Rating: 
Summary: great book!
Review: After being unimpressed with some of the stale CIW material
available, I was pleasantly surprised with the CIW E-Commerce
Bible.The book is well suited to self-study, it treats the material
in depth, and yet weaves in exercises and labs to keep you
interested. The labs give you a reasonably "hands-on" feel
for the material. You're expected to have a Windows 2000
Professional or Windows 98 PC on the net for the labs. The book comes with a Boson practice exam and a CD
with various packages. My only gripe is that the three were
not as well integrated as I would have liked. The practice
exams weren't great, but after taking and passing the CIW
test, I'd have to say they are as good as the real thing.
It's important to learn the CIW exam way of thinking, which does
not necessarily match the real world. The packages on the CD did not match what the book expected.
For example, it's not necessary to have Winzip to unzip the
E-business software on the CD, but the book believes it is.
The Apache source code package on the CD won't install,
but you can download it from apache.org. The errata sheet atThe book did the job for me. After a read-through, the labs,
and the practice exams, I passed with 88%.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not good enough
Review: First of all let me congratulate you for your efforts in becoming an Certified E-Commerce professional, before writting this review I thought about this book a lot, I have to tell you that I read it from cover to cover and here are my thoughts: This book is extremely long, it talks about issues that you will not get on the exam nor they will be applied in real life, the test engine to my surprise had many, many errors, they were questions that will contradict themselves or sometimes you will find 2 correct answers when the test engine was only asking for one, futhermore, some questions had the wrong answer or were asked with insufficient information, bottom line it made it more confusing. It would mixed terms like EDI, SET and SSL.Did I pass? yes, some questions in the test were addressed in the book, I also used online examcrams and free tests. You can pass the test with this book, but I think there room for improvement. Unfortunately, I cannot recommed this book, the most important chapter Security was left almost at the end, the explanation for symmetric and asymmetric encryption were very brief and doesn't explain it in a way you can understand it easily, also one of the key subjects for e-commerce today is security, which the book left for the end (when you are tired and your concentration is not at its peak) this makes it a lot more difficult. I wouldn't rely on the test engine at all, rather I will look for a more subject comprehensive and to-the-point text. I hope this comment might help in your search for an e-commerce text book and good luck!
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not good enough
Review: First of all let me congratulate you for your efforts in becoming an Certified E-Commerce professional, before writting this review I thought about this book a lot, I have to tell you that I read it from cover to cover and here are my thoughts: This book is extremely long, it talks about issues that you will not get on the exam nor they will be applied in real life, the test engine to my surprise had many, many errors, they were questions that will contradict themselves or sometimes you will find 2 correct answers when the test engine was only asking for one, futhermore, some questions had the wrong answer or were asked with insufficient information, bottom line it made it more confusing. It would mixed terms like EDI, SET and SSL. Did I pass? yes, some questions in the test were addressed in the book, I also used online examcrams and free tests. You can pass the test with this book, but I think there room for improvement. Unfortunately, I cannot recommed this book, the most important chapter Security was left almost at the end, the explanation for symmetric and asymmetric encryption were very brief and doesn't explain it in a way you can understand it easily, also one of the key subjects for e-commerce today is security, which the book left for the end (when you are tired and your concentration is not at its peak) this makes it a lot more difficult. I wouldn't rely on the test engine at all, rather I will look for a more subject comprehensive and to-the-point text. I hope this comment might help in your search for an e-commerce text book and good luck!
