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Rating: 
Summary: It will help you pass the exam
Review: I recently took and passed the exam using the strategy described by Dale Santkuyl i.e. read this book and use Trascender. My Transcender scores were 800 and I passed the exam by 150. The exam is extremely wide ranging and the book at times simply lists items without any detail. However it does cover quite a lot of the exam material. I would not recommend this book for learning web development. I had already passed the following exams before taking this exam 70-100 Architecture; 70-175 VB6 Distributed; 70-176 VB6 Desktop. As part of my preparation for this and other exams I found the following books very useful (1) Jim Byens book on Web DB development (2) a basic book on HTML (3) Mary Kirtland on Designing COM Components (4)Steven Holzner for ADO 5)Howard Hawhee for the VB6 exams. I used Transcender for every exam; it worked for me.
Rating: 
Summary: A good general overview -- but that's it.
Review: I studied this book cover-to-cover in preparation for the 70-152 exam and don't feel it contributed much to my passing the exam. It covers all the relevant areas but tends to avoid detail in most sections. Some sections (like DHTML and scriptlets) are over-emphasized for the weight they carry on the exam. My background in IIS and ASP/VBScript got me about 75% of the way to passing, and the Transcender did the rest. This book might be useful if you're already very comfortable with all the subjects and you want to know exactly what topics are on the exam, but for an exam prep alone, this book is insufficient.
Rating:
Summary: Not sufficient, but really necessary
Review: I think that, in spite of the errors it contains (part of which are reported and corrected in Microsoft's site, included the unexplainable one of the Response.Buffer default), this book is a must reading in order to know the subjects of the exam.
Now, the cons.
I got 923 at my first test in spite of taking it in a foreign language (I'm Italian). However, If I had relied only on this book for taking it, I would have scored 200. The problem is that for some parts it is a very theoric exam. So, the questions are subject to very varied interpretations, and it's not enough to know the subject: you've got to know WHAT THE AUTHORS OF THE EXAM MEANT WHEN THEY PRODUCED IT. And it is only the simulation tests which helped me with this.
That's why most of my exam points are accounted for by the "MeasureUp" online exam simulations. I don't know about Transcender (I visited their site but it seemed a bit more expensive to me), but if you wanna take the Interdev exam, listen to me, go to Measureup. 50% of the questions of the real test were very similiar to those of the simulations, at times only the names of the variables changed! Moreover, the online test simulation suggested me there were subject I should study which absolutely weren't in the book. For instance:
WHERE IN THE BOOK do they say that a stored procedure must have a "CREATE STORED_PROCEDURE @var int AS ............" (this question WAS in the real test).
Or:
WHERE IN THE BOOK do they talk about the "System DSN"? They only speak about File and Machine DSNs! Yet the System DSN WAS in the exam!
And:
WHERE IN THE BOOK IS "CRS" (for multiple deployment) cited? NOWHERE!
So if you wanna take the exam buy the book, but do the online tests too, or you'd better not try at all.
Thanks Riccardo
Rating: 
Summary: Better than people give it credit for
Review: I took 70-152 today with a score of 938 (I'm a very experienced ASP developer with some Interdev knowledge), and I only used two sources for my studying - MeasureUP testing software and this book. Ultimately 70-152 is for developers who have already been developing in HTML, ASP/ADO and Visual Basic (preferably under MTS) for at least a year, and possibly longer. Also, some experience with the Visual Interdev product helps, but there's not a lot of coverage of Interdev either in the book or on the test. But there is a particular reason you have to use THIS book, as opposed to just going on your own knowledge, or using another book - and that is Chapter One. Take a look at the list of what is covered on the test, and you notice that most of it has to do with "Analyzing Business Requirements." It's obviously emphasized in the list of topics, it's also strongly emphasized in the MeasureUp exams, and (though to a lesser extent than I thought) the test itself. If you've already passed both of the VB tests -- review Chapters 5 and 6 (which are all database related, mostly focusing on ADO) but don't study too hard. Skip chapters 7 and 8 -- there should be nothing new here. A warning though, be able to understand COM from the C++ point of view on the test. If you are an experienced ASP developer, you should still give chapters 3 and 4 a read as they deal with topics you probably haven't encountered before or could use review on (scriptlets, PageObject, etc.) Chapters 1,2,9 and 10 are the chapters you should focus on with regards to the test -- unless you aren't an experienced VB/ASP developer, in which case you should look for a different test to take. Unlike some past study guides, most of chapter 1 can't be found in MSDN :( So you need the book. You won't pass without knowing chapter 1 most likely. It seems simple, but it isn't. Be warned, neither this book nor the MeasureUP exams will fully prepare you for the test. It helps if you've dealt with quirks and problems before. Some topics that could have been covered better are Content Replication Server, Index Server, FrontPage (98) Server Extensions, Posting Acceptor (3.0), Site Server Replication capabilities, testing and debugging, and of course deployment and replication. Also give yourself a HTML review, particularly on tags whose function is implied in MS's study outline.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Available
Review: If there were more books available, my rating would probably be a little different. However, I would say that this book was pretty good. I went through the entire book and obtained a pretty good overview of the material that would be on the exam. I believe that it was quite helpful to me and would be to others. I would recommend that you purchase Transcender practice exams (...) along with this purchase as they provide a real good view of what the test will be about. Good Luck!
Rating:
Summary: Best Available
Review: If there were more books available, my rating would probably be a little different. However, I would say that this book was pretty good. I went through the entire book and obtained a pretty good overview of the material that would be on the exam. I believe that it was quite helpful to me and would be to others. I would recommend that you purchase Transcender practice exams (...) along with this purchase as they provide a real good view of what the test will be about. Good Luck!
Rating:
Summary: Study Guide, NOT User Guide!
Review: This book is an excellent study guide for the MCSD exam. I passed the exam easily with this as my only resource. But...(there's always a but), this guide doesn't go into depth on the inner workings of InterDev or teach you how to use it. If you want to lean Visual Interdev 6.0, get a different book. PROS: If you need to study for the MCSD exam, get this book. The MTS section is excellent! The ADO and RDS sections are also very good. The book (and the exam) concentrates on interactive database-driven web site design. CONS: Like all MS Press books, there are several inconsistancies, and the labs have errors. Look at it this way, by figuring out what's wrong with the labs, you actually learn a lot. TIPS: A couple hints, if you're taking the exam, brush up on HTML, HTTP, and web technologies in general. Don't overlook the architecture section of this book! Understand the sections dealing with why to use Client side as opposed to Server side scripting.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good for the Exam Only!!
Review: This book is very helpful when you think of it as a study guide for your exam preparation (70-152), I've already passed the exam with a score 800, I also recommend that u download all the brain dumps available on the internet. But if u want learn ASP I recommend this book : "ASP 3.0 Professional" from Wrox Press
Rating:
Summary: frustrated
Review: This is a hard book to be happy about. On one hand, this is probably the best (possibly the only decent) book available to help with 70-152. On the other hand, coverage of test topics is crippling weak in level of detail. The best to be said about this book is that it does introduce you to most of the test topics, so at least you have of some idea of what topics will be tested. Since detail is weak, you will need to supplement study. Besides this book, I bought the Transcender practice test. Here is what worked for me: First, I read the entire book (skimming areas I felt particularly confident in already). Then I repeated three times (for each of the Transcender simulations): take simulation test, re-read book section for those I got wrong, and, if still unsure, follow Transcender's recommended reading. Transcender does a good job of explaining answers and recommending reading, often from MSDN. Incidentally, I failed all three Transcender simulations by 200 to 100 points, but passed the real exam on the first attempt by 140 points. I should add that I have been doing software development for eleven years and web development for nine months. I spent at least a month preparing for this exam. I found it to be a hard exam because it covers so many topics. So, although I do not think this is a great book, I still recommend it. It will do a good job of orienting you to test materials. In all fairness, many of the topics are complete books onto themselves. So I guess limited detail is to be expected. Unless you are already well versed in Microsoft web development, I do not expect this book alone will make the grade. However, I found this book to be a good resource when used in cooperation with the Transcender simulations.
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