Reviews (14)

Words words and more words but little substance
I bought this book based on all the reviews posted on Amazon.com. I must say I was extremely disappointed. The book does not describe even a single machine learning algorithm adequately - no pseudocode, no mathematical description, and at the end of the day, no real understanding. If you are an analytically challenged manager who wants to pick up a bunch of buzzwords to throw around to impress your equally analytically challeged colleagues or customers who don't have a clue, this might be the book for you - a n overpriced, highly overrated "data mining for dummies". If you want to learn something about machine learning, well.. stick to books like Machine Learning by Tom Mitchell or Elements of Statistical Learning by Hastie, Tibshirani, and Friedman.

Very helpful
The major virtue of this book is the emphasis on practical applications and bread-and-butter techniques for accomplishing tasks that one could expect in a business environment. That is not to say that these techniques could not be used in a scientific research environment. They indeed could be, and in fact may be even easier to implement due to the long time scales that are available in research environments for processing information. In the business world however data mining has proven to be an activity that gives a substantial competitive edge, and so many businesses are seeking even more sophisticated methods of data mining and Web mining. Data mining could easily be considered to a branch of artificial intelligence (AI), due to its emphasis on learning patterns and performing classification, and the learning and classification tools it uses were discovered by individuals who would describe themselves as being researchers in artificial intelligence. But many, and it is fair to include the authors of this book, do not want to view data mining as part of artificial intelligence, since the latter stirs up discussions on the origin of intelligence, autonomous robots, and conscious machines, to paraphrase a line from chapter 8 of this book. The authors make it a point to emphasize that data mining, or "machine learning" is concerned with the algorithms for the inference of structure from data and the validation of that structure.
Lucid
I'm surprisingly please with this book. I've been reading up on the topic and associated algorithms in other books for some time; I'm a software developer but don't have a statistics background, and so felt a lot of the texts were too focused on the math and the theory while being thin on content when it came to "rubber hitting the road", or even using clear, simple examples and straight-forward notation.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Artificial Intelligence - General    2. Computer Books: Database    3. Computers    4. Computers - General Information    5. Data mining    6. Database Management - Database Mining    7. Information Storage & Retrieval    8. Computers / Database Management / Data Mining    9. Databases & data structures   

Reviews (11)

Good General Reference
As the title, and most of the reviews (save Mr. Strauchs') suggest, this is the manual that doesn't exist in print. It's a nice alternative to the Help menu as it's written in a personable style that offers more direct and real-world applications for the basics of FileMaker.
Thorough, complete, yet easy to understand; well-done tutorials
Concur with all the other reviewers that this is THE best, most complete, yet easy-to-follow guide to FileMaker Pro [FMP]. The authors really have gone out of their way in using plain words to describe arcane concepts, and the illustrations are well executed. Although there are the usual typos and occasional ambiguous/misleading statements, there is a continuously updated website with 'Errata' and sample completed tutorial exercises. [If these were included on a CD with the book, this book would warrant a super-nova rating!]
VERY VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
Are you a programmer that has been working with FileMaker for a while? If you are, then this book is for you! Authors Geoff Coffey and Susan Prosser, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that explores each feature in depth, offers shortcuts and workarounds, and explains the ramifications of options that a FileMaker Pro manual doesn't even mention.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer - Apple/Macintosh    2. Computer Books: Database    3. Computer Books: General    4. Computers    5. Data Processing - General    6. Database Management - Database Mining    7. Database management    8. Desktop Applications - FileMaker Pro    9. FileMaker pro    10. FileMaker pro (Computer software)    11. Hardware - Personal Computers - Macintosh    12. Microcomputer Database Management Software    13. Computer / Apple/Macintosh    14. Computers / Database Management / Data Mining    15. Computers / Personal Computers & Microcomputers / Macintosh    16. Computers/Database Management - General    17. Database software    18. database, filemaker, filemaker pro, filemaker pro, fields, records, scripting, xml, xslt, odbc, excel, applescript, missing manual, FileMaker development, small business software, FileMaker Pro Tutorial   

Reviews (5)

