Customer Reviews

Microsoft Access 2000 Bible

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I think the title of the book is a bit of a misnomer. When I think of the 'Bible' I think of something that is a very comprehensive and authoritative reference. This book is NOT that. It introduces you to the BASICS of Access and never really does the advanced subjects justice. The book won't actually make a very good reference because of the style it is written in. I was looking for a book that covered intermediate to advanced material and this book is more of a basic to intermediate book. Roger Jennings' book "Special Edition Using Access 2000" is the better book for the intermediate to advanced user.

This practical volume provides a thorough coverage of Access 2000's features, explaining each function in detail, providing a well-rounded knowledge base for the learner. It is written with the beginner and experienced user in mind, covering everything from the basics to the more advanced topics.

It is a training manual and reference book combined, with chapters designed so they can be studied in any order, though working sequentially would be the ideal way to go. The material and specific tasks covered in previous chapters are reviewed for consolidation, and even finding a specific topic is made easy through its exhaustive index.

However, if you are in a hurry to delve into the secrets of Access 2000, there is a detachable quick start hands-on guide at the beginning of the book, from which you can learn the basics and acquire a general overview of Access' features in a short time. It also contains various keyboard shortcuts. The accompanying CD contains the book in electronic form, the files used throughout the manual, and several other useful programmes.

I previously bought the Access 2.0 Bible and thought it was excellent. I hesitated to buy this book thinking it might be the same but what I found was the same outstanding writing and detailed explanations of database design, queries, and events. I already knew how to use Access and simply skipped the real basics. Alot of new advanced material has been added to cover all of the new features of Access 2000. I use this book in my classes to teach new users who never saw databases. It is written in a wonderful tutorial style. I learn more each time I teach.

I use the MS Access 2000 Bible as a textbook in my database course at Baylor University. While I agree with other reviewers that it is not an advanced book (I keep the Access 2000 Developers Handbook by Getz et. al. on my shelf for student reference), it is definitely enough to make a decent project to learn Access from. My only disappointment is that there is not enough coverage of relational database theory such as relations, gerunds and a basic understanding of SQL on which relational databases (Oracle, Informix, etc.) are built. Otherwise you are basically locked into Access (or big brother SQL Server) by using this book. The examples are good and I believe the running theme of a Pet hospital is somewhat helpful in that the author does not have to keep defining the project over and over again. True, there are not many examples of VBA but I believe that is for a more advanced user.

I'm not very impressed with this book. This was my first Access book and it seemed like a good book at the time. When I started using this in conjunction with my own database development, I found it lacking.

It comes with a pet shop database and all of the examples and discussion center around that. Which I suppose seems to make sense. However, that construct is easy for the authors to create, yet gives us readers an extra "layer" to unravel before we can adapt a concept to our own work.

Time and time again I have reached a point in my database development where I needed to figure out how to do something. For example, right now I want to read up on splitting a database. So I flipped to that section, however there is NOTHING in the section that I can find useful.

In particular, I want to know how to manage linked tables. So let's say I split a database, and put a database into production for a client. Further let's say that I add a form or report to the front end later and email the changed front end to the client. How do I handle that scenario?

This book convers no such "real-world" actions, which is one reason why this book lacks, in my opinion.

In addition, the forms and reports that exist in the database are incredibly uninspired and simplistic. For example, check out Figure 19-7 (Chapter 19). It looks like something a child would put together. Or take a look at Figure 16-16, which is a terrible GUI.

While reading though this, I felt uninspired. This book verbosely describes concepts that are better explained with real-life examples. It seems more focused on a "widget" rather than something I can relate to. The database looks "cartooney" and unbelievable, constantly requiring me to translate the juvenile examples to something meaningful.

The list goes on and on.

As an alternative, I would consider Access 2000 - The Complete Reference by Osborne Press (Author: Virginia Anderson). It is a much better reference (I need an answer quick), as well as a "reader" (Read the chapter on using Forms and pleasantly stumble across the sequence of Form_Events that Access exposes).

For a book of this size, it's amazing that I never find what I'm looking for in it. I guess that's because the book is mostly fluff. As another reviewer stated, I end up finding my answers in the on-line help.

For example, this morning I needed to learn about Access security. It's not even mentioned in this book. That's unforgiveable for a "Bible."

Yesterday I needed to look up record locking. The "Bible" has practically no references to it. I was far better served by the Access on-line help.

The back cover says "Inside, you'll find complete coverage of Access 2000."

Well, I'm still looking.

Don't buy this book, it's worthless for a beginner and for an advanced user also. It's too complicated and poorly organized for a beginner, it randomly introduces a lot of unexplained new terms, which make it's reading more that frustrating. For an advanced user (I became one after reading a ton of other books) it's superficial and does not concentrate on the real aspect of data base design and implementation.

This book disappoints a lot due to its promising title. It covers the basics adequately, with step-by-step instructions and lots of screen dumps. There are, however, no VBA code examples, and in my view no information on professional database development. I could hardly imagine developing a sturdy application of some size without using at least some code and impose some limitations to what the user might do. This is a introductory book that needs some reality check on what a real application is, and given its present title I cannot recommend it.

I read the gold edition of this book which included 300 pages more than the original version I bought. Great coverage of advanced subjects like security, data projects, and client-server. I especially liked the basics in the book and the easy-to-follow example throughout the book. I've read several books and this is the most in-depth for coverage of forms and reports.

This book is so riddled with errors, I can't believe it was published. Bad grammar, mislabled pictures, erroneous statements -- you name it. Wiley should be embarrassed to have put out a book this shabby.