Product Description
This digital document is an article from Utah Business, published by American Diversified Publishing Company, Inc. on December 1, 2003. The length of the article is 499 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Watching over the Web: a new leader in XML Web Services security.
Author: Ben Ling
Publication: Utah Business (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 2003
Publisher: American Diversified Publishing Company, Inc.
Volume: 17Issue: 12Page: 42(1)

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Product Description
This digital document is an article from EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, published by Millin Publishing, Inc. on January 20, 2003. The length of the article is 777 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: DataPower Technology delivers world's fastest XML Web Services Security Gateway.(DataPower XS40 XML Security Gateway)
Publication: EDP Weekly's IT Monitor (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 20, 2003
Publisher: Millin Publishing, Inc.
Volume: 44Issue: 3Page: 1

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
Network publishing is simply an extension of current publishing paradigms that allows users to locate content items on a network and publish them to a variety of destinations, which may or may not be known ahead of time. Adobe has taken a comprehensive approach to network publishing by creating the Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP), a description framework that provides an open standard for XML exchange. XMP encloses metadata inside application files, thus enabling applications such as Digital Rights Management (DRM) and workflow automation. XMP is meant to facilitate easy metadata exchange between applications and systems in integration and publishing workflow systems of all kinds. ... Read more

Product Description
Key Findings:

• The market for XML content lifecycle solutions is expected to grow from $1.8 Billion in 2003 to over $11.6 Billion by 2008.
• Producers of content in the enterprise spend over 60% of their time locating, formatting, and structuring content and just 40% of their time actually creating it.
• By 2008, about 60% of all content lifecycle products will be XML-enabled.
• the primary challenge in the enterprise for producers of content -- information that is intended for human consumption -- is content reuse: the ability to integrate content from disparate sources.
• Efforts to improve content processes have been slowed by efforts to extract and manipulate content from multiple, disparate data sources.

Product Description

A practical guide to combining the power, performance, scalability, and reliability of the Oracle Database with the ease of use, short development time, and high performance of PHP

• Program your own PHP/Oracle application
• Move data processing inside the database
• Distribute data processing between the web/PHP and Oracle database servers
• Create reusable building blocks for PHP/Oracle solutions
• Use up-to-date technologies, such as Ajax and web services, in PHP Oracle development

In Detail

Oracle Database gets high marks for performance, reliability, and scalability. Building and deploying your PHP applications on Oracle Database enables you to combine the power and robustness of Oracle and the ease of use, short development time, and high performance of PHP. When used in a complementary way, PHP and Oracle allow you to build high-performance, scalable, and reliable data-driven Web applications with a minimum of effort.

When building a PHP/Oracle application, you have two general options. The first is to use an Oracle database just to store data, performing all the operations on that data on the client side; the other is to use the database not only to store data, but also to process it, thus moving data processing to the data. While building the key business logic of a database-driven PHP application inside the database is always a good idea, you should bear in mind that not all of the databases available today allow you to do. The Oracle database, which offers record-breaking performance, scalability, and reliability, does. The partnership of Oracle and the open-source scripting language PHP is an excellent solution for building high-performance, scalable, and reliable data-driven web applications.

This 100% practical book is crammed full of easy-to-follow examples. It provides all the tools a PHP/Oracle developer needs to take advantage of the winning combination. It addresses the needs of a wide spectrum of PHP/Oracle developers, placing the emphasis on the most up-to-date topics, such as new PHP and Oracle Database features, stored procedure programming, handling transactions, security, caching, web services, and Ajax.

What you will learn from this book?

• Install and configure PHP and Oracle software
• Connect PHP with Oracle
• Move key application business logic into the database
• Build transactional PHP/Oracle applications
• Use security features of PHP and Oracle
• Improve performance with caching
• Employ XML features of PHP and Oracle
• Implement SOAP Web services with PHP and Oracle
• Build Ajax-driven PHP/Oracle solutions

Approach

Through numerous examples, this book shows you how to build simple and efficient PHP applications on top of Oracle, efficiently distributing data processing between the Web/PHP server and Oracle Database server.

Customer Reviews (5)

very good effort, but not five stars
It is a very good book. However, before buying it one must realise that it is simply not suitable for a beginner in Oracle/PHP as the author seems to imply in his introduction. One has to have some programming background and preferably even know the basics of both PHP language AND Oracle. In my opinion, the intended audience in this book are the people who come from IT backgrounds and can easily pick up pretty much anything IT related or at least, as i have said above, know the basics of both technologies. Given that, the author does a very good job at starting at this level and 'seamlessly' covering a lot of ground invery short amount of time. I personally loved it, because mostly this book is to the point, well explained and good examples are provided.
the reasons why i feel this book can only get 4 stars is because parts of it were not written very clearly. Especially the OO Oracle part where one might have to do lot of research on the web and reading over and over before actually understanding what the author meant. Also, in some parts there is a tendency by the author not to be very explanatory and one may have to read on a page or two and only then the concept will be explained whether directly or indirectly. Is it a good book? Yes it is. Is it worth the money? I believe it is. Could have been better had everything been presented gradually as opposed to just throwing some things at the readers? It could have been better.
Overall, a great book for people like myself who come from an IT background and/or know the basics+ or both Oracle and PHP and hate reading a lot of stuff on the Web just to get the idea how things come together.

