By Tad Anderson Brighten your May at Packt’s Microsoft Carnival!This May, let Packt Publishing liven your bookshelves and expand your knowledge. Packt Publishing brings to you an exciting choice of discounts for Microsoft books and e-books. We have slashed our prices by 30%, so celebrate with us, go c... May. 15, 2012 08:29 PM EDT Reads: 118 |
By Tad Anderson Get ready to learn, but be ready to work for it. This book is packed full of hands on exercises the author calls "Learn by Doing". Every topic covered is accompanied by a "Learn by Doing" section. If you take the time to go through these while reading the book you will absorb triple th... May. 15, 2012 01:52 PM EDT |
By Tad Anderson As I read the beginning of this book I was thinking to myself that the story being told of a giant like Google seems just a little too good to be true, but I will trust what they are saying about the atmosphere. Giant companies have never impressed me. They take on their own life and t... May. 11, 2012 12:19 PM EDT Reads: 427 |
By Tad Anderson Elemental Design Patterns are the underlying core concepts of programming and software design that have remained described.This book is a book I wish I had 15 years ago to help me put the basics of programming into their proper context. Learning how to make use of patterns over the yea... May. 3, 2012 08:29 PM EDT |
By Tad Anderson This is one cool book. If you are starting to use Scrum, read it. If you are using Scrum, read it. If you are just wondering what Scrum is all about, read it. It gives the best insight into the workings of Scrum I have seen in a book.The chapters are laid out in a really nice to read f... Apr. 26, 2012 04:34 PM EDT |
By Tad Anderson If I could change one decision Microsoft has made, it would be the one they made to drop Silverlight. Silverlight is the prefect line of business application platform for the enterprise, and this book shows us how to take full advantage of it.Although the author does an excellent job o... Apr. 20, 2012 03:54 PM EDT Reads: 429 |
By Tad Anderson Finally someone has put the most important software architecture practices into words. Within this book lies the concepts that are the heart of true agility. Without a modularized architecture, any decent size project can not achieve agility. I have seen so many agile projects flop bec... Apr. 15, 2012 06:04 PM EDT Reads: 609 |
By Tad Anderson A little background so you know what type of experience I have. I have been a Microsoft .NET architect and developer since the first beta release. Before that C, C++, ColdFusion, ASP, JavaScript and of course HTML. Being a .NET developer has many advantages, but the one major disadvant... Apr. 12, 2012 05:27 PM EDT Reads: 677 |
By Tad Anderson I have been wanting to read this for a while now but have not had the time. Although my current review is of a book 3 years old, the book is just as relevant today as it was then and will be for a long time to come. If the author gets his way, it will be relevant until 2049. He has inc... Apr. 8, 2012 11:13 AM EDT |
By Tad Anderson I must admit I was mislead by the title of this book, but it was my own fault. I was in the middle of developing an ASP.NET application that was using a lot of the SharePoint web services and the SharePoint Server Object Model. Although it used all SharePoint data, my application was c... Apr. 6, 2012 04:44 PM EDT Reads: 477 |
By Tad Anderson This book is all about C# the language and some of the .NET Framework class library. It is broken into two parts. Part I introduces C# with a view into the language's history. It then spends 19 chapters covering C# in detail. It begins those chapters with an introduction to object orie... Apr. 3, 2012 01:10 PM EDT Reads: 144 |
By Tad Anderson I was sitting in a meeting sometime ago with a company that was embracing Scrum like a ten year old being offered a warm plate of chocolate chip cookies. They were grabbing at it as fast as they're little hands could reach out and grab the goodies.Watching this made me wonder what is w... Apr. 2, 2012 09:03 AM EDT Reads: 108 |
By Tad Anderson This book is a really great beginners guide for core SQL Server 2012, and it also does a great job of introducing new features introduced in SQL Server 2012. What I mean by core is that topics like Master Data Services and Data Quality Services are not introduced. That is not a bad thi... Mar. 30, 2012 12:42 PM EDT Reads: 419 |
