Customer Reviews

Alison Balter's Mastering Microsoft Office Access 2003

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As to the reviewer who said that it is the same old material, it sort of follows that it would be the same old material since it is the same old Access. There are certain fundamental topics that must be covered in any comprehensive work on any application, and if that application doesn't change much from rev to rev, then there will be some repeated material. What is important is that as to 2003, this is about as comprehensive as it gets.
If you haven't seen this book before, it is all new to you, and you will find everything from soup to nuts. I have purchased every Alison Balter book on Access from 2000 Desktop/Enterprise, to this current rev, and each volume is invaluable, depending on which rev I am working in.
I would add that this is a great book for beginners since it takes advanced users into the realm of Access development with thorough and easy to understand coverage, and adds value to the skills of intermediate to advanced users in pretty much every topic.
I find myself re-reading these books periodically to go back and pick up little bits that I might have forgotten, and I always find my development skills improve from these re-reads.
This is THE book to have for Access development (and I have MANY Access development books.)

If you're the type of person who's constantly asking your computer-savvy kid for assistance, this is not the book for you. On the other hand, if you are that computer-savvy kid, this book will get you up to speed with Access.

I've been using relational databases for a very long time, but I never really used Access. Sure, I created a few small Access databases for some VB programs. But that's about as far as I ever got with Access. Then I recently wanted to create a database application for my own personal use, and I thought: "why not use Access?"

Well, I quickly found out that not everything in Access is all that obvious to an old database pro. But, Ms. Balter's book helped me to get going. She has a knack for just touching on the essential basics and then covering the more advanced topics in greater detail.

The book is very well organized. It's easy to find what you're looking for. But it's also organized in the sense that, if you think you know something, you can safely skip that chapter without feeling as if you missed something important in the next. And for a book with some 1400 pages, that's pretty important. Especially if your goal is to finish a project and not to read a five pound book.

This text is nothing if not thorough. It covers virtually every aspect of using Microsoft Access 2003 and most of it is done in a clear and thorough manner. It does not only teach the use of the program, it teaches the use of relational databases and some of the theory behind them. Best of all, it teaches good habits which, when adhered to, cut down on problems later on down the line. It is an excellent text.

There are some things it could do better. The book ships with a disk that has plenty of examples of database objects and of VBA programming code. The examples generally make the points they are intended to make, particularly the programming ones, but they could be better. If they were to build upon each other towards the completion of a greater project, I believe some of the points would be better made. Instead, they are generally isolated examples and too much use is made of the venerable old Northwind Trading Company database which ships with access.

This book is meant as an introduction but it is a fairly advanced one. Persons reading it would be well served to have some programming experience in the later chapters although the early chapters should be very accessible for all. After the basics, it goes into more advanced topics such as programming and use as a distributed application.

Previous reviewers mentioned that there is not much new in this book. That's true, BUT that's because Access 2003 is NOT a major upgrade from previous editions, despite what Microsoft wants us to believe.

This is still a great book and the quality of the print and paper is excellent in my copy of the book.

If you use Access 2003 and you don't have Alison's 2002 book, buy this one. You won't be disappointed.

I have read many intermediate to advanced books on Access and this book beats them all. Alison Balter is focused on taking the intermediate Access programer and bringing them to the advanced level. Lots of helpful programming tips, examples and a CD with the code to help you out. Need I say more this is a great book.

I have found Alison Balter's work to be of great benefit and highly helpful in the past. However this book has very little new material compared to Alison Balter's Mastering Access 2002 Desktop Development (With CD-ROM). Besides the title and cover design little else has changed. If you don't have a previous edition in the Mastering Access series this is a good book, if you do have one you will find little new material here.

I bought this book about a year ago when I landed a job at which I am responsible for designing, creating, and administering various Access databases. I have used Access for about 4 years, so I thought that I was ready to tackle any task that was thrown my way - until the company started throwing advanced tasks my way. I immediately went out and bought Alison Balter's book. I scanned through the book for about 2 hours when I first bought it. I bookmarked several pages that I thought could help me out with my Access projects. The next day at work, I started to apply the information in this book immediately. I keep this book by my side at all times! I keep the book in my car to make sure that I never leave it at home by mistake. This isn't a beginner book (the user level on the back says "intermediate-advanced") so it would be good to have some Access knowledge before using this book. This book isn't a "hold your hand" book or a "step-by-step" book. It's a book that will take the knowledge of any intermediate-advanced Access user to the next level. What makes it even better is Alison herself. I was asked to create a report that uses a form to gather the criteria for the report. I was trying to utilize a technique that Alison showed in chapter 10 of the book ("Advanced Report Techniques"), but I didn't have all of the code because my son broke my CD. I e-mailed her and asked her if there was a place where I could download the files. She replied the same day, and sent all of the books CD content to me! I was able to use the chapter 10 files to get the report working properly. Thanks to Alison and her book (which I have used to do several neat and advanced things), I'm being viewed as an Access genius here at work. When/if my company upgrades to Access 2007, I will definitely upgrade to Alison Balter's Mastering Microsoft Office Access 2007. More-than-likely, I'll buy the book the same day! Thanks Alison!

Alison Balter's Mastering Microsoft Office Access 2003 (0672325500, $59.99, 1464 pages, Intermediate Level) focuses upon Master Microsoft Access 11 development from Access insider and expert Alison Balter. Included in this comprehensive instructional are application development and real-world solutions to specific development and programming problems; professional level programming techniques which are consistently backed by concise, no-nonsense explanations of the underlying theories; as well as timely debugging and troubleshooting methods necessary to solving problems quickly and get a stalled development projects back on track.

I am a programmer with extensive 3GL and database experience, and wanted to get to know Access better. The reviews and table of contents showed the book to be thorough, and online browsing proved it a very readable text.

This book seems to be a compilation of her training seminars. So while it is extensive in its coverage, and very readable, after two months I still cannot use it to look up a concept or function in the index and get a solid introduction or clear picture of how to use it.

Organizationally, it is difficult to pick out one topic, such as click events, and get a handle on it. The topics aren't always listed in the - extensive - index. Further, as explained in the book intro, topics are often covered piecemeal, as is relevant to the overall application being built throughout the book.

Last and most disappointing, I did not find enough definitions and explanations to help me understand the terminology specific to Access. Instead I had to jump about the book, reading every snippet on a topic, and piece it together myself.

I like the book but the software bundled with it is ALL for an older version of Access. Its like they had to get this to the publisher and didn't have time to update the 2002 version. Disappointing.