Good book for Working with PHP and Oracle
Based on the title, the book has so many things to discuss but it actually has less than 400 pages that even include the glossary of terms. The reader might have a second thought about the book since it might not promise to discuss the things written in the chapter.

But if you go through the chapters, you will be surprised how each topic could be discussed thoroughly in this book. Using the traditional structures in most web and application development books, it slowly introduces each concept before they are brought together in the final chapters.

PHP and Oracle are discussed separately at first with sample codes and situations to ensure that the reader understands each concept. It then goes to discuss who they could be efficiently integrated. The final chapter which is about Ajax is very impressive as it gives the developers a chance to develop an Ajax based application using popular practices in web development. The robustness of Oracle and efficiency of PHP is actually shown in an Ajax based application.

PHP Oracle Web Development: Data processing, Security, Caching, XML, Web Services, and Ajax is a good starting book for any web development professionals and enthusiasts. It covers the basics of web development using PHP and database management of Oracle including an installation guide for Oracle and PHP. If you are looking for a book to start with PHP and Oracle, this book offers a good start.

For developers who are experienced in this discipline, the book could be a good reference point for developing an application. The sample codes that helps the reader understands the underlying concept of the application with actual scenarios, this PHP and Oracle book is almost too good to pass on.

A great introduction to PHP and Oracle and how they play together
This book consists in almost 400 pages of solid content, and is targeted at beginners-to-intermediate PHP and Oracle developers who want to learn or have a deeper understanding of the interaction of the two technologies.

The first chapters highlight the capabilities and advantages of Oracle, cover the installation and connecting procedures, and present some of the alternatives to use Oracle with PHP: using the PHP OCI8 extension directly, and with some popular database abstraction libraries like PEAR::DB, ADOdb, or PDO. A capital sin is it never mentions PEAR::MDB2 ;-)
The central chapters are dedicated to data processing, transaction handling, OO programming, security and caching (also using PEAR::Cache_Lite).
The last chapters are dedicated to XML, XSLT, SOAP and AJAX, and are packed with examples which are more than enough to get you started with those features. All the code examples are laid in a plain and very easy to understand way, yet consistently suggesting some best practices from the very beginning.

The first merit of this book is it shows how you can process data with the DBMS and not just to treat the DBMS like a dumb storage system. For instance, there's a whole chapter explaining how to store, query and transform XML documents with PHP and with Oracle's internal XSLT functions, and there are many examples of STORED PROCEDUREs, TRIGGERs, transaction handling, etc.
A good part of the examples have a strong focus on security too. I found particularly interesting the explanation of alternative techniques to secure your tables, and to mask rows and columns for fine-grained access, using not only VIEWs, but also SPs, multiple schemas, PL/SQL packages, table functions and Virtual Private Database policies. On the PHP side, it goes all the way to create a custom PEAR::Auth container.

One of the most interesting paragraphs of the book describes the usage of Change Notification and notification handlers (a new feature of Oracle Database 10g Rel 2) for caching purposes.

While some of the described techniques aren't Oracle-specific and could be used with any other DBMS and it would have been nice to dive deeper into some other unique Oracle characteristics, that was probably out of scope for an introduction to PHP and Oracle, and it doesn't detract from the merits of this excellent book.

The writing style is clear, even if IMHO it could have been more concise sometimes. For instance, reading continue anticipations and wrap-ups that stress the same concept can get a bit annoying after a while: "In the next chapter we're going to see...", "This chapter covers...", "Now that you have an idea on how...", "In this chapter we've learnt how to...".
Anyway, I guess that it's in the spirit of the old adagio "repetita iuvant", and it may make sense in a technical book. My overall impression is very positive.

Clear and useful book
It's rather small, but gives a good overview of PHP, Oracle and AJAX, coupled together. There is only one project example Throughout the whole book, which is enhanced from various aspects. To be precise, they are:

Performance Optimization - views, stored subprograms, triggers, binding variables (Oracle);
caching mechanisms (PHP,Oracle) - intended to reduce amount of data transferred between database and web servers; AJAX - browser-side optimization,

Security - special database schemas coding/decoding algorithms usage(sha1, md5),
Virtual Private Database (VPD) - Oracle

Scalability/Complexity Control - object-oriented approach (PHP5 features, Oracle Object Types)

Unified Data - XML-processing data inside database/PHP server
using XML DB to implement web-service (SOAP, WSDL).

Many of these ideas are rather universal and can be applied to other database servers, web servers and script languages

I would like to emphasize that author is an expert in Oracle, he tries to move almost all business-logic to database server, use native Oracle features (some of them are implemented only in latest Oracle versions). There are also chapters devoted to general database principles (transaction features (ACID), views, stored subprograms, concurrency, views, triggers, stored subprograms) which can be very useful for novice developers.

Clear and concise
PHP Oracle Web Development by Yuli Vasiliev, to quote the front, covers data processing, security, caching, XML, Web Services and Ajax. Quite a lot for a mere 360 or so pages.

The book starts off with notes on both PHP and Oracle and describes how to obtain them both and how to get everything up and running using the PHP OCI8 extensions from Oracle. Whilst Oracle is a market leader in the big database arena, many developers will be surprised to learn that the full and unrestricted product is freely downloadable for development purposes - you only need to buy a licence for a production system. Even then, a free cut down version is available if you don't need the full bells and whistles.

