Comments about Microsoft Press Microsoft® Access® 2010 Plain & Simple:

Easy to read, colorful format, bulleted to-do walk throughs. What more could you ask for?

How about some details.

This ended up being a lot more simplistic than I possibly imagined. Of all the Office products, Access is one I don't know as much about. I want to learn how to use it more effectively, since a lot of the jobs I'm wanting to move into require some database skills.

If you have a basic level of understanding for Access, this book will probably help you. It did show me how to do some things, but anything more elaborate (i.e. an explanation of what that particular column or key or text meant) was lacking. The book shows you, but doesn't tell you how or why you're doing something.

I learn best by doing and was really hoping this would provide me with a step by step way to create a database or "beautify" an Excel spreadsheet by importing into Access. Even creating a nice report would have been nice. While the book explains the basics of how to do those things, it doesn't help once you have it open and want to actually create.

I don't fault the author for this. The title clearly states Plain & Simple. It was just too plain and simple for my needs.

I plan to hold onto it once I start learning/understanding more, because I feel it may serve as a good refresher at times. Yet I still feel it may prove to be too simplistic once I know more.

Comments about Microsoft Press Microsoft® Access® 2010 Plain & Simple:

I purchased this in e-book form for Barns & Noble for their Nook for PC. There is no table of contents. Near the front in the opening statements they write: Chater 7 through Chapter 10 are all about ...." That provides no help in finding subjects within those chapters.

I found an index by manually scrolling to the bottom, but "header" is not there. The index is severely lacking.

Searching for an obvious phrase "form header" returned a not found. In a technical book, and in particular an e-book, the authors should take great pains to ensure that commonly needed topics like "form header" are searchable.

Part of the problem is B&N's Nook for PC. It is severaly lacking. When paging through, beginning with Chapter 7 as noted above, it crashed and had to be restarted. I see the note about references to other retailers, but these work together as a package and each is significant in my viewing dis-pleasure.

Comments about Microsoft Press Microsoft® Access® 2010 Plain & Simple:

I can thank Microsoft Access for helping me break into the IT industry. Over a decade ago, I was working as a data entry temp at a company creating a database of motorcycle parts and accessories for an online catalog they were developing. We were using Microsoft Access 2000 to enter the data. Fortunately for me, we went beyond simple tables while entering our data, creating queries which helped us remove duplicate entries and double check our work. I even wrote my first basic SQL queries in Access during this job, and my desire and ability to learn how to utilize Access to its fullest abilities was noticed by the project supervisors, leading to my first full time technology job. Access has changed a lot in the time since I first played with the toy. Fortunately, there is a great book which Access users of any skill level can turn to for help learning the ins and outs of the latest iteration of the program.

What I like most about Curtis Frye's book, Microsoft Access 2010 Plain & Simple, is that it both teaches new users about Access 2010 and serves as a reference guide for all users, catering to both needs without short changing either. The book is broken down into specific topics arranged in such a way where you can read the book from cover to cover, creating and refining your database in the process, but you can also look for a specific subject which you need to brush up on and go straight to it after finding it via the table of contents or index. Each section stands alone, yet, as a whole book, they flow together and are easy to follow. Each topic has multiple subtopics full of specific steps on how to perform functions and accomplish tasks with your database, complete with full color examples with each step pointed out for easy reference. It doesn't matter if you're a visual learner or somebody who learns best by reading the instructions as both methods are covered thoroughly.

Even if you don't have a database project to work on, Microsoft Access 2010 Plain & Simple gives you plenty of hands-on experience, providing "Try This!" practice examples using the sample Northwind database which comes installed with Access 2010 or just in a blank database. You can then take what you've learned and apply it to your real world database work, creating complex queries, clean and organized forms, and colorful reports which will wow your boss and coworkers. You'll say goodbye to those boring spreadsheets handed out at those quarterly sales meetings and never look back.

Comments about Microsoft Press Microsoft® Access® 2010 Plain & Simple:

I had the opportunity to write a review for this book by the wonderful folks at O'Reilly and this book has not let me down.

As the book says, it's meant to be plain & simple. The book follows the idea that they provide you with general ways of doing things within access, and you take that knowledge and apply it to whatever project you are working on. This way they are not just showing you how to create a customer invoicing system, when many of those readers might not need something that specific.

The book starts you off talking about the improvements & additions of Access 2010 and then moves into working with the databases. You learn about creating database tables, assigning primary keys, editing tables, and creating forms to help with entering database information.

As you can see from the table of contents above, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Those with vision problems might have some difficulty reading some of the images in the book. The book compensates for this though by including easy to follow numbers that point to various parts of the image. These numbers follow the steps that the author use to guide you through the various tasks they are showing you how to accomplish.

So for example if the author's 1st step is to click on the file menu, there is a number 1 in a big colored circle near & pointing at the file menu basically.

If you are not familiar with Access 2010 and want a good intro on how to do general tasks within the program, this is a great starter book. If you have been using Access and need more advanced topics, the Inside Out series might be more your thing.

Comments about Microsoft Press Microsoft® Access® 2010 Plain & Simple:

i got the ebook version to save a tree! the images in the ebook were unreadable

Comments about Microsoft Press Microsoft® Access® 2010 Plain & Simple:

Another of the Plain & Simple series, the introduction states just what the book is: "You want the information you need—nothing more, nothing less—and you want it now." That is exactly what this book does is give you the quick step-by-step to complete the needed task.
The book starts with what's new in this latest version of Access 2010. Particularly with this new office is the Ribbon, introduced in 2007, and the ability to re-use previous work to begin new projects. As they say "why recreate the wheel?"
I do like the brief history of what a database is in Chapter 3 as those who are looking to use Access and know little about computers, this can give a good base for new Access users in understanding why use a database. It then walks the user through opening a database and the user interface.
From here it is time to tighten the seat belt and get to work. Chapters 4-11 cover the aspects from base design to the front operation and data presentation. For those who are familiar with or have several years of experience with Access will find this book taking you to the next level or higher. If you are struggling with how to perform a task you simply look it up in the index, go to the page and you will have the steps to completed in just a couple of pages.
Chapter 12 takes through interacting with other programs. Whether it is through linking, inserting, importing, and/or exporting this chapter covers it for you. And unlike other books I have used, you can get the complete how-to in just a few pages. The only thing lacking in this section is interaction with a SQL Server.
For those who want to share the database but protect the work you have put in and/or who has access to the data Administration of a Database follows. Chapter 13 also covers configuring start-up options so that a Navigation form is the first thing a user will see. There is ever important Database Documenter so that if you need to refresh yourself on what you have done you can create a file(s) with the information.
Chapter 14 could have been included in Chapter 2 when covering the ribbon and new features and breaks the flow of the book.
But the final chapter brings you back and completes the book with the utilization with PivotTable. Dynamic presentation of data means timely information and for some businesses it can be the difference with closing that next deal. I think this book would be a plus for any library where a person works with large amounts of data that must be worked with and queried.