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DISCLAIMER: I personally know both authors.

The book presents an exensive list of tools available to the .NET programmer. I agree with one of the reviewer that indicates that as soon as the book is published it is out of date; hence, some of the tools may be significantly changed or replaced by better tools. However, this problem is not unique to this book but applies to any book, particularly in technology. In spite of this obsolescence, the book provides a summary for what each tool can do and provides a starting point to do research on a tool that will help the reader perform their job more eficiently.

I highly recommend this book because it is very comprehensive. In addition it has a number of Windows tools that are also very helpful in tasks that every developer has to do but are not related to writing code.
Rating: 5 / 5

Clocking in at close to 1300 pages, this book is an excellent resource for almost every Windows developer scenario you can think of. It’s certainly not a book you’re going to read cover-to-cover, but the next time you’re implementing a project of type X (SQL, unit testing, performance monitoring, etc. etc. etc.) you’ll want to look it up in this book to see what tools are available to aid you in your development goal.

One of the things I found wonderful about this book is that not only does it list the tool, where it’s available, and basic stats, but it also goes in depth on how to use the tool to fit the need with sample source code, screen shots, and real-world examples.

Great stuff. It should be on every Windows developer’s bookshelf.
Rating: 5 / 5

Windows Developer Power Tools: Turbocharge Windows development with more than 140 free and open source tools (Power Tools)

Overview

Open-source and free developer/performance tools can be found in abundance on the internet today but one of the few issues that generally comes up after you’ve gotten hold of one is “how does this work?”.

On occasion you’ll start to use a tool or add-in only to find out later on that there’s a much better way to utilise the power you suddenly have at your hands – but by then, you’ve spent hours already “mis-using” the tool.

This book arms you with information, tips and tricks, how-tos and descriptions on a host of known, and possibly unknown, tools that will seriously help you speed up your development – so why not be the hero of the office and start developing smartly!

Over the last couple of years i’ve been in and out of windows and web development and felt that i was comfortable in both arenas. But after reading this book I knew that I could have been a much more efficient developer if only I’d known about the tools it explores.

The book is divided into suitable chapters, making it very easy to use the book for fast reference if you suddenly remember that you once read (somewhere?) about a tool doing exactly what you’re trying to achieve in the old fashioned way – doing it yourself from scratch.

Each chapter (or tool/tip/add-in) is presented in an easily to understand english, with a logical order that makes reading this book a pleasure. Some books comes across with technical jargon without explanations for the varied levels of developers out there, but this book can easily be enjoyed by both the experienced developer and the starting rising star.

Some of my most favorite tools are included in this book, such as Anthem.Net, which encapsulates web forms and extends AJAX capability without having to write a single line of JavaScript.

Other tools which was new to me, included CopySourceAsHTML, and the experience with which i’ve had with posting code over the years, or including snippets in documentation, has just been greatly improved.

Conclusion

What i found most pleasing about this book, is the consistency in which it presents each topic for you. The authors has gone to great length to make it a flawless experience in reading this book and even though many has contributed to the content, the layout is flawlessly simple.

A very easy read and a bookshelf essential! Five stars…

Rating: 5 / 5