[.ca] SharePoint Portal Server: A Beginner's Guide (ISBN 0072194006)

Beginners start here!:
I agree with the other reviewers, but they never really read the title of the book if they are so upset with the book. It is a beginners book. Nothing more, nothing less. What I find handy about this book that you need not search every where for information. Just grab this book and find out what you need to know of the basics. It shows you with great graphic detail how to do it and what the results are. I am one of those people who just love to get everything handed to them through one simple portal, that's what this book does. If you want more in depth information look at one of the other books. Looking on the internet or technet or what ever else, costs lots of time for simple things and just does not

Helpful:
This is an introductory guide! I needed something to get me started and this book did exactly what it said it would. I thought it was well worth the money. While some of the info can be found through other sources, it's critical to have the sources compiled for you...especially when you "don't know what you don't know".

Great Start:
If you're new to SharePoint and want to find out the basics about the product, this book is a great start. Some of the information can be found on the Microsoft site, but there is enough other stuff to make it worthwhile.

Good Introduction:
This is a basic, introductory book, but it does a better job explaining the basics and how to install the software than most of the other books, including Que's Using Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server. It was the only book that explained how to use the proxy configuration utility to make Sharepoint available over the net (the Que book didn't cover this detail).

A BEGINNER'S GUIDE (some reviewers forgot to read the title):
The book does an excellent job of what it was intended to do - give an introduction and provide solid foundation of knowledge about Microsoft SharePoint Server. Yes, it is true that if you have a computer on your hip 24x7, you can probably find a lot of this same info by digging through help files, white papers and various web sites. That does not help someone who wants it in book format and likes the porability of a book, or for someone who actually likes to read a printed version. Anyway, I liked the book, and it gave me what I needed at the time. I've bought more advanced books which are also good, but they skip a lot of the introductory stuff which is nice for beginners to have available.