So, with everything up and running, the book launches in to the subject at hand. I was immedietely impressed with the author's clear and easily read prose. Every subject is presented with just the right balance of detail with lots of additional notes and background information to help fill in any gaps. The author's real world experience shines through with sections on locking issues and coding for reusability. The section on object-orienation was particularly welcome.

I also liked the fact that the book didn't just cover the core subject of using Oracle with PHP but also covered vital related material such as various security models and a sizeable section on caching techniques. The sections on XML, Web Services via SOAP and Ajax ensure all the current must-have skills are represented. Ajax was presented via an example application which featured all the aspects you'd need including both code and style sheets but I'd have liked a bit more general advice and description here.

The bulk of the book though is the coverage of the OCI8 extentions and here you can find out how to issue a wide variety of SQL statements including using stored procedures, making use of triggers and a good section on transaction handling that didn't just show how to use them but also had useful advice on structuring your code to make best use of them. I would have liked some notes on avoiding things like SQL Injection attacks but that apart, the security section had some interesting nuggets.

The section on object-orientation warrents close inspection if you want to really leverage the power of the tools available in this development environment. It didn't have much on the 'big picture' of how you'd structure applications this way but it does describe how it all works and how to extend existing objects as well as create your own.

I feel I can safely say that if you need to get to grips with PHP in an Oracle environment, you'll find everything you'll need here to get up and running very quickly. The pace, content and structure of the book are all excellent with my only reserve being the assumption that everything works as it is supposed to with not much in the way of troubleshooting advice. That apart, this is a fine book.
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Product Description
For the most up-to-date information on one of the hottest new markup languages, look to Presenting XML. With this easy-to-follow guide, you'll master the basic concepts and technical details you need to expand your knowledge and understanding of XML.Written by an industry expert with years of real-world experience, this reference takes you on an introductory tour of this robust technology, and it shows you how the technology can work to your advantage. You'll learn to create XML documents, use markup to fine-tune style, link with XML, and develop XML applications. In addition, you'll find out how XML is being used today and what impact it will have in the future.With Presenting XML, you'll get a quick, efficient introduction to XML and everything it has to offer, and you'll learn why this dynamic markup language is the wave of the future.

• An introduction to XML-extensible Markup Language-the slimmed down, Web enabled version of SGML from which HTML was create
• The XML standard is being advanced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as an alternative and compliment to HTML
• XML is neutral with respect to vendor, application, and platform, just like HTML
• Companion Web site includes the electronic version of the book in XML, HTML, and RTF formats, plus XML resources, software, and information

Customer Reviews (14)

decent book
I felt this book is decent enough. ... But when I was reading "Java and XML"I find that Presenting XML provides more information on XML than the OReilly book. Ofcourse OReilly book is good on Java programming part. Things like enity references are well explained by Richar Light. Some of the initial chapters try to present a story of sorts which is .... But the following chaptersget more technial. Overall concepts are presented in reasonable and simple to understand style rather than W3C's website's formal XML specification.

Poorly written books
Very badly organized and hard to follow writting styles.If you are technical enough, just go to w3 website to learn XML, because this book does not provide anything easier to understand (if not more confusing) than the pure specifications.

Ouch.
Briefly:this book is dry, repetetive, and way too light on code samples that should help reinforce key concepts.

Just walk right past this one.

Presenting XML
The book has some good information for the new and novice user.Unfortunately, you have to filter through too much to get at them.On several occasions, I had a sense of deja vu because the author decided torepeat a concept covered multiple times earlier in the book.

I don'tconsider it a total waste of money because I did complete it and feel Ilearned something.However, if you have some experience with HTML or XML,spend your money elsewhere.

A lot of writing but not too much is said.
I've only read 4 chapters so far on this book.But, it has been extremely painful!I will probably press on, but this is definitely snooze material! ... Read more

Product Description
Java and XML share many features that are ideal for building web-basedenterprise applications, such as platform-independence, extensibility,reusability, and global language (Unicode) support, and both are based onindustry standards. Together Java and XML allow enterprises to simplifyand lower costs of information sharing and data exchange. Java and XML showshow to put the two together, building real-world applications in whichboth the code and the data are truly portable.This book covers:

• The basics of XML
• Using standard Java APIs to parse XML
• Designing new document types using DTDs and Schemas
• Writing programs that generate XML data
• Transforming XML into different forms using XSL transformations (XSL/T)
• XML-RPC
• Using a web publishing framework like Apache-Cocoon
• XML as a configuration language

The strengths of Java and XML include the author's deep knowledge of his subject, and a writing style that is both clear and enthusiastic. If you happen to know a lot about Java and not much about XML, this is the ideal title. Readers who already have a good grasp of XML basics might be frustrated by the amount of introductory material. --Tim Anderson ... Read more

Customer Reviews (57)

Disappointing
This book did not come up to the expectations that were set by some of the other reviewers and by O'Reilly themselves.

I bought Java & XML a couple of years ago. I diligently read the first couple of chapters, but then found it unhelpful and put it aside. To find out what SAX and DOM are you have to wade through lots of inconsequential information, only to discover that SAX allows you to parse an XML document on the fly, but doesn't retain it in memory; whereas DOM keeps the document in memory and allows you to manipulate it. Big deal. I could have worked this out by doing some Google searches.

