Rating: 
Summary: This book is the ticket!
Review: I have been reading Access books for months now and this one hits the sweet spot that I needed. I consider myself knowledgeable in the basics of Access, but have been wanting to incorporate code to make my databases more user-friendly. I'm a network administrator, not a full-time DBA or programmer. Other books that I have read were either too basic, too theoretical, or too technical for me. This book gives dozens and dozens of practical problems that can be addressed with code along with well-written solutions and sample code that you can import and use in your databases. Thanks for a great resource!
Rating:
Summary: This book delivers what it promises
Review: If you know basic Access and VB programming, it will give you needed solutions to real situations that actually do arise.There's is no need to read it cover to cover. Just see what tips it has to offer from the table of contents. If it's something you need for your project, just go right to that section and start reading. You'll probably find suggestions that you never thought of too that are very useful in actual projects. This is not a book for someone who doesn't know Access or VB at all. However if you know the basics of Access and VB and have gotten a real world project for the first time in Access, this book is a life-saver. A beginner can look like an experienced database programmer when armed with this book as a reference. It gives useful solutions and tells you exactly how to do it and explains in detail how and why it works.
Rating:
Summary: This book delivers what it promises
Review: If you know basic Access and VB programming, it will give you needed solutions to real situations that actually do arise. There's is no need to read it cover to cover. Just see what tips it has to offer from the table of contents. If it's something you need for your project, just go right to that section and start reading. You'll probably find suggestions that you never thought of too that are very useful in actual projects. This is not a book for someone who doesn't know Access or VB at all. However if you know the basics of Access and VB and have gotten a real world project for the first time in Access, this book is a life-saver. A beginner can look like an experienced database programmer when armed with this book as a reference. It gives useful solutions and tells you exactly how to do it and explains in detail how and why it works.
Rating:
Summary: Finally! An Indispensable Guide!
Review: O'Reilly has a series entitled "The Missing Manual" of books. This could rightfully be the "Missing Supplemental Guide" for Access, for this book opens up a lot of the lesser known tricks that are not covered in the standard text but are part of the problems database managers face all the time. Getz, et al take us beyond instruction into actual working code, and explains the idea behind it. The examples are practical - I've put a number of them to work in daily business already. And with the accompanying CD, you can see these functions in action through live database examples. The help in the book is not overly technical so only an Access Guru can follow and replicate it. It's written for people who work with Access and are comfortable with it but want to take things to the next level. The book is organized into thematic chapters so you can delve into what you want or need to know and get the full range. My copy is covered with post-it flags for different examples I want to refer to again and again. It is not often that a book can fill the void in instruction, but Getz and the Access Cookbook had done just that. User friendly, practical, and understandable make this book a permanent resident on the shelf only an arms length away.
Rating:
Summary: Finally! An Indispensable Guide!
Review: O'Reilly has a series entitled "The Missing Manual" of books. This could rightfully be the "Missing Supplemental Guide" for Access, for this book opens up a lot of the lesser known tricks that are not covered in the standard text but are part of the problems database managers face all the time. Getz, et al take us beyond instruction into actual working code, and explains the idea behind it. The examples are practical - I've put a number of them to work in daily business already. And with the accompanying CD, you can see these functions in action through live database examples. The help in the book is not overly technical so only an Access Guru can follow and replicate it. It's written for people who work with Access and are comfortable with it but want to take things to the next level. The book is organized into thematic chapters so you can delve into what you want or need to know and get the full range. My copy is covered with post-it flags for different examples I want to refer to again and again. It is not often that a book can fill the void in instruction, but Getz and the Access Cookbook had done just that. User friendly, practical, and understandable make this book a permanent resident on the shelf only an arms length away.
Rating:
Summary: I'm a ColdFusion guy, so read this review with that in mind:
Review: This book I would recommend for people who use Access as their back end, and need to add some automation to their back end. It deals mostly with using VBA to solve problems, like:
* How to create an input box where you can get some better info than the standard VBA one
* Call Excel functions, and apply them to Access data
* Figure out which users have a shared database open, if you're
doing a blended Access/CF solution
* Managing report printing (see next set of bullets)
I recommend checking out this book under the following circumstances:
* You have internal and external clients hitting your database. In a situation like that, you can have your internal users access the database using a well-designed Access application, which this book will give you some tricks on how to create.
