Real World Sharepoint 2007: Indispensable Experiences from 16 MOSS and WSS MVPs

I've been buying a lot of the new SharePoint 2007 books, but this one has been the first that I've really wanted to read through all the chapters on. Unlike other books that just cover concepts, this book tells you how to actually use a particular feature and does it from the perspective of people who've had to do it rather than just the Microsoft line on how it's supposed to work.

As the title indicates, this book has a lot of great information that you can put to work as you deploy SharePoint 2007. I like the way each chapter represents a discrete topic so that you can pull the book out when you need to accomplish a specific task and easily find the guidance you need. Unlike some other books, this one is not just filled with info you can find in the product documentation. The MVP's that wrote the book provide advice that appears to come from actually doing real implementations. My only nitpick is that I wish there was a full chapter dedicated to InfoPath and Forms Services, but there are other books for that topic. Definitely worth the investment for SharePoint admins or anyone else that needs details and directions to accomplish specific functionality with SharePoint. Also a handy reference for SharePoint developers that don't have any experience with the newer features of 2007 (BDC, Excel Services, etc).

Just got my copy of "Real World Sharepoint 2007", and I'm really glad it's here. I've been tasked with converting an old Outlook application (written in VB6) to Sharepoint 2007 and was having a lot of trouble getting a grasp on the process of building a brand-new Sharepoint site. This book really helped bring things into focus. I like the fact that this isn't a 7-pound doorstop book. Each chapter is to the point, and covers its topic with enough detail to keep me going. I'm getting my questions answered without spending hours searching the internet for bad or misleading information or having to wade though pages and pages of irrelevant fluff. Normally I shy away from "ensemble" books with multiple authors. Too often the writing and coverage varies from chapter to chapter, and I come away feeling cheated on topics that weren't adequately covered. Fortunately, these guys avoided that trap. Each contributor took on a topic near and dear to him, and they've all done a great job of assembling an excellent Sharepoint reference. There are things in this book that I haven't seen anyplace else, and it's been a big help in my work.

I totally agree with the first review: this is best SharePoint 2007 book I own - and I have around 8. Each chapter is a different topic by a different MVP - each of whom is an expert in the area they cover. Some of my favorite experts have chapters in this book: Andrew Connell, Heather Solomon, Dustin Miller... the same ones speaking at Microsoft's TechEd and other SharePoint conferences. I hope they'll write a sequel!!

A better title for this book would be "Everything You Wanted to Know About SharePoint But Were Afraid to Ask (or Google Couldn't Tell You). If you are a SharePoint administrator, and you want to do something that slightly deviates from the out of the box installation of WSS 3.0 or MOSS, then you definately should buy this book. I own 6 WSS 3.0 books and by far this one is the best. Other books tell you "you can do x advanced feature;" this book says "this is how you implement and use x advanced feature." Among other things it will teach you setting up form authentication, an in-depth look into STSADM, using Excel Services, Business Data Catalogs, and how (and why) to use SharePoint Designer. This book isn't for people just starting off with SharePoint, and I would still recommend another resource for the mundane type questions. However, if you want to really know how to maximize your SharePoint implementation, this book is definately for you.