Packt recently sent me a copy of Munwar Shariff’s updated book, Alfresco 3 Content Management Implementation. The book is a comprehensive guide to Alfresco from an end-user or power user perspective.

How comprehensive? This edition offers 239 new pages (including the index) over the original. That’s a lot of net new content. The first seven chapters are roughly the same as the first edition, covering fundamentals, installation, security, basic library services, rules, and the content model. The Collaboration and Syndication coverage has morphed into a chapter on Share & SharePoint which is very timely as there is a lot of activity around that area of the product right now.

The organization of the book feels improved over the first edition. It now follows a very logical progression through the entire platform. There are still places where the information feels superfluous (the discussion of ActiveDirectory versus Novell eDirectory, for example) or aimed at a different audience (Chapter 9’s coverage of integration with other systems) but overall I think Shariff and his team have done a great job of covering an expansive platform and its many use cases.

If you are evaluating Alfresco, just getting started with the platform, or you are looking for the missing manual for end-users and power users, you should take a look.

Disclosure: Packt provided me a copy of this book free of charge. Also, Munwar and his team of authors work for Cignex, a services firm that, from time-to-time, competes for business against my company, Optaros.