AdvancED Flex 4 Review

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AdvancED Flex 4 ReviewWhen I saw the book started by incorporating test-driven development with advanced flex concepts, I eagerly bought it and was excited to learn. I'm not finished with chapter 1 yet, and may just throw it in the trash. There are plenty of spelling and grammar errors, the authors/editors clearly do not have a good grasp of the English language, text and diagrams that seem to be updated from the previous version of flex/flash builder are not completely updated, etc., etc. So I went looking for help. The web page for the book doesn't tell you if there is an errata page or where it might be. The forums attached to the site are of general topics, nothing specific to the book. The code samples of chapter 1 are not included in the download (once you find the download for yourself, it is not at the web location given in the book) so if you want to execute them, you have to type in all the code yourself. The first examples refer to a namespace at a URL that doesn't exist, so the code won't compile after you spend all the time typing it in. I spent hours looking at my installation, trying to see if I was missing a .swc, or if my configuration was wrong, searching the internet for help articles, etc. I finally give up on the current example and move on. Much later in the chapter we start a new example, and lo and behold, the namespace reference for the UI code is different than in the first example. So I think, "I wonder ..... ". Sure enough I change the code in the first example to match the later example, and that 1 error is fixed. There is another error that I have yet to figure out. I wonder if the book will eventually reveal the fix for the other code error.
If you want to use this book, you better be ready to spend a lot of time finishing what the editor should have already done. If things improve later in the book, I'll write another review.AdvancED Flex 4 OverviewFlex 4 is the new update from Adobe on their highly successful Flex product and this book takes a generation of Flex developers to the advanced and professional best practices in the industry. Flex is becoming more and more important to Adobe, and a lot of Web developers will be migrating their skills from Flash to Flex, and looking to learn some advanced techniques.As the size of the Flex market continues to expand and gain experience, so does the need for a book that covers all the capabilities and advanced concepts. Adobe Flex is the tool of choice for developers of rich internet applications with Web 2.0 interactivity. Version 4 brings advanced new tools and concepts to an already capable product.

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Java After Hours: 10 Projects You'll Never Do at Work Review

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Java After Hours: 10 Projects You'll Never Do at Work ReviewThis book is for experienced Java programmers that don't need a rehash of the basics and want to try some interesting projects as well as learn some new techniques and tricks such as sending JPEGs back from a web server, grabbing web pages from Java code, creating drop shadows in Java2D, using online filters, and controlling any other program robotically.
This book contains 10 projects, along with some minor projects used for illustration purposes. One of these subprojects builds an entire web server you can run from your desktop, given an Internet connection and a fixed IP address, which you probably have if you have a broadband connection. The following is a summary of the book's contents:
Chapter 1: Aquarium-- A multithreaded fish-swimming project with fish that swim realistically against a bubbly background.
Chapter 2: Slapshot -- A multithreaded hockey game that moves. You play against the computer and set the speed. And when you set the speed in the upper 90s, you've got a good chance of losing.
Chapter 3: The Graphicizer-- An image-editing and conversion tool. This one lets you read in JPG, PNG, or GIF files and save images in JPG or PNG format. You can work with images pixel by pixel, embossing them, sharpening them, brightening them, blurring them, reducing them, and so on. And you can even undo the most recent change.
Chapter 4: Painter-- Lets you draw your own images from scratch--ellipses, rectangles, lines, and so on. You can even draw freehand with the mouse. You can also draw each shape open or filled, using a texture fill, a solid color fill, or a gradient fill. You can draw text. You can give shapes a drop shadow, or make them transparent. You can draw using thin lines or thick lines. You can set the drawing color. And not only can you save your work when done, you can also read in images and work on them, annotating them with text or adding your own graphics.
Chapter 5: The Chat project-- In this project you create your own private Internet chat room that will keep you in touch with anyone over the Internet. All you need is Internet access and a Java-enabled web server. You can have as many people in your chat room as you like. What they type, you can see, and what you type, they can see. Type all you like--all you're paying for is the local Internet connection.
Chapter 6: WebLogger-- Log access to your website. This project lets you log users who access your website by access time, authentication type, username (if they've logged in), user IP address, the URL they accessed on your site, their browser type, the milliseconds they were there for, and so on. All without their knowledge.
Chapter 7: The Robot project-- This interesting project lets you control any other program by remote control; just tell it what to do. You can send text to the other program you're controlling. You can use the ALT and CNTL keys. You can send tab characters, the Enter key, or the ESC key. You can also use the mouse--just enter the screen location (in pixels) where you want the mouse to move to. Then click the mouse, right-click it, or double-click it. You can also take screen captures. If you want to automate working with any program, the Robot will do it.
Chapter 8: The Browser project-- This project lets you create a fully featured browser that subclasses Microsoft Internet Explorer in your Java applications.
Chapter 9: The Intercom project-- This project lets two people type across the Internet. You just start up the project, connect with the click of a button, and you've got your own connection: Everything you type into the Intercom, the other use can see, and everything the other user types, you can see. This one is a client/server application and connects directly across the Internet using its own protocol--unlike the Chat project, no Java-enabled web server is needed here at all.
Chapter 10: The Forecaster project-- Displays a four-day temperature forecast for your area, starting with today's high and low temperatures. All you've got to do is to tell the Forecaster your ZIP Code, and it'll give you the forecast by reading its data from the National Weather Service and sending a JPEG image from the server back to the browser.
I'm a Java multimedia programmer, and I found this an interesting collection of projects and ideas for games and utilities I am working on. It is much more interesting than all of those enterprise Java books that are necessary for getting stuff done at work, but are not that inspiring. I recommend this project-based book to anyone curious about just what can be done with Java.Java After Hours: 10 Projects You'll Never Do at Work Overview
Take your Java programming skills beyond the ordinary. Java After Hours: 10 Projects You'll Never Do at Work will make Java your playground with ten detailed projects that will have you exploring the various fields that Java offers to build exciting new programs. You'll learn to:

Create graphics interactively on Web servers
Send images to Web browsers
Tinker with Java's Swing package to make it do seemingly impossible things
Search websites and send e-mail from Java programs
Use multithreading, Ant and more!

Increase your Java arsenal by taking control of Java and explore its possibilities with Java After Hours.


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Practical Django Projects (Pratical Projects) Review

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Practical Django Projects (Pratical Projects) ReviewThis book is a solid, practically-oriented introduction to Django, but be warned: the code in the book fails with Django 1.0. This is an important caveat because you cannot progress through the exercises unless you know the gotchas and how to modify the code accordingly. Some of the incompatibilities are quite major.
I found that the book pitches a bit low for an experienced developers and it's thin on discussion of the meat of what's going on under the hood. A minor issue with the book is the author's insistence on "admonishing" you literally every second page. You see, calling things "admonitions" one of the secret signs that Python nerds use to show that they're part of that very special little gang of elite hardcore "Pythonistas". For the rest of us, it's just grating (or maybe I'm just not dope enough to be a Pythonista, yo. Y'know what I'm saying, bro? Word.)
Issues aside, I do like its very hands-on approach and I'm betting that the next edition will be a 4.5 star book.Practical Django Projects (Pratical Projects) Overview
Build a Django content management system, blog, and social networking site with James Bennett as he introduces the popular Django framework. You'll work through the development of each project, implementing and running the applications while learning new features along the way.

Web frameworks are playing a major role in the creation of today's most compelling web applications, because they automate many of the tedious tasks, allowing developers to instead focus on providing users with creative and powerful features. Python developers have been particularly fortunate in this area, having been able to take advantage of Django, a very popular open source web framework whose stated goal is to "make it easier to build better web applications more quickly with less code.”

Practical Django Projects is the first book to introduce this popular framework by way of a series of real–world projects.

What you'll learn
Capitalize upon Django's well–defined framework architecture to build web applications faster than ever before
Learn by doing by working through the creation of three real–world projects, including a content management system, blog, and social networking site
Build user–friendly web sites with well–structured URLs, session tracking, and syndication options
Let Django handle tedious tasks such as database interaction while you focus on building compelling applications

Who this book is for
Web developers seeking to use the powerful Django framework to build powerful web sites.


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