Mr. Bunny's Guide to ActiveX [Paperback]

Carlton, III Egremont (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 1998

ActiveX has been around for literally dozens of months, but until now it has remained an inscrutable mystery to all but the most overpaid contract engineers, three Sufi priests, and Don from Nevada. Finally, here is a book that dumbs down the topic so it is understandable even to a piece of shoe leather. Mr. Bunny's Guide to ActiveX begins with the basic building block of all computer software: the pixel. From here it digresses into a classic fantasy adventure story about a cute little talking bunny and a hapless everyman farmer/programmer on an amazing journey to the heart of component-based software. You will actually learn ActiveX by reading out loud to your children at bedtime! Don't miss out on all the fun in today's highly competitive and stressful technology industries. Let Mr. Bunny bring your web pages to life. (You do have a web page, don't you?) The sky will open and everything you ever desired will be showered upon you, so wear a hard hat. I'm tired of writing blurbs. Just buy the book. Praise for Mr. Bunny (intentionally blank)Other Stuff About Mr. Bunny "I slept with this book under my pillow, and now I have a flat spot on my head." -- Some Guy "This is a shockingly subversive book. Carlton Egremont III is a dangerous individual who sows the seeds of fear and confusion about computer technologies. Masquerading as both a technical guru and a children's author, he threatens to undermine the foundations of modern society with his Mr. Bunny books. Cute illustrations, though." -- Some Other Guy "Two thumbs..." -- Two Other Guys 0201485362B04062001

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Surely, our society must have passed some technological milestone in order for component software to merit a comic novella. Mr. Bunny's Guide to ActiveX attempts to enlighten the reader about Microsoft's distributed-computing solution without actually explaining the technology, as more gauche programming books frequently do.

This book is funny! To wit (so to speak), an excerpt:

In Visual Basic, you form windows using forms. A form is a window that you form. At first forms are unformed. You must form your forms using the form designer (formerly the former). In the form former, an unformed form forms a uniform formation....

You get the idea. This book is a hoot and a half. The basic idea is that a smarty-pants bespectacled rabbit and a hick farmer travel around together, having metaphorical experiences that (more or less) help explain how ActiveX works. Hey, Mr. Bunny makes about as much sense as any other approach to COM documentation, and he's a lot less pretentious.

Mr. Bunny's Guide to ActiveX will appeal to people who already have a pretty good grasp of what Microsoft's component architecture is all about--and who have realized it's a complicated morass worth a laugh or two. --David Wall

From the Publisher

From some editor:

First off, this was a fun book to read, work on and publish! It is a new technical book parody that will have you laughing in the first few pages - even if you don't want your boss to know you are reading a lighthearted book. It is aimed at developers with some knowledge of ActiveX or COM, who will appreciate the inside jokes, but the book is also chock-full of smart humor for Java and Linux folks.

Here is what a couple of recognizable folks had to say about Mr. Bunny.

The day I brought Mr. Bunny home, my 16-year-old daughter took one glance inside it and nabbed it for herself to read. I finally pried it away from her two days ago and read it through myself. It's hysterical! You can't afford to ignore anything. I thought it was all over, and then I looked *very* carefully at the Sound Effect definitions in Appendix C ---and had yet another belly laugh. Everyone who cares about good technical writing should read this book---no prior knowledge of ActiveX required. I'll be recommending this to my friends.

--Guy Steele

"Mr. Bunny's Guide to ActiveX" is the most original computer book to come out in the last five years. Whatever prompted Carlton Egremont III to write this book, or Addison Wesley to publish it, or me to review it is beyond me. But this book is destined for cult classic status.

--Roger Sesions

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Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company (July 31, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201485362
• ISBN-13: 978-0201485363
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,163,395 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very funny parody of ActiveX and computer geeks, May 30, 2004

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Mr. Bunny's Guide to ActiveX (Paperback)

First off, if you want to learn about ActiveX, then this is not the book for you. However, if you want to be entertained by a parody of ActiveX, where wordplay, innuendo and absurdity about ActiveX are used to create some very funny jokes, then it is right for you. Mr. Bunny, the smart one with the glasses and pocket protector, and Farmer Jake, the guy in the overalls with the rake, are the main characters in a story about a "quest" for knowledge.
Everything in the book is a joke; there is a very good one about CLSID registry entries, "Contrary to popular belief, the CLSID registry entries, when spelled backwards, do not contain the subliminal message `I worship Satan'." If you have ever had to write and use CLSID registry entries, you know how much devil there is in the details. Points of additional reading contain entries such as:

* New York City Phone Book.
* United States Internal Revenue Code.
* ActiveX For Bunnies.

I found the last especially funny, the parody in relation to the "For Dummies" series and this book is quite good. Even the exercises are jokes; the following are given as end of chapter exercises:

* Optimize the following Visual Basic code: n = 1
* Point
* Click
* Find the missing poodle.

The book is very funny and a welcome change from the relentless detail that appears in some programming books. I recommend it very highly as comic relief.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It was embarrassing!, December 20, 2000

By 

S. Cicoria "..." (Denville, NJ, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mr. Bunny's Guide to ActiveX (Paperback)

I was on a train when I started to read this book. I usually don't laugh out loud, but when I was reading this, I just couldn't help it.

This is definitely one of the funniest "geek" books I've seen (haven't seen too many). My wife doesn't get it!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Miracle Cure, March 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Mr. Bunny's Guide to ActiveX (Paperback)

Before reading this book, I was blind. Upon finishing the last page, I was amazed to find that I could see. Thanks, Bunny, for restoring my sight to me!