Rating: 
Summary: Great Examples!
Review: I've followed Allison's books on Microsoft Access ever since Version 1.0. Alison, Getz, and Dobson are in my opinion, the 3 top Microsoft Access authors. No one else comes close. I particularly like her excellent VBA presentation / review. Allison reviews Visual Basic by coding specific examples for every concept. As the student steps through code, they really learn to understand what is going on. The clarity of her writing inspires the self-learning to feel they can go on and get it! A great teacher! I'll be using her book for the summer class I'm teaching at U C Irvine Extension - Access - II. And if I get a chance to write a level III class, I'd use her Enterprise book.
Rating:
Summary: Stop here look no further!!!
Review: If you want to learn Access Desktop Programming buy this book.
I have been programming with Access since version 1.1. This is THE BEST Access programming book I've come across. Want to learn Client/Server development buy her other book on Enterprise Development.
Rating: 
Summary: Not to everyone's taste
Review: My particular interest is making Access work against corporate Oracle back-ends. This is not an uncommon approach these days and offers some very interesting opportunities for rapid development and ad-hoc querying. But there are a lot of challenges in getting Access to coexist with an external SQL Database. I have the impression there are a lot of secrets about how Access does its thing. Unfortunately, this book appears to emphasize using Access primarily as a back-end for VB applications employing various Microsoft objects. It goes into quite elaborate detail in this area. But it wasn't what I needed to know about. Alas.
Rating: 
Summary: A Very Good Book Who's Use Is Marred by Small Screen Shots
Review: The author has done a very good job of instructing the reader on VBA programming in Access 2002. Unfortunately, the publisher detracts from her work by using screenshots that often too small to be decipherered.
Rating:
Summary: Good book, but problems with CD
Review: The book itself is very well written, but it is known by all that the only way to really learn about computers is hands-on experience. The book has examples that can be worked through with samples on the CD, but 1) there are numerous ommissions on the CD (i.e. examples mentioned in the book that in fact are not on the CD) 2) several example require Access 2002 developer edition, and most people don't have this installed. I woudl have given the book 5 stars, but took one off for a very sloppy job with the CD. To be fair, this probably is not the author's fault, more a problem with the editor or publisher.
Rating:
Summary: Good for the beginner or experienced Access programmer
Review: This book is a great tool to learn all about developing applications in Access. Not only does it tell what to do, but why to do it, and in what order to do it. The Tips and Notes she adds are terrific. Being a developer herself, she walks you through the steps in designing tables, queries, forms, and reports. Additionally, there are many examples of VBA. Special note is given to developing your project and avoiding possible pitfalls for upsizing to client/server in the future. She starts with the basics and builds to advance concepts.
Rating:
Summary: Great for all
Review: This book is as good as it gets. I had the same book on Access 2000, and loved it. This one is very similar, but covers the new stuff in 2002. I did not read this straight through, but picked out the things I needed for the project I was working on. It was great! Went right into advanced form techniques, and found the section about handling not in list. It was just what I needed. When I couldn't find a piece of info, I emailed Alison directly, and got the response in 2 days! And it answered all my questions! Just a great reference source!
Rating:
Summary: Very good introduction to Access development.
Review: This book provides an extremely good overview of Access development - it will be particularly useful to people who are new to Access or programming in general. It is well written, and provides a lot of examples showing the use of code - making it much easier to grasp the concepts. You should be aware, however, that this book alone will NOT make you a master developer (no single book can). It requires hours and hours and hours of hands-on experience to acquire all the understanding necessary to be a master developer. The book also does not go into sufficient detail in VBA, but rather provides a (very good) introduction. The book deserves 5 stars because it provides such a good framework from which to further your learning.
Rating:
Summary: Very diverse book
Review: This is a fantastic book if you're trying to learn some more tips and tricks to help you solve your problems. Having worked with Access for a couple of years I found piles of well-written useful information to give me new ideas and simplify procedures. It covers the basics very well and clearly explains concepts to the advanced level. The book focuses a lot of energy towards people who are not familiar with Access, to bring them up to speed with basic concepts. This does not replace a language reference manual, so if that's what you're after then try using the help files. I was surprised to find that some more advanced techniques (such as ADOX) were covered in some detail and made easy to understand.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book!
Review: This is a great book; there are dozens of examples and screen shots, and the explanations are concise. From basic to advanced queries/forms/reports techniques, subforms, subreports, dialog boxes, event procedures, error handling, VBA, etc, etc.
Every time a need a technique for my applications at Benedictine Hospital where I work, I always find an example I can adapt with minor changes. This book is a real asset for me.
Alison Balter is an excellent author, and this is an excellent book. My only problem is with the publisher about the size of the screen shots; they are miniatures, you'll need a strong magnifier glass to read the table names, fields, etc.
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