Safari Books Online

Selfmade

anybody else subscribe to this service? Any thoughts or opinions on how it is? I am not a subscriber, but I'm sort of interested in it, I am not sure if it's worth the cash they are asking $42.99 a month for full access, or half that for a 10 slot bookshelf.

I will have to see, i'm wondering if any of you have any personal experience to share on this thing.

Devilsbane

Never heard of it, but $42 a month seems a little steep to me. Considering a lot of cert books can be bought for $30 or less. Plus, maybe this is just me, but I like to hang onto my technical books. I rarely if ever actually go back to one, but it is nice to have on file in case. Or to borrow out to a friend in need. I also sometimes use them just to reference the titles off of so that I can suggest the book to a friend.

Selfmade

Devilsbane wrote: »

Never heard of it, but $42 a month seems a little steep to me. Considering a lot of cert books can be bought for $30 or less. Plus, maybe this is just me, but I like to hang onto my technical books. I rarely if ever actually go back to one, but it is nice to have on file in case. Or to borrow out to a friend in need. I also sometimes use them just to reference the titles off of so that I can suggest the book to a friend.

I agree with what you're saying, I'm just wondering if it's worth it or not. I guess for a permanent solution it's better to just buy a book outright, but what if you want to use several books to help you pass a certain track and you aren't counting on it taking a long time? That's when just $22 a month would come in handy vs spending $100+ on course books and lab books.

earweed

WGU used to have it and I actually used it a little. Now we just have books 24x7 which is pretty good as well. It's available to individuals for $499/yr for the IT Pro library less if you're a student. They carry all the MS Press books, Sybex Books, Comptia Books, and a lot of others.
I mainly used Safari for my research papers.

Devilsbane

earweed wrote: »

WGU used to have it and I actually used it a little. Now we just have books 24x7 which is pretty good as well. It's available to individuals for $499/yr for the IT Pro library less if you're a student. They carry all the MS Press books, Sybex Books, Comptia Books, and a lot of others.
I mainly used Safari for my research papers.

If you are going to read 2+ books a month, every month, and don't care about having a copy to keep forever then it is a great investment. (Also if you are ok with always reading off of a screen.) If you only need 1 a month, or if buying a couple books lasts you 2 months then it isn't.

Just like when netflix firt came out. If you were an avid movie watcher, it made a lot of sense. If you only watched a movie a month, then blockbuster was your best bet. (Now that video stores have less stores and netflix is cheaper, Netflix seems like the best option.)

And even if you are in that group that would profit from this, are they going to have the exact books that you want to read? Lets say there is this awesome book that pretty much guarentees that you pass a test and it isn't available from safari. You might go out and buy this book, and still spend the $42 for their service.

Selfmade

Devilsbane wrote: »

And even if you are in that group that would profit from this, are they going to have the exact books that you want to read? Lets say there is this awesome book that pretty much guarentees that you pass a test and it isn't available from safari. You might go out and buy this book, and still spend the $42 for their service.

That right there is what i'm worried about!

exactly why I made this thread!

Devilsbane

Selfmade wrote: »

That right there is what i'm worried about!

exactly why I made this thread!

Don't they have a database listing all the books they offer? I would think they would advertise that to get you to sign up. And if they don't, I would suspect that they aren't going to offer all the ones you want.

apena7

I received an email from CompTIA a few months ago advertising their IT Pro membership and one of the benefits included access to Books 24x7. For the membership price $39, I probably would have taken the offer if I weren't already using the service from WGU.

EMcCaleb

I subscribe with 10 slots per month and have found it to be very valuable. There are some small features within it I really enjoy. Such as the ability to do a "search" which returns books/chapters with the information you require. As well as references within the book pointing to other books where the same topic is covered.

As someone else mentioned, I too enjoy the tactile stimulation of actually holding a book. However, using Safari as a reference has been very helpful.

earweed

apena7 wrote: »

I received an email from CompTIA a few months ago advertising their IT Pro membership and one of the benefits included access to Books 24x7. For the membership price $39, I probably would have taken the offer if I weren't already using the service from WGU.