I am writing this review because I have just picked up my (dusty) copy from the bookshelf in the hope of finding something interesting. I was surprised to see that the first example on SAX actually includes a JTree, even though McLaughlin says to ignore it, it is typical of the book to include something irrelevant and simply confusing. Why doesn't he just use a simple console example? What he doesn't say is that the JTree code is really there to make the example longer, so that there are more pages in the book that justify a higher price. You're not going to spend45 dollars on a weedly little manual, are you? You want something chunky for your money.

When reading this sort of book, I get the feeling that O' Reilly, and similar technical publishers, put a lot of effort into inflating their publications into bigger manuals with lots of pages. McLaughlin is obviously an expert, but he is constrained by the O'Reilly house style, which is deliberately conversational and longwinded so that while you feel that it is easy reading, they are really just making it more difficult to learn simple concepts. As I said before they also pepper the pages with unnecessary sections of code.

In my opinion,another two examples are XSLT and XSLT "cooktop": both these O'Reilly manuals could have been condensed into one book by just cutting the waffle.

Don't get me wrong, I don't enjoy dry, academic journals but at the same time I just wish that these manuals would get to the point quicker .

Pretty much a waste of time
Now, after having had this book for about 1 year, and having looked at other sources which explain XML and using XML with Java, do I realize how much of my time this book has wasted.

The author might be a genius, but if you wish to learn XML and it's usage with Java, please take my advise and stay away from this book.

The book is too verbose and the author in the process, to give him the benefit of doubt, forgot to explain the concepts, and then wandered off to his favorite specialized topics such as JDOM and other usages of XML which may be of interest to just a few readers.

Best book on Java and XML
One of the first and best books that really showed how to use XML within a Java development context.

hmmm. check out the newer edition
This book was ambitous, overly optimistic, and even a little 'unfocused', if you can believe that about an O'Reilly title. These problems probably stem from the fact that it was written when XML, and especially the Java API's for XML, were very, VERY new.

Check out the 2nd edition. It's actually thinner, and surely much improved. I'll have to borrow one and see if it's worth buying. (and I'm pretty optimistic, as Brett obviously knows his stuff!)

Get the second edition, not this one
Readers should note that the second edition will be available in a week or two; you can pre-order it elsewhere on this site (my rating is meaningless by the way... its just the review system insists you give it a rating...). Posted 22nd August 2001. ... Read more

Product Description
As companies increasingly partner and syndicate their content to other locations, the need to locate, reuse, and repurpose content in different forms and in real-time is becoming increasingly important. Today, repurposing consists mostly of cutting and pasting different content components. This simplistic mechanism has been the main way of accomplishing this goal not out of efficiency but out of necessity -- there simply are no reliable ways to automatically retrieve, aggregate, and reuse similar types of content. One of the efforts to solve these publishing issues is the Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata (PRISM) Working Group, which seeks to provide an extensible XML metadata standard for syndicating, aggregating, post-processing and multi-purposing content in both traditional and electronic publishing contexts. ... Read more

Product Description
Aimed at Web aficionados who want to create their own Web sites using the features and capabilities of XML, this reference's alphabetical reference style allows for quick location and assimilation of the XML data format. Topics covered include parsers, validators, schemas, DTDs, CSS and XSL, namespaces, Xlink, Xpointer, Xbase, and XML Queries. In addition, supporting standards such as RDF and XML Digital Signatures provide the developer with the information necessary to get started right away. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

XML from A to Z
As with all of Heather Williamson's books, this was easy to reference and very helpful.

A Web Developers Best friend
The thing that most professional developers will love is its ease of use especially when looking for examples of how to do coding.I found it to be an excellent refernce guide that was easy to read for the beginner and the professional alike.Ms Williamson has taken great effort to ensure that anyone who uses this book will be able to understand and use it efficiently. ... Read more

Product Description

XML is revolutionizing Web-site development by making difficult tasks easier -- and many new tasks possible. Based on the latest W3C standards, this thorough tutorial-plus-reference takes you step by step through everything you need to know to put XML to work, from the fundamentals of the XML language to document construction and simple XML-based solutions for specialized markup problems. Numerous examples, specifications, and addresses for relevant Web sites leave no questions unanswered.

Topics covered: XMLbackground, example XML applications, type definitions (DTDs), stylelanguages, Xlinks, Xpointers, Namespaces, application planning, andXML 1.0 specification. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (68)

Great For Beginners
This book is not only concise, but breaks down the process of creating XML apps into small steps that anyone could follow.Before purchasing this book, I also checked out XML for Dummies and a few others.This book was much easier to understand and is completely thorough.

Verbose
I bought Harold's book to help me move from XHTML to XML and to handle data with PHP which does not fit well in a relational database / SQL.This book bogs down quickly in very long explanations & examples which could have been a fraction of the size.I think it has good coverage, but Harold uses too many words every time he approaches a subject.To paraphrase someone else, Harold could write 10,000 words on the color red.

