Rating: 
Summary: The Joy of Dreamweaver MX is fantastic -- period.
Review: I will not be able to say enough about this book in a single review. Dreamweaver MX is an absolute treasure chest and a developer's dream, but before I bought this book, I had no idea. I have used Dreamweaver for years, but Dreamweaver MX is an altogether different beast. First and foremost, the author has a very engaging writing style. I was not bored or worse yet, overwhelmed by the coverage. Second, he has put together some very cool applications. He walks you through the development and deployment of every application, allowing you to get up and running with Dreamweaver MX in no time. If you know Dreamweaver, you can use this book to take advantage of the new MX functionality. If you don't know Dreamweaver, buy this book, and the author will teach you to build practical web applications. This is a solid 5-stars.
Rating: 
Summary: The Joy of Throwing This Book Away
Review: My review of this book in a word: USELESS! After a long head-banging journey just configuring ColdFusion on my computer I made it as far as page 9 in this book. At this point the author suggests that "if you want to follow along with the rest of this chapter, set up the sample ColdFusion site as described in the (Dreamweaver) Getting Started guide. I bought the book because I was hoping to learn how to use the application so why would I not want to follow along with a book that I just bought? In the intro the author recommends reading the book from start to finish so I am not sure what use skipping the supposed instruction would be. If I can't get the basics how would I be able to understand anything more complicated? A big question I have is that if the "help" files were of any use then why would I need an external learning source like this book anyway? There was not one single tip to navigate any of Macromedia's blither blather that they are trying to pass off as a product guide. After many more head banging hours of wading through Macromedia's poorly written "lessons" (pages and pages of partial explanations and little specific guidance to set up the site) I got the site mostly set up but am still stuck on one aspect of the set up. I have read and re-read everything I could find on the subject, followed every link in the help files, explored FAQs on the author's website and wandered for hours through all of the Macromedia's product forums and have not progressed to any actual learning of how this program works. At least I got a good laugh when out of curiosity I read page ten. It says "if you completed the lessons in the Getting Started guide, you learned how to display database records on the customer comments page". Hahaha. We should be so lucky. It seems that he knew its unlikely that that we would be unable to complete the lessons. Between Macromedia's guides and this book there are so many gaps and assumptions of the new-comer's knowledge I could write my own book about what is missing. What if we were unable to get much from these "lessons"? Maybe we should go out and buy a BOOK! A guide written by a third party to guide new-comers through the mysteries Coldfusion! Oh. I tried that. I really don't understand how this author and his publisher justify charging for a book that just directs the reader to read the same files that we have already paid for when we bought the application without even offering a minimum of assistance for multiple complex problems. This book doesn't deserve the 1 star but 0 was not an option. Sincerely disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: not for Mac users
Review: Not recommended for beginners, this book covers form-based database interaction. The examples cover only ASP and Cold Fusion, however, which was disappointing ...
Rating: 
Summary: PHP? Look elsewhere ...
Review: Not recommended for beginners, this book covers form-based database interaction. The examples cover only ASP and Cold Fusion, however, which was disappointing ...
Rating:
Summary: Great Book - covers some advanced concepts
Review: This book has a wealth of information that will help you along with specific functionality of MX. The author has a support site with all of the files and database examples. I also liked the fact that he presents information regarding SQL Server 2000. To many other authors only focus on MS Access or fail to discuss database fundamentals all together. If you are a beginner with Dreamweaver MX this might not be the only book you will need, but it is one that you will want to have in your personal library.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed with examples that could NOT be followed
Review: This book teaches Dreamweaver MX by using actual examples, by providing step by step instructions and finished code. Unfortunately, there are tools (third party extensions) that are recommended and used in the tutorials but are not available for use. They are either available at additional cost or are just not compatible with this version of Dreamweaver. This leads to nothing but frustration as key concepts cannot be explored. I am referring to concepts such as file uploads and adding records to table (with identity key). I purchased this book to bring me up to speed so that I could implement a project I'm currently working on and due to it's shortcomings I feel inclined to return it as I cannot follow the examples that I really need. In an attempt to be fare I'll continue by saying that the author does state that the book is not for novices and that it's shortcomings can probably be worked around by reviewing the finished code. But that, I think, defeats Dreamweaver Mx's main purpose of providing server side behaviours without (much) coding. Also the code generated by MX is not the easiest thing to make sense of.
Rating: 
Summary: good book but beginners beware
Review: This is a nice book for those of us who are familiar with Dreamweaver and web application development in general. Beginners may have a difficult time. The projects are decent and the code available for download is complete.
Rating:
Summary: good book but beginners beware
Review: This is a nice book for those of us who are familiar with Dreamweaver and web application development in general. Beginners may have a difficult time. The projects are decent and the code available for download is complete.
Rating:
Summary: THE book to get if you want to learn Dreamweaver MX
Review: This is the book that I was waiting for during the UltraDev 4 series, which never materialized. Great examples covering many areas rather than the typical, owner's manual type books that are the norm. This book goes beyond the simple stuff and gets you into the nitty gritty. Grab one of the other 'For Dummmies' type books to show you where things are. Get this one to show you how to actually USE the program effectively. One minor gripe which I share with another reviewer...the mish mash of Cold Fusion and ASP. Would have been nice as two separate books.
Rating:
Summary: Very Disappointing
Review: What a waste. This book is half written. It assumes that the reader, who is a beginner in CF. is somehow going to intuit what to do and how to complete his half-explained examples. This is a waste of money. I spent 12 hours this weekend working through half of the book and am just as confused and lost as I was when I started -- he got me more confused. I was particularly annoyed by references he make to information in chapters that were yet to be covered (e.g. in Chapter 1, he refers to info in Chapter 5) -- talk about adding to confusion -- how could a publisher let him get away with this? Junk like this has just become so standard in computer books - write any ... and people will buy it. Newman, every thought of making salad dressing instead?
| 
