Comments about O'Reilly Media Arduino Cookbook:

This book is a time-saver for an intermediate Arduino user with some programming experience. Michael Margolis does not waste the reader's time with introduction to Arduino (available in a multitude other places), nor does he discuss hardware. This is strictly a CODE book. Margolis plunges right into several hundred examples of working code that will program your Arduino to perform all types of tasks and interface with all types of devices, sensors, the Internet, and several types of wireless systems. His code provides a starting point for using the Arduino in nearly any way. The examples are designed to work with popular sensors and devices that are currently available. In most cases, the author provides part numbers for the devices.

Even for an expert programmer (which I am not), I expect this book would be a time-saver because it provides debugged code that can be cut, pasted, combined and otherwise bent to your will.

For a DIY type with some programming and Arduino experience, this book delivers information at just the right level to move forward on intermediate/advanced projects.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Arduino Cookbook:

I used the book to learn how to use the Arduino unit, but came here to get errata - I don't see any. I have found several errors as I worked the code or read the figures (things like Rx -> Rx when they meant Rx -> Tx and vis versa.

I corrected code here and there, and it worked. The book's code had a few errors. This is a tough way to learn a new product, but in general the book is excellent. Once I clear the bugs out, it will become my "go-to" reference on the Arduino.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Arduino Cookbook:

As part of O'Reilly's Cookbok series, the Arduino Cookbook offers a wide selection of recipes for solving a variety of "problems" you might run into when programming the Arduino series of micro-controllers. The recipes range from basics like connecting your Arduino to a Mac or PC and formatting your code to more advanced topics like controlling arrays of LEDs and wireless communications.

In general the recipes are short and to the point. Each provides a code example and a reasonably detailed explanation for what is going on. This isn't the kind of book you'd read cover to cover, but it is an excellent reference to have on the shelf after you've walked through a few basic Arduino tutorials. Whenever you run into a "how do I?" question or just run out of ideas you should be able to get some guidance and maybe inspiration.

I found Chapter 6, Getting Input From Sensors, particularly interesting. With a separate example for each of the most common sensors it provides a good starting point for gathering and reacting to real-world conditions.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Arduino Cookbook:

I received this book from O'Reilly's Blogger Review Program.

The most important thing I noticed about this book is its ability to address an unimaginably broad audience. From a very beginner who venture into the arena of "geekhood" by testing LED patterns, to a well experienced engineer developing a ZigBee network.

The next thing I appreciate is the well organized Q & A approach. It saves time considerably. You can simply skip to the point of your interest and concentrate there.

While focusing to be easily understood by beginners the authors have not forgotten curious questions which might arise to an intermediate or advanced user. One example is the mentioning of what happened to the 'main' function in Arduino source codes as opposed to a typical code written in C language.

For the readers of eBook versions(.mobi in my case) there might be some misunderstanding due to the line separation of some comments. With a basic idea of commenting you can fix it.

Concluding the review, I seriously recommend this book to anybody wishing to learn Arduino irrespective of your level of knowledge or expertise.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Arduino Cookbook:

I am using this book as a study and reference guide for my students. I am using both the e-book (on my iPad) and the paper version. Lot's of my students use only the e-book version.

Being active in the computer industry more than 40 years, a book of this quality is published very seldom. Great job!

Comments about O'Reilly Media Arduino Cookbook:

I'm doing a lot of electronics and the Arduino helps me interface the modules with computers and musical instruments. I use the book as a reference to figure better ways to accomplish various tasks. This book is extremely complete, with hundreds of examples (called "recipes"). It covers everything I can think of so far. For example, I was recently looking for an explanation on the use of "prescaler" bits. Sure enough, there was a concise reference to this subject.
I think that this book will be extremely useful for the beginner and intermediate Arduino fan. The experts will also find it invaluable as a reference.
I bought the e-book version.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Arduino Cookbook:

If you have a little programming experience, want to learn the Arduino, and can read the instructions, this is the book for you. I found this to be a very thorough book in getting people new to Arduino up to speed and gives great examples on how to do just about anything you would want.

I have been learning the Arduino on my own using some tutorials online and found this to be an excellent compliment to what I have been learning. It goes over how to install the software on Windows and Mac and then helps you through the process of connecting up to your board. This can be found online but it's good to see some basics in there. Being extremely rusty on C/C++ programming, there were some nuances to C that I did not know and this book pointed those subtleties out. What I really found impressive in the beginning chapters was the advanced code used by C programmers to make things a little easier, if you happen to know advanced C. I'm in the process of learning C in addition to other languages and it's good to see what I will eventually get towards.

Further into the book, it starts to go through many different projects that can be done and gives you the basics of how to do them. You'll need to know a little about what you're doing but gives good references of where to go and look for more information just in case you need to learn a little more before you dive into your project. There's even a little section in the book where you learn how to interface a Playstation controller with the computer and then control Google Earth with it. Very cool! There's lots to learn from this book and it's definitely a worthwhile reference for anyone that is interesting in implementing projects using an Arduino.

As good as this book is, there are a few shortcomings. I found some minor mistakes in the book such as the output to the serial monitor being slightly different than what you would expect. e.g., when parsing out words separated by commas, it shows two of the three words separated but doesn't show the last word. If you code it up as shown, it does it just fine but if you are trying to check against the book, it will be "wrong" because the book is. Also, in the first chapter, it shows how to connect a small speaker to the Arudino and explains how to get a tone out of it but doesn't show how to do any of it in the example code given. The code has a minor omission that with the proper fix, should run the speaker just fine but if you're still learning, you'll have a difficult time figuring it out on your own.

All in all, if you have a little knowledge of C/C++ or Arudino, this will definitely be a great addition to your library. I highly recommend this book.

Disclaimer: This book was received as part of the O'Reilly Blogger Review Program. All the comments represent my thoughts and opinions and no other party.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Arduino Cookbook:

I have downloaded this book for the kindle app on iPad and have already found a lot of solutions for problems. I even found solutions for problems I didn't knew I had. This book really is a must have, if you want to learn more on the arduino and it's programming language. Lot's of examples.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Arduino Cookbook:

For a while, I've wanted to play around with the Arduino; the open source embedded hardware that's stuck it's claws into everything from the arts, to personal projects and much more. Then, Arduino Cookbook came up on the O'Reilly Blogger Review Program, and I couldn't say no to having a pushed look into it.

I think the Arduino Cookbook will fill the void between books for which their intention is to cover lots of programming fundamentals, and books which only cover the Arduino boards with a cursory mention.

Like most of O'Reilly's cookbooks, they intend to provide a group of solutions to common problems. Sometimes they feel a little filled out; the thought that this recipe and solution are only in there to fill a gap often comes to mind. With my limited Arduino experience, I didn't see this as much as with others, as a somewhat experienced programmer, the programming Chapters did feel a little bit long, but what is there does cover issues where you'd rather have an instant answer than not understand why something is the case.

Overall, I was impressed by what it covered. Notably, serial communication, sensors, driving motors, I2C communication and networking stand out. These are all required for the few projects I have in mind.

If you have any experience with lower-level microcontrollers (I have a little bit of experience with C on Microchips' PIC24 chip), you'll find some more advanced stuff like interrupts and timers towards the end. This is a welcome addition.

The appendixes should be rather useful for most; they cover a basic introduction to electronics, but, as the author says himself, it's not a replacement for a proper book on the subject.

The author suggests that it would be good for a variety of readers, personally, I think it will slot rather nicely into the likes of most programmers - especially those who wish to add something physical to their projects.

If you are looking for something to help complete a project, or just get started with the Arduino quickly this is probably the best bet. You'll find plenty in here to get you going.