The problem with Wiley's Bible series (I have several of them) is that the goal seems to be to make them as big and heavy as a boat anchor.This results in verbose books, which may be ok for use as a reference but way to hard to read cover to cover for initial learning.The time needed to read these books cover to cover exceeds the value of the book itself.If you buy books by the pound (or kilo), this is a good buy.But if you value your time more than you value impressive size, there are better alternatives.

On a positive note:I have not found a bunch of typo or editing errors and Harold seems to know the subject.I'm just frustrated by the slow pace, although I will continue trying to read it at least a little longer.

Warning: [Some opinions given here appear to be by paid reviewers.ie: Feb 3, 2005, and others.How many others are also raw attempts to sell books without honor?Can you trust anyone who writes hundreds or thousands of 5 star opinions??Heck no!Hint: Check out the person writing the review before actually reading it.Look for how many opinions he/she writes and how many stars.Distrust all high opinions in the first few months after publication, all high opinions by people who have only written a couple of opinions, and all high opinions from people who only write high opinions.Thanks for the lack of honesty Elliotte &/or Wiley &/or big A.(my opinion, 2 cma).]

Doesn't cover DOM and SAX
I haven' read the book, only browsed its TOC. It doesn't cover the Document Object Model (DOM) and the Simple API for XML (SAX). It also discusses CSS in too much detail. These days, web development professionals will probably have a knowledge of both HTML and CSS before starting with XML.

Consider "Beginning XML" or "Professional XML" instead, both published by Wrow.

Pulp paper
I have purchased many books from Amazon, but this one is printed on the lowest-quality paper I've ever experienced.Though it's relatively new, the yellowed pages look like a 1960's pulp novel.There is literally a 2mm yellow border surrounding each page.Come on "Hungry Minds" publishers, you can do better than this.

Sola Scriptura
Review for XML 1.1 Bible (3rd Edition):

Elliotte Rusty Harold is that rare technical author who can write about anything and make it interesting.In this case, he has written 1,000 pages on XML providing us with an excellent guide book to this technology.Whether you are a beginner or advanced user of XML, there will be something in this book for you.

The book is divided into five parts.The first part discusses the basics of XML giving us an introduction to what XML is, what it is used for, and explaining the basics of creating a well-formed XML document.Part two discusses DTDs and explains how namespaces are used.Part three looks at various style languages including CSS and XSL.The section on CSS will be useful to anyone wishing to use CSS to format their HTML documents.Part four gives us a tour of some supplemental XML technologies including XLinks, XPointers, XInclude, and Schemas.The chapter that most interested me was on Schemas and the explanations were clear and complete, leaving no mystery about how to use this technology.The final part looks at a few XML applications including XHTML, RDDL, and SVG.The book does not cover writing programs to process XML documents using SAX or DOM, for example.The author has another book on that topic if that is of interest to you.

Each part of the book does an exceptional job of explaining the topic.The author gives us plenty of examples to make the text crystal clear.The author writes as a colleague helping out fellow programmers and not as an instructor droning away at a blackboard.You really get the idea that the author enjoys XML and enjoys explaining it.If you are interested in working with XML this book is truly an indispensable guide.
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Product Description
Scalable Vector Graphics -- or SVG -- is the new XML-based graphics standard from the W3C that will enable Web documents to be smaller, faster and more interactive. J. David Eisenberg's insightful book takes you through the ins and outs of SVG, beginning with basics needed to create simple line drawings and then moving through more complicated features like filters, transformations, and integration with Java, Perl, and XSLT.SVG makes it possible for designers to escape the constant need to update graphics by hand or use custom code to generate bitmap images. While SVG was created with the Web in mind, the language has a variety of other uses. SVG makes it much easier to automate graphics generation, create charts and graphics based on a wide variety of data sources, or create images that users can zoom in on and explore.Whether you're a graphic designer looking for new tools, or a programmer creating and managing graphics, SVG Essentials provides you with a solid foundation.Amazon.com Review
SVG Essentials opens the door to the rich language that underpins this emerging and fast-growing graphics language. Scalable Vector Graphics, which are described through text like a programming language and can be read on any computer platform with the appropriate viewer, hold great promise for the Web designer who knows how to take advantage of the latent power. This book helps to harness that power.

It's important to note that this book is not written for Web designers looking to add SVG graphics to their sites, but rather for Web programmers who need to add such graphics based on information extracted from a database, or who want to add them by hand. If you have or use an application that can export or embed SVG graphics, you may not need this book. However, if you are looking to create dynamic images that get created on the fly, or perhaps be able to draw graphics based on information from the user or from a database, you've come to the right book.

Although only 330 pages, the book offers 13 chapters and six appendices. Everything from a basic overview of the SVG language through practical examples to the finer points of serving SVG files over the Web is thoroughly detailed, and each chapter is concisely written and rich with screenshots, illustrations, and code examples.

O'Reilly has earned a positive reputation for publishing outstanding technical books, and SVG Essentials makes a fine addition to their lineup. The SVG graphics standard is rapidly gaining ground. Backed by important vendors as Adobe, SVG is poised to be a powerful tool in the arsenal of today's Web designer. Keep this book within arm's reach of any SVG developer or Web designer who wants to take advantage of this emerging and powerful technology. --Mike Caputo ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Sehr zufrieden mit dem Buch
Das Buch (in englischer Sprache) erklärt sehr genau die Details. Auch als Nachschlagewerk sehr gut geeignet.