Rating: 
Summary: Good Beginners Book
Review: Hello! I wanted to share my experience with this book. My goals were to gain a better understand of e-commerce and to use the book as a study guide for passing the CIW exam. If you are looking for a book to give a good overview of e-commerce and some helpful hints and tricks, I highly recommend this book. The book gave a great overview about the development, maintenance, and management of an e-commerce site. After reading the book, I feel prepared to make educated decisions about selecting e-commerce software. The book did a great job with stating and explaining the important concepts. Plus, the book was an easy read. If you are like me, and wanted to save some money and self-study instead of taking a class, I recommended this book; however, it should not solely be your only study guide. I passed the CIW e-commerce test with an 87%. I read the book, highlighted, went over all questions, and took the practice exams ever day for over a month. However, what helped me equally was going to CIW cram sites to get a better feeling for the questions. The book did not cover everything that was on the test and I don't know if I could have passed the test with just reading the book. The book was helpful in pointing out some concepts that would be on the exam by marking sections that were of importance. The exam does not cover vendor specific products, but the book does go into detail on some products. The test questions are helpful and are similar to the exam questions. I am glad that I have this book as a reference and had it as a study guide, but I highly recommend that if you are going to take the CIW exam, study the cram web sites as well as reading the book.
Rating:
Summary: Good Beginners Book
Review: Hello! I wanted to share my experience with this book. My goals were to gain a better understand of e-commerce and to use the book as a study guide for passing the CIW exam. If you are looking for a book to give a good overview of e-commerce and some helpful hints and tricks, I highly recommend this book. The book gave a great overview about the development, maintenance, and management of an e-commerce site. After reading the book, I feel prepared to make educated decisions about selecting e-commerce software. The book did a great job with stating and explaining the important concepts. Plus, the book was an easy read. If you are like me, and wanted to save some money and self-study instead of taking a class, I recommended this book; however, it should not solely be your only study guide. I passed the CIW e-commerce test with an 87%. I read the book, highlighted, went over all questions, and took the practice exams ever day for over a month. However, what helped me equally was going to CIW cram sites to get a better feeling for the questions. The book did not cover everything that was on the test and I don't know if I could have passed the test with just reading the book. The book was helpful in pointing out some concepts that would be on the exam by marking sections that were of importance. The exam does not cover vendor specific products, but the book does go into detail on some products. The test questions are helpful and are similar to the exam questions. I am glad that I have this book as a reference and had it as a study guide, but I highly recommend that if you are going to take the CIW exam, study the cram web sites as well as reading the book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent E-Commerce Resource
Review: I was very happy with the purchase of this book. The content is excellent, and it clearly points out what the important areas are for passing the CIW exam. The only things I did not like was that many topics were redundant throughout the book, and they emphasized a little too much on product-specific information. Otherwise, this book is a great resource for passing the exam and setting up your own e-commerce site.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent E-Commerce Resource
Review: I was very happy with the purchase of this book. The content is excellent, and it clearly points out what the important areas are for passing the CIW exam. The only things I did not like was that many topics were redundant throughout the book, and they emphasized a little too much on product-specific information. Otherwise, this book is a great resource for passing the exam and setting up your own e-commerce site.
Rating:
Summary: Great pre-testing material
Review: Once again the CIW Bibles are worth the price! Everything you need to get you through the test and pass.
Thanks a ton
Rating:
Summary: just barely
Review: Read the book and took the test and passed with a 75%. A very good book however it could been stronger on the topics of SSL vs. SET and I felt it focused a bit to much on different types of software. The book explains that the ciw test is vendor neutral so I thought it could have trimmed some off that area. But still I can't complain to much. I passed.
Rating:
Summary: An example on how self- paced study books should be written
Review: This book delivered me an 84% pass in the exam through self-paced study.
This was the only resource I used other than the Internet. An excellent feature of this book is that it is crammed full of real e-commerce applications that allows you to simulate an online business to get the hang of what online commerce is all about.
You will learn about :
Creating online catalogues
Shopping carts
Shipping scenarios
Payment models These are all essential elements that have to be experienced from the other side to comprehend how a successful online store should be constructed. The exam question-testing engine included in the CD is the best I have come across.
To guarantee maximum success in passing the exam and or comprehending E-commerce principles make sure you follow the authors "How to use this book section". This publication will feature in a prominent position on my bookcase as a comprehensive companion "oracle" to all real world E-Commerce matters for some years to come.
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