As Microsoft encourages the shift towards Windows Server 2008, you might think that the previous versions immediately become obsolete. But demand has shown this to be false, and this is why we at Reg Books have decided to package together the key Windows Server 2003 MCSE and MCSA Online Learning products into cost-effective collections.

It’s also accepted that, if you are looking to upgrade your qualification from Server 2000 to 2008, the upgrade path is unquestionably easier to follow if you first train on Server 2003 and then move on to the 2008 material (not that a straight jump from 2000 to 2008 is impossible).

With this in mind the Online Learning collections below could prove to be the most cost-effective piece of spending you do all year, not only providing the knowledge you need but saving you thousands of pounds on training. Can you afford not to take advantage?

Book extract, part four Redundancy, testability and readability are key to building simple and maintainable code. In the fourth extract from his book, Emergent Design: The Evolutionary Nature of Professional Software Development, published by Addison Wesley, Scott Bain tackles the problems and principles involved.

Register Books is offering big discounts on a range of A+ Certification titles that cover everything you need to know to pass the CompTIA A+ Certification exams.

Book extract, part three In the third extract from his book, Emergent Design: The Evolutionary Nature of Professional Software Development published by Addison Wesley, Scott Bain tackles the complex issue of coupling, and looks at how unnecessary complexity can be injected through accidental or bad coupling.

Site offer Managing content is a key issue in any business today, and is becoming more relevant as commerce moves inexorably online.

Register Books is offering 20 per cent off all Microsoft’s Official Online Learning courses covering the .NET Framework 2.0, all of which can help you prepare for exam 70-536 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Application Development Foundation.

These courses are delivered online and can be activated within minutes of placing your order. See Register Books for general information, or visit the links below for specific product information or to make a purchase.

Windows Server 2008 is due for release on February 29, and as with most Microsoft releases, the fanfare from Seattle can be heard worldwide. Will it do what you want it to? What skills do you need? Is it any good?

Site offer MySQL is a multi-user SQL database management system with over 10 million installations worldwide. MySQL is commonly used within web applications and acts as a database component of the LAMP, MAMP and WAMP platforms.

The rise of PHP as a popular web application has contributed to MySQL's popularity as they are often implemented together. We've picked out a few books covering the subject, which are listed below. All books are discounted by 40 per cent, as usual*.

Book review To some, Ruby is going to take over the world. With prominent Java developers and propagandists jumping ship, there has seemed to be no stopping its momentum, particularly in web development.

Site offer Microsoft's Exchange Server has become a key component of IT with today's business world relying more and more on mobile computing and 24-hour connectivity.

The 2007 incarnation has taken the key features of this collaborative software product and improved the security, adaptability, and overall IT experience.

Code development can be crucial to the success or otherwise of projects. Forget to add that security checking feature halfway through your system and the whole process is open to vulnerabilities you don't even want to contemplate.

Ubuntu is the free Linux-based operating system designed with frequent updating in mind.

Released in October 2004, it has evolved into one of the best-known branches of the Debian tree and offers a strong focus on usability and easy installation, whether it be on a laptop, desktop or server machine.

Books LEGO has been taken to the next dimension with the Mindstorms NXT intelligent bricks. These brick-shaped computers allow you to program your LEGO robot using the menus provided. If you wish, more complicated programs and sound files can be downloaded using a USB port or Bluetooth.

Robotics has never been more fun, and the books we've reviewed for you this week cover all aspects of the NXT technology right up to the simulation of Da Vinci's inventions. All books are at our special promotional price of 40 per cent off*.

Developers looking to build Ajax-style rich internet applications (RIA) are pretty much spoilt for choice at the moment. There are dozens of RIA tools and frameworks littering the development landscape, from those providing minimal sets of JavaScript libraries to heavyweight contenders such as Adobe’s Flex, Microsoft’s Silverlight and Google’s Web Toolkit (GWT). The Google offering, released under an Open Source licence, has quickly picked up a following by combining a wide range of useful and functional browser widgets and by using Java to drive the whole thing. Yep, that’s Java, not Javascript…

Basically GWT shields the Java programmer from the complexities of browser differences and having to learn Javascript. It means Java developers can use their existing server side or desktop development skills to create flexible, functional and rich Ajax applications (of the type popularised to a large extent by Google’s Gmail and Google Maps).

"Service Strategy" is part of ITIL (the IT Infrastructure Library), which is one of the, perhaps surprising, success stories of UK government computing.

Originally, ITIL was a set of Operations-oriented “good practices” for IT Service Management: a non-prescriptive guide to the best way of doing things, backed up with ISO 20000, for people who wanted to certify what they were doing against ITIL. It was, and is, widely adopted outside of the UK.

Now, building on this success, ITIL has been “refreshed” as a complete service management lifecycle framework. It is important to modern developers as it is, in essence, a “spec” for integrating IT with the business in a service-oriented environment.

Like unit testing and automated builds, continuous integration is one of those development best practices that everyone can agree on, from the most extreme programmers to the most dogmatic of RUPistas. System integration – the moment when all of the different components of an application come together to produce a harmonious and pleasing whole – can be such a painful and difficult procedure that it’s tempting to put it off until later. It’s a lot of hassle, it takes so much time, there’s always something missing and so… There you are on the eve of release, only to find that rather than software harmony, you’ve got massive discord and disaster.

