Web Applications With Microsoft Visual Interdev 6.0 MCSD Training Kit

The book is structured as a self-paced course that uses formal lessons and exercises to illustrate all concepts. A companion CD-ROM includes all of the media and pages you'll need to build the core sample application--the Chateau St. Mark Hotel site. Brief videos give the reader quick overviews of exercises before they dive in, and separate Solution and Partial folders contain complete and "in progress" file sets, respectively.

This is a fast-paced book with brief overviews of each new feature and minimal line-by-line explanation during the exercises. The numbered exercise instructions precisely guide the reader through the construction of new pages and scripts, but it's really up to the student to dive into the code and become intimately familiar. One nice convention of this Microsoft Press series is a table in the front that lists the various skills necessary for completing the targeted exam and pointers to related exercises in the book. If the MCSD applicant draws a blank on RDS right before the examination, for example, this table will point him or her to the right section for cramming.

While this book sports the look and feel of a textbook, a reader who diligently follows the lessons will finish the guide with a solid understanding of Web development the Microsoft way. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered: Web development process, Dynamic HTML, Document Object Model (DOM), Active Server Pages, COM components, ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), Remote Data Service (RDS), Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS), Security issues, mail service integration, FrontPage Search Bot and Index Server, and multimedia integration.