Rating: 
Summary: OH YES
Review: Finally a Flash book that actually teaches you to do something practical. I've waited for this for a long time.
Rating: 
Summary: eye opening for MS developers
Review: For over 20 years I've been a dedicated Microsoft user and for the past 10 I've been developing with microsoft tools. When it comes to the web however, I still find notepad to be best for guis (with the real programming done in DLLs and called by script). Flash had always just seemed an annoyance because I thought it was only for those silly boring intro screens, artsy for arts sake and a waste of the visitors' time. However, with ASP.net using so much javascript on the clientside there was an open door to blending ASP.net and non-ms technologies.
Thing is ASP.net is great, perhaps the best RAD ever, for processing the returns of the dlls but it just isn't the tool for making those important "widget" aspects of guis like dynamic menus and calendars, it's not what it was made for and even the great ASP.Net calendar is really only great when viewed in IE; Flash fills in that void.
With the right IDE (either FlashMX2003 or Swishmax) you can get the RAD for those gui widgets nearly as easily as using Powerpoint and *with this book* you will see that putting those components together with your real code is not only possible but pretty simple.
This book is based on MX2003, not MX2004 so the text references "Normal mode" that is no longer available in MX2004 ... but that's ok because most of the demonstrations use "Expert mode" rather than "Normal", and it's also ok because if you're just getting into Flash you'll find buying MX2003 a lot easier on your wallet at this point in time than the $500+ price of MX2004.
And if price of the tool is really important for you, it's not all that much effort to use the code in the book in SwishMax ($99), but you will have to spend a few days with Swishmax to get a handle on the minor differences and get used to exporting and checking your results in a browser rather than using the swishmax internal player (SwishMax does full ActionScript 1.0 but the IDE player doesn't, that's the only real difference).
If you're coming from a microsoft IDE background, you'll find the codeviews of both FlashMX and Swish IDEs very archaic but it's the code that counts and with this book you'll get the understanding of the code. And you'll get great results.
Rating:
Summary: I love this book
Review: I found this book very useful. It shows how to make the connection between flash and databases. Contrary to a couple of the reviews, I was able to use their example with SQL Server 2000 and ASP.Net. It showed me how to integrate flash easily into my user interface.My only gripe with the book is that it seems they cover to many technologies (ASP, ASP.net, Access, SQL). I can kind of understand why they did that, but I would have like more depth on my technologies.
Rating:
Summary: Useful Techniques
Review: I found this book very useful. It shows how to make the connection between flash and databases. Contrary to a couple of the reviews, I was able to use their example with SQL Server 2000 and ASP.Net. It showed me how to integrate flash easily into my user interface. My only gripe with the book is that it seems they cover to many technologies (ASP, ASP.net, Access, SQL). I can kind of understand why they did that, but I would have like more depth on my technologies.
Rating:
Summary: Useful Book
Review: I learn entirely by reading books. I've never taken a class for anything I do professionally. So I know a good book when I read it. How informative and easy to understand can you get? This book is it. The text is spoken in plain english, easy to read, easy to understand. It's organized in an intelligent fasion. Not only does it make a great read through, but also serves as a reference manual when you've completed the training. The example code that is included FREE with this book, is worth WAY more than the cover price, for sure.
Rating:
Summary: Clear speak and more useful than I imagined a book could be.
Review: I learn entirely by reading books. I've never taken a class for anything I do professionally. So I know a good book when I read it. How informative and easy to understand can you get? This book is it. The text is spoken in plain english, easy to read, easy to understand. It's organized in an intelligent fasion. Not only does it make a great read through, but also serves as a reference manual when you've completed the training. The example code that is included FREE with this book, is worth WAY more than the cover price, for sure.
Rating:
Summary: I love this book
Review: I understood Flash and vb.net, but I never really could grasp how to put the two together. I really like the way this book shows me how. It's easy to understand, but not so remedial that I didn't learn. Awesome examples also.
Great Job.
Rating: 
Summary: Deceiving Title
Review: Not for the beginner, but great for an intermediate to advanced ASP and Flash designer/programmer. Very easy to follow, and easy to modify the existing code to fit your needs. The framework for powerful database driven Flash sites is all here.
Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: Not for the beginner, but great for an intermediate to advanced ASP and Flash designer/programmer. Very easy to follow, and easy to modify the existing code to fit your needs. The framework for powerful database driven Flash sites is all here.
Rating:
Summary: Deceiving Title
Review: The book teaches you to write VB code for .NET and not how you can connect to database using Flash (through web-services, XML, etc.) Total waste of money and the examples focus on Access as a database; very poor knowledge on behalf of the authors. The flash portion is so limited, it took me a lot of time to find out the actionscript code in the entire book. The examples are total junk and not at all useful for commercial development. Whoever gave five stars either know the author personally or have not come across any other worthy book (such as Flash MX Professional 2004 for Server Geeks) which discusses much more on how to access database services than this hopeless book here.
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