Rating: 
Summary: Puts theory into practice - but learn ASP elsewhere, first.
Review: An excellent book for those already familiar with ASP and looking for a 'working example', step by step. If you know ASP, you won't have any major problems. However, the spartan code explanations can be annoying at times - a little more detail would have been appreciated.Wouldn't recommend it for learning ASP though, - try Wrox's Beginning ASP 3.0, instead. But, if you're looking to build your first e-commerce site and you know the basics of ASP, give this a try before attempting more advanced books.
Rating: 
Summary: informative but disapointing
Review: An informative book that unfortunately failed to live up to its title. If your new to ASP programming I would personally recommend Sams Teach Yourself Active Server Pages 3.0 which goes into far more detail but also explains key concepts in a clearer manner. The book's cd did not seem to have all the files mentioned in the book which didnt help, and as yet i havnt been able to log into the books supporting website, just getting a VBscript error, which doesnt inspire much confidence!
Rating: 
Summary: Best Book for E-Commerce Intermediate and Advanced
Review: As an experienced ASP Web Developer and Internet consultant for over four years, I am often asked by beginners: "What do I need to learn to get into VB, ASP, SQL, Server-IIS, JavaScript, VB Script, COM, etc....". I usually give the answer to start with a Teach yourself book. These are self paced and call guide you through some of the most simple problems or applications. Sams created a very good book for those Internet startups companies and individuals. You will most definitely find most of your answers like personalization. A key factor in the E-Commerce industry now. On page 280 there was the checkpassword.asp file missing, but Sams has corrected that in a download. Also, I have to admit that the coding used is well-formed, neat & clean, and extensive. I'm sure that the example would bring new content to some seasoned eCommerce expert as well. For newbies you might consider another book such as Beginning ASP 3.0, Beginning ASP Databases. Even though this book is pretty easy to follow, it also assume you have some asp programming knowledge. Overall Great Job and the examples do work!
Rating:
Summary: Very comprehensive on online store scripting
Review: Everything you ever want to know about online store programming with ASP. It might not be a very suitable book for a beginner, but even you are a beginner, you better to buy this book as a reference point then to check out things you don't understand from this book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent ASP do-it-yourself and quick book!
Review: Excellent work. I started with little to no knowledge of ASPand ended up programming my entire site myself,... Not only did the book show step by step the procedures to make account pages, products pages, and the like, but it was also indepth enough for me to piece together my owns site's needs for its commercial, cheap trade process. Excellent guide, and a must for the internet webdesigner!
Rating:
Summary: Good book...great Instructor
Review: Good book...great instructor. I bought this book a while back and since I've gotten so much from it, I figure I'll give it a plug.
If you've programmed in VB and have some ASP experience, then this is great book. A lot of the programming I've done has been within the context of a programming team. So, most of the time, I would work on a specific, limited portion of a program. For me, this book was great in that it guides me through the ENTIRE process of building a website by myself. Through working on the project in the book, I gained a good understanding of how to set up navigation for a website and also little tricks on state maintenance. (Coming fr. mainly a VB and SQL Server background, those were my weak points.) There are other little points that are too numerous to mention here. The style of the writing is clean and easily understandable. The author also gives alternative solutions to a single problem. An example, is the shopping cart. You are shown the implementation of a session cart and a database driven cart, and the pros and cons of each solution is discussed. Anyway, to cut this short, I've built a number of websites all based on the code in here but fleshed out with SQL Server (instead of Access) and broke the implementation up into n-tier by implementing classes and objects. But that really is easy once I got the understanding and foundation of E-Commerce websites fr Stephen Walther's book. I'm just wondering when Stephen is coming out with E-Commerce Programming with ASP.NET ... I'm sure it would be a blockbuster.
(hint hint)
Rating: 
Summary: Most of the Examples dont work !
Review: I am an experienced ASP web developer, an ASP instructor and have done shoppping cart application. Bought this book to get updated on ASP 3.0 and hoping to compare and learn from other's shopping cart design. I am disappointed to find most of the examples do not work. This may not be a fair review as I did not buy this work to learn ASP and so did not read the book from cover to cover. But I do expect the examples to work out of the box! I bought the book yesterday and spent the whole morning today installing most of the shopping cart examples and was very frustrated by it. Just glancing at the shopping cart it seems like a fair design and the book does offer some valuable information.
Rating:
Summary: Very Useful
Review: I found this book extremely useful for beginning e-commerce. If you have no idea where to start when tackling an e-commerce project, I highly recommend this book. The ideas it provides along with the methods are essential for any project. The book covers essentials such as working with files, creating the shopping cart, working with credit cards, security, using wallets, and even how to set up an SSL connection. The information in this book is without a doubt vital for beginners. I have to say that this is not the best ASP e-commerce programming book in the world, but it will teach you the basics in a clear and quick manner. The examples are real world examples and can be implemented in a basic e-commerce site. (Don't expect to re-create amazon.com through this book.) The reason I give 4 stars to this book is that not all the files for the examples are on the CD. Also, the URL that is listed to see the site online does not exist. Other than that, it's a very useful book.
Rating: 
Summary: Leaned towards the intermediate ASP programmer
Review: I found this book pretty hard to work through, however I understand most of the concepts, the reasonings, etc. However it takes it from the point of view of setting up an actual e-commerce site - which might not help students trying to write an e-commerce site for their end-of-year project! (hint, hint!). It is a quite good book, aimed at giving you enough information to digest yet giving you enough code to try out. The author changes style half-way and explains a little, but not nearly half as much as Wrox's Begining ASP 3.0. Some code is required to download as it doesn't appear on the CD. Regardless of the intermediate stance of this book, I feel it will be very useful for ASP programmers wanting to start an E-commerce project, however it may confuse most of its customers. It is better if you have a firm understanding of ASP/VBScript, etc before you start out, otherwise you may find yourself scratching your head. If you want to start out in ASP programming I can merely suggest Wrox's Begining ASP 3.0 as this is more for the beginner than this.
Rating:
Summary: Another excellent SAMS - Easy to understand and implement
Review: I had read the SAMS ASP in 24 hours book which was an excellent start to ASP. This book would have been just as good to start with and it is a lot more in-depth. Of course, the focus is e-commerce and you are taken through building an online store. The examples are easy to follow and the text is well presented and easy to understand (especially for people who hate technical books). If you are looking for an introduction to ASP and have not yet purchased the SAMS 24 hour book, consider this one instead. They do cover a lot of the things that the other book has in it. Towards the back end, they have examples of email forwarding from forms and other bits and pieces that are not directly related to e-commerce, but were the reasons I got the other book. If you are trying to build a full-blown store online, start here. It won't get any easier than this!
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