Free ebooks from Microsoft Press

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ukschools/archive/2012/05/21/free-ebooks-great-content-from-microsoft-press-that-won-t-cost-you-a-penny.aspx

by recoiledsnake • 14 years ago

81 26 14 years ago

blogs.msdn.com

dschiptsov2• 14 years ago

Proprietary product guides? No, thank you.)

mercurial• 14 years ago

Yeah, I guess I'm not part of the "everyone" refered on the webpage. I'd rather a get a "best papers from Microsoft Research" or something similar.

cooldeal• 14 years ago

I really don't understand comments like yours.

If a posting doesn't interest you, why not just move on to the next instead of feeling compelled to sneeringly comment in a deprecating way with an air of smug superiority?

What does your comment add to the discussion?

dschiptsov2• 14 years ago

Lets say I hate such primitive attempts of cheap manipulation. At least not here.

ben0x539• 14 years ago

Perspective?

belorn3• 14 years ago

One might "question" the nobility of giving books to students (the blog is named "UK Schools blog"), in which to get any use of, you need to buy proprietary software. If the books includes a copy of SQL server, windows server, Microsoft office or Visual studio, then it might be different, but as it stand, it just advertising masquerading as books, directed at students.

Create• 14 years ago

Teaching children to use Windows is like teaching them to smoke tobacco—in a world where only one company sells tobacco. Like any addictive drug, it inculcates a harmful dependency. (Bill Gates made this comparison in a 1998 issue of Fortune Magazine.) No wonder Microsoft offers the first dose to children at a low price. Microsoft aims to teach poor children this dependency so they can smoke Windows for their whole lives. I don’t think governments or schools should support that aim.

http://bostonreview.net/BR33.6/stallman.php

mmahemoff• 14 years ago

This is fine though for MS developers. The titles are very clear about the technology. It would only be cause for concern if they used misleadingly generic titles, like Securing Your Server where the whole book after the intro is about security tools for MS stack.

mpyne• 14 years ago

KDE developer here, still found the link useful (especially for HN).

Even when developing for proprietary platforms, many (though not all) of the concepts transfer over well to FOSS platforms, including for security, SQL, cloud/async programming, etc.

Free/cheap resources for a proprietary compiler (Borland C++ 5.02) were what led to me learning to program (and later learning about Linux) and so I want to explicitly make clear that such things are not inherently bad for Free Software or open source.

easytiger• 14 years ago

I think his point is all these ebooks are pointless WTR content and you might as well read your bus pass to learn anything useful

shritesh• 14 years ago

Add these to the list:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mssmallbiz/archive/2012/07/27/large-...

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mssmallbiz/archive/2012/07/30/anothe...

brudgers• 14 years ago

More recently Programming Windows 8 Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript by Kraig Brockschmidt:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jgalasyn/archive/2012/10/31/free-ebo...

casca• 14 years ago

This might be useful: Introducing Windows 8: An Overview for IT Professionals (Preview Edition) - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2012/10/23/f...

Also, Windows 8 for Dummies: http://media.wiley.com/assets/7077/60/9781118554951_custom.p...

clinth• 14 years ago

Strange to see so many Windows 7 products listed. Free stuff makes news, and I would have guessed that they'd try to drive all news to Windows 8.

xradionut• 14 years ago

The primary link was posted this May. Windows 7 is still most Windows developers and IT types target client platform.

aldopinga• 14 years ago

it's spam post...

xanone• 14 years ago

I noticed Dell is also favoring Microsoft, they released Windows 8 Guide last week here.

rbanffy• 14 years ago

Probably doing so qualifies them for a different OEM pricing tier.

olalonde• 14 years ago

Sorry for going off-topic, but this background is really distracting.

rnernento• 14 years ago

FYI these are mostly product overviews and don't really teach you how to do anything.

belorn3• 14 years ago

Why are HN linking to advertising? The "article" offer no insight about the books.

Having a single page with only images to products, is what I call a ad page full of ads, and are the same style as those I get in the mail. Whats next, a link to a "free coffee at Starbucks this weekend" page?

mhurron• 14 years ago

By 'only images' you of course mean links to to the individual pages to download the ebook of your choice. The content of the books is spelled out quite clearly in the titles of the books which are very easily readable from the images.

belorn3• 14 years ago

If the site had some description (say, reviews) of the books in question, it would be different. Now, it just is images, with titles, and link where to get them.

The spam in my mailbox is also just pages with images, which include links and has clearly spelled out titles.

I am almost surprised that adblock didn't block the site altogether.

turingbook• 14 years ago

Nearly all are irrelevant or outdated ones.

Free ebooks from Microsoft Press

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