Cognos

Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data
$34.99

I while back I was tasked with creating some dashboards at work, for management.
After browsing a great many websites, and reading seemingly endless blogs, I opted to find a comprehensive guide.
Stephen's book answer all my questions and a opened my mind to ideas and concepts not mentioned in any of the online material.
Not only is this book a valuable resource I'm sure I will refer back to, it was also well written and enjoyable.
Few's views came across as a little extreme at times, but frankly he makes a compelling case. I'm sold.

Will read again.

Cogno: Mindshifters, Book Two (The Legends)
$6.00
Cogno's dream team of detectives is back in this all-new, fast-paced adventure! But even their abilities-time travel, superior speed, and unparalleled wits-are dwarfed by what they are about to face. While searching for Cogno's father around a massive black hole, the team uncovers more than they bargained for. Cogno finds answers he's been seeking for thirty years, including why his father whisked him and his little sister away from home and family. The answer is unthinkable, but then so is the fact that his sister now lives inside the mind of a robot! Twists and surprises abound as you walk the line between fact and fiction in Mindshifters

The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit: Practical Techniques for Extracting, Cleanin
$45.00
For a book which has "ETL Toolkit" in the name, I would think this would get right down to the nuts and bolts of how to write an ETL system. Yet, after reading this book, I still have the feeling that I still wouldn't know how to build one. From the book, I know what the issues are about inserting, deleting, and organizing the data, but how does that translate into SQL which actually does the work? There are hardly any SQL or sample code to go by. Issues like dealing with multiple database sources are mentioned, but just what do you do when cities are mentioned in both databases and they don't quite match up? If you decide to roll your own, the book really doesn't give you any basic framework to follow. This book does provide important insights on ETL systems, but don't expect to be able to write one based on this book. For example, you are told to bulk insert data, but you are also expected to exchange all of the natural keys with surrogate keys. If you have to examine each line and exchange keys, you cannot bulk load the data and this ends up being a very CPU intensive process where each row is laboriously examined, exchanged and then inserted one row at a time. This is a very practical ETL difficulty but yet, the book doesn't deal with this problem. It just assumes this won't be a problem for you. In some ways, the book is more about selling you the 'Kimbal' way of data warehouses as other more intuitive ways of constructing a data warehouse are not even considered. Like a sales pitch and a fancy powerpoint presentation, it lacks the substance to actually create a well performing ETL process. That is left as an exercise for the reader.

IBM Cognos 8 Planning
$59.99
Ned Riaz, Rich Barbaran, and Jason Edwards have done an excellent job compiling all of the basics of Cognos Planning into one reference guide. The explanations in the book are clear and concise - step-by-step instructions for creating d-lists, d-links, etc. with well-placed screenshots. The topics are well organized and follow the same sequence as the Cognos Planning courses that IBM offers. Included throughout are helpful tips and suggestions embedded in the text. There is a chapter on reporting, publishing, and integration with Cognos BI tools which is quite helpful (the authors have also written a very good article on this topic - search Google for "how to publish from Cognos Contributor to Framework Manager"). The book has 397 pages, including a detailed index, but I am surprised that there is no glossary. For $55, I would have expected one.

From a business and implementation point of view, no reference book can replace a skilled Cognos Planning consultant. Having an expert like Riaz, Barbaran, Edwards, or myself guide you through the model building process is key to any successful implementation.

If you are involved with Cognos Planning on a day-to-day basis, then you should buy this book.

Mitch Paioff, Author, Getting Started as an Independent Computer Consultant

Getting Started as an Independent Computer Consultant