* In the alternative, you want to manage and analyze your data, and create print reports. That's where Access just as a stand-alone application gives a substantial advantage over any Web technology.
For a ColdFusion developer, there are some topics in this book that probably wouldn't do much good:
* Adding Smart Tags functionality to a database - if you're expanding beyond the reach of Microsoft Office, Smart Tags prove to be a nifty proprietary parlor trick
* Using Access' security management tools to manage user rights to database objects. If I run a Windows server, I would use Challenge and Response to create NTFS based permissions on my pages in my application that manage data. Otherwise, I'll use application-based usernames and passwords, same net result.
* Exporting Access data as XML using pre-defined schemas. Not bad, but ColdFusion has far better technology.
Don't get me wrong - those last three bullets are not any disrespect to this well-written, well-organized guide. I'm just looking at, "What topics would interest you if you're a ColdFusion developer?"
If you do want to learn more about Access database development as an art unto itself, this is not the place to begin. This is the place to arrive at.
Rating:
Summary: Access Cookbook - "The Recipe For Success!"
Review: This book rates at the very top of my lenghty list, as the finest Microsoft Access book on the market! The information is well written and easy to understand yet not over-simplified to the point of losing usefulness. I am a year and a half into developing an ACCESS Multi-user Database for Flight Simulations and Management. Access Cookbook was put to use the first day. I implemented the "Mail Program" from chapter 10 and everyone loves it. I also found some solutions that had been very elusive. I can now monitor who is currently logged into my database and then use the "Mail Program" to send them messages in real time. I can NOT say enough good things about this book - if you use Access, you NEED this book! My hats off to the authors! Sincerely,
William A. Dobisky
Rating:
Summary: Definitely a 7 out of 5 stars - great code examples
Review: This is a must have Access/VBA book because it includes code that you will not find elsewhere. I also like the Access 2000 Developer's Handbook, vol 1, and 2. The 2 Wrox books are also great. This book has code examples that just aren't covered in the other books. To be fair, the other books also have code examples that this one doesn't have either. I particularly like their coverage of the API functions that work well with Access. I highly recommend this book. John Dunbar Sugar Land, TX
Rating:
Summary: Forget the negative stuff...this book f*cking rocks
Review: This is one of my all-time favorite Access books (Next to Wrox's Beginning Access VBA). If you want a cool solution to common situations/problems, you can find it in this book. The search textbox for the listbox control code is one of my favorites! There are some really good ideas in here for user interfaces. This book is for folks who have some VBA experience, so it's really not a beginner's book. Get some VBA experience and you'll totally appreciate the value of this book!
Rating:
Summary: Well, it's about damn time!
Review: This is the book that the Access programming community has needed for years! It uses a Problem - Solution - Discussion format instead of the usual academic "let's disect Access's capabilities, throw them at you in little bits, and let you figure out the WHY later" format. Even the table of contents is much more readable and understandable. You know the reason for reading the chapter right from the start, not at the end. Don't get me wrong. I'm not bashing the multitudes of other Access reference type books, it's just that we finally have a book that fills a BIG gap. Once you read this book, you'll have more use for the others. This book and the others complement each other nicely. The format of this book is not exactly new, however. Rob Krumm's programming for dummies books have used this format for years (albeit not as explicitly), which is why I enjoyed them so much and always hoped he would go beyond the beginner level Access programming books. Access Cookbook does exactly that, and in a very refreshing way. Two things about this book were a big surprise to me. 1. Ken Getz wrote it and 2. O'Reilly published it. I couldn't think of 2 better choices! Ken Getz takes his high level expertise and writing style and transforms it into a new book that opens up his experience to a much wider audience. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! And then there's good ole O'Reilly publishing who have always had a talent for presenting a very academic subject to a less academic audience without loss of rigor. "Cookbook" is an ok word for the title I guess, but I think "Storybook" may be more fitting, because I find that when I start a section of a chapter, I just can't put down the book until I see how the section ends. Likewise, when I start reading a Discussion section, I have to read it all before I put the book down and hit the keyboard. I even use this book for bedtime reading! Enjoy!
| 
