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Rating: 
Summary: I have yet to go wrong with an O'Reilly book.
Review: O'Reilly needs to have a color of book for those books which fit between Nutshell books, and what I like to call the "learning books" (ie. "Access Database programming and design"). This book would be one of those books. I don't think I could learn DAO from this book. I first realized DAO's potential from reading Steven Roman's Access Database Design & Programming. However, if you realize the capabilities of DAO and are ready to move on to the next level, then this is the book that you need. While the nutshell books are good "ticklers" (you just need to know the syntax), they don't go into a whole lot of depth. This is the book you need when you are thinking "there IS a way to program this, but what is it?". After you have mastered DAO, and just need a "tickler", then you can graduate to DAO in a Nutshell... whenever that comes out. I have used this book many times when I knew that DAO could do the job, but, I needed a little bit more background info than just the syntax.
Rating: 
Summary: Helen fails to REFRESH an old topic
Review: This book does not serve its purpose as a definitive reference. I was able to read it cover to cover in an hour or so while sitting in an airport and found nothing remarkable - the striking part is that the book dismisses objects, methods and properties which the author does not understand or have experience with. REFRESH, for example (which is treated dismissively in the book) must be used in order to refresh a changed collection in a multi-user environment or update a collection in a rapidly changing single-user environment, or the field that you expected to be gone will still appear; or the table that you just built using DAO won't be in the collection. I was disappointed that Oreilly allowed such a book to be published. I had concerns about the author's technical ability before the book was published. Oreilly should have had these same reservations.
Rating:
Summary: Helen fails to REFRESH an old topic
Review: This book does not serve its purpose as a definitive reference. I was able to read it cover to cover in an hour or so while sitting in an airport and found nothing remarkable - the striking part is that the book dismisses objects, methods and properties which the author does not understand or have experience with. REFRESH, for example (which is treated dismissively in the book) must be used in order to refresh a changed collection in a multi-user environment or update a collection in a rapidly changing single-user environment, or the field that you expected to be gone will still appear; or the table that you just built using DAO won't be in the collection. I was disappointed that Oreilly allowed such a book to be published. I had concerns about the author's technical ability before the book was published. Oreilly should have had these same reservations.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent resource and reference book
Review: To say that this book is useful is an understatement. It combines in one compact volume a complete and understandable reference to DAO which now never leaves my side (even a bedside read!). Most of the references are punctuated with code samples written in such a neat way that it makes my own coding look cumbersome and tortuous. The book is worth buying for the code examples alone. Helen's book is enabling me to write succinct, direct code and to expand my knowledge and use of the DAO object
Rating:
Summary: It is a little late for a book on DAO, is it not?
Review: We are certainly at a point where Microsoft would prefer for people to believe the DAO is in fact DOA (dead on arrival). While it is naive to believe every marketing nugget that comes out of Microsoft, a reference book on DAO at this point seems a little late, doesn't it? Sort of like if O'Reilly put out an OS/2 reference book tomorrow. Once you get past the skepticism about the timing, the book itself has some issues. I perused it at the bookstore using my "10 minute rule" (browse the book for ten minutes, refuse to buy it if you find ten mistakes in that time). I will not give the exact count of mistakes I found, but I'll go so far as to say that it failed the test, and failed worse than any book in recent memory. I won't get into specifics since I am not Ms. Feddema's technical editor, but I'll tell you that if you decide to purchase the book, make sure you skip anything related to replication or security. Online help for DAO is far from perfect, but in this case help has fewer mistakes! Moving past what is there that is wrong, there is much that is not covered that one would expect in anything titled a "definitive guide" such as this. None of the sort-of hidden methods that have been documented in places like the Jet Engine programmer's Guide and elsewhere (PrivDBEngine, ISAMStats, etc.) are even mentioned. It does not talk about any high end issues such as thread safety. It does not really discuss security in any usable way (and security is the one thing you will need DAO for if you still use it since ADO/ADOx don't do the job right now!). Transaction processing is not discussed in depth. VBScript is "covered" but since VBScript's best host is ASP, where DAO is not safe to use since it is not thread safe, this discussion is incomplete to say the least (I assume this discussion comes from Ms. Feddema's Outlook experience, but in general ADO is definitely the preferred VBScript data access method). My favorite Jet topic (replication) is "covered" but in an incorrect manner that will keep it from being useful. The book ends up being a mediocre reiteration of basic DAO knowledge, and that is something that is in my opinion at least 30 months too late.
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