Philo's WebLog : Book Review

Pro PerformancePoint about to hit the shelves!

philoj — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 08:16:00 GMT

Well, it took the better part of a year, but my second book, Pro PerformancePoint Server 2007: Building Business Intelligence Solutions (Pro) (APress) should be rolling off the presses as you read this. It's almost 500 pages, and I tried to cover Microsoft's entire business intelligence "stack" - from SQL Server (Integration Services, Analysis Services, and Reporting Services) to SharePoint BI, ProClarity, Excel Services, and PerformancePoint (scorecards, dashboards, analytics, and planning). I've even got a short chapter on the new Management Reporter for financial reporting.

Not a hugely deep dive on any of the technologies, but hopefully enough to wrap your brain about where everything fits and get your feet wet with exercises building things.

I'd be interested in hearing feedback about the book.

Why hasn't anyone heard of InfoPath?

philoj — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 02:46:00 GMT

I recently wrote a book on InfoPath 2007. What I find most amazing about the book is that it's evangelizing InfoPath. I've shown a number of developers the book, and when they read the description, their reaction is "wow, InfoPath sounds cool - I should check it out."

How is it possible that a member of MS Office that's four years old has almost no mindshare?

I don't know the answer - I'd be interested to hear suggestions on how to get the word out to more users and developers.

Book Review: SharePoint, Building Office 2003 Solutions

philoj — Sat, 17 Apr 2004 22:31:00 GMT

I bought Scot's book hot off the presses, since it's the first major SharePoint 2003 book. When I got it, I breezed through it, and I'll be honest - I was unimpressed.

Well, I had reason to browse through it again, and this time I just sat down and started reading it. That's when I realized - certain book publishers that use multiple authors had taught me not to bother reading computer books through, as they were so disjointed they worked better as technical manuals. So that's what I'm used to - being able to flip a few pages and find the thing I'm looking for.

Scot's book is different. It harkens back to a day where you could actually read through a book and learn a new technology in a structured manner. If you take the time to read the book from start to finish (it doesn't take long - if you skim the tutorials you can probably get through most of it in a single evening) it's a good thorough introduction to SharePoint. And I mean thorough - there are tutorials on building web parts, working with page templates, creating data views in FrontPage, integrating Windows Single Signon...

(Incidentally, I'm not trying to cast aspersion on one method of publishing over another - I'm simply trying to indicate the different “reading philosophies“ each may require)

He also has a nice walkthrough for creating a new portal from the ground up - laying out areas, sites, as well as explaining users and groups.

All in all, I give this book a healthy thumb's up for anyone who wants to learn SharePoint admin and development - for the first book out of the gate, it's an excellent reference to have.

Philo