Great reference for webmasters or small business owners
If you rate a computer book on how well it succeeds at being difficult and obscure, you won't like this one.It skips the geek pretensions and just delivers useful information, in a way that is accessable to small business owners and webmasters.The screenshots may not appeal to everyone, but I found them incredibly useful because they allow me to quickly find the screen I'm working on.
Mixed Bag of Content
In a nutshell, Google's Analytics service is a web traffic analyzer and marketing performance manager provided for free to anyone with a Google account, but especially geared to those who participate in their AdWords program.This book serves as an introduction and walkthrough guide to Google's Analytics service for those that do not already know about it.The authors have written this title in a in a "for dummies" format, primarily for small web site authors and bloggers that have not had experience in web traffic analysis software before.
A Wonderful Find
Google Analytics is one of the best finds for those of us who find ourselves technically-challenged in a technically-heavy world.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer - Internet    2. Computer Books: Internet General    3. Computer programs    4. Computers    5. Data processing    6. Internet - General    7. Internet searching    8. Internet users    9. Statistical services    10. Statistics    11. Web usage mining    12. Computers / Internet / General    13. World Wide Web (WWW)   

Reviews (18)

Too wordy
Having to go thru some of the data mining such as CART, I find the book rather wordy.Sometimes, it takes a couple of readings to understand, too many termiologies.I think a lot of stuff might be better illustrated with mathematical formulae rather than words or both.For e.g., I was trying to understand what is surrogate variable, getting a big picture from the English is okay, but to actually compute it, I find information not as clear.This book is written in a way ... seem to be theoretical, and yet not rigorous enough.
Very complete
This book is a very interesting book to learn the main statistical approach of data mining. It's clear and full of examples. If you go a Stanford data mining website you will find all the courses and exercises linked to the book.
El libro de la mineria de datos
Desde el punto de vista tecnico este libro es sumamente completo ya resume muy bien muchos de los metodos estadistico que se aplican en la mineria de datos. Pero a mi parecer este libro es debil en cuanto a la descripcion de ciertos algortimos que describe, y en algunos casos solo se menciona el procedimiento como una formula (la matriz S de los trazadores cubicos) ya que presupone que el lector ya tiene un buen conocimiento sobre trazadores cubicos.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Artificial Intelligence - General    2. Computers - General Information    3. Database Management - Database Mining    4. Mathematics    5. Neural Computing    6. Probability & Statistics - General    7. Regression Analysis    8. Science/Mathematics    9. Supervised learning (Machine l    10. Supervised learning (Machine learning)    11. Data Mining    12. Inference    13. Mathematics / Statistics    14. Neural Nets    15. Prediction    16. Probability & statistics    17. Statistical Learning   

Reviews (7)

Great coverage, but quite a few errors
The book is an absolute must for those working in information retrieval, and in particular web information retrieval and web mining. These areas are quite hot (again) both for the academics as well as for industry. I personally enjoyed the fact that there is no discussion of semantic web research directions (Jena, OWL etc.) but others might not... The material is quite tightly brought together and very comprehensibly written. However, especially in chapters 4 and 5 there are many pages containing mathematical errors (either in the formulas or in the algorithms described.) For this reason, I rate an otherwise excellent textbook with 4 stars.

Readable, approachable, informative
The field of relevance algorithms for the web is still relatively new and the author provides a clear, informative introduction to the still-developing field. Many references to real problems are discussed, and the author avoids needless use of equations or symbolic logic when a simple textual explanation is more appropriate. This is the book that the authors of "Modelling the Internet and the Web" should have written. Avoid that book, it is a confusing disaster.

The best general purpose book on the subject I've seen
Probably not a book you're going to put on your coffee table, but if you've got any interest in this subject matter at all this is a book worth having.You can flip it open to just about any page and find something interesting.Most of the descriptions in this book move from general to specific, so you can jump around from chapter to chapter getting an overview, or dig more deeply when you want more detail.The references at the end of each chapter are also very useful.Whether you want a survey of the field or are trying to implement something specific, this book is a valuable resource. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer - Internet    2. Computer Books: Database    3. Computer Networks    4. Computers    5. Data mining    6. Database Engineering    7. Database Management - Database Mining    8. Database Management - General    9. Hypertext systems    10. Information Storage & Retrieval    11. Internet - World Wide Web    12. Web databases    13. Computers / Database Management / General    14. Databases & data structures    15. Internet   

Reviews (23)

Significant improvements since first edition
I have read the first edition of this book years before. This second edition has significant improvements. Core topic (classification, clustering, association rules) is very detailed and much easier to read. The author also add much material about advanced topics such as graph mining, multimedia mining, stream and time series mining, etc. Although these advanced topics are not as well writen as core topics, at least you will get idea about what's going on in these areas.

