Recommended way of getting data from the server

There are cases when $resource may not be appropriate when talking to backend. This shows how to set up $resource like behavior without using resource.

angular.module('myApp').factory('Book', function($http) {
  // Book is a class which we can use for retrieving and 
  // updating data on the server
  var Book = function(data) {
    angular.extend(this, data);
  }

  // a static method to retrieve Book by ID
  Book.get = function(id) {
    return $http.get('/Book/' + id).then(function(response) {
      return new Book(response.data);
    });
  };

  // an instance method to create a new Book
  Book.prototype.create = function() {
    var book = this;
    return $http.post('/Book/', book).then(function(response) {
      book.id = response.data.id;
      return book;
    });
  }

  return Book;
});

Then inside your controller you can:

var AppController = function(Book) {
  // to create a Book
  var book = new Book();
  book.name = 'AngularJS in nutshell';
  book.create();

  // to retrieve a book
  var bookPromise = Book.get(123);
  bookPromise.then(function(b) {
    book = b;
  });
};

I recommend that you use $resource.

It may support (url override) in next version of Angularjs. Then you will be able to code like this:

// need to register as a serviceName
$resource('/user/:userId', {userId:'@id'}, {
    'customActionName':    {
        url:'/user/someURI'
        method:'GET',
        params: {
            param1: '....',
            param2: '....',
        }
    },
     ....
});

And return callbacks can be handled in ctrl scope like this.

// ctrl scope
serviceName.customActionName ({
    paramName:'param',
    ...
}, 
function (resp) {
    //handle return callback
}, 
function (error) {
    //handler error callback
});

Probably you can handle code on higher abstraction level.