Independent Books

This book is an excellent introduction to GIS technology. It is a great starting place for those of us new to the technology.

The book with the CD are very useful to learn the basics about ESRI GIS principles. I was looking for a book to help gain some insight into how GIS works; this fulfilled the need.

Received this tutorial today and imediately started on the lessons. Oops! There are two Glaring errors---so far--in the lesson plans. On page 49, when doing the Address Matcher exercise, an error appears: Cannot Build Geocoding Index. No way to get around it, unless you skip the rest of that lesson and move on. On page 75, at least on my home version of XP, cannot save the file to any format. Call to ESRI Support yielded little to no help at all. I only gave this rating a 3, because the overall lessons are great and it is something worth knowing, but the glitches dampen a bit of the enthusiasm. Hopefully, there wont' be any more on the CDRom.

I recommend buying several copies of this book and sending them out to friends & family you might want to offer more of a glimpse into GIS than just sending them to an online atlas. It comes with ESRI's free GIS viewer ArcExplorer and a decent set of data to get started with, and AE itself is a handy tool for letting folks explore work you've done, or sending them work you've done for them (road trip!). Has an appendix for Import71, which is handy.

to ArcExplorer for everyone.
The book is a great introduction for those who want to have a more or less thorough tour of what a GIS is capable of. Being an ESRI press book, it was more or less obvious that its only approach was goin to be through ESRI products (ie. ArcExplorer)
Anyway, the book only shows what can be done with the already processed, already "ArcMade" datafiles. It fails to explain anything else of the GIS creation process.
If you're looking for a technical book, forget it.

This is a great book. For anyone going into the massage business, this is a wonderful tool. I rented this from our library first, loved it and bought it for my own library. Massage is a very tricky business. You become a therapist because of your love of people and your desire to help, but not people have good motives. This book teaches you how to protect yourself. It also helps with legal matters, opening a shop, decorating, schools, self care, and so much more. This is a great reference book to keep on hand for when things come up, and they will in the massage business.

I'm about ready to finish up my licensure, and this book has given me some great insight into what to expect and on how to avoid what would have been common mistakes. Only for the beginner though. I think more experienced practicioners would either already know most of what is in this book or could find what they don't know elsewhere. On the whole, a Great introduction to the massage profession.

The author really misses the real issues that a massage therapist are faced with on a daily basis because he is a lawyer trying to sell books on massage careers.

While most of what he does say is true, there is much more to starting and building a successful massage career and since he has never done it ( he did go to massage school but from what I know this guy is a lawyer and has never had a full time career), this book is really lacking in addressing the real issues such as the low pay rates, career struggles, high rates of burnout in the profession and other things.

i purchaced this book because it is required for my upcoming intro to massage class. it arrived yesterday and i decided to 'flip through it'. i finished it this afternoon. once i started reading it, i couldn't put it down. it answered most of my basic questions about the industry, aliviated some of my fears, and left me feeling confident that i have chosen the right career path for me.

it has a wealth of resources, from choosing a school, to massage supply companies, recomended readings, magazines, articles from other massage therapists, managing finances, building your clientel and so on.

i think it is a great book for anyone considering the field. it is honest, detailed, well written and easy to understand.

Much like a computer manual, this is a book that could be rewritten twice a year and still stay 3 months behind. As much as the Massage Therapy community and profession change on an almost daily basis, it would be almost impossible to mass produce any kind of book (short of a magazine) and keep it cutting edge.

The book DOES still have plenty of things to make it well worth the price, and it's all in one volume. There is only one mag that has proven itself to be worth reading and it (MASSAGE) will cover about 3/4 of the info contained herein in about a year.

The chapter on MONEY MANAGEMENT gives the same excellent advice that my Grandfather gave me 20 years ago when it comes to smart investments of time and money. It's certainly as useful today as it was then. If you're planning on going it alone in the business, I strongly suggest you at least borrow a friend's copy and read that chapter.

There is also a great chapter on marketing on a budget. There are those that say that a good Massage Therapist doesn't need to advertise, and in