Best Book to prepare for MCSD exam

I would like to (once again) begin preparing for the MCSD.

I started and made some significant headway in the book by
Cassidy and Shapton printed by Osborne called "MCAD/MCSD
Visual Basic.NET Web Applications". I found its examples
full of errors and somewhat hard to follow, i.e. poorly
written.

Could someone suggest the best books/study guides to do
well on the VB.NET track? I am primarily focused on
buying the materials I need to pass all of the necessary
exams; acquiring books for reference is *not* my main goal
right now. Is there one volume that covers all of the
VB.NET exams, or must I go buy a seperate book for each
exam?

Your advice would be much appreciated!
Eliezer in Chicago

Eliezer

"Eliezer" <> wrote in message
news:86cc01c495e5$384f5870$...
>I would like to (once again) begin preparing for the MCSD.
>
> I started and made some significant headway in the book by
> Cassidy and Shapton printed by Osborne called "MCAD/MCSD
> Visual Basic.NET Web Applications". I found its examples
> full of errors and somewhat hard to follow, i.e. poorly
> written.

I made the mistake of buying their matching book for for Windows
Applications. However, I must admit that I learned more from figuring out
to how to get their examples working than I would have if they had run
flawlessly. If you go to Osborne's site and look up the errata for this
book, you will see more than a few I submitted.

The funny thing is that there are several more mistakes that I submitted
that they didn't add to the errata. Which indicates to me that they don't
have anyone on staff who understands enough about VB.NET to understand
something's wrong, even when it's spelled out for them what the problem is.

There's one other thing that bothered me about this book, and I've seen
this problem with other books from other publishers. They write the code
with the assumption that everyone's computer is set to the culture en-us
(English, United States), when they plan to sell the same edition of the
book internationally. My computer's set to en-ca (English, Canada). The
main thing that stands out is dates. US short dates are month-day-year,
while almost everyone else uses day-month-year. You would think that
someone who is teaching programming would know enough to avoid using short
dates. Personally, I favour using the format 10-mar-2004 (for example).
It's short, and it leaves no doubt which is the day and which is the month.

Schfooge

For VB.Net track, stick with Mike Gunderloy's books.
They're the best and you will be glad to read from them.
The links on Amazon are
70-305 : http://tinyurl.com/56cmr
70-306 : http://tinyurl.com/5hapf
70-310 : http://tinyurl.com/52oav
Also, be sure to check out the Errata at
http://www.larkware.com/TGErrata.txt

Good luck !

- Raja.

>-----Original Message-----
>I would like to (once again) begin preparing for the
MCSD.
>
>I started and made some significant headway in the book
by
>Cassidy and Shapton printed by Osborne called "MCAD/MCSD
>Visual Basic.NET Web Applications". I found its
examples
>full of errors and somewhat hard to follow, i.e. poorly
>written.
>
>Could someone suggest the best books/study guides to do
>well on the VB.NET track? I am primarily focused on
>buying the materials I need to pass all of the necessary
>exams; acquiring books for reference is *not* my main
goal
>right now. Is there one volume that covers all of the
>VB.NET exams, or must I go buy a seperate book for each
>exam?
>
>Your advice would be much appreciated!
>Eliezer in Chicago
>.
>

Raja

Schfooge,

It's good to hear I'm not alone on this. I had many
emails back and forth between myself and the supposed-
editor and between myself and both authors in attempts to
try to get their code to run...


