Customer comments on this selection.
 Seems like a great book
I haven't finished reading the book yet, but it seems to be well laid out.
 Good Intro to powershell but lacks depth
First of all, having all the built-in documentation that comes with Powershell taking up the last 100 pages of the book is was basically useless. It just takes up valuable space on my bookshelf.
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br /I have used the book a basic reference from time to time and it gives me the quick and dirty answer on how to do the basic stuff.
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br /To really dig in deep I would suggest Bruce Payette's book, Powershell in Action. Who better to write a book than the author of the language itself!
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 This book is very good for mere mortals
If you are not an expert in scripting languages get this book immediately and in a week you will know 100 times more than today about PowerShell. If you are a scripting geek, then go directly to "PowerShell in Action".
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br /Metaphorically speaking this book is cooked by a very good cook who was in a hurry. But the food is basically good and will give you a lot of energy.
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br /And don't get too emotional, too 'religious' about it like a lot of people do! It is about your profession and fun - nothinng else!
Useful Book -- The Flaws are Secondary
Overall, I'm glad to have read this book. It isn't without it's problems, however, so let me get those out of the way first:
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br / - The typesetting is poor. This definitely seems like a low-budget self-published book. Poor layout -- look for the proliferation of "example:" being followed by nearly a half page of whitespace. There are no chapter indications on the page headers, making it harder to find chapters without tediously looking for the page number on the Table of Contents.
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br / - The binding seems like it might give out on me. So far it has held up, but I have the feeling that pages are going to start breaking out and flying off.
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br / - Editing? What editing? One chapter stops short only to be tagged on at the end of a following chapter. There's other signs of self-editing mishaps, typos, etc.
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br / - 149 pages of documentation which is no more useful than PowerShell's own help files. Or if you want gui documentation, PowerShell Analyzer has contextual help or you can use Sapien's PowerShell Help gui.
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br / - Retails for $49.99. That's pretty steep for the quantity of material and the production quality. Other PowerShell books may retail for near that price-point, but Amazon is able to offer a discount to their customers.
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br / - Finally, Mr. Jones likes to plug PrimalScript whenever possible. He mentions it from time to time in the book and in the webcasts he does for Microsoft. It's a fine product, though not my choice. (I prefer jEdit, gvim or emacs whenever possible; Karl Prosser's PowerShell Analyzer is great when working at depth specifically with PowerShell.)
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br /But what about the content?
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br /I found TFM to be very accessible. This book got me up and running with Powershell, and it did it without boring me with mind numbing hand-holding or putting me to sleep with over-my-head theory. Probably like a lot of other admin/support staff folks, I am not a programmer and don't have fluency in any particular language, though I *have* been exposed to the basics of a lot of different scripting languages and can put a script together from time to time. For my needs TFM hit the right balance as an introduction. I'm nearly finished with it, and will continue with Payette's book, which goes into greater detail. They're complimentary books, really.
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br /Overall, I do appreciate this book. The production qualities need improving, but that doesn't derail the book from it's purpose. It serves as a good introduction to PowerShell aimed at the sysadmin crew.
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br /UPDATE (20070320): I'm 168 pages into Bruce Payette's Windows PowerShell In Action and have to admit that it is a much more useful and successful book. It goes into significantly more detail about the hows and whys of PowerShell, and looks to be a book that I'll come back to again and again. I can't say the same about TFM, unfortunately. But it got me going, and for that I'll applaud it.
I do like this book
I'll agree with the previous reviewer on a couple of points:
br /1. They general layout of the book kind of hit me as odd when I first opened up the book.
br /2. The verboseness used to list out the packaged cmdlets doesn't seem like a good use for a book of this level.
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br /I do have a lot of respect for Don and Jeff, and they provide a lot of support to the community.
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br /I am just too busy right now to read from front to back, but have skimmed through some sections, and do like it. The book's binding was a bit stiff, but is starting to soften up a bit.
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br /The formatting might need time for me to get a bit used to, but overall, I still give the book a 4/5, and look forward to other SAPIEN books in the TFM series.
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br /This book is not a really a beginner scripting book, and I can fully understand that the authors didn't explain what WMI is, if at all.
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br /I'm happy with my purchase, and am looking forward to learning more from it.
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br /A true beginner should maybe go with the "Absolute Beginner" book out on PowerShell.
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