| | | Celebrating 25 years--with free E-Book offers! For 25 years, Microsoft Press books have focused on helping you take your skills and knowledge to the next level. Help celebrate our 25th Anniversary with a "Free E-Book Offer of the Month"! Read your Microsoft Press Book Connection Newsletter for notification of offers, register, and download the selection of the month. Offers expire on October 22, so download the e-books today. This month: Windows Server(r) 2008 TCP/IP Protocols and Services by Joseph Davies: This in-depth technical reference delivers must-know information for any IT professional working with TCP/IP in the Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista operating systems. Download this e-book today! Programming Microsoft Robotics Studio by Sara Morgan: Visualize, build, and deploy the next innovation in robotic applications with this practical guide to Microsoft Robotics Studio. Download this e-book today! Note: You will need to temporarily allow pop-ups in order to download the e-book. Look for articles about the history and innovations of Microsoft Press in coming editions of the Book Connection Newsletter. |
Editor's Picks For IT Professionals
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Reviewed by Carol Vu, project editor, Microsoft Press
They call it "Windows without windows."
Server Core is an innovative installation option available for Windows Server 2008 that requires less disk space, less servicing, and less management of machines; it also limits your enterprise's vulnerability to attacks. Be amazed when you first log on to Server Core—all you see is a command prompt; there's no desktop! With Server Core, administrators perform their tasks from the command line. It's just that simple. And with that simplicity comes significantly reduced costs associated with deploying and managing servers running Microsoft Windows.
Now administrators and information technology staff can turn to a single dedicated resource to learn how to deploy, manage, and maintain Server Core computers: Windows Server 2008 Server Core Administrator's Pocket Consultant, written by Mitch Tulloch with the Windows Server Core Team at Microsoft.
Concise and compact, this new title from Microsoft Press is the definitive guide for all things Server Core. It delivers information quickly and succinctly using easy-to-read tables, helpful graphics, and step-by-step instructions. Its pocket-sized design is especially practical for IT Professionals on the go. Lead author Tulloch is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional and a widely recognized expert on Windows administration, networking, and security. Backing him up is the Server Core team at Microsoft, led by the Server Core guru himself, Andrew Mason, who lends his endorsement in the book's foreword.
There are, of course, limitations to the minimal nature of Server Core. It's capable of only five server roles: Active Directory Domain Services, DHCP Server, DNS Server, File Server, and Media Services. In addition, there's no managed code support and limited MSI support. But on the upside, Server Core requires only about one gigabyte to install. In addition, fewer gigabytes of installed software mean fewer administrator hours spent managing and servicing, and a reduction of vulnerability and stability issues.
IT professionals are busy people who often don't have time to read technical books cover to cover. This book is aimed directly at folks who need to quickly find out how to perform the everyday tasks of Server Core. All the expert advice you'll need on Server Core—from installation to migration, administration to troubleshooting—is right here in this book.
| For Home and Office Users
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Reviewed by Kathleen Atkins, project editor
This book is Chris Leeds' second from Microsoft Press to cover the Microsoft Web-editing and management application Expression Web, now in its second version. Designers can buy this software as a standalone product or as part of Microsoft Expression Studio 2, which includes a number of sophisticated and integrated tools for designing Web and desktop experiences.
Expression Web 2, like the first version of the software, can serve as an upgrade to the old product, Microsoft Office FrontPage. Chris Leeds both reassures and sensibly comforts loyal FrontPage fans. Designers maintaining previous work with FrontPage can still work with many features of the discontinued software, but those FrontPage features that didn't continue on in the new design tool were left out, Leeds says, for good reasons: Expression Web 2 excludes features that "wrote W3C-invalid code, relied on browser-specific rendering, required proprietary server software, or suffered a combination of those shortcomings."
Leeds points out that the new version of Expression Web not only maintains a "standards-based mindset," but also has become increasingly "technology agnostic." It's ordinary enough that designers can upgrade Microsoft tools from Microsoft software, but, in addition, designers can upgrade to Expression Web 2 from "any version of Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe/Macromedia Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive, Microsoft Office, or even QuarkXPress."
Leeds is in favor of these changes, and he's a brisk and engaging explainer of new software features and smart methods for using them. This book is an excellent step-by-step guide to both the new Expression Web 2 software and underlying Web design theory and practice.
| For Developers
| | Reviewed by Devon Musgrave, content development manager, Microsoft Press Sara Ford's WebLog is one of Microsoft's most popular Web sites month after month. Sara's site shows developers, regardless of skill level or preferred development language, how to save hours per week by improving their productivity levels in Microsoft Visual Studio. Microsoft Visual Studio Tips provides these performance tweaks as 251 tips collected, illustrated, and categorized to optimize daily routines for maximum performance. Performance enhancements begin with the editor, and the book also explores various other features to help you maximize every second spent in the IDE. Sara writes: "There was so much about Visual Studio I didn't know... until I had to test it all. What I learned is that although Visual Studio has a lot of options, it isn't endless, and it doesn't have to be overwhelming. In fact, Visual Studio can be mastered, once you are able to understand how to adapt the environment to your needs. The primary audience for this book is software professionals, spanning all technical skill levels and all programming languages, who are looking to improve their productivity in Visual Studio. Since this book focuses specifically on the Visual Studio environment, all tips are language-agnostic, meaning that the tips apply to Visual Basic, C#, C++, and so forth." And Sara is not only driven to help current developers: "I am donating 100 percent of my author book royalties to create a scholarship fund at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College for anyone living in my hometown of Waveland, Mississippi, which was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina. The Save Waveland Scholarship Fund will give preference to math and computer science majors. USA Today referred to Waveland as 'The Town That Vanished.' After witnessing the devastation firsthand six weeks after the storm, I vowed that I would one day do something that would make a difference. With Microsoft matching the donation, I feel that day is today." Save time and increase your productivity with these proven methods, and also help Sara support students in her hometown! |
Special Offer New E-Book Offer for Visual Studio 2008 Get a head start on working with Visual Studio 2008 with this new e-book. It includes excerpts from three recent Microsoft Press titles and provides a wealth of information and insights from top experts. The free e-book offer includes content from: • Programming Microsoft LINQ by Paolo Pialorsi and Marco Russo • Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 2, Second Edition by Laurence Moroney • Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 3.5 by Dino Esposito
| |  | October 15, 2008  | | Hot Sellers For Developers Code Complete, Second Edition, by Steve McConnell For Home and Office Users Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire, by Cliff Atkinson For IT Professionals Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Step by Step, by Olga Londer, Bill English, Todd Bleeker, and Penelope Coventry For Certification MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exams 70-640, 70-642, 70-643, 70-647): Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Administrator Core Requirements, by Dan Holme, Nelson Ruest, Danielle Ruest, Tony Northrup, J.C. Mackin, Ian McLean, and Orin Thomas | | Latest Releases For Developers Microsoft Visual Studio Tips, by Sara Ford Programming Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, by Jim Steger, Mike Snyder, Brad Bosak, Corey O'Brien, and Philip Richardson (Sonoma Partners) Microsoft .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise, by Dino Esposito and Andrea Saltarello Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2008, by Leonard Lobel, Andrew J. Brust, and Stephen Forte Microsoft .NET and SAP, by Juergen Daiberl, Dudu Benabou, Steve Fox, Scott Adams, and Thomas Reimer Microsoft SQL Server 2008 T-SQL Fundamentals, by Itzik Ben-Gan (Solid Quality Mentors) For Home and Office Users Seamless Teamwork: Using Microsoft SharePoint Technologies to Collaborate, Innovate, and Drive Business in New Ways, by Michael Sampson | | |
