Don't bother looking at this book.

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I would not recommend this book to anyone. It pontificates in a grandiose manner, assuming you'll be impressed I had not read them before because I bought the book as part of a group at work where we would all be learning together. We are all programmers in other disciplines and most dropped out of the class because this book is so bad. It's funny how some of the good ratings here have to explain how you get around the problems so you can learn from the book - DOES THAT TELL YOU SOMETHING???

Great Hands-on Introductory Book

I wanted a book that taught me how to use SQL Server Express so that I could use the free version of Microsoft's database for small projects. I did get that, and I also got hands-on training that gave concise information about SQL Server 2005 in general. The major topics were all covered, including database concepts, how to create and administer a database, the SQL statements to access it, and Stored Procedures. The point of this book is to present just enough material so that you have an overall understanding of SQL Server 2005 Express and how to code and administer it. It provides small exercises that allow you to test out and "own" the material as you move along. It gets you up-to-speed. Then after reading this book, a person can pick up other books such as "Murach's SQL Server 2005 for developers" in order to get more detail about these topics. It really helped me to get jump-started on both SQL Server 2005 Express and SQL Server 2005.

The CD that came with the book contains SQL Server Managment Studio Express, which is Microsoft's free tool to administer the database, and Visual [...] Express. I installed them on the machine at the customer site, and it was all that I needed to get the project completed. This book is what you need when you want to get a basic understanding of SQL Server 2005 and learn enough to do productive work with it.

Excellent Reference Book from experience IT person

I was not going to write a review- this is my first. I have read Ms Balter's SQL Server 2005 Exp & can say I found many fine examples of fundamental SQL action queries to triggers, T-SQL coding, database security to writing VB.NET and ADO for creating stored procedures. I have read other books - Murach's Introduction to VB.NET and Murach's SQL for SQL SERVER etc. This book is worth the price of those others. In my opinion and experience it is a good "fundamental and introductory" SQL 2005 book. The 1 problem I had was finding the T-SQL and VB.NET source code.