Good introduction, needs more recipes
The book provides a solid introduction to SVG through an increasingly complex set of examples of SVG use. It is well written and edited, it also provides a thorough description of the entirety of the standard. What it lacks is more depth in the area of recipes for commonly used image effects. It also needs more advice about how complex SVGs are organized and built for efficiency. I understand that SVG is still on the adoption curve, so perhaps we could see these improvements in a second version of the book when the standard has picked up a little more.

For the time being the book earns it's four stars by providing a nice learning curve and having high quality examples that demonstrates the concepts effectively.

Best ORA book since HTML: The Definitive Guide
While it's difficult to separate my excitement over SVG from the contents of this book, it's quite possible that the two are so directly related as to be inseperable.Within a few hours of buying this book, I was producing and printing extremely high quality images that I had found all but impossible to produce w/other technologies (JPEG codecs, etc.).If you are familiar with the basic mark-up language concepts, then you should have no trouble gleaning the essential elements of SVG.

After an excellent introductory chapter that provides a general overview, subsequent chapters cover aspects of SVG in detail, such as how to create basic shapes or generate text.One thing I particularly liked was that the author mostly uses a single example (SVG code to create a picture of a cat) to illustrate new concepts, creating a sense of cohesiveness that tied the chapters together.This book is *not* just a scattershot collection of essays that characterizes so many other technical books -- the text is clear, concise, and to the point.Finally, there is a very uselful appendix that summarizes the most frequently used attributes.

Perhaps the only drawback is that if you are coming to SVG from a non-technical background, you might find this book a little too gear-headed for your liking.For technical readers that want a thorough introduction (i.e., not a PhD thesis) to this exciting and useful technology, however, this book is a must.

Good starter book, but...
Not a bad book if you want to learn just the basics; however, I think you can easily find everything in this book on the Web if you take the time to dig around.If you're looking for a book to get you started, this one will do nicely.But if you're looking for more advanced/esoteric SVG material, I'd keep looking.

In a Nutshell
This subject perfectly fits O'Reilly's "In a Nutshell" tradition, for SVG itself is just that: Web design, including text, graphics, animation, and programming, all in a nutshell -- concise, pithy, simple, and deep.

SVG, a refactoring of several generations of Web technology and a public standard approved by the World Wide Web Consortium, can be authored without any special tools and without any special background, other than the immediately productive background provided by this book.

Eisenberg swiftly, but with diverting variety,illuminates the process of drawing, assembling shapes, creating textures, transforming coordinates, structuring documents, enriching text, creating reusable components, fine tuning color, animating shapes and colors and structures, creating lighting effects, and programming user interactions.All of this is built upon the simple SVG architecture: arrange yourelements in a hierarchy and set their attributes.

There is an art to conveying important points without belaboring them and Eisenberg moves from example to example with perfect pitch.

The book also contains an eight page section with full color images.

Some people have complained about the lack of reference books on SVG.The SVG reference is in fact widely available, all 500+ pages of it, on the W3C site.What is really needed, and would have been useful in this or any SVG book, is a five page guide to using that reference -- how do I, in ten seconds or so, determine whether this element can be a child of that element, or if this element supports this attribute?

While I was developing SVG Composer the only book available was Watt's "Designing SVG Web Graphics" (another fine book with a rather different pitch)..When Eisenberg's work came out I happily relearned SVG, doing every example and picking up any number of new tricks.

I do have some reservations: I didn't care for the cat drawing (hated it!) and the final two chapters on generating and serving SVG seemed aimed at the wrong audience (adepts at Java, servlets, and Perl)though the material itself is perfectly fine.

At first I had the same feeling about the appendices, which include brief samples of subjects from programming to fonts to matrix algebra, that surely Eisenberg was misjudging his audience.However he may have things just right -- SVG may well become the greatest crossover hit ever in computer languages, a lingua franca for logic and art. ... Read more

Product Description
"IT Resources" is a series written by experts in IT training to provide in-depth information on various topics. Each book in the series includes discussion of concepts, descriptions of how to carry out practical tasks, examples and sections on troubleshooting. This book provides the help and advice you need when you are learning new IT skills or putting them into practice. ... Read more

Product Description
XML can be readily used in a variety of environments and for a range of purposes. Prima Tech's fast & easy approach provides a visual alternative to learning this popular language with step-by-step instructions and actual screen shots. This quick reference is the perfect option for busy Web developers, IT managers, and technical writers--anyone responsible for maintaining and creating documentation and data within an organization. The accompanying CD contains all of the code included in the book. ... Read more

Product Description

Written by Sun Microsystems' Java™ BluePrints team, Designing Web Services with the J2EE™ 1.4 Platform is the authoritative guide to the best practices for designing and integrating enterprise-level Web services using the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.4. This book provides the guidelines, patterns, and real-world examples architects and developers need in order to shorten the learning curve and start building robust, scalable, and portable solutions.

The authors use the Java Adventure Builder application to bring the design process to life and help illustrate the use of Java APIs for XML Processing (JAXP), Java APIs for XML-Based RPC (JAX-RPC), and other Web service and Java-XML technologies.