By Tad Anderson Over the years I have been on quite a few projects and there have been very few if any that did not require some type of reporting. For a while that meant Crystal Reports, but when SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) hit the scene, Crystal Reports began to fade on Microsoft projects. ... Mar. 22, 2012 09:59 PM EDT Reads: 319 |
By Tad Anderson BizTalk is no small topic. To cover it all in detail in one book is one huge task. This book comes the closest to doing that I have seen so far.This is not a beginners BizTalk book. You won't find a chapter on installation and configuration, although there is a chapter on the administr... Mar. 17, 2012 11:15 PM EDT Reads: 374 |
By Tad Anderson Sparx Enterprise Architecture is my tool of choice for software architecture, design, project management, and project planning. This new version offers some really great new features. I have summarized them below with content I copied from the Sparx Enterprise Architect 9.3 Release Hig... Mar. 14, 2012 09:01 PM EDT Reads: 268 |
By Tad Anderson Being a software architect requires keeping up to speed with the hardware and networking options that are available. I decided to go with this textbook to brush up on networking.This book is intended to get you up to speed to take the CompTIA's Network+ exam. Throughout the book the au... Mar. 14, 2012 08:00 PM EDT Reads: 307 |
By Tad Anderson When I first saw this book was coming out I completely ignored it. The SharePoint Designer ? Who uses that I thought? Then I noticed it starting to get some good reviews and I decided to read them. One of them mentioned 1600 pages. That threw me for a loop and also convinced me I had t... Mar. 9, 2012 12:25 PM EST Reads: 332 |
By Tad Anderson Working as a Software Architect one of the main concerns we always have is Security. At an application level that can usually be easily implemented if you are up to speed with the latest industry standards and best practices for the technology you are working in.Working as an Enterpris... Feb. 22, 2012 08:10 PM EST Reads: 200 |
By Tad Anderson I have been implementing and improving development processes for a while now. Either directly when I am brought in as a Software Process Engineer, or indirectly when I am brought in as a Software Architect. I have not been involved with process improvement on all my engagements. The on... Feb. 13, 2012 07:49 PM EST Reads: 325 |
By Tad Anderson I just wanted to give everyone a heads up that Pro Silverlight 5 in C# is not printed in color. The cover has the full color inside advertisement, but the book I received today is only in black and white.I am hoping this was a printer error because one of the things that made this book... Feb. 11, 2012 10:35 AM EST Reads: 540 |
By Tad Anderson I recently had to decide which base template I wanted to use for a TFS project. I had not looked at the templates for a while and wanted to compare them to each other. I ended up just taking screenshots for each category's tab. You can check them out in this PDF. Feb. 10, 2012 03:13 PM EST Reads: 174 |
By Tad Anderson Although I started with Cold Fusion for application development, I did plenty brochureware sites with HTML. I believe the version was HTML 2.0 for IE 2.0. I lived in the browser world for years doing Cold Fusion, ASP, and HTML sites. When winforms and Smart Client with Web Services eme... Feb. 4, 2012 11:16 PM EST Reads: 463 |
By Tad Anderson  I personally do not find software development an art form. It is not an unpredictable activity driven by crazy business users that come to work every day inventing a new way to operate their businesses just to savagely changing your requirements. Project teams that use changing require... Jan. 28, 2012 11:38 AM EST Reads: 876 |
By Tad Anderson I have read a lot of the WPF and Silverlight books out there and there are some good ones. The difference I find with this book is that it is XAML centric so the scope is more isolated. A few months ago a fellow developer of mine had to build some XAML forms to integrate with a third p... Jan. 24, 2012 09:30 PM EST Reads: 602 |
By Tad Anderson  I still remember the first time I was on a project that used NAnt and CruiseControl.NET. It was years ago and both were new tools with plenty of bugs. The project manager took one of the team's architects and dedicated him to getting CI up and running. I didn't work with him for anothe... Jan. 22, 2012 10:00 AM EST Reads: 394 |
By Tad Anderson Every once in a while a book is put together that should be read by every person with a relationship to software development. This book is one of them. Everyone dreams of automating their software testing, but few make it a reality. This down to earth book is the stories of 28 teams th... Jan. 16, 2012 08:29 PM EST Reads: 152 |
