Best Microsoft SQL Server
1 Training Kit (Exam 70-461) Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012 (MCSA) (Microsoft Press Training Kit)
Ace your preparation for Microsoft Certification Exam 70-461 with this 2-in-1 Training Kit from Microsoft Press. He has also developed three courses for SolidQ: Data Modeling Essentials, Data Quality and Master Data Management, and Data Mining.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I'll blame it on the editors (or lack thereof) - just make sure you print out the errata page from the O'Reilly site as a reference. The questions bear little resemblance to the real thing in either format or difficulty. Bottom line, I was ready to deduct two stars for the worthless exam (which another reviewer did) but decided to view it as a flawed bonus, like those coupons that print on your grocery receipt for items you just bought. Buy this training kit for the well-written, well organized, occasionally-flawed text and use it as a guide as you also include other sources from other books or the web, especially the MSDN site."
"I passed the exam on the first attempt, but I wouldn't suggest using this book as your sole preparation; in fact I think if you use only this book it will take you 3x longer to be prepared. I would suggest using this book for detailed information about a topic when you need to understand something more deeply, and rely on other sources (practice exams, training, etc) for your exam prep."
"Step by step; Essential terminology: clarified discussion on foundation protocol for T-SQL This has been very useful, along with MS certification training course at Udemy.com CD was included."
"It is not a beginners book, if you already good at a subject you can easily just use this to review it, but if you find something unfamiliar then you need to find other resources to study that specific subject, generally the book gives you a path to study for the exam and it also is good to review and improve your skills."
"However, it is in the SECOND book (for the 70-462 exam) that you have the instructions for installing and configuring SQL 2012, which seems backwards to me."
Leading Microsoft BI consultants Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari help you master everything from table functions through advanced code and model optimization. Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari cofounded sqlbi.com, where they regularly publish articles about Microsoft PowerPivot, DAX, Power BI, and SQL Server Analysis Services.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Great book if you want to learn DAX, I am still reading it, because is difficult to express a language in a short book, keep improving it!"
"Detailed and easy to read."
"Contains the details needed to truely understand DAX."
"This a great and comprehensive book for anyone using DAX."
"Nice book."
"Amazing book, gives solid foundation and also a reference book."
"If you want to learn DAX this is the book period."
PRACTICE TESTS. Assess your skills with practice tests. Bob Taylor , MCM, is a SQL Server Principal Premier Field Engineer and database architect with Microsoft.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Microsoft exams are notorious for having questions on obscure little details that you might not encounter in your everyday work with the tested software. If Microsoft is going to test us on obscure details, then their review questions should be detailed as well."
"I'm using it in a SQL administration class and it has all the answers I need."
"Unfortunately I did have a delay from a testing center's Prometric testing software not working. I suggest taking the numbers of the nearest testing facilities with you on the day of the exam in case there are any technical difficulties."
"I read the book and took all 200 questions in the practice test."
"The information by itself was not enough, but it did cover the basics and helped me to identify the areas where I needed to spend time with BOL to fill in the gaps."
"Given that the book doesn't prepare you for the test (which Microsoft has made many times harder than in the past) it is still an OK resource if you need step-by-step guides to completing server administration tasks. Most study guides I've used in the past have been used from a little-to-no knowledge starting point and have successfully helped me be able to pass the test but this one... NOT EVEN CLOSE!"
"I used this book as prep for the exam."
Best Microsoft VBA
If you're a beginning to intermediate VBA programmer looking to get up to speed on creating customized solutions with Excel applications, Excel VBA Programming For Dummies, 4 th Edition makes it easier. Learn to:
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I now understand absolute vs. relative references! Understand this is an INTRO book."
"Well written but you need something a little simpler if you're a noob."
"Excellent!"
"This book explains VBA/Macros very simply, and is a definitely worth having as a reference!"
"This book strikes the perfect balance between simplicity and usefulness."
"Excellent for those new to VBA!"
"Starting around Chap 7, Mr. Walkenbach starts giving a lot of examples of code that is setting dimensions; static counters, offsets; cells vs ranges, etc, but he doesn't complete those examples with the actually code that would run some macro after the previously defined dimensions. I recommend this book as a good starting place for someone like me who has some experience using the Macro Record tool in Excel."
Best Microsoft .NET
Your hands-on guide to Microsoft Visual C# fundamentals with Visual Studio 2015 Expand your expertise--and teach yourself the fundamentals of programming with the latest version of Visual C# with Visual Studio 2015. John Sharp is a principal technologist at Content Master, part of CM Group Ltd., a technical authoring and consulting company based in Gloucester, in the UK.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Awesome examples at the end of each chapter allowing you to put the concepts of the chapter into practice."
"Fantastic book for a .NET programming class."
"I only have 6G of RAM on a Toshiba laptop. The ONLY difficulty I had was with Chapter 27 where the NuGet package manager had difficulties with the fact that I was running out of sample code zip-expanded too far down a directory tree. So I copied the sample code directory to come off the C:\ drive."
"Look no further, if you want to learn C# this is your book."
"Perfect reference book but not for a newbie."
"great book and a lot of information that will help you scale your skills to higher and more proficient."
"very well written with ample examples for those wanting to learn c#."
"Make me feel happy with the reference to "Sorting & Searching by Knuth". I apologize for my English."
Best Microsoft C & C++ Windows Programming
If you’ve never read Effective C++ and you think you know everything about C++, think again.”. — Steve Schirripa, Software Engineer, Google. “C++ and the C++ community have grown up in the last fifteen years, and the third edition of Effective C++ reflects this. The clear and precise style of the book is evidence of Scott’s deep insight and distinctive ability to impart knowledge.”. — Gerhard Kreuzer, Research and Development Engineer, Siemens AG The first two editions of Effective C++ were embraced by hundreds of thousands of programmers worldwide. He is consulting editor for Addison Wesley's Effective Software Development Series and is a founding member of the Advisory Board for The C++ Source (http://www.artima.com/cppsource).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I used this book as my primary source to transition from programming at College in C (where most programs are several thousand lines at most) to programming professionally in C++ (where you often have to manage anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of lines of code, most of which were not written by you)."
"Give it 4 stars instead of 5 because C++11 will probably make some of the recommendations as strongly applicable as before (actually, I think some of the cases where C++11 works against the advice from Meyers is for the worse, not for the better)."
"However, any developer should know the theory behind those conventions and idioms if she is going to do some serious software development. The book discussed 50 more ways in different items for effective C++ programming."
"I have been programming in C++ for a while so some of the topics Scott Mayers discussed were already familiar but I still picked up a lot from this book. Scott's goal is not to teach the fundamentals but to advice readers on how to use the language effectively - generating good, efficient, re-usable, portable code."
"If you're interested in reading about more highly advanced topics, then check out the next book in the series: More Effective C++: 35 New Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs."
"A good book that provides explanations and thought processes for improving your coding technique."