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Comment on Mastering Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 by Irvin A. Turberville

Irvin A. Turberville — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 05:34:32 +0000

Review by Irvin A. Turberville for Mastering Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Rating: I purchased this book mainly because I neede a resource that included Server 2008 R2. I'm studying for the MCTS Applications Infrastructure 70-643 exam.This book has proved to be an excellent resource for this.
Some things that the authors missed in the book though. This is probably due to the timing of their publication and such. MS now has Sharepoint Foundation 2010 and they only cover Sharepoint 3.0. They also totally neglected to cover media services. Overall they did an excellent job
The chapters written by coauthor Darril Gibson I found to be concise, informative, and covered the material very well. I would have liked if he had covered Remote Desktop Virtualization Host more as that is one area in RDS where I have a lot of interest. I perused the other areas he wrote and found those chapters to be an easy read.
Overall a good book for those with real world server experience who need to learn Server 2008 R2. For me personally, I also got the Server 2008 R2 Unleashed book to help fill in the gray areas.

Comment on Mastering Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 by Lefteris Karafilis

Lefteris Karafilis — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 04:42:48 +0000

Review by Lefteris Karafilis for Mastering Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Rating: I am following Mark Minasi and the Mastering Windows Series of books since 2000. I am very pleased with the content spectrum and the way it is delivered. It is a great source of information for IT professionals who want to cover most of Windows 2008 R2 with a single publication and for those who want to use it as a reference book.

It covers many of Windows 2008 R2 technologies including Networking Services, AD, IIS, VPN, etc and is full of configuration examples. Authors also summarize the theory behind the technologies in order to better understand why and how to use them

Comment on Mastering Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 by B. W. Stanley

B. W. Stanley — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 04:04:26 +0000

Review by B. W. Stanley for Mastering Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Rating: Though im only part way into this book.

I have found it to be just as informative as the other "Mastering" Books i've had from Mark Minasi.

Hes covered everything I'd expect from a book like this and its easy to follow.

Comment on Mastering Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 by Mr. Mark J. E. Ellis

Mr. Mark J. E. Ellis — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 03:19:13 +0000

Review by Mr. Mark J. E. Ellis for Mastering Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Rating: This book is very well written and highly readable. A great way to learn about Windows 2008 R2. Mark Minasi and his co-authors have a great writing style making it much more readable than the Microsoft books. This is the last book in a series of books that has run since the days of Windows NT 3.51. Windows has grown over that time and it is a struggle to get compressive coverage into a single book so it ends up being a bit light on many topics.

Advanced Systems Engineers will need more specialist books but I highly recommend this to Intermediate level administrators or Desktop support people wanting to move to Level 3 server support.

Comment on Mastering Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 by Tom Carpenter

Tom Carpenter — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 02:38:11 +0000

Review by Tom Carpenter for Mastering Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Rating: I must say, unlike many people, I was not as excited about the Mastering Windows Server 2003 book (though I liked the SP1 and R2 Update Edition book very much). I felt the 2003 book was lacking that insightful depth that I so enjoyed when I first encountered Mark's books back in the 1990s. I assumed it was just that I knew much more about Windows environments now, but this book proves that was not the case.

I've been working with Windows Server 2008 R2 since the first TechNet Beta was released back in, I think it was, January of '09. I spent hours diving into the new features and then did the same with the release candidate and the RTM. However, I've had this book for less than two days and I've already encountered several excellent sections that clarified poorly written Microsoft documentation or provided new thoughts for the same technologies Microsoft covers in a different way.

The team for this book seems to have changed from the excellent team that delivered the Server 2003 Update Edition book and I was a little concerned when I saw this; however, my concerns were not well-founded. This team may be the best that Mark has ever put together for his Mastering series of books.

Now, for those who've worked with Windows Server 2008 over the past couple of years, you will love the small but important sections all through the book that cover "New... in Windows Server 2008 R2". You can replace the ... with Active Directory, TCP, DNS and many more. The point is that the book works for those completely new to Server 2008 or 2008 R2 and it helps those who've worked with Server 2008 find those nuggets of newness related only to Server 2008 R2. One of my favorite features, which the book addresses, is the new ability to use Server Manager to manage remote Windows Server 2008 R2 machines.

I can give this excellent book no less than five stars. Way to go team Minasi! This series is back on track.

Comment on eBoot Camp: Proven Internet Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business by Jeff Lippincott

Jeff Lippincott — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 04:58:32 +0000

Review by Jeff Lippincott for eBoot Camp: Proven Internet Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business Rating:
I liked this book a lot. Maybe it was because I read a book on the topic last week ["Internet Marketing for Free" (ISBN: 9781440415005)] that greatly disappointed me. And this book covered much the same material, but so much more eloquently. I consider the instant book being reviewed to be well written and well organized. It has the following 18 short chapters and two appendices:

0. Introduction
00. How to read this book
1. Anatomy of a search engine
2. Pay-per-click (PPC), i.e., sponsored ads
3. Domain names & alternative domain names
4. Keywords
5. Title tag
6. Meta description tag
7. Home page content
8. Link popularity
9. Hurl your URL
10. Social networking sites
11. Artcles
12. Press releases
13. Blogs
14. Opt-in forms
15. Email marketing
16. Video
17. Web site usability
18. Closing word
A. Glossary
B. Bonus resources

The book is divided into two sections. The first section includes chapters 1-8, and focuses on search engine optimization. The second section includes the remainder of the book, and focuses on building an online platform for your consulting practice, or whatever.

I am not aware of another book that covers the basics of Internet Marketing as succinctly as this one. The book I cite above does cover this topic, so it's not like the topic hasn't been written about. And there are other books, too. But if Internet Marketing is a subject that you need to become expert on, then this book certainly should be part of your library. 5 stars!

Recommended reading list:
>>The Author's Guide to Building an Online Platform: Leveraging the Internet to Sell More Books
>>The Web-Savvy Writer: Book Promotion with a High-Tech Twist, Second Edition
>>ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income
>>Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day
>>Web Business Success: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Web Sites That Work

Comment on eBoot Camp: Proven Internet Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business by Miss Terry

Miss Terry — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 04:16:12 +0000

Review by Miss Terry for eBoot Camp: Proven Internet Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business Rating: This book seems like it was written in a week. Or less. There just is not a lot of info in it. And for the most part, what's in it is very basic. I found very little I didn't already know about.

The book was published in January '09. Just 5 months later, an Amazon reviewer called "Swati Nigam" wrote in their review:

"He has written a chapter about how important meta tags keywords is to search engines including Google. But I know that Google does not look at meta tags keywords anymore. So when I emailed him about it, he explained to me that its true Google does not, but many other search engines still do, and that it is a good place to list commonly misspelled words (you wouldn't want them on your main content). However, I hope in his later book revisions, he would let people know that Google does not use meta tags keywords."

Yup. That's important to know and it's not in the book.

Save your money. Not recommended.

Comment on eBoot Camp: Proven Internet Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business by claude whitacre

claude whitacre — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 04:01:40 +0000

Review by claude whitacre for eBoot Camp: Proven Internet Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business Rating: I have dozens of books on internet marketing. This is the one I recommend. Not because the information is unique, but the author's ability to instruct is phenomenal.
This author completely grasps what newbies want to know, and he puts the information in easily digested, easily understood bits. There are other reviews describing the contents, so I won't bore you.

But the subjects covered are so easy to grasp, that any beginner will get value out of this book. I recommend it to anyone wanting to know how to make a website...and make it sell.

Comment on eBoot Camp: Proven Internet Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business by C. S. Frederick

C. S. Frederick — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 03:11:20 +0000

Review by C. S. Frederick for eBoot Camp: Proven Internet Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business Rating: I purchased three SEO/online marketing books and "ebootcamp" was the worst out of the three. The the information in this book was made over simplified to the point that it was not worth buying. "SEO Made Simple" was shorter but had more precise/useful information. Unless you're completely computer illiterate find something with more substance to spend your money on.

Comment on eBoot Camp: Proven Internet Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business by Compay

Compay — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 03:07:27 +0000

Review by Compay for eBoot Camp: Proven Internet Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business Rating: I have developed several hundred websites over the last decade, optimized them for Google, and have literally made millions for my clients. So while most web marketing books may not present me with new techniques, I have still given five-star reviews to those that I think others would find useful.

Not only is this book a weak primer with plenty of page filler, but Perlman's suggestions can actually hurt your marketing results. Chapter 4 is dedicated to your keywords meta tag, yet Perlman doesn't realize nor does he mention that Google's algorithms have completely ignored the keywords tag for years. When discussing title tags, he makes no mention of easy mistakes that will get websites penalized or even blacklisted from Google. Perlman encourages reciprocal link exchanges with other webmasters (with no mention of anchor text), but never explains that some links can be worthless, and others can get you banned from Google.

The only effective marketing angles that Perlman barely scratches the surface on are writing articles, press releases, and blogging. I can point out several books for the same amount of money that contain ten times as much useful information for newbies and designers alike, such as Web Marketing All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies, and Web Copy That Sells.

I bought this book (Amazon verified) because there were almost 50 glowing reviews. What I failed to notice was that 90% of the reviewers have written only one review. Most of them refer to the author by his first name, and suggest that they've been to his seminars. The testimonials in his book are from other authors, and not a single one of them are web developers or online marketing experts. Perlman himself seems to have no background in web design or internet marketing (there's zero mention of either on his sites or in his book).

Countless other web marketing books will help you more in the long run, and will actually tell you how not to get banned from Google. I'm not even upset that I bought it, I'm upset that so many people new to web marketing will buy it, and do a major disservice to promoting their business.