11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
"secrets" safe with exchange server 5.5..., January 11, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Exchange Server 5.5 Secrets® (Paperback)
The following text comes from an e-mail to IDG books, publisher of "Exchange Server 5.5 Secrets"--
*To Whom it May Concern:
I feel it imperative to inform you that "Exchange Server 5.5 Secrets" is, far and away, the worst technology book I have EVER wasted money on. Not only do I feel cheated of my hard-earned money, I feel cheated of my time. I spent several hours trying to decipher procedural and installation instructions from obscure fact after history lesson after sidebar after obscure fact after... (well, you get the point)-- hours that I will never be able to get back for myself. I gained nothing tangible from your mighty tome of utter ambiguity and total confusion, for all my index referencing and double-checking and "if...then" pondering. There is absolutely no coherence in any of what is written. It seems as if the authors got together and just kind of threw whatever thoughts they had on the table, left it in a heap and handed it over to the copyists and printers. On a brighter note, at least there weren't very many typos...
One of the things I kept trying to figure out was, "Who is this book written for?" Case in point: In Chapter 20: Internet Mail Service, there's an explanation of SMTP and TCP/IP's roles in internet mail and Exchange specifically. It shows a sample conversation between two hosts. THEN, after going over the command lines, the text goes on to say: "Each computer or host connected to the internet must have a unique 4-bit address. Because remembering xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx would be cumbersome, computers also have special names called domain names..."
Really? You don't say. "Domain names?" If I didn't know what a domain name or a 4-bit addressing scheme was, how on earth would I have been able to understand the command line session that preceded your explanation? You guys should've researched your target a little better. This book is the reason why environmentalists are so up-in-arms at the thought of more wasteful forest cutting.
Rest assured, ladies and gents, your "secrets" are safe with "Exchange Server 5.5..."
-This e-mail will be forwarded on to the readers reviews of amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and any other bookseller that carries your over-priced doorstop.
Assistant Manager, Information Systems Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A complete...., January 12, 2000
This review is from: Exchange Server 5.5 Secrets® (Paperback)
This is not an Exchange 5.5 manual. Most of the book is written for v. 4.0 and 5.0 of Exchange. The authors merely added a few paragraphs about what has been added for version 5.5 but offer no information that any administrator could find useful. Passing this book off as a 5.5 manual is an insult. Save your money.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Nearly useless, April 16, 1999
This review is from: Exchange Server 5.5 Secrets® (Paperback)
Where do I even begin? First off, there was no flow to this book. Sometimes when a book has multiple authors the chapters don't fit together perfectly; in this book the paragraphs seemed slammed together in a random fashion. Secondly, they bounce between high-level overviews and details with nothing in between. Uggh, plus many technical inaccuracies -- very, very disappointing.
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