You can check out a few pictures at Engadget on www.engadget.com

If you are looking at gifting a truly lifestyle product for men, you have just come to the right destination. A very unique portable speaker, and a smashing hit in Japan, Sony Rolly has now made its way to the UK. One can load songs on to it, and then watch with thorough entertainment, the Rolly flashing lights and dancing in motion along with the songs. Yes, it brings music to life. Believe it or not, it is truly incredible! And what’s more, you can even load songs on it through the mobile by using blue tooth.

But hold on, don’t get disappointed! If you are still looking at buying an e-book reader, you have another alternative as well. Try the Sony e-book reader. This is really good, and true value-for-money.

Target Audience: Developers, Team Leads, Managers
Difficulty: Beginner - Intermediate

Who should buy this book?

Buy this book, if you are using .NET and are new to extreme programming. If you know extreme programming and are interested in knowing what tools and techniques can be used to bring XP Practices to .NET projects and teams, then this is a perfect book for you.

Review Summary:

An excellent introduction to extreme programming in the realm of .NET. Dr. Neil does a very good job of explaining extreme programming in a very simplistic way along with plenty of scenarios and dialogues to outline to concept. Really worth a buy for anyone interested in extreme programming and working with the .NET Framework. This book gives a very quick and nice overview of what extreme programming is, and how we can implement it in our .NET development teams.

Pros:

Presented in clear and enjoyable manner
Lots of hands-on and mock ups to outline the concept
Describes how to use NUnit and NAnt to implement XP Practices in .NET projects.
A full step by step project utilizing all XP Practices learnt
Cons:

A chapter on Continuous Integration would have been nice.
TOC at Glance

0. Setup.
1. eXtreme Programming Overview.
2. Pair Programming.
3. How to Solve Big Problems.
4. Test-Driven Development.
5. Refactoring.
6. Spiking.
7. Automating the Build Process.
8. More Testing.
9. Step-by-Step Development.
Appendix I. Guideline Solutions for Task Breakdown Exercises in Chapter 3.
Appendix II. Building Your Own Simple Test Framework with Excel
Appendix III. Recommended Reading.

This book is aimed at getting you up to speed with Sharepoint from scratch quickly. It begins by outlining the business need for Sharepoint. A nice overall picture to have in understanding the value Sharepoint adds to an organisation.

Typical server farm set up is explained as well as figures on Sharepoint limitations, which will aid you in architecting a solution. Descriptions of how Sharepoint integrates with other services such as Single Sign On and Active directory are provided with setup instructions.
A good portion of the book outlines how to develop web parts, with good descriptions of the web parts functionality, including an explanation of connected web parts. A good start on how to use the Sharepoint object model is covered, outlining how to access some of the key Sharepoint objects like lists and current user information.

The book also lightly touches on using VS (Visual Studio) 2005 and a quick look at the differences from developing web parts in VS2003.

Pros:
Nice and light, not packed with code or an API library, but more explanation and good hands on labs at the end of each chapter. The explanations in each chapter are thorough and will help anyone new to Sharepoint.

Cons:
Not for developers who need to do more advanced development with Sharepoint. Would have liked it to have more on CAML and how to create custom templates rather than the front page modifications which un-ghost pages. Would have been nice to explain any work around to the Sharepoint size limitations or why they exist.

Conclusion
A perfect introductory book to read if you are new to Sharepoint development and administration, but you will need to be familiar with .NET development. A very good first Sharepoint book to have, but not for medium to advanced Sharepoint developers.

Target Audience: End Users
Difficulty : Beginner

Who should buy this book?
Buy this book, if you want to learn to work with Windows SharePoint. If you are new to SharePoint and maybe not an expert with computers and want to know how to use the various default features provided by SharePoint, then this book is for you.

Review Summary:
This book is a quick introduction to SharePoint for the absolute beginner. It mainly deals with using the various aspects of the default WSS installation. Although it does not cover SharePoint Portal Server, the concepts learnt with WSS are very similar and can easily be applied to use the additional features present in SharePoint Portal Server 2003. Some of the chapters are very elementary, while many other chapters teach you to do things the SharePoint way. Wondering how to setup your own document library, or how to set up events in SharePoint? This book will show you very precisely what, where and how to solve your problem.

