Rating:  - Worth the time and money.
I have never read any of the "head rush" series before... If they are all like this one, I will read many more.
This book explains the core of Ajax in the first chapter and that is what sold me (I read it in the book store over some coffee).
This covered very clearly what I have been looking for on the subject. Those items were:
1) What is the purpose of Ajax? Why would you use it? How does it help? (Looks great for more than GUI/UI, it also reduces bandwidth.)
2) What is the overview of Ajax? What is the application design workflow?
(The request, response, process, and update model is very simple and easy to understand.)
3) How involved is it? IE: will I need to learn tons of new concepts to use it effectively? (I turns out to be pretty trivial in concept if you understand web programming basics.)
4) What are the "catches" with browser compatibility? (Turns out these are more easily compensated for than I originally imagined.)
I could really go on and on about the questions that I had that were answered but the point is clear so I won't write a book on this book...
=)
Buy it if you're new to Ajax but familiar with Web technologies (PHP, JavaScrip, HTML, XHTML, CSS, DOM).
If you're not ... ah... this could be really confusing or a VERY solid start to learning.
The PHP examples are simple PHP so you won't have any PHP epiphanies reading this.
This book is worth your time (and money) if you don't already understand the Ajax paradigm.
It was perfect for me.
Rating: - Head Rush Ajax (Head First)
Very nice book. I am enjoying reading it. It brings new view to asynchronous web javascript using non formal approach. I like Head First series.
Rating:  - Not my style
For me, all the information in this 400 page book could have been effectively presented in about 50 pages, using a normal page layout with illustrations. While reading this book, I felt like I was wasting my time. Eventually, I found myself skimming the pages for nuggets of useful information buried in all the fluff (handwritten notes, arrows, and pictures of dogs and guys in ribbed sweaters.) I am willing to consider that perhaps the style of this book is just not right for me. But even for someone who likes/is compatible with this style, I believe the limited amount of actual information contained in this book makes it not a good value.
Rating:  - Contains some good information, but...
The top-most declaration on the front page of Head Rush Ajax is "Get it in your brain, FAST". A more appropriate comment would be: "Get it in your brain after taking a tedious journey down a long, winding road". I found some useful information about Ajax, but only after being frustrated by having to wade through an excessive amount of fluff, even if the dog pictured so often is really cute. Head Rush Ajax typically uses about 20 pages to present and explain material that anyone with any coding experience at all can learn in a paragraph or two. So, if you are an absolute beginner, this book might be just the thing, with entertaining inserts to give you a break if you need one. But if you're even a little experienced with html, css, javascript or php you will probably find the pace to be way too SLOW.
Rating: - Smug Style and Questionable Content
The content of this book is a little odd. It rushes through introductory topics for the browser side at the beginning to get you going, but has no discussion of what you might set up as a web server to model the back end for which they provide PHP code. This is especially odd given the emphasis on active learning; you can't actually model the whole system from their instructions without other references. Having configured enough open source servers, I know this isn't hard and could be handled in a short appendix. The comment in the editorial review to the effect of "have your first app working before the end of Chapter 1" needs to be evaluated in that light.
The Head Rush book series is likely something you like or hate. I find the tone of the authors smug and self-satisfied, and for me it works against their stated goal of really engaging the reader. The pedagogical concepts are not particularly new, but they have a theory they think is revolutionary so they have an overly assertive style: a "conversational" tone that is self-consciously hip, hard-to-read handwritten comments, and cheesy photographs and jokes. The same pedagogical methods could be presented in a much more neutral fashion. The style also means that this would be a poor reference after you gain some skills.
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