Rating: 
Summary: Covers all you need to pass the exam!
Review: Broad coverage of everything I found on the exam. Desktop is not asn easy test, and this book refreshed many topics that I hadn't touched for awhile. Well worth the $40.
Rating: 
Summary: Error filled examples but otherwise a decent book.
Review: Except for the COM part, this book is actually quite a good read. I would recommend this book for an intermediate VB programmer or an experienced programmer coming from another language.Why? Well for starters, if you do not have significant programming experience, the error filled examples will stop you COLD! If you had some experience, you'll be able to figure out what the mistakes are, get around them and learn in the process. A pretty good strategy :) Let me try to explain. The chapter on COM had an exercise and an example. The exercise was fine. But the example was so riddled with errors it wasn't funny. For example, the example defined a method in the Inteface IFileIONotify as Private and THEN writes client code to call that private method!!! Also, the method declaration in that Interface is wrong. Nevertheless, coming from a C++/Java background, I still feel somewhat confident this book will get me the certification (hopefully). So.. a pretty decent book, minus the errors in the examples and the confusing chapter on COM.
Rating:
Summary: Good content, a few errors.
Review: Although this book covers all the ground it should (MS Objectives), it does suffer from a few inaccuracies, including questions and examples, although not as bad as some may make you think. This book could have been better edited, if someone actually tried out the questions and examples, they would clearly see that there are some mistakes with a few of them. Another point I'd like to make is that the electronic version of the book is not as accurate as the printed version (was this a beta?). On the other hand they did produce the first VB 6.0 comprehensive exam guide, which helped me get a head start. Despite the few problems this is still a good book, and an errata on the publishers web site would have raised my rating to 4 stars. Since this was the first book out on the subject, I purchased it. I have been fairly satisfied with this book
Rating:
Summary: Have to have prior knowledge of VB to understand this book.
Review: The Bad - CONTENT: If you hadn't been exposed to it before it will be very hard to grasp what they are trying to teach you. Mostly general in nature and at times confusing. (very poor editing) CODE EXAMPLES: Very, very poor. Code examples are either missing statements or they're telling you to place them in the wrong event stubs, which if you had no prior VB knowledge, you would most definitely be lost. ("Why isn't this working?") PRACTICE QUESTIONS: Too easy, riddled with mistakes, as previously stated in the other reviews. The Good - CONTENT: If you have prior VB knowledge the information contained is helpful towards the exam. (After you have weeded out the bad wording). The exam watch bullets definitely helpful. CODE EXAMPLES: No good, but it does help you in coding as you try to figure out THE REAL way to do it. PRACTICE QUESTIONS: No good, need more challenging and better worded questions. The Ugly - Who ever edited this book needs to find a new line of work. So sorry to be so harsh but editing is really very poor.
Rating:
Summary: The book is OK.
Review: I haven't gone through the whole book yet, but it isn't as bad as some of the people are saying. There are a few problems with some of the questions, I think it has to do with editing. Also one of the labs I went through on the ADO Data control had a couple of mistakes, but the material you need for the exam is in there. Having written the beta with only Microsoft courseware it was nice to see a book that can help pass the certification exam. As for the size of the book there is only just over 500 pages you actually need to read. As of now there might be a better choice since sybex now has a book out for this exam
Rating: 
Summary: Well Done!
Review: This book has been an asset in my studying. Lots of challenging practice questions to help one ready themselves for the actual exam. Very comprehensive through and through.
Rating: 
Summary: Was this book edited?!??!
Review: There are too many incorrect answers within the self-tests and it is just way overwinded. Find some other book, I wish I never invested in this book in the first place.
Rating: 
Summary: Oh The Agony
Review: I have been studying this book for the last two weeks and the experience can only be described as PAINFUL. The examples given are mostly incomplete and the explanations are poor at best. The authors have a tendency to repeat themselves several times per paragraph making it very difficult to grasp many of the concepts. I can't help but feel that they do this to pad the pages in attempt to make it seem like a serious VB book. Don't even open the COM chapters, they are so poorly written they defy understanding, (I have already ordered a second book on COM) I can't help but feel that the authors don't actually know VB 6.0 that well.
Rating:
Summary: Don't judge a book by it's size!
Review: I think Amazon should filter on-line reviews. The reader from San Diego, Ca, January 26 is either the author or has some financial interest in the book. Although very large in size, 750+ pages, it was poorly written. The exam questions were ambiguous and sometimes incorrect altogether. In addition, the testing software contains bugs which caused the application to crash periodically. I have not taken the exam yet, so I don't know if some of the book's material will be helpful. I am very disappointed with this purchase. The only saving grace is that I didn't pay full price. Thanks Amazon.
Rating:
Summary: When will publishers learn to quality test these books?
Review: Real problems with the questions. Most were wrong in the first chapter and many were wrong, poorly worded or confusing in the following chapters. The first few chapters cover in great detail the basics of VB. The following chapters cover the newer aspects of VB 6 but in such general terms that it is impossible to have confidence that you have really learned the new concepts. Finally the questions at the end of the advanced chapters ask for answers not even covered in the chapter. I can not recommend this book. but it is the first so what can you do if you want to stay ahead of the certification curve? Are there no publishers that can beta test their books before releasing them? And shame on Microsoft for certifying that "the course contains accurate product information"!!
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