I got the same offer. When I get out of WGU I may become a member just for the books 24x7.

Selfmade

what does the IT Pro library have?

only CompTia centric books?

earweed

Selfmade wrote: »

what does the IT Pro library have?

only CompTia centric books?

MS Press, Sybex,CompTIA, Books for Dummies, and a lot of pertinent books for certifications. Definitely not worth 499/year. Would be worth the cost of Comptia Membership though. Don't know if they have many cisco books, I'll check that.
I searched Cisco and there are 248 books with Cisco in the title and some are Cisco Press from what I saw.

Ahriakin

I used it religiously for years, 10 slot when I paid for it myself and unlimited when I finally got my previous company to pay for it (the current one has Cisco TKL, full ebook access, so I don't really need it at the moment). One of the biggest benefits is you stop debating about whether the extra books are necessary for your cert path or if you should try and save some cash by sticking with the vendor material only etc. That worry is just gone, if you want to read it you can. Sounds obvious but psychologically it's one less nasty burden when you need your mind focused on other things.

L0gicB0mb508

I used it for a good while. Not every book is in there, but they have an excellent selection. You can also get some video training materials from there if you do the $42 a month one. It's definitely worth it if you read a lot of books.

WilliamK99

Call me biased but I prefer Books 24/7. A nice little perk to being in the Army is unlimited access to Books 24/7, it really comes in handy when you need a quick technical reference.

One thing to keep in mind if deciding is that Safari allows you limited chapter downloads while Books 24/7 does not....

Daniel333

Safari rocks. But it's free through like every library system I know of.

EmpoweredBizTech

Over all I like safari. I have been using it off and on for some time now. the problem is it's expensive I recently had a 3 month trial for 9.99 and that was great. My trial is up I cancelled it again it is tuff to read on a screen. And if you have the 10 slot plan you can't remove what you put in their for 30 days. Perhaps when they come out with an IPad version they say they are working on I may revisit and shell out then might be worth to have it be much more mobile.

dynamik

I'd seriously consider the 10-slot bookshelf if you're interested in this, especially if you're just starting out. The full-blown subscription is nice if it's for work and you're constantly pulling up different references for different things you're working on. 10 books every 30 days will probably be sufficient for most people.

I let my subscription lapse simply because I don't enjoy reading off the screen. I spend enough time in front of a monitor as it is, and I prefer to get away from that as much as I can.

Nobylspoon

WilliamK99 wrote: »

Call me biased but I prefer Books 24/7. A nice little perk to being in the Army is unlimited access to Books 24/7, it really comes in handy when you need a quick technical reference.

One thing to keep in mind if deciding is that Safari allows you limited chapter downloads while Books 24/7 does not....

Is the free access only for Army or is that offer available to all service branches? If so, where did you go to sign up?

xenodamus

I've been using it for a month now and have found that I really don't care for reading from a monitor. I signed up because there were a couple of other books I wanted to read before I took my ICND1. It worked out great for that since I got to read 2 additional texts and only paid $22. Now I'm slowly working my way through the Cisco Press ICND2 text and really don't have time to read anything else, so I'm not gaining a ton from it.

The way I look at it, I spend more on coffee in a month than I do on my safari account and it's nice to have when I need it.

Selfmade

Thanks everyone, for your opinions, once I pass my certs and start going for the more advanced certs, I'll look into buying into this, the references alone would probably make it worth the money

when I first looked at it, I thought they might have fiction titles as well, I was planning on putting a fiction book or 2 on my bookshelf, then I looked and it's all technical books, haha.

WilliamK99

Nobylspoon wrote: »

Is the free access only for Army or is that offer available to all service branches? If so, where did you go to sign up?

you sign up on AKO, which is Army Knowledge Online, not sure if your branch has an equivelent...