Following on from our offers on the latest Dreamweaver CS3 and Photoshop CS3 titles, we thought we couldn't look at those exciting new releases without at least visiting Flash CS3, another part of the Adobe CS3 software dynasty.

As usual we've taken a look at what is out there and whittled it down to bring you a selection of the best new titles on the market (all at 40 per cent off*, we might add), which we're sure will help you design that killer website you've got planned. So have a look at the books below and allow some of the best experts in the world to give you an introduction to the next generation of Flash.

Review Subtitled Application Development With Apache, this is a book for web developers who want to take their web applications to the next level – running them inside their web servers.

Apache's modular architecture makes it possible to build applications into server modules, but there's a catch: there's not much documentation, and most of that is out of date.

Book review Beautiful code? Well, we've all seen plenty of ugly code in our time. If we're being honest, we'd probably even admit to have written some dog-ugly code at one time or other (no doubt with every intention to refactor it later so that it's a bit less brutally repulsive). But code that's beautiful? What does that even mean?

Dreamweaver CS3 is the first release of the powerful web design program since Adobe acquired Macromedia. It now forms part of the larger Creative Suite package and offers a host of new features as well as promising to increase efficiency in all areas of website development.

Of course, with the release of a new edition of software, with its improvements and never-before seen features, you're going to want the low-down on how to get the best out of your application quickly.

Book review Microsoft's Language Integrated Query (also known as LINQ), is one of the key features on the .NET horizon. Already out as a beta, it's slated for release as part of Visual Studio 2008 (which goes under the code name of Orcas, which conjures images of packs of killer whales rather than shrink-wrapped development software).

However, Microsoft has done a good job of whetting developers' appetites, and there's plenty of interest in LINQ already.

Books Competent Project Management is a key skill in today's business world. From the multi-billion pound 2012 Olympic project to a small-scale software rollout in an office of 10 people, every project has its own distinct requirements that must be met to ensure the continuity of the business around it. It is to ensure this continuity that a project manager must deliver - on time, on budget and on target!

Register Books has put together a few key titles, nearly all at our usual 40 per cent off*, to help any project manager get the most from the resources at their disposal.

Book review Smart and gets things done is a pretty apt description of the kind of people we want to recruit into our development teams.

Unfortunately, this is no easy matter. And, given the consequences of a wrong choice for either party, it can often be a pretty hit and miss affair.

Joel Spolsky, of VBA and Joel On Software fame, has put together this slim little volume that aims to let us all into the secret of recruiting the best of the best of the best. Oh, and along the way we get to learn a lot about Joel, his company, and what a great place it is to work in...

Summer is with us, or at least it should be once the rains stops, and it’s getting to that time of year when we all take the customary two week break away from the stress and the strains of work and the modern world. Trouble is, once we’re away from it, we start to miss it.

Book review The move towards rich internet applications (RIA) seems to be unstoppable. Aiming to offer browser-based applications with the speed, flexibility and functionality of traditional desktop applications, companies like Google and others continue to raise the bar as to what you can do in a browser. One of the key technologies in this area has been Ajax, but even with the proliferation of Ajax toolkits and frameworks, there are an increasing range of alternatives. These include JavaFX from Sun, JBoss Seam, Google’s GWT and Microsoft’s Silverlight.

And, of course, there’s Adobe’s Flash platform, with its massive installed user base and widespread availability of browser plug-ins. Flex 2 is that latest version of the software development kit (SDK) for producing rich internet apps targeting Flash Player 9 run-time environment. Using a combination of an XML based language called MXML and the ActionScript 3 scripting language, Flex 2 enables developers to create highly interactive GUI applications, with a high degree of functionality, linking back-end databases, business logic and user interaction all within the confines of the Flash player (normally hosted in a browser).

ITIL is the most widely accepted approach to IT service management in the world. Providing a cohesive set of best practice guidance drawn from the public and private sectors across the world, it has recently undergone a major and important refresh programme.

Books The latest version of Microsoft's popular collaboration and productivity platform, SharePoint Server, was released towards the end of last year, and this next generation of software expands on the core capabilities of the 2003 version.

Register Books has taken a look at the titles on the market for the new application and has handpicked a few tomes that cover the stuff you need to know. As usual, we have discounted all the titles we've selected so you can get them at a whopping 40 per cent off the RRP*.

Books Considering that one of the principles of software agility is "less is more" (as in minimal, low-ceremony software processes), you could spend a lifetime reading about even niche aspects of agility. So here's the second part of our pick of the crop of agile planning books:

Book review We might as well get this over and done at the outset. Yes, JBoss Seam is another Java framework. I know, you thought there couldn't possibly be any room for another one, but you're wrong.

What's more, it's another Java EE framework, built to make life for the enterprise developer more productive, more efficient, more interesting etc etc.

Books Microsoft has finally answered the prayers of system administrators and developers everywhere with the introduction of Windows PowerShell, a new scripting technology that enables the automation of system management tasks and the creation of system management tools. PowerShell runs on Windows XP, 2003, and Vista.