Customer Reviews

Microsoft Agent Software Development Kit and Design Tools (Microsoft Professional Editions)

5 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book will not teach you to use the MS Agent API. It simply documents it. Further, the entire content of this book is available on Microsoft's website(a fact which I was unaware of when purchasing the book). Even worse, the book is out of date with the advent of the newest release of the API(which has some good improvements). Worst of all, if you're a C/C++/Java developer using COM/ActiveX, this book is only marginally useful as a reference, as the majority of code is in VB format(leaving out important information like typing.....a trend I hope MS reverses). Save your money; go to the website.

the author of the book doesn't seem to know the agent technology at all. none of the so called examples will work. it is another pure marketing piece from microsoft to cover the fact that microsoft knows nothing about agent technology. dont waste your money.

This is basically a printed version of the Agent 2.0 SDK that can be accessed from Microsoft MSDN. I like the book format to read offline. Many may not find this necessary.

I was able to find answers to some of my questions on objects, events, properties and methods. I am developing in JavaScript. The examples are in VBScript or VB 6. Not a difficult transition if you have some other examples to work from.

More examples would have helped a lot.

The CD that was enclosed had formatting errors. The Micosoft KB acknowledged this a provided a replacement procedure.

Microsoft Agent is a great technology. It has been put on the back burner by Misrosoft for a variety of reasons.

Since it is only supported in Internet Explorer, many developers have lost interest. Firefox users can add an "IE Tab" for IE use.

Finding Technical information is an exploration process. I found that there are a couple of dozen strong sites on the web. Simple to complex. Lite use of Agent Technology to comprehensive commercial Avatar sites.

A good starting point for discovering the use of Agents is [...]. They offer a scripting helper MASH that created code for web pages. They have created several VB6 products. I learned a lot to complement this publication by reading their code.

Another publication with a more comprehensive treatment is needed. For now, this title fills in a lot of blanks. I would recommend it. The only copies I found were used.

While this book could be written in a more step by step approach to assist beginners in learning how to use Agent, it is one of the only books available that documents Microsoft Agent technology. Some of the information included in the book is available on the web site, however most developers will find this book useful as a reference tool.

The book completely describes how to use Microsoft Agent from Visual Basic. I includes all commands and their usage. It is very clear and complete. You can begin using the agent the same day! You should have and possess a beginners knowledge of a 32bit version of visual basic ie vb4-32bit or vb 5.0.

The Microsoft Agents are great for providing audio interfacing and can be useful and entertaining. Unfortunately this book seems to have been rushed into publication and does not present a complete, clear guide to the programming of these agents. On working through the books examples I was still unable to determine how to program the Agents to receive voice input. The examples seem to have lead me to a dead end that showed my commands there but would not respond.