1 star is too much for this book
Do yourself a favor and stay away from this book.The book is put together by gathering some data mining concepts padded with tons of buzzwords to "teach" you about data mining.It really fails to teach you anything and it really succeeds to confuse the hell out of the reader.The language used on this book is the poorest I have ever seen in my entire life.The people how wrote this book and the publishers who published it should be ashamed of themselves.It is a shame that I had to pay for this piece of work because I have to read it for a course I am taking and I really dread opening it every week.

One of the Best Data Mining Books
This book is easily one of the best on data mining.The one flaw I see is the meager attention given to neural networks.Coverage is practical, not theoretical. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Database    2. Computers    3. Computers - Data Base Management    4. Data mining    5. Database Engineering    6. Database Management - Database Mining    7. Database Management - General    8. Information Storage & Retrieval    9. Information Technology    10. Computers / Information Storage & Retrieval    11. Databases & data structures   

Reviews (25)

Excellent introduction
This well-written book is an excellent introduction to the data mining and predictive analytics space.The reader should be comfortable with data and data analysis.The reader, however, does not need any pre-existing knowledge specific to data mining and predictive analytics.Much of the book, including the middle chapters which describe specific analytic techniques, has general applicability to business problems beyond CRM.
Practical examples not convincing, lack of benchmarking
While the book is easy to read and not too technical, the applications investigated by the authors are too simplistic and not really convincing as to why we should use advanced techniques. It would have been nice to add an additional, more detailed chapter comparing the various implementations of data mining techniques by software companies (SAS Entreprise Miner, Clementine, Insightfull Miner, etc.)

Author's comment
Although this book was not written as a text book, we have noticed that it is frequently used that way. For the benefit of instructors, we have collected some exercises and datasets that can be used in the classroom or for self study.These can be found at www.data-miners.com/companion. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Computer Books: General    4. Computer Graphics - General    5. Computers    6. Data mining    7. Data processing    8. Database Engineering    9. Database Management - Database Mining    10. Database Management - General    11. Marketing    12. Marketing - General    13. Computers / Computer Graphics / General    14. Customer services    15. Data capture & analysis    16. Databases & data structures    17. Sales & marketing management   

Reviews (5)

Statistics
If you have ever struggled with statistical concepts and books that only partially explain the sources of each variable in statstical equations, then this is the book for you. Their constant repetition of statistical concepts with each example case study was VERY helpful in cementing these concepts in my mind. Optimized database marketing training
Having read many books on database marketing, direct marketing, data mining & CRM as a consultant, I appreciate the story line approach heading up each chapter most.Many books fall prone to teaching "at you" rather than guiding the user along "through the experience of doing it". The only book you'll need...well worth buying
When I first became involved with database marketing in the mid-1990s, and through my tour of graduate school a few years later, books on the subject fell into two categories: basic and trivial, or advanced and impossible to comprehend.OPTIMAL DATABASE MARKETING is the perfect reference for what is probably the majority audience segment: marketing managers, senior executives, list professionals, data processors, professors, and students who want to understand all the elements of strategic planning and analysis *and* gain practical knowledge to apply professionally or in research endeavors.Read more

Subjects:  1. Advertising & Promotion    2. Business & Economics    3. Business / Economics / Finance    4. Business/Economics    5. Database marketing    6. E-Commerce - Internet Marketing    7. Electronic commerce    8. Marketing - General    9. Business & Economics / Marketing / General    10. Business & Management    11. Databases    12. Direct marketing    13. Sales & marketing   

Reviews (6)

Not Very In-Depth, Not a lot of code examples
I went out and purchased this book based on some good reviews here at Amazon. I was really unimpressed with it. It is much less a primer on how to program "AI" types of apps with .NET, and much more a manual of how to use Microsoft applications like their speech services and data mining.
Great primer book on Microsoft technologies for Intelligent Apps
Building Intelligent .NET Applications is an excellent primer book into the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the business world, specifically related to Microsoft technologies.
A Disappointing Book
I recently purchased this book on Amazon.As an experienced .NET software developer, I am always keen on books that will expand my knowledge base in this area, and AI has been a particular interest of mine lately.Having read through much of the book, I have found it very disappointing.I would sum it up as a very shallow introduction to AI topics (often referred to as "Narrow AI") such as Data Mining.This book is more a manual on how to use Microsoft technologies, and does not include anywhere near the depth or practical examples needed on the subjects presented.I have personally found better info online. Read more