Key topic coverage includes:

Customer Reviews (10)

An excellent book - but fast becoming obsolete
This is a well written book that covers the basics of Java Web Services according to Sun (i.e. from a Java perspective).However - things have moved on since the publication of this book 4 years ago.Will still be a good book to use for the Sun Certified Web Services Developer exam until the exam is updated.May want to look at more recent books.

Great Reference
This book is well written. It would be helpful if there were questions and the end of the chapter.

Good Web services book for a J2EE person
his book is primarily geared towards reader familiar withthe J2EE architecture. Code samples are few and far between, and the illustrations are primarily UML. That's cool. For a book from Sun J2EE team, I would like to see a little more code examples (thus the four stars instead of five.)

The book starts with XML basics, then spends the largest portion of the book on SOAP and JAX-RPC, then finishes off with an excellent chapter on security issues. There is some mention of mobile, but detailed enough.

I do suggest this book as a good reading for budding Java architects who want to learn more about this topic.

Developers are also in a certain way architects, so read it
As the title of my review says this book is intended for all the people who want to architect and develop web services in a proper way. The technology around Web Services is very splitted. I mean from a lot of separate web associations. When you want to master web services technology you have to know in detail XML, XML Schema, SOAP, UDDI and its support in J2EE.
This book gives architectual overview how these technologies depend on each other, I mean the relationships.
The book is not intended for getting detail information about source code implementation. Anyway, it is from the SUN Blueprint program team. So everybody developing and architecturing web services with J2EE technology should read this book. It is a very dry book. Very talkative. I am glad I have already read it.

Great book for the right reader.
This book provides a very good, well ordered, high-level overview of architectural decisions in a Web Services application.If you have knowledge of J2EE technologies, and want an intro to the Web Services paradigm, this is a good book.

This is not a programmer's reference nor an introduction to J2EE technology.

The book is disciplined in maintaining a high-level overview; most code snippets are purposely contracted to show only the relevant features being discussed.This keeps the code snippets focused, but means that if you are looking for a sample SOAP document that does X, you'll need to look elsewhere.

I liked the organization of the book.Rather than organizing the book around an annotated sample application, the authors
take a more didactic approach; Chapter 1 gives an intro to Web Services, Chapter 2 reviews the alphabet soup ofJ2EE development and shows how various components either use the technologies or are connected by them.

The next five chapters each take one component of the Web Services domain and review in detail the architectural
decisions to be made in designing that component. In the chapter on Service Endpoint Design, for example, the authors review
two approaches to designing a service interface definition; should you first design a Web Services Definition Language or
should you first design the Java Interfaces?The Chapter on XML reviews the pros and cons of various XML parsers and the use of XML transformations for services which must interact with numerous systems.There are similar chapters reviewing Client design, Integration with the J2EE platform, and Security.

In the last chapter, the authors review their reference application and walk through their decisions.

Throughout, the authors give good advice on the judicious use of various technologies, use of Design Patterns, and designs that will give good, reusable code.The authors several times discuss patterns that will make the application simpler to understand and build upon.

All in all, this is a well written treatment that I highly recommend. ... Read more

Product Description
In Building Web Services with Java, Second Edition, architects who helped create the core Web services standards explain how to use those standards to build Web services applications. They go beyond the specifications and provide meaningful insights into both how and why these tools were designed as they are. This revised edition covers the new SOAP 1.2 and WSDL 1.2 standards, as well as other technologies developed since the first edition was published, including the Java Web Services Developer Pack from Sun and the powerful Apache Axis Web services engine.Throughout the book the authors focus on practical examples of each concept and provide a running example illustrating a full enterprise solution. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (36)

ok
Customer service was good but my book showed up a week after the latest expected arrival date.

Extremely Poor
Without a doubt one of the worst computer books I have ever bought.The intent of buying a book about programming is to actually learn programming.I have fought the XML section until I have a screaming headache with very little accomplished.So far I have found it impossible to get the so-called examples to run.The source code is not available from the publisher in spite of what others may tell you.Yes, there is a file to be downloaded.However, it has almost none of the source code in it.For example, it only contains the source code for one .jsp file for the entire 2nd chapter.The writing style is practically incomprehensible, jumping around all over the place without ever finishing anything.There are nine authors listed on the cover.Perhaps that is why this book is such a clusterf#@k.How did this thing get to a 2nd printing?STAY AWAY FROM THIS BOOK.I cannot stress that enough.

The Bridge Less Travelled..
The problem with Learning Web Services is just one - there is too much happening..the technology has grappled everyone's attention and a lot of Organizations are on it..
A beginner to web services just doesn't know where to look..strong foundations give 'empire estates', this book does just that
The primer on XML was one of the best i ever read anywhere and i am a big fan of Dr.Google, the clarity of the authors on WSDL Element model is very informative. All in all - if you need a book to trace Web Service concepts and build your foundations - i would strongly refer this book.

If you are looking for a quick reference/book to get started in implementation you should look elsewhere..Sam's 'Teach Yourself Web Services in 24 Hours' is a good choice..but then i believe that this book is definitely worth a reference because it goes a distance conceptually.
Kudos to the authors

An excellent book
This book has helped me immensely in implementing some really intense production quality data interchange across systems using web services.

This book will quickly help you understand the entire XML stack of technologies that you will need for Web Services.

The authors have uniquely enabled the readers to develop an understanding of the underlying technologies that make up the web services.Certainly expect to put in some effort in understanding the content.

