Ben Forta's Blog - Books

ColdFusion 10 Book Is Shipping

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 10:05:00 -0400

Adobe ColdFusion Web Application Construction Kit: ColdFusion 10 Enhancements and Improvements is now shipping. As noted a while back, this book is intended to be used as a 4th volume in the CFWACK series.This new volume contains 19 brand new chapters on HTML5 and web enhancements, new security and administration options, and more. And all this goodness is brought to you by noted ColdFusion experts and team members: Chandan Kumar, Charlie Arehart, Hemant Khandelwal, Ken Fricklas, Raymond Camden, and Rob Brooks-Bilson. More details are on the book page.

New Sams Teach Yourself SQL In 10 Minutes Now Shipping

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 15:10:00 -0400

My little Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes is my best-selling title, it has sold over 1/4 million copies in English, has been translated into more than a dozen languages, has created 3 spin-off titles focused on specific DBMSs, and has even become a textbook in numerous colleges and universities worldwide. I'm really excited to announce that the new fourth edition is now shipping. In this edition I cover newer versions of popular databases like SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL, and have also added specific coverage for important new options, most notably SQLite. But, the most important enhancement in this new edition is that it is printed in color. Colored titles and headers are pretty cool, but where you really see the value is in long SQL statements that are so much more readable when color-coded. My copies of this new edition showed up today, and online bookstores should be shipping it next week! Yeah!

New SQL Book Now In Color

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 10:51:00 -0400

My little Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes is my best-selling title, it has sold over 1/4 million copies in English, has been translated into more than a dozen languages, has created spin-off titles focused on specific DBMSs, and has even become a textbook in numerous colleges and universities worldwide. And at just over 200 pages, it was surprisingly one of the most difficult books to write, too. As such, I've been very reluctant to tamper with this title, sometimes you just want to leave a good thing alone. It took significant prodding from my publisher, but I have indeed updated this book. For starters, we needed to update content to cover newer versions of popular databases like SQL Server, MySQL, and Oracle. I also wanted to add specific coverage for important new options, most notably SQLite. But, the most important enhancement, and this is what clinched the update for me, is that this new edition is printed in color (as proudly noted on the cover image). Colored titles and headers are pretty cool, but where you really see the value is in long SQL statements that are so much more readable when color-coded. I'm really excited about this update, and want to publicly thank the folks at Pearson for the push and support. More to follow!

ColdFusion 10 Book Available For Pre-Order

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 11:36:00 -0400

As I explained previously, our ColdFusion 10 book is a single volume, kind of a 4th volume to the CF9 books, focusing on what is new in ColdFusion 10. And Adobe ColdFusion 10 Web Application Construction Kit is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com.

Free Books For Schools And Educational Institutions Round 3

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 15:20:00 -0400

Each time I release a new book my publisher sends copies for my own use. And when books get translated they (usually) send me copies of those, too. I generally keep one of each for myself, and then give copies to coauthors, community members, and others. But sometimes copies sit in boxes in my office, ignored and stacking up until, well, a day like today. I spent today reorganizing my office, and sure enough, I have stacks of my ColdFusion books, SQL books, and more. The last two times they stacked up like this I offered to give them to teachers and students and school libraries, making them available to those who might otherwise not have access to copies, individuals who (hopefully) could benefit from them. All in all I gave away over 400 books, and I hope the recipients found them useful. So now it's time for round 3. If you work for (or attend) a school or college or educational institution, and can use copies of my books on ColdFusion, SQL, SQL Server, MySQL, Maria DB, Regular Expressions, and more, please e-mail me. Oh, and this time, in addition to English language books, I also have books in Chinese Mandarin, Polish, Swedish, Romanian, French, Russian, Korean, and Italian. Please note that I can't promise to honor requests for specific books. Also note that some of these books are on older versions of products (but not so old as to be not useful). And finally, it's first come first served. Oh, and please share this post with others who you think may be interested, thanks!

Where Is CFWACK10?