Subjects:  1. Artificial Intelligence    2. Artificial Intelligence - General    3. Computer Books: General    4. Computers    5. Computers - Communications / Networking    6. Microcomputer Application Software    7. Microsoft .NET    8. Networking - General    9. Programming - General    10. Applications of Computing    11. Computer Communications & Networking    12. Computer Programming    13. Computers / Networking / General   

Reviews (11)

A bible for those using SQL 2005
Some people commented on the poor editing: typos & some wrong pictures. True. (It detracts, but you can figure it out easily)
Helpful to a Point
I BOUGHT THIS BOOK HOPING IT WOULD GIVE ME SOME INSIGHT AND BACKGROUND TO BEGIN USING 2005, AND IT DID JUST THAT. SEEMS TO GO INTO THE "MATH" A BIT TOO MUCH, AND MOST WAS OVER MY HEAD. COULD HAVE USED A BIT MORE ABOUT THE MMC AND HOW TO USE THAT TO BETTER USE, BUT ALL IN ALL A BOOK THAT IS GOOD FOR MY LIBRRAY. F ANYONE KNOWS OF A GOOD RESOURCE ON USING THE MMC IN SQL2K5 LET ME KNOW:-)

Decent Book
At the time I'm writing this review this book is the only one available dedicated solely to the data mining features of SQL Server 2005. The book is good, but I was disappointed in it as well on three fronts. First, there is a chapter dedicated to each of the data mining algorithms. I didn't find the business use case examples for when, why, and how to use each algorithm sufficient. Second, each of the algorithm chapters goes off the deep-end explaining the mathematical basis for the algorithm. There are very, very few developers who are going to remember enough of their college mathematics to follow along. Third, the technical coverage of how to use the APIs and the data mining extension language (DMX) is superficial, particularly with DMX. After reading this book cover to cover I couldn't go off and write a DMX query if I wanted to. On the application I'm working on we are planning to implement our own web visualization viewers for the data mining algorithms. This book didn't give me what I needed in understanding the object model exposed by the APIs in order to handle the back-end coding for this. All in all, if you are planning to do data mining with SQL Server 2005 I would recommend this book only because at the time of this writing there is nothing else available. However, you will learn quite a bit about data mining with it and depending on your prior experience (more is better) it might be an excellent fit for you. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Database    2. Computers    3. Computers - Data Base Management    4. Database Management - General    5. Computer Software Packages    6. Computers / Database Management / General   

Features

• Illustrated

Reviews (3)

VERY VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
Are you a MySQL programmer? If you are, then this book is for you. Authors Guy Harrison and Steven Feuerstein, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that will help MySQL practitioners realize the full potential of MySQL stored programs.
Absolute Necessity For MySQL Developers
'MySQL Stored Procedure Programming' by Guy Harrison is a wonderful book for any MySQL developers out there in the world.With the release my MySQL 5.0, stored procedures/functions and triggers were finally added, making MySQL a real-world database that could successfully compete with SQL Server and Oracle.While nowhere near as bloated as those 2 behemoths, MySQL has a rich, loyal following that loves this 'little database that could', but until the latest version, what it could do was good, but not good enough for many people.
an excellent book
Having worked in java and oracle with pl/sql some time ago, I'm in the "probably better not to use stored procedures" camp for most environments - but now that mysql offers them, I figured it was best to see how they tackled the problem and this o'reilly book looked good by authors with good credentials. And, fortunately, O'Reilly didn't let me down - they've had really strong offerings recently after a bit of a bad spell and this book was no exception.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Languages    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. Database Management - Data Warehousing    5. Database Management - Database Mining    6. Internet - World Wide Web    7. MySQL (Electronic resource)    8. Programming Languages - General    9. Programming Languages - SQL    10. Computers / Database Management / General    11. Computers / Languages / Programming    12. Computers / Programming Languages / SQL    13. Database management    14. Databases & data structures    15. SQL    16. SQL (Computer program language)    17. database, MySQL, web, developer, tuning, optimization, stored procedures, programming   

