0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Disappointing mistakes throughout the book, 2003-01-24
What a disappointment. I'm taking the test tomorrow, and I fear for my grade. Having worked with Oracle8i since its release, I was just looking for a quick read to brush up on the breadth of topics in the exam, and get reaquainted with the exam style for the Oracle tests. Boy I sure started with the wrong book. The amount of technical errors are astounding, particularly in the exam questions! In addition, the exam questions are poorly written and do not appear to have any relation to the style I will expect on the test. Wish me luck, and steer away from this title.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Not the book to start your studying with, 2002-11-17
If you are just starting to study for your Oracle8 to Oracle8i upgrade certification, don't start with this book. There are
just too many technical mistakes. For example, the book always
seems to mix up DBMS_OLAP and DBMS_SUMMARY. These are technical mistakes, not just typos. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of typos also. This would not be so bad if errata were available. None was found at the designated web page specified in the book. It is nice to know that Oracle Press has not changed its way. Similar comments are being made about the book that is used to upgrade from Oracle8i to Oracle9i. My recommendation is to use the exams provided by the "Self Test Software" company. Not only are the test questions good but they will also respond to issues
that you may have with the question or answer. Oh, I don't have any financial interest in the "Self Test Software" company.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Only average, 2002-06-24
This book is all I used to study for the OCP upgrade exam and even though I passed first time round, I found the practice questions and test exams to be a poor preparation for the real thing. Detail in the book was but barely enough to pass.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Good book, 2002-05-21
I am really surprised with such a low overall rating for this book. It definitely has errata, but overall presentation, fluid style makes it very easy to read even for difficult topics (such as composite partitioning, dimensioning - especially if you are not using it). I found it very helpful, and there was nothing in the exam that was not covered in the book. The examcram book along with Oracle Documentation (and, of course, hands on experience) you will definitely be able to pass exam, and your Oracle8i knowledge will improve. It is really amazing to find all the new features which exist in Oracle8i (and lot more in Oracle9i), which makes database administration so much more simpler. Go Oracle!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Too many errors, 2002-01-25
The book can be good for those who don't have Oracle ILT (Instructor-Lead Training) or TBT (Technology-Based Training) material (as in my case).
There are too many errors in this book and if you don't pay good attention, you won't probably be able to notice them. You can find errors in the topics and especially in the exercises. The wrong answers (the book as well as the CD) always misleaded me. They often contradicted the discussed topic. I had to always double-check on my database or in Oracle documentation and other sources.
I e-mailed the author about the errors and he answered me that the fixes are going to be published ... but it was not the case.
The book lacks explanation on temporary LOB (large objects), and the main features of Oracle Universal Installer (as the Web enabled installations feature). Also Materialized View Logs don't exist !!!! In the 8i upgrade exam I had a few questions on these two topics.I passed the exam (75%) but what I can advice you (if you don't have ILT or TBT) is to combine all of these in your preparations:
- Oracle8i Certified Professional DBA Certification Exam Guide (By: Jason Couchman) (this book)
- ExamCram Oracle8 to 8i Upgrade (By: Robert G. Freeman, Charles A. Pack)
- Oracle8i Upgrade CramSession PDF document ...BR>- Implement on an Oracle 8i database
All of the above are complementary. Trust me on this.
One last thing: it's too unfortunate that Oracle OCP team (or whoever is responsible for this at Oracle Education) didn't check this book roughly. It's all about quality folks, and not quantity!