The worst book
The writers either do not understand the topics, or they want to confuse the readers intentionally. You will find their writing style extremly annoying. They use the Skatestown(??) example to mislead the readers whenever they need to explain something. I dont know how such a bad written book can make it out to the book stores. If you buy this book, it will be the biggest waste of money. ... Read more

Product Description
Is this book for programmers?  Written specifically for graphic designers and production artists already comfortable working with Adobe InDesign, this book teaches you how to automate publishing without learning a lot of scary code. XML simplifies the process of moving content in and out of your layouts and can speed up any print or Web assignment.

Why should I care about XML? If you’re managing data-intensive layout projects, and you want to keep that data consistent, accurate, and up-to-date, then incorporating XML can help. You can also use XML to automate processes like importing text and large numbers of graphics into a layout, or repurposing content from one application to another. Do I need additional plug-ins or special software? You need only the powerful features built into InDesign CS2, CS3 or CS4 to use this book.

How will I learn XML? This guide includes nine easy-to-follow projects with downloadable support files. With these hands-on tutorials, you will learn XML in context. By the final project, XML will no longer be a mystery, but a powerful tool you can use to support your company or clients.

These real-world projects will teach you:
l Business cards: Create a structured layout in InDesign and then import XML. Format text automatically and flow the text into multiple examples.
l Product catalog: Learn how to import XML data into a structured layout using nested styles and cloned text.
l Direct mail and variable data printing: Use XML and InDesign to create sophisticated direct mail pieces without costly plug-ins or third-party software.
l Magazine and newspaper: Build and export magazine-style publications for online distribution.
l Web: Transform XML into XHTML to incorporate directly into your Web pages, or use Cascading Style Sheets to instantly format your exported XML.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Warning! XML Code Is Illegible!
This review is not about the content of this book, because, having just received it, I haven't read it yet. From the Introduction, the content would appear to be just what I need to solve my own perplexing work problem, which is why I bought this book. Unbelievably, however, the XML code is printed in 20% or at most 30% gray, providing virtually no contrast against the white paper! I can barely read it under good lighting! Ironically, the Acknowledgments thank their editors for making their "words look so beautiful on paper." No one thought twice about this stunning design error?! I can only hope that the supplemental project files that are to be downloaded from Peachpit will help overcome this problem.

Two Thumbs Up!
Review: A Designer's Guide to Adobe InDesign and XML: Harness the Power of XML to Automate your Print and Web Workflows

Reviewer: Len Zigante, Sr. Desktop Publisher, Norco Performance Bikes.

I have an interest in XML because I work in an environment that requires I regularly lay out catalogues and flyers that consist of several fairly standard formats with mostly just the text and images changing. As speed and accuracy with ever increasing volumes of data are always important issues, XML looked to me to be one possible answer as to how to address this dilemma. It does not disappoint tho there are better tools to achieve the same end in this writer's opinion if one is willing to pay dearly for them.

One nice thing about XML is that it is built in, integral part of Indesign although most users are completely unaware of it's existence. It does not require the expenditure of hundreds of dollars per copy of indesign or for clients to use. Even better, XML is found in many other standard office software packages so the probability is high that data existing in one can be quickly exported to XML useable by Indesign and visa versa.

The book starts off as a slow read for the first 25 pages or so due to the necessity to bring the reader up to speed with XML definitions, rules, and interfaces. It's a necessary evil as one would become quickly lost without this knowledge. However, the authors do a very good job of explaining and demonstrating things simply expecting most readers to be laymen totally unfamiliar with XML.

From that point onwards the authors lead the reader through how to use Indesign's XML and tagging features (using both the Story Editor or Layout modes) with example files downloaded from the book's website. These are practical examples and what is learned here can be directly transferred to real life uses. The book starts off with simple text and image examples and progressively moves into more complex concepts such as using variable data and creating web pages utilizing HTML and CSS.

Two very valuable features in this book are 1) that the authors take time to explain how to import to and export XML from several other popular software packages so the user does not have to struggle with them in order to get things working all around 2) the authors go the extra mile to demonstrate the "wrong" way to create an XML based layout that many users typically employ explaining and showing why it is "wrong" and the problems and difficulties one runs into if they choose to go that route.

Overall this is a very good, easy-to-understand manual for anyone who wants to learn how to use XML within Indesign to speed up and improve their accuracy within workflow situations where the information presented has a structured format and is rather repetitive in nature (eg. catalogues, flyers, cookbooks, business cards, reports, etc.). If you primarily do one-off jobs where the layout and structure of the information varies regularly then this book is not for you.

As described, no hassle, no delay
Book was delivered on time, was in described condition and there was no hassle whatsoever. Very nice, thank you

Simply the best to start.
all is on the title. I was looking for a first, professional book about XML and Indesign. I don't have seen an other book like this yet.
Really a good book, well done, filled with information to knowing and to keep with you.

A God send
This book is the most valuable book to all production catalog designers alike! We are part designers and part programers. We like it done fast, efficiently, correct and printable. I am using Adobe Suite 4 and XML is still supported. There are programs that are out there that automatically create catalogs. But if you are savvy enough to learn xml, javascript and a few other small programs, you can be just as powerful. Great book! ... Read more