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| Author |
Title |
Review |
|
| Dan Appleman |
Dan Appleman's Developing Com/Activex Components With Visual Basic 6 |
Dan Appleman's Developing COM/ActiveX Components with Visual Basic 6 provides expert-mode knowledge of COM controls along with a guide to some of the latest features in Visual Basic. Extremely thorough and densely packed with advice, this book is just right for the programmer who needs to know all the details about Visual Basic controls.
The author begins with a tour of ActiveX and COM, along with some common myths about the technology. His introduction to COM technology is good, but Appleman also explains the pros and cons of COM objects used as in-process dynamic-link libraries (DLLs), standalone EXEs, and remote processes.
When it comes to Visual Basic, the author gives plenty of expert knowledge on class and project options. He covers how to design objects in Visual Basic up close and includes some hard-to-find material on collections and multithreading programming techniques. Appleman also provides an interesting example, a live stock-quote server.
A good deal of the book concentrates on writing ActiveX controls in Visual Basic. Although some developers use the Active Template Library (ATL) and Visual C++ for high performance, it's clear that Visual Basic can do a fine job of creating reusable controls. The author presents a soup-to-nuts tour of ActiveX control development, with due consideration of such topics as properties, events, property pages, and even security and signing. Final sections on ActiveX Documents and the new Visual Basic 6 WebClasses (for ASP development) show off Internet development. In all, this book offers much useful material on expert-mode topics geared to the more seasoned Visual Basic developer. |
| Dan Appleman |
Dan Appleman's Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to the Win32 API |
Quickly harness the full power of the Windows(R) 32-bit operating system using Visual Basic. This best-selling guide covers every key element of the core Win32 API--from Windows management and drawing operations to advanced process control and interprocess communication techniques. Dan Applemen shows you how to translate C and C++ based Win32 documentation to Visual Basic, how to port 16-bit applications to 32-bits, and how to design applications to run on different versions of Windows. |
| Dan Appleman |
Dan Appleman's Win32 Api Puzzle Book and Tutorial for Visual Basic Programmers |
Dan Appleman's Win32 API Puzzle Book and Tutorial for Visual Basic Programmers provides 32 challenging programming "puzzles" that will test the skills of any intermediate or advanced Visual Basic programmer.
The problems start simply enough, with puzzles that look at the basics of Win32 API C API calls, such as retrieving error messages and graphics. However, the book quickly approaches tougher terrain, offering a series of problems on the Windows Registry. Other problem topics include programming with Remote Access Services (RAS), networked drives, and the DEVMODE structure (for polling printers and other devices). Finally, the toughest problems involve ActiveX programming and cover how to work with Global Universal Identifiers (GUIDs) and drag-and-drop file operations.
The back of the book contains hints for each puzzle, as well as complete solutions and comments. The author provides a tutorial on various aspects of VB Win32 C API programming, including C to VB data types, parameter passing (by value and by pointer) and some excellent material on how the call stack works for Windows DLLs. Two final sections discuss the Win32 Service API (for starting and stopping Win32 services) and how to access the Windows NT Event Log.
In all, this book provides expert knowledge on getting the most out of VB Win32 C API calls in a format that is always challenging and often entertaining. |
| John Connell |
Beginning Visual Basic 6 Database Programming |
This book covers all of the new and improved data-access features of Visual Basic 6 (VB6) and illustrates how to put the various components and techniques to work in real-world applications. The first chapter spells out the concepts of databases in general and then introduces the reader to the Data Control and the VB Data Form Wizard--a quick way to snap together a database interface. From there, author John Connell spends a few chapters illustrating how to code the data control and build a "bulletproof" user interface to your data.
After a discussion about planning your database structure, Connell steps you through the process of building a fully functional application that uses many important VB features. The chapters include screen shots, diagrams, and code snippets, with plenty of tips and step-by-step exercises. You can download the source code for the included examples from the publisher's Web site.
Once you have the preliminary education under your belt, the author presents Microsoft's Universal Data Access (UDA) architecture. He shows how to create your own data-bound ActiveX controls and use Active Server Pages (ASPs) to fetch and return database records via a Web browser. Connell finishes off this lengthy education with a brief foray into data mining and a discussion of how to export data to other applications. |
| Michael Halvorson |
Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Professional (Step by Step) |
Targeted to new and aspiring Visual Basic developers, developers who are familiar with other languages but who are new to Visual Basic, and Windows power users, with this book you can learn at your own pace, find exactly what you're looking for and practice with real-world examples.
This information-packed Step by Step course is the easiest and fastest way to teach yourself to write 32-bit Windows-based programs using the Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 development system. Work through every lesson to complete the full course, or do individual lessons to learn just the skills you need. |
| Alex Homer |
ADO 2.0 Programmer's Reference |
Microsoft's new ActiveX Data Object (ADO) 2 standard for database access allows programs to access traditional databases just as easily as other types of data (such as Web pages and spreadsheets). The ADO 2.0 Programmer's Reference gets you up and running with the new ADO and includes a full reference to its objects and methods.
This book explains what ADO is and how it improves upon Microsoft's older database standards. The authors provide valuable samples of how to use ADO in Visual Basic, Visual C++, and Visual J++/Java. They then move on to basic objects and collections used in ADO, such as Connection and Recordset objects, as well as objects that permit you to program with stored procedures for SQL databases.
The authors then take a look at how ADO and XML will facilitate offline database applications. They also offer some real-world benchmarking of actual ADO features put to the test. (For example, the authors suggest which SQL Server cursor options are best.)
The reference closes with more than 100 pages of reference material to all the objects, methods, constants, and error codes found in the new ADO. Much more convenient than online help, this guide will readily meet the needs of any Web developer who wants to become productive with ADO with a minimum of extraneous overhead. |
| Alex Homer |
Professional MTS and MSMQ Programming with VB and ASP |
If you're thinking of powering your next Web site with the latest in Microsoft Internet technologies, and you program in Visual Basic (VB), then Professional MTS and MSMQ with VB and ASP is for you. This fast-paced tutorial gives you a crash course in using Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) and the new Microsoft Message Queue (MSMQ) Server, along with other Microsoft tools, for creating dynamic, commerce-enabled Web sites and Web-based applications. The authors provide a step-by-step guide to configuring and designing with VBScript, active server pages (ASPs) using transactions, and the new capabilities of message queuing (which permits systems to be designed with fault tolerance in mind.) Readable and to the point, this guide will likely be all you need for getting the basics of the best in designing Web sites using Microsoft's latest Web tools. |
| Rockford Lhotka |
Visual Basic 6.0 Business Objects |
Visual Basic 6 Business Objects provides a thorough introduction to employing objects that are used to model real-world business problems. Using a video rental store as its central case study, this tutorial takes you through the design philosophy and actual implementation of a real-world application using Visual Basic 6. Along the way, author Rockford Lhotka discusses other Microsoft tools, such as Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS), and Internet options using Active Server Pages (ASP) and Dynamic HTML (DHTML). Authoritative, yet not overwhelming, this is a great single-volume introduction to serious enterprise development using the latest in Microsoft tools wired together with Visual Basic. |
| Ted Pattison |
Programming Distributed Applications With Com and Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 (Programming/Visual Basic) |
Microsoft's DCOM is the key technology for enterprise development for the Windows platform. Written for the working Visual Basic developer or project manager, Programming Distributed Applications with COM and Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 introduces the basics of DCOM objects in a clear style. All examples are written in Visual Basic, and the reader learns about new Microsoft BackOffice technologies such as Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) (for transaction processing) and Microsoft Message Queue Server (MSMQ) (for message queuing). If your shop uses Microsoft tools, Visual Basic 6 stands ready to write today's scalable distributed applications using DCOM. This well-organized text shows you how DCOM works and what advantages it offers for today's enterprise developer using Visual Basic 6. |
| William R. Vaughn |
Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Basic and SQL Server |
So you have valuable data stashed away in a Microsoft SQL Server database and you want a rapidly deployable way of getting to it? Visual Basic 5.0 and William Vaughn's book may have all the answers you need. Unlike many programming books that jump right into dense code listings, Vaughn takes a much-needed initial look at database-design issues, hardware requirements, the various types of cursors and queries, and how to plan your implementation strategy. On the other hand, this is no beginner's title: Vaughn assumes a strong familiarity with databases and with Visual Basic, and the book's value is not as a tutorial but rather as a detailed reference to techniques for accessing SQL Server databases from Visual Basic. |
| Peter Wright |
Beginning Visual Basic 6 Objects |
Peter Wright's Beginning Visual Basic 6 Objects takes the beginning or intermediate VB programmer into the world of object-oriented development in this easy-to-understand book. Early chapters cover the basics of objects and modeling real-world problems. Then the text teaches you how to build custom ActiveX components using Visual Basic. (Actual coding comes only after a thorough discussion of the principles of object-oriented design.) Throughout this text, screen shots and effective examples are used to illustrate key concepts, including how to use the new VB Visual Modeler tool. Anyone making the leap to objects using Visual Basic will certainly benefit from this well-organized and clearly written text. |
| Steven Roman |
Win32 API Programming with Visual Basic |
The Win32 API, or Application Programming Interface, is of immense use in extending the power of Visual Basic. The Win32 API is the collection of functions and subroutines that provides programmatic access to the features of the operating system. It allows Visual Basic programmers far greater access to the inner workings of the Windows operating system without having to suffer through the steep learning curve associated with Visual C++ style Windows programming. The book is designed for users with an intermediate-level (or higher) knowledge of Visual Basic version 4 or later and a desire to stretch VB into the realm of Windows system programming. Users do not need any background in Visual C++, nor do they need any previous experience programming the Win32 API. This book teaches users how to do relatively simple tasks, such as adding tab stops to a list box and gathering system information (i.e., which version of Windows is running on a system and the number of buttons on the user's mouse). It also teaches users about several advanced programming techniques such as synchronizing two VB applications so they can work in cooperation with each other and how to extract data from controls that belong to another application. Win32 API Programming with Visual Basic also spends a good deal of time describing the basic operations of the Windows NT and Windows 95/98 operating systems. Microsoft's documentation seldom takes into account what the reader knows or does not know. Hence, a solid grounding in the basics of the Windows operating systems will help VB programmers to better understand Microsoft's documentation. This book helps VB programmers eliminate the trial and error process that is usually associated with calling the Win32 API from Visual Basic and does so in a practical, straightforward fashion that is the hallmark of author Steve Roman's style. |
