There is much talk here about the good and bad points of this book. Strangley, everyone either loves it or hates it when the truth is that it's not good enough to love nor bad enough to hate. The authors know exactly what they are talking about, there's no doubt. But I think therein lies the problem because the explanation of the code examples is almost non-existent. So, if you are looking to learn the principles of connecting Flash to a data-base, then this isn't for you. The examples in this book are of excellent quality but, unless they are EXACTLY what you're looking for, customising them may prove tricky without an explanation of what each piece of code does. Other problems include frequent typos in the book and the constant switching from asp.net to asp and from SQL to Access. In fairness to the authors, their code example on parsing an XML document took my thinking in a direction that I would never before have considered but, in order to understand it, I had to go out and buy "The Flash 8 Bible"! So, my final word is, this book is not suitable as a single resource to learn the subject, but the examples are well rounded and the approach sound. To avoid disappointment, order it alongside a book that will help you to understand the principles laid out in the code examples (The Flash 8 Bible is a good start because its chapter on parsing an XML document is a simplified - and fully explained - version of the one in this book).

I understood Flash and vb.net, but I never really could grasp how to put the two together. I really like the way this book shows me how. It's easy to understand, but not so remedial that I didn't learn. Awesome examples also.
Great Job.

This book is chocked full of great examples. The sample code alone is a VERY usefull and worth the money that the book costs.
It's for the beginning and intermediate Flash and ADO.NET person alike. It even goes into to detail about setting up your program and application delivery envoirnment. Very complete resource.

The complaints I see from other reviewers shows me their limited knoweledge of Flash, .NET, and Action Scripting and it's use it the real world. I have a hard time believing any of them read this book. I believe they are here promoting their own agenda.

I found this book very useful. It shows how to make the connection between flash and databases. Contrary to a couple of the reviews, I was able to use their example with SQL Server 2000 and ASP.Net. It showed me how to integrate flash easily into my user interface.

My only gripe with the book is that it seems they cover to many technologies (ASP, ASP.net, Access, SQL). I can kind of understand why they did that, but I would have like more depth on my technologies.

This joke of a book is surely for people who want to use .NET. Totally agree with the reviewer who criticized this book. Not worth buying at all. There are much better books on .NET. If you are looking for Flash programming look elsewhere. This book is a waste of time and money. Most of the database work is being done by .NET and Flash is used only to make do some silly poor quality graphics. It is indeed a misnomer. Dealing with databases, Flash and .NET is certainly not the authors' cup of tea. The author needs to gain more experience in Flash/Database before attempting to write another book.