Rating: 
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Well structure book with excellent examples. I would recommend any book by Alison Balter...
Rating: 
Summary: Comprehensive but not a real tutorial
Review: What I really want in a tutorial is complete, step by step instructions on how to duplicate the examples in the book. This way I can really understand how to recreate the procedures in my own applications. This book makes the same mistake as so many others in providing great examples, but not giving you a clue how they were made. I gave up by chapter 5 figuring out how to duplicate the examples in the book. By the end of this chapter there were only 3 vague pages on how to create numerous, very complex, queries and forms. You're essentially supposed to look at the examples and figure out what was done to create them. Unfortunately there are 100's of options that go into each form so you can never figure out on your own how to recreate the correct form. Numerous calculation fields had some very nice, very advanced techniques to provide interesting information. But again, you would have to read through later chapters to even start to figure out how these techniques work.I would have to say the content is very advanced and useful, but I would only purchase this book if I was already familiar with Access. I'm not sure if I want to struggle through the rest of this book as a laborious learning experience, or purchase another more methodical one. I'm a software developer with 16 years of programming and database experience, so I am in no way unfamiliar with this subject.
Rating:
Summary: ...And this book is just right.
Review: When I look at my library of manuals, stretching from end to end of several book shelves, I realize how few of them I go back to consistantly. This one is a well dog-eared reference manual, good for the developer who wants to get to the essence of a technique without trying to decipher poorly written phrasing or struggling with an index that is not complete. I hope Alison will be writing the Access 2002 version of this book.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't be happier!
Review: When I started reading this book I was weary that it was just another technical manual but was pleasantly surprised at the readability of it. I couldn't put it down. This is great for beginners as well as advanced Access users
Rating: 
Summary: Good book, but not great
Review: While the author covers lots of ground and in an easy to follow manner, there are some things she just glosses over that are important to understand. That's the one thing that I really found disappointing about this book. She covers ADO and DAO in about 70 pages, but that's not near enough to do them justice. DAO she pretty much declares obsolete and then moves on to ADO when DAO is much easier to use in many ways. Both her coverage and Barker's coverage in Access2000: Power Programming pretty much ignore the fact that DAO even is an option. And when you get to the meat of ADO, they don't explain it in a very clear way or give enough examples for the average joe who's new to either one to really figure out how the stuff works. That part I found extremely frustrating. Also, there is the fact that Barker's book in no way picks up where Balter's leaves off. That's a bit of a disappointment. Would be extremely helpful if he picked up just a little where she left off.
Rating:
Summary: Great introduction to a multitude of topics.
Review: Written for the intermediate developer, this book introduces the reader to a multitude of advanced topics. Since no one book could possibly hold a detailed explanation of every topic associated with Access, this book is essentially an introduction to each of those topics, many of which could comprise a sizable book of their own. The author does a good job covering each subject in sufficient detail to get the reader familiar with the necessary coding techniques. In addition, quite a few tips, tricks, and optimization techniques are presented throughout the book. The individual that will gain the most from this volume is one that has experience using Access, but minimal knowledge of how to develop an application with it. The experienced Access developer will find that although much of the material covered here is not new, there is still a lot of good information to be gleaned from its pages. Although I don't fully agree with the book's stated target audience (intermediate-advanced), the book still deserves five stars because it is well-written, easy to follow, and comprehensive.
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