Rating: 
Summary: Excellent USB
Review: This book is excellent. If you want to start USB desing hardware and software you can use this book with pleasure. It contains a CD with a lot useful software.
Rating: 
Summary: Not like the unstable networking products of linksys
Review: This book is full of useful information. If you want to know the truth and details of USB and even perform your own implementation, this book will fulfill those desires. I enjoy this book and am half way through. Another two weeks i will be in USB Capability bliss. You will eventually know all you need to do whatever you dream with USB.Hope this was helpful.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible reference/programmers/developers guide
Review: This book is highly recommended for individuals who wish to actually
engineer a USB device, and then interact with the device on a hardware
or firmware level (keywords: hardware and firmware).... As a
developer looking to write a device driver for a commercial USB
device, I found this book absolutely worthless....
Rating:
Summary: Horrible reference/programmers/developers guide
Review: This book is highly recommended for individuals who wish to actuallyengineer a USB device, and then interact with the device on a hardwareor firmware level (keywords: hardware and firmware)....As adeveloper looking to write a device driver for a commercial USBdevice, I found this book absolutely worthless....
Rating: 
Summary: Good Overview for Managers - Poor Programming Detail
Review: This book starts out with a very good overview of the USB system. It then does a reasonable job giving one introductory programming example using the Anchor Chips EZ-USB chip. The rest of the book, however, seems to be a management level overview of all the things USB could/would do. But these are all high level examples with mostly pictures and block diagrams, and have little to no techincal details. Some of these refer to source code on the CD, at best, but there is no desciption of how to actually interface to any of the complicated devices. A detailed example of each of the USB communication methods (simple I/O, bulk port, isochronous port, ...) would have been better. It also needed better descriptions of all intervening OS software that is "magically" used to avoid writing new device drivers. Overall, it is a good overview for anyone that is new to USB, and has lots of high level ideas for a manager designing a new USB product, but very little detail for the software developer trying to develop a USB product.
Rating:
Summary: If you're looking for "hands-on" knowledge, forget this one
Review: This book was organized well, and it does a good job explaining many of the theoretical details of the Universal Serial Bus. It looks as if it were written to sell the reader on the virtues of the USB and the many reasons why he or she should buy more peripherals to connect to the computer through this interface. I was disappointed, however, because I was looking for some "hands-on" examples of how to implement some practical, functioning peripheral. The book includes a CD ROM in the back, but there wasn't any executable code there to allow a user to send data to a USB peripheral. There are a lot of directories full of Acrobat .pdf files and photos about non-USB subjects, and some empty directories, also. All in all, I'm sorry I bought it!
Rating:
Summary: Great examples for USB design
Review: USB Design by Example is an excellent approach to using USB - designs by example. I have tried several of the examples in both VB and VC++, and both are superb. On the embedded side, the explanations are both thorough and understandable.
I had a question about one of the example programs, so I emailed John, expecting an auto-response or hearing back in a week or so. He responded in ten minutes with the solution.
This is for a novice as well as an intermediate user of USB.
Rating:
Summary: Good presentation, but Windows-centric
Review: USB got off to a slow start but now provides device developers with a solid, stable, and pervasive connection strategy. Hyde's USB design by Example explains the technology and fulfills the promise in the title as a "practical guide."
Hyde is careful to stick to the assumptions stated early in the book. "I assume you have some fundamental electronic and programming skills, but I don't expect these to be your major field." Standard diagrams for signals and schematics every hardware engineer would recognize are presented throughout the book with an accompanying crisp and concise explanation for the non-hardware folks. I thought the level of technical explanation was "just right."
Included with the book is a CD ROM with PDF versions of all the relevant specifications, development tools, schematics, and other resources mentioned in the text. Hyde does much more than simply reword or restate these specifications. Instead, he describes chips, boards, and devices commercially available that would help jump-start your USB project.
The book is published by Intel University Press so there is a distinct "WinTel" bent to the work. Macintosh, the first major computer line to support USB, is barely mentioned and no software, examples, or descriptions discuss Apple's platform. Given one of the appeals for USB is its ability to work cross-platform, failure to have LINUX and MacOS examples at the same level as those given to Windows is a significant missed opportunity for the book.
Still, I highly recommend this guide for anyone interested in USB or interested in building devices for this new bus.
Rating:
Summary: it doesn't tell you all you need to know
Review: You couldn't follow the examples in the book to get the projects working. If you have experience with USB already, this maybe good to expand your knowledge.
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