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:32:00 -0400

ColdFusion 10 has been released, and users have been asking about the update to our ColdFusion Web Application Construction Kit (aka CFWACK) books. So, here's the scoop ... ColdFusion 10 is a very important release, one which builds on the success of ColdFusion 9 by adding invaluable new features and functionality. And that is key, ColdFusion 10 does not change much about the previous release, it adds features and functionality. This means that ColdFusion 9 code and apps should just run as is in ColdFusion 10, and any books and tutorials on ColdFusion 9 apply to ColdFusion 10 as well. And this presented me with a dilemma. CFWACK started off as a single volume, and then grew to two volumes, and have been three volumes since ColdFusion 8. With a cover price of close to $60 per volume, I could not in good conscience justify updating all the books and charging readers that much money when most of the content in the existing books remains current and applicable. Plus, in order to cover the new features in ColdFusion 10, I'd have had to remove chapters from the existing books, and as the ColdFusion's breadth and scope has increased, that has proven to be a very difficult task. After lengthy discussions with the publisher, the ColdFusion product team, and my co-authors, we opted not to update the three CFWACK volumes for ColdFusion 10. Instead, we'd create a fourth volume, a "What's New In ColdFusion 10?" volume, intended to be an addition to the current series. This would be much fairer to ColdFusion users, and would also allow for the greatest possible content coverage. So where is this new volume? Unfortunately (well, I guess it is actually fortunately) there was another recent major Adobe product release, CS6 and the Creative Cloud. The publisher had so many titles to create and update for these releases, that our title got stuck in the queue, and was thus very late leaving the gate. So, on behalf of my co-authors, I apologize for the title not being ready with the product release. We will release this new volume, and I'll keep you updated on progress.

Now Available: MariaDB Crash Course

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 08:06:00 -0400

MariaDB is a fork (offshoot) of MySQL, one of the most popular database management systems in the world. MariaDB was created by the creator of MySQL to address some of the limitations and shortcomings in MySQL, and is intended to be a drop in replacement for MySQL as well. At the request of Monty Widenius, creator of MySQL and MariaDB, I ported my best-selling MySQL Crash Course to focus specifically on MariaDB. The new book, MariaDB Crash Course, was just released and is now available for purchase. Note: As already noted, MariaDB is based on MySQL. Indeed, it can be thought of as MySQL plus new features and improvements. In other words, if you have used MySQL then you already know how to use MariaDB. As such, if you have a copy of my MySQL Crash Course or my Sams Teach Yourself SQL In 10 Minutes, then you'll likely NOT want a copy of this new title.

MariaDB Crash Course Available For Pre-Order

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 07:17:00 -0400

At the request of Monty Widenius, creator of MySQL and now MariaDB, I ported my MySQL Crash Course to create a new book entitled MariaDB Crash Course. The book won't be out for a couple of months, but it is now available for pre-order.

Paul Trani's New Book On Flash Based Android Development

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 12:19:00 -0400

Fellow Adobe evangelist Paul Trani is an author! He has just published his first book (co-authored with three other developers) on building Android applications using Flash, Flex, and AIR. Pro Android Flash is available for purchase now on Amazon.com.

Joseph Labrecque's Flash Development For Android Cookbook

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 23:01:00 -0400

Community member Joseph Labrecque has announced that his upcoming book Flash Development for Android Cookbook is available for pre-order, and that content will be available pre-release via the RAW program. With the huge growth and interest in using Flash (and AIR) to develop for Android, I'm really pleased to see this book about to become available. Congratulations, Joseph!

Regular Expression Book In Korean

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 16:09:00 -0400

The Korean edition of my Sams Teach Yourself Regular Expressions was published a while ago, but my copies just arrived today, and thus this post. I've been writing since the mid 90s, and have dozens of translations neatly organized on my shelves. But, it's still quite a thrill every time I get my hands on a new translation. And this Korean translation is no exception. The book is beautiful and of particularly high quality, the printing is crisp and clear, the paper is a high-end off-white that is highly readable, the text shading I use to highlight matches in the Regular Expression examples was implemented really well, there is a nice pull out reference card in the back ... as I said, just beautiful. Any Korean readers out there? I'd love to hear what you think of this one.

Fill In HostelBookers ColdFusion Survey And Win Set Of CFWACK9 Books

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:58:00 -0400

HostelBookers is running a survey about ColdFusion development and perceptions. Fill in the survey you'll get the chance to win all 3 volumes of our recently completed ColdFusion 9 Web Application Construction Kit.

CFWACK9 - And Then There Were 3

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:52:00 -0400

That was quicker than expected. Adobe ColdFusion 9 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 3: Advanced Application Development has shipped, I received my copies over the weekend. And with that, the ColdFusion 9 Web Application Construction Kit series is complete! Yeah!

ColdFusion 9 Book Volume 2 Available

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:36:00 -0400

Adobe ColdFusion 9 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 2: Application Development started shipping last week and is now in stores. Included in this volume is Ray Camden's superb introduction to ColdFusion ORM. All the details you need are on the book page (including three free chapters in PDF form). Volume 3 is done, being printed, and will be available within the next few weeks.

Sams Teach Yourself Book Tops Amazon.com Lists

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 07:30:00 -0400

A reader just pointed out to me that my my Sams Teach Yourself SQL In 10 Minutes is in Amazon.com's Top 10 lists in the databases, SQL, DBMSs, and databases categories. It's also #1 in the Relational Databases category! Cool! :-)