To clarify the title, the site says you can download one free ebook. So a more accurate title would be "Download any one ebook free from Packt Publishing (through the end of the month)"
I work for Packt and this campaign has caused huge traffic surges for us. Please be patient as we are working on the issues and the sign up is running until 8am Monday GMT.
The offer is for one of any eBooks for free, and can use the library PacktLib to browse and review books before choose. You only need to login/register before Monday but have a week to choose your book.
also, if you follow the blue "yes please" link on the front page, you can register via a page that is much more responsive than the rest of the site. that appears to guarantee your participation in the scheme (they say they will email you when the site is back to normal).
This comment [1] summed the one book I read quite well:
This book is so badly written that reading it will
give you a very good appreciation as to what it must
feel like to be dyslexic, the words just come at you
in a random order.
I've had some great experiences, e.g. Gregory Smith's PostgreSQL 9.0 High Performance. When considering purchasing a book on a niche topic like Magneto or PostgreSQL, I think it's worth waiting for prominent community members to get review copies and write about their impression, e.g. http://www.postgresonline.com/journal/archives/192-PostgreSQ...
Very true; I was trying to avoid Packt for the same reason. Recently, friend of mine shown two books that changed my perception. They're really good (IMHO):
Can anybody recommend some books put out by Packt? I've looked at quite a few of their books over the years, and they have been, without exception, dreadful (not quite a tutorial, but also not a reference, lacking in detail, and usually behind the curve technology-wise). They appear to have several hundred books so there must be some hidden gems.
I have got the "NHibernate 3.0 Cookbook" and it is really nice.
Well it has many solutions and best practices. The print is not top notch - but the content is great.
Got all the way through finding a book I was interested in (whoever said check the reviews, thank you, a couple I was interested in were slated), then clicking for the download link and then...502 Bad Gateway.
Possibly demand has exceeded expectation.
(As a footnote I picked the Node Cookbook, as I was interested in either an Obj-C, a Node or a RoR book but the RoR stuff was published 2008, so maybe outdate somewhat)
Any good recommendations for a book to choose? I browsed the 'new eBooks' section, and the only one that looked any interesting was on balsamiq mockups...
They offer downloads in the major formats (open epub, Amazon's mobi, and regular pdf). Also, you can read and convert ebooks in pretty much any format using Calibre http://calibre-ebook.com/
I work for Packt and this campaign has caused huge traffic surges for us. Please be patient as we are working on the issues and the sign up is running until 8am Monday GMT.
The offer is for one of any eBooks for free, and can use the library PacktLib to browse and review books before choose. You only need to login/register before Monday but have a week to choose your book.
Trying to 'checkout' the book doesn't seem to be supported for this offer.
Instead the splash on the front page points to http://packtlib.packtpub.com/library
GMT-5, though I guess it actually is 28th at GMT+0.. Point was just that it still says "Return between the 28th and 30th September to claim your gift", so whoever is supposed to activate the deal hasn't done so yet (and since their office is in England they are probably still asleep)