There is no code or programming involved, and everything is taught in very simple, clear steps for the end user to quickly come to grasp with the SharePoint way of doing things. Definitely worth a buy if you want to learn to use SharePoint quickly. If you are a tech savvy guy with good expertise with computer software but are new to SharePoint, you can still find this book valuable as it will get you running with SharePoint like a pro in just a matter of hours

Pros:

Short concise lessons
Lots of hands on exercises provided with nice screenshots
Covers integration of Office and SharePoint
Cons:

Not for advanced users
TOC at Glance

1. Introduction to SharePoint 2003
2. Accessing SharePoint Sites
3. SharePoint Site Collections Demystified
4. Introduction to Web Parts
5. Document Library Basics
6. Picture Library Basics
7. Using the Links, Contacts, and Events Lists
8. Using the Tasks and Issues Lists
9. Introduction to Metadata
10. The Datasheet and Explorer Views
11. Modifying and Creating Views in Libraries and Lists
12. Alerts and Document Versioning
13. Using Word with SharePoint
14. Using Excel with SharePoint
15. Summary of the Role of Site Administrator
16. Managing Site, Library, and List Security
17. Home Page Configuration Basics
18. Adding and Linking Web Parts
19. Creating Libraries and Lists
20. Creating Custom Lists and Importing Spreadsheets
21. Creating Basic and Web Part Pages
22. Forms in SharePoint. Understanding SharePoint Forms
23. Creating Sites
24. Backup Strategies
25. Migrating and Moving Data

Review

Target Audience: Developers
Difficulty: Beginner - Intermediate

Who should buy this book?

Buy this book, if you know either Biztalk or Oracle BPEL and want to get a good reference to the BPEL langauge, or you want to get started with them. You should know Web Services, XML a bit of UML to understand this book fully.

Review Summary:

This book is a good introduction to BPEL. Anyone willing to learn more about BPEL or writing applications which deal with Business Processes and Web Services, will greatly benefit from this book. As there are very few books available in this category, this book forms a very valueable reference for the BPEL standards. Another good thing about this book is that it explains general BPEL concepts and then uses the Oracle BPEL Mangaer or Biztalk 2004 for specific examples and hands on activities.

As the book is essentially poised as a reference, it can be a bit boring and drag to read at times. This is an inherent disadvantage to any reference book. But it is still a bit manageable and readable and does serve as a good reference guide. It does provide a good overview of BPEL and arms you with the knowledge needed to tackle applications with complex business process needs.

Pros:

• Good reference to have
• Explained nicely with appropriate diagrams throughout the book.
• Examples cover both Biztalk 2004 and Oracle BPEL Manager

Cons:

• Does not cover advanced topics

Review

Target Audience: Developers
Difficulty: Beginner - Intermediate

Who should buy this book?
Buy this book, if you know a little bit about using SharePoint 2003, are using .NET and are interested in developing custom web parts for SharePoint 2003. If you already know the basics about developing web parts but are not very comfortable with it, this book does have some good tips and pointers to get you up to speed with all the necessary aspects of web part development.

Review Summary:
I would like to call this book an accelerated guide to developing web parts. The author Darrin Bishop does not waste time going thru the usual SharePoint administration stuff which you find in all SharePoint books. Instead, he focuses on just one thing - Web Part Development. What I liked about this book is the size and the breadth of content. It does not repeat the same stuff which you find in the SDK and neither provides unnecessary listing of methods and properties etc. which fills pages but is of no practical use. It compliments the SDK with quick examples, good advice and tips to speed up your learning curve.
This book is filled with invaluable advice which would save a lot of your precious time as compared to figuring out the solution yourself. I wish I had this book when I first started figuring how to develop Web Parts for SharePoint. Would have saved the endless hours of midnight oil I burnt racking my brain to understand Web Part Development from the beta SDK. Definitely a must buy for anyone wanting to master the ins and outs of Web Part Development.

Pros:

• Very concise and to the point presentation
• Lots of tips and useful advice
• Covers a lot of topics in Web Part Development
• Covers setup of your development environment and necessary things to start development

Cons:

• A chapter on SmartPart would have been nice

Tip: Do register the book to avail the invaluable bonus chapters covering WPPackager Application, using external resources thru Web Parts and some other good stuff.

TOC at Glance

Chapter 1 - Introduction to Web Parts
Chapter 2 - Using Web Parts
Chapter 3 - Web Part Infrastructure
Chapter 4 - Using the Web Control Library Template
Chapter 5 - Using Visual Studio.NET
Chapter 6 - Code Access Security
Chapter 7 - Debugging Web Parts
Chapter 8 - Using Web Parts to Create HTML
Chapter 9 - Personalization and Web Parts
Chapter 10 - Connectable Web Parts
Chapter 11 - Deploying Web Part Assemblies
Appendix A - Web Part Life Cycle
Appendix B - Using ViewState

Bonus Online Chapters ( available on registration ):
1. Extra Chapter - Using the WPPackager
2. Extra Chapter - Using External Resources
3. Code examples in C# and VB .NET
4. Sample Web Parts and Policy File