Reviews (1)

subjective extraction of clusters
The book is relatively brief, given the technical nature of its chapters, each written by different authors. Many clustering methods are described. Most can be seen to have some degree of subjectivity, in defining what ends up in a given cluster. Or whether a cluster even exists or not.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Applied    2. Artificial Intelligence - General    3. Cluster analysis    4. Computer Books: General    5. Computers    6. Computers - General Information    7. Congresses    8. Data mining    9. Database Management - General    10. Discriminant analysis    11. General    12. Artificial intelligence    13. Automation of library & information processes    14. Computers / Interactive Media    15. Data capture & analysis    16. Text & document processing: general   

Reviews (4)

Data mining book focusing on clustering
I decided to start with this book as I think it is the most convenient to start in the data mining field. One big advantage of the book is the way data mining techniques are explained. It is mainly based on textual and graphical explanations. There is little equations, only what is necessary to implement the algorithms.
Good overview, but needs to include real-world case studies
Data mining could be considered to be "Artificial Intelligence Lite", since it deals with many of the same issues in learning, classification, and analysis as they occur in the field of artificial intelligence but does not have as its goal the construction of "thinking machines." Instead, the emphasis is on practical problems that are important in business and industry, even though the solutions of many of these problems makes use of techniques that a thinking machine should be expected to have. Data mining has become an enormous industry, and has even been the subject of political and legal concerns due to the efforts of some governments to mine data on its citizens. This book gives a general overview of data mining with emphasis on classification and associative analysis. Anyone who is interested in data mining could read the book, but some rather sophisticated background in mathematics will be needed to read some of the sections. Pseudocode is given throughout the book to illustrate the different data mining algorithms. There are also exercises at the end of each chapter, but noticeably missing in the book is the inclusion of real case studies in data mining. The inclusion of these case studies would alert the reader to the fact that data mining is of great interest from the standpoint of business and industry, and would lessen the belief that data mining is just another academic field or just another branch of statistics.
Excellent textbook
What this one differentiates from competitiors is the broad coverage of applications. I saw Jiawei Han, a Guru of this field, comment this book as:"This is a new and highly recommended textbook to buy. It will be our major reference book besides our textbook." ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Database    2. Computers    3. Computers - General Information    4. Database Engineering    5. Database Management - Database Mining    6. Information Storage & Retrieval    7. Computers / Database Management / Data Warehousing    8. Databases & data structures   

Reviews (2)

Very Good Intro Book
I wouldn't give it 5 stars, but definitely worth the money. I took an online class at statistics.com that used this as the text. Really a great combination of book and class and wasn't expensive. Highly recommend both to any data miner interested in getting into text mining.
An excellent introduction
I found the book informative and timely. The book describes the algorithms with psuedocode, and this made it possible for me to apply the algorithms to a legacy structure using another language within a few days of finishing the book.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Science    3. Computers    4. Computers - General Information    5. Data mining    6. Database Management - General    7. Information Storage & Retrieval    8. Information Technology    9. Active learning    10. Clustering and matching    11. Computers / Information Technology    12. Databases & data structures    13. Document classification and correction    14. Extraction    15. Retrieval    16. Summarization   

Features

• Illustrated

Reviews (11)

VERY VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
Are you a developer or systems architect or project manager? If you are, then this book is for you! Authors Bill Glover and Himanshu Bhatt, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that shows you how to get that first RFID prototype out the door.
Solid Look At RFID Technology
Chapter Overview:
Good overview of RFID system and design -- a light read
An excellent book on RFID system architecture and design.Covers wide range of topics including tags, tag protocols, readers and printers, reader protocols and RFID middleware.The book has a chapter on RFID privacy related issues as well.Excellent overview of every aspect of RFID technology except field and antenna design.Best way to get yourself introduced to the growing field of RFID tags and get quick overview about every aspect of the technology. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Applied Electromagnetics    2. Business & Economics    3. Business/Economics    4. Computers - General Information    5. Data Processing - General    6. Data Processing - Optical Data Processing    7. General    8. Inventory Control    9. Radio    10. Scanning Systems    11. Automation    12. Computers / Data Processing    13. Computers / General Information    14. Computers / Optical Data Processing    15. RFID, RF tags, radio frequency identification, radio frequency, supply chain visibility, data mining    16. Radio frequency identification systems    17. Radio technology    18. Radio telemetry    19. Technology/Scanning Systems