Customer Reviews

Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Because this book, for the time being anyway, was essentailly my only option, I bought it. If you have any programming experience what so ever - especially any experience programming ActionScript, you will find this book tedious, repetative and slow moving. It tends to repeat itself every couple of pages and provide no truly useful figures or images, but is chock full of erroneous code and typos. I'm looking forward to replacing this book as soon a a new one on the topic can be found, and I would suggest it ONLY if you truly need some reference material on FlashComm now.

Over the past three years I have been working toward a Master degree in Software engineering. I have read many books introducing me to new languages and software. I really think the authors or publishers of this book should offer people who purchased this book a refund or a voucher for a free copy of a revised edition. This book is full of errors. You will spend most of your time looking at the book's website trying to review their corrections in effort to figure out how to complete the examples in the book.
NewRider Press ="Buyer Beware"

I totally agree with other people's comment about the typos, errors, rush and skip-offs in the book. these are all true.

btw, if you have to buy this book (why torture yourself ?) , at least wait until all the demo files (especially chatper 16) appear on the website, and let the erratas grow a bit longer, so you can skip all the head aches we had all been through. thanks kevin, nice job. you grow me a lot, really.

oh yeah, also all the never-returned emails. all possible buyers can try this first, see if you ever get *any* reply.

I bought this book, because one of the chapter authors told me that the type of application I was trying to build was covered extensively in the book. What a mistake. This book is confusing, full of mistakes and the exercises have errors in them, leading to a very frustrating learning experience if you aren't already a Flash MX guru. Do yourself a favor and pass on it.

I *was* excited to get this book - it is one of the first books out on the subject. After using Flash for years, and using MX almost exclusively since its release, I was anticipating jumping into Flash Communication Server once a book came out on the subject. I was looking forward to see something "real world" beyond the documentation. But surprise, surprise. This book gives you very little more than what is already free when you get the software. And get this - the documentation has fewer errors than this book has! Now that's bad.

This book is apparently written by one of the foremost members of the Flash community (or so he calls himself in the book). So I was looking forward to some expert advice on the subject - but honstly, I couldn't find it anywhere in this title. This book is so full of errors -- there is sometimes even several errors on the very same page! Some irritating things like semi-colons after include statements. Code that causes whole examples not to work properly. Nothing to be found in the errata area to clear things up. Cannot seem to get a reply from the author to find out. And more "poor form" all around to shake a stick at.

I'd like to see something that goes beyond what's free, teaches you some (good) code, uses good form, and gives you some real world "oomph" and relevant. This book does none of the above, and I do not recommend it at all. Not only that, but it is a small book, and in around the most expensive out there.

Initially I was excited to read this book. It is the first to appear on this new topic. The author has done a good job of presenting the information in a well organized and accessible format. Unfortunately, the text and code samples in every chapter are so riddled with errors that they are unusable in their printed form. The reader must approach every exercise with suspicion. Don't worry if you can't reproduce the expected results at first. It is not your fault. The question is: did you buy this book to practice your code editing skills or to learn from a trusted expert? If it is the latter, then this book is not for you. In my opinion, when an author writes a technical book he enters into an unspoken agreement with you, his readers, to write the best and most accurate book he can in exchange for a great deal of your time and money. I accept that some mistakes are inevitable in a highly technical book like this. But when the author knows about the book's many flaws, and I know he does, he has an ethical obligation to post corrections on his web site as soon as he becomes aware of them, regardless of the embarrassment it may cause him. Not to do so makes him the moral equivalent of a snake oil salesman and a coward. Too bad that a lack of integrity should destroy an otherwise worthy effort.

Don't believe the 5-star hype above about this book. I bought this book since it was the *only* source on flashcom and unfortunatly it currently still is. The code and examples presented are very rocky, full of errors and difficult to understand. I just about gotten half way through the book and I am utterly disgusted. Even though it may fill in a few blanks about flashcom, the fustration, confusion and frankly the price of the book is just not worth it.

I feel foolish as I figured since I am a 7 year veteran of Flash and have extensive programming experience that I could hack through this book even though it had poor reviews. I thought perhaps it may be of some value to my study of flashcom. Boy was I wrong, its not even a decent reference.

Don't support incompetent authors/publishers by shelling out your money for this one.

This book was pathetic. Better detailed and more precise documentation came with the communication server software. The "excercises" in the book were almost identical to the sample applications provided with the software. Some areas of the book will lead a reader to confusion, example, page 341, section 9., the author indicates the reader should use "gotoAndStop," but his code immediately below reads "gotoAndPlay." ??? Another would be page 181, Figure 10.9 where the author indicates the example will require a 30 frame movie, but oddly enough figure 10.9 of his example movie contains 32 frames.??? So, which is correct? Lastly, ALL examples and code mentioned in the book, preface page xxix, as being on some site ARE NOT available as promised. Omissions and errors in a book about a product you are trying to learn is not the way to go, you will get lost. Save your cash and work with the documentation and examples provided with the software, not this pathetic piece. Happy Serving!
Gave the book 1 star b/c I bought it from Amazon.com, allowing me to warn others of a bad deal.

I had high hopes for this book especially since Jeremy Allaire wrote the foreword. What I discovered was that I had just bought a book that is FULL of errors. I was unable to get ANY sample application to work that required actionscripting. For days I couldn't figure out what was going on until I realized that the examples are simply poorly written.

Some chapters, like Chapter 9 on creating a presentation application are completely wrong. Kevin Towes wasn't able to even spellcheck his code so you find references such as - root.mymovieclip - or rtmp:\\localhost.

The companion website is just as frustrating. It's difficult to figure out how to dowload sample scripts and when you do the folder structure just doesn't make sense. Even after downloading the completely rewritten version on the app in Chapter 9 it wasn't working.

You will also notice that the book references version 1.0 and NOT 1.5 of FlashComm Server. The changes are minimal but some components have changed since then. The only way you find out is by trial and error.

Since it's mostly error I want my money back. Don't waste yours. It's not worth it.

...for the time being that is. This book is okay to get you started but it does lead to other questions that the book doesn't get into. I found the books web site sample applications weren't all working which was frustrating to say the least. As far as getting started, you probably could do just as well with the on line tutorials at the Macromedia web site. I did find the step by step instructions on setting up the server very helpful and much more complete than the documentation that shipped with the FCS software. In that sense it made the book worth the price yet I am waiting for better books to arrive. I would agree with others that this book was rushed to publication but at least its available. FCS is supported with Director MX but I guess this is so new the book didn't get into it.