Customer Reviews

Access 2000: The Complete Reference

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am a technical writer who is also a graphic artist and web designer. I work for a large company in their IT department. Every project I have ever worked on required usually two things: a website and a database of some kind. I taught myself the web stuff and have been doing it for about 3 years. Now I am learning the database stuff. I decided to start with Access after consulting with several hardcore database programmers who recommended it as a good starting place. One of them in particular told me to check out this book. I was not disappointed.

The author starts the book out with a really nice discussion of relational database design. This is key because no matter how well you understand Access the application, if you don't understand how to lay out the tables and establish the relationships, you will be sunk long term. The book then moves into the various functions of Access which is pretty much broken up by the objects in the database. The descriptions and instructions are clear and easy to follow. The last third of the book covers advanced topics like web-enabling your databases and using Visual Basic with it.

I think this book would be of little use to an advanced Access programmer. But beginners and possibly intermediate users will find it invaluable. After just 3 months my book is so dog eared it is sad. I wouldn't trade it for the world. If you are just getting started and are somewhat technical to begin with, I recommend this book to you most definitely.

This is the third or fourth book on Access I have purchased and the book contains (often in chart/table format) more useful detail than I have found in other books for beginner-intermediate Access users. This is my first choice

After perusing the other reviews I reached this conclusion: (which makes sense) everyone has reviewed this book from their own perspective. As will I.

But first what the book isn't:
This book was not designed as an easy reference manual for you SQL and VB gurus out there who can whip out something superior to Microsoft Money in an afternoon. Check out the title The COMPLETE Reference. This book is 1300 pages long. It can be used as a study guide if you are going to take the MOUS.

This book was not designed (though the diligent can try) as an introduction to Access. There is so much information here that you will swamp yourself with details and give up before too long.

This book is:
A great resource for someone who has had one class in Access development, or (like me) two or three years of playing with simple databases (like tracking one checking account, etc.). There is a quick reference in back, which I've had limited success with. However, with a quick flip of the book's index, I can usually find what I am looking for on the first try.

What I feel was being said by the other reviewers (as a whole): This book doesn't fit my knowledge level!
Those who were not familiar enough with Access 2000 would not know where to look in an index. Those who can design Deep Thought (for all you Hitchiker's fans) would look it up but then have to sift through an entire lesson on the topic instead of just being told what to do.

*****Final Thoughts*****
This book fits the majority of Access users who have been using Access for a while, but aren't proficient enough to work as a professional database developer. Reading through two pages isn't a waste of time at this level because you get a well rounded view of the control/command/whatever.

For someone who want to simply learn how to get around Access, this book just MIGHT be appropriate. Complete it is not, certainly for a would-be developer who's trying to work out specific problems. Perhaps the book should have been named "General Referend for Access 2000." That would at least lead the would-be reader in the right direction.

This book was useful as a quick reference for the things that are simple to do, that you may have just forgotten or did not know how to go about doing. But as far as getting to the more intermediate and advanced applications of Access, it left you with little help. The book highlighted many of the MOUS exam objectives that were suppose to be applied in each chapter, but the book lacked enough substantive examples to help the reader truly understand the concepts if they did not already have in-depth knowledge. The book oversimplified some of the more difficult tasks and overkilled the most basic fundamentals that are easily walked through by the wizards. The most annoying part of the book was the reference to other parts of the book for the answers to questions posed by the author. If a topic comes up,(like a how do you do this?) a reader wants to know how to solve the dilemma when the question is posed, not 20 chapters later. The author made too much of an attempt to section the book into defined topics and forgot that this is a relational database we are dealing with and so things should flow more smoothly. This book wasn't enough of a reference and therefore should only be relied upon for simplistic reading.

If you need to do more with Access that build a table and use a wizard to build a form or report, you need this on your shelf. I have finally broken down and had to try to build administrative databases on my own for work and I simply don't know enough to do that. This book is great for me though because I can go as far as I can figure out on my own in Access, get stumped, and turn to this book for the answer. What I am finding really useful is the instruction on how to build an app using Access. Making the Switchboard, what is the difference between a macro and an event procedure, how do you do macros, etc. - that is all covered really well. This book is an immense help to me. It's only weakness - for me, because I already know VB - is that the use of VBA in Access is only one chapter and has a lot of basic stuff about VB like using conditional logic and loops. I really need to know more about how it is integrated. I would like to see a lot more VBA code examples in the sidebars. Still, I have already got a working application with the help of this book in just a few days. Can't argue with that!

I am a little surprised by how well this book is rated by other readers. I have undertaken a lot of study of databases throughout the course of my computer science degree and was after a book that could help me transform my knowledge of the theoretical into a working practical knowledge centred around Access. There is no doubt that the book is very thourough but I find it difficult to really get useful information from it quickly; which is what I had expected from a reference book. I had hoped that my need to learn Access implementation fast would be catered for by this book but I have been unable to make much use of it for anything more than snippets of information. My feeling is that if you are after something that will tell you how to create useful Applications with Access then you'd be better making sure that this book does it before you purchase. Good Luck

I bought this book on the recommendation of a fried and I must say that in most respects he was right. I have used this book for about six months and I have to say that it has served me well all this time. The book is very complete and does a great job at explaining not only the steps to get the task accomplished but also the book would not be well suited for very advanced users or developers. The parts of this book that deal with the VB scripting part of Access could use some more work. Overall a good book for almost any users.

As a complete layman in the subject, I can confirm that this book is a good Guide to learn this application. Unfortunately it teaches little on the Foundations of Database Programming, and many of its examples have to be followed closely along with a Database Starter Manual.
Complete Examples enlighten the reader advancing through each of its features. There is little reference to VBA, for which it cannot be judged.
I gave it four out of five because of its Huge size, that makes reading a bit unconfortable at times. Definitely worth the price.

Every book on programming has a few errors and this one is noexception to that rule. But few books at this price are as complete as this one. All the basics, and quite a few of the advanced concepts are here. Use this for your MOUS. Add to it for Exam 70-097 etc.