By Tad Anderson This is a very well put together book. It includes a single example company that the book grows and changes throughout the book. Sometimes examples get on my nerves. They are either too lightweight to mean anything, or sometimes too complex, and end up distracting you to the point of n... Jan. 13, 2012 01:12 PM EST Reads: 143 |
By Tad Anderson Uhg. Sometimes my ability to be a complete ignoramus really annoys me. When I first saw this book on the upcoming list of books to be published I thought, "That sucks, I just got done reading Dependency Injection by Dhanji R. Prasanna last year. I don't need to read the .NET version", ... Jan. 4, 2012 12:17 PM EST Reads: 156 |
By Tad Anderson Another year has gone by. Happy New Year everyone. It is time to update my book recommendation blog. There have been a ton of books come out this year both good and bad. Be sure to check out the Shiny Turds book section which lists books that do not Cut the Mustard *-Do not Buy-*... Jan. 1, 2012 12:30 AM EST Reads: 285 |
By Tad Anderson There are not too many systems being created today that I would consider more than interfaces to a data structure. Meaning most systems today rely on people to provide the intelligence behind them. The systems themselves are viewed as a necessary evil by the people who use them. I find... Dec. 28, 2011 07:57 PM EST Reads: 233 |
By Tad Anderson This book has been one of the most enjoyable reads I have had in a long time. The introduction and the first chapter was a walk down memory lane. It was nice coverage of how we got to where we are today in the software development world.Each chapter goes into a deep explanation of the ... Dec. 27, 2011 01:16 PM EST Reads: 142 |
By Tad Anderson If you want a well rounded introduction to JAVA 7, look no further. This book touches on all the things you would expect in an introduction to a programming language.The book is broken down into six parts and a set of appendices. I have listed the chapters by part below.Part I: Getting... Dec. 20, 2011 12:41 PM EST Reads: 272 |
By Tad Anderson I have done a lot of SharePoint custom development and I see Silverlight as the answer to the horrible web part programming model Microsoft has made available in SharePoint. I have yet to see anyone write SharePoint web parts that aren't spaghetti code. Every major web part implementat... Dec. 16, 2011 07:53 PM EST Reads: 2,626 |
By Tad Anderson This book this book starts with a great introduction to the windows phones. It introduces Metro design language, hardware specifications, input patterns, the application lifecycle, out of the box services, live tiles, and the marketplace. By the time you are done with the introduction ... Dec. 14, 2011 09:24 PM EST Reads: 218 |
By Tad Anderson This book is great for the SharePoint end user. I kind of think of it like the top 70 FAQs about SharePoint found all in one place.Although this book is a little out of context for the books I usually read about SharePoint, I was looking for a book to recommend to the user's of the Sha... Dec. 11, 2011 10:21 AM EST Reads: 428 |
By Tad Anderson Data integration is a complex, detailed, sometimes excruciating boring activity, which is not an activity for the light at heart.This book does a great job of digging into the details of the data transformations. It is not just a high level look at data integration, it gets into the we... Dec. 9, 2011 07:20 PM EST Reads: 263 |
By Tad Anderson Woo Hoo... or who cares? I'll download it, play with it, but none of my customers will use it until Microsoft starts talking about its future.Check out Microsoft moved my cheese again and I don't really care to find it. for all my thoughts on Microsoft. Dec. 9, 2011 05:47 PM EST Reads: 1,337 |
By Tad Anderson I really like the CERT books. This one is no different, however, it is not one to read from cover to cover, at least not for me. It contains a catalog of rules for programming secure java code. What I have been doing is using it to look up rules about topics found in other resources th... Dec. 7, 2011 07:11 PM EST Reads: 124 |
By Tad Anderson This book is truly a holistic view of software architecture.This book structures the book around an Architecture Orientation Framework. The framework is based on open question words. A chapter has been dedicate to each. The framework provides a nice common vocabulary that makes team co... Dec. 5, 2011 12:24 PM EST Reads: 712 |
