Updates
Latest Tweet
What's New?
Check out for latest innovation, a computer based training video collection
Like this Page
Access 2003 Personal Trainer (Personal Trainer (O'Reilly)) Review by John A Lee III
A Lightweight but Effective Primer for the Basics
This book grew on me. It is woefully inadequate when it comes to teaching the real use of databases. The ideas and concepts are presented in a very superficial manner. Still, as I plugged on through it, I came to have much more respect for it.
It does not teach the use of databases. Instead, it teaches the Access 2003 interface. In doing that, it does a very good job. I would even venture to say it does a better job at teaching the interface than many larger and more comprehensive books.
The book comes with a CD loaded with projects to accompany the tutorial. In general, the program behaved as described and there was really only one place where my screen would not show what the text said it would show. The illustrations are a bit on the small side but that seems to be normal. They are just big enough to be useful.
The lessons are broken up into individual themes and further broken into very short segments. These short segments may cover only a single command and can be completed in just a few minutes. I found this useful in that I seldom have a long stretch of time I can devote to a protracted lesson. Upon reflection, I think this short subject approach helped in retention as well.
It is a good program to teach the interface but much more is needed to learn how to properly use a database.