in this stuff. BTW, I passed my test last week. No thanks to this book.

Rating:
Summary: Simply Great
Review: To prepare for the exam, this is realy the best book. I have some experience with other exam-preparation books but these books of Syngress or realy the best. It's to the point and the questions go into the same level of detail like the exam does. I'm not saying it's the best book for learning to develop Distributed Applications, but it surely is the best to prepare for the exam. I passed the exam thanks to this book.