>-----Original Message-----
>
>"Eliezer" <> wrote in
message
>news:86cc01c495e5$384f5870$...
>>I would like to (once again) begin preparing for the
MCSD.
>>
>> I started and made some significant headway in the book
by
>> Cassidy and Shapton printed by Osborne called "MCAD/MCSD
>> Visual Basic.NET Web Applications". I found its
examples
>> full of errors and somewhat hard to follow, i.e. poorly
>> written.
>
>I made the mistake of buying their matching book for for
Windows
>Applications. However, I must admit that I learned more
from figuring out
>to how to get their examples working than I would have if
they had run
>flawlessly. If you go to Osborne's site and look up the
errata for this
>book, you will see more than a few I submitted.
>
> The funny thing is that there are several more
mistakes that I submitted
>that they didn't add to the errata. Which indicates to
me that they don't
>have anyone on staff who understands enough about VB.NET
to understand
>something's wrong, even when it's spelled out for them
what the problem is.
>
> There's one other thing that bothered me about this
book, and I've seen
>this problem with other books from other publishers.
They write the code
>with the assumption that everyone's computer is set to
the culture en-us
>(English, United States), when they plan to sell the same
edition of the
>book internationally. My computer's set to en-ca
(English, Canada). The
>main thing that stands out is dates. US short dates are
month-day-year,
>while almost everyone else uses day-month-year. You
would think that
>someone who is teaching programming would know enough to
avoid using short
>dates. Personally, I favour using the format 10-mar-2004
(for example).
>It's short, and it leaves no doubt which is the day and
which is the month.

Eliezer

Raja, thank you very much for replying!!!
Eliezer


>-----Original Message-----
>For VB.Net track, stick with Mike Gunderloy's books.
>They're the best and you will be glad to read from them.
>The links on Amazon are
>70-305 : http://tinyurl.com/56cmr
>70-306 : http://tinyurl.com/5hapf
>70-310 : http://tinyurl.com/52oav
>Also, be sure to check out the Errata at
>http://www.larkware.com/TGErrata.txt
>
>Good luck !
>
>- Raja.
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>I would like to (once again) begin preparing for the
>MCSD.
>>
>>I started and made some significant headway in the book
>by
>>Cassidy and Shapton printed by Osborne called "MCAD/MCSD
>>Visual Basic.NET Web Applications". I found its
>examples
>>full of errors and somewhat hard to follow, i.e. poorly
>>written.
>>
>>Could someone suggest the best books/study guides to do
>>well on the VB.NET track? I am primarily focused on
>>buying the materials I need to pass all of the necessary
>>exams; acquiring books for reference is *not* my main
>goal
>>right now. Is there one volume that covers all of the
>>VB.NET exams, or must I go buy a seperate book for each
>>exam?
>>
>>Your advice would be much appreciated!
>>Eliezer in Chicago
>>.
>>
>.
>

Eliezer

Hi,

I can't tell you which are the best books, but I can tell what I use now for
my MCSD

passed with 829 score 70-305 last week: 43 questions - in the beginning of
exam there is a notice that some questions are from beta - it don't looks to
me like beta questions they make them absolutely like real, if you now what
I mean

I will go tomorrow on70-306 and on 20th Sep on 70-310 based on what I learn
in books:

I study from Microsoft's MCAD/MCSD Self-Paced Training Kit: Microsoft
..NET Core Requirements, Exams 70-305, 70-315, 70-306, 70-316, 70-310,
70-320, and 70-300

test included in kit has absolutely the same structure, look and feel like
real exam, which prepare me very well for the exam. In fact on exam
there was about 5 questions absolutely the same like in training kit, why I
am not surprised



I try many training tests from different vendors including Transcender, but
somehow I do not like all them, and stop messing up with them (finally it
appears that I am right) - just learn from kit and from Sybex press
MCAD/MCSD: Visual Basic® .NET Windows® and Web Applications Study Guide and
of course learn A LOT from msdn - it take me 2 weeks to prepare, but I do
not do any exercises, because I anyway work with .NET from past 2 years.



I see a lot of references here for many books, but I really doubt that you
can get more valuable source then msdn, after all it is Microsft's exam.



good luck to all
valko


"Eliezer" <> wrote in message
news:86cc01c495e5$384f5870$...
> I would like to (once again) begin preparing for the MCSD.
>
> I started and made some significant headway in the book by
> Cassidy and Shapton printed by Osborne called "MCAD/MCSD
> Visual Basic.NET Web Applications". I found its examples
> full of errors and somewhat hard to follow, i.e. poorly
> written.
>
> Could someone suggest the best books/study guides to do
> well on the VB.NET track? I am primarily focused on
> buying the materials I need to pass all of the necessary
> exams; acquiring books for reference is *not* my main goal
> right now. Is there one volume that covers all of the
> VB.NET exams, or must I go buy a seperate book for each
> exam?
>
> Your advice would be much appreciated!
> Eliezer in Chicago

valko yotov