Product Description

A complete program with textbook, lab manual, and software, this Microsoft Official Academic Course provides everything students need to build the knowledge and skills necessary to design an organization's active directory and network infrastructure. In a

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27684 in Books
• Brand: Microsoft
• Published on: 2003-11-26
• Platform: No Operating System
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 4.81 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 1324 pages

About the Author
John L.He is the author of numerous books, including Running Microsoft Access 2000 and Running Microsoft Access 97, and the coauthor of SQL Queries for Mere Mortals. He has written numerous articles for technical publications and has lectured at conferences and user group meetings around the world. He has been recognized as a Most Valuable Professional every year since 1993 by Microsoft Product Support Services for his assistance on public support forums.

Customer Reviews

Microsoft Access inside and out
Microsoft Access is a well written book, it has greatly help me understand how the program work.

Good Access 2003 book, but lacks coherence
PROS:
- Thorough read on the essentials of Access 2003 and building databases in Access.

CONS:
- The author is dry.
- Other parts of the book dealing with VBA and SQL Server (.adp files) frequently assume more information than the reader is introduced to making it necessary to have multiple reference sources to understand what the author is talking about.

OVERALL:
- A really good book for someone with prior Access knowledge who would like to have a through understanding or fill in missing gaps to complete their understanding of working with MS Access 2003. However, it is not a good book for a beginners understanding or gap filling knowledge of SQL Server, ADP files or VBA, which is ½ of the book

- A questionable book for someone with no Access experience because the volume of information is overwhelming.

- This IS NOT a reference book!

SUMMARY:
The book is over 1,000 pages long. Not that it should matter but it is kind of bothersome that the author's picture is in the book at least 30 times; what's up with that?

The biggest drawback to the book is that the author jumps into deep material without providing enough clarification and background information about what he is discussing prior to starting a discussion.

The section on VBA can only be read if you have other reference material in front of you that defines words and terms that are being used to tell you about VBA. In this regard, the author fails the reader and may as well have not written the last half of the book because there is too much information to introduce to do a good job discussing the primary points without having to assume the reader is familiar with all the extended topics that are involved with learning VBA as written by the author.

Overall it is a good book but certainly did not meet my expectations given the reviews written on this board.

Not for Beginners
I have been tasked with developing a new database for tracking and reporting city inspection data, permits, citations, etc. I had limited previous experience in using Access. I did take a one-day class in access programing, which gave me a leg up on getting into some programming. The Beginner type Access books that I previously used did not provide enough depth to help me develope the database. So, I was looking for a more advanced reference book. The great reviews for Access 2003 Inside Out encouraged me to give it a try. But, after daily using the book for the past several months, I found that it was not very helpful. The Microsoft website help function provided much more understandable help to me than is book. Perhaps if I had time to read the book from cover to cover to get a comprehensive view of how everything works, this book would be useful. Perhaps it is a good comprehensive reference book for people who have more experience with Access. But, for me, who had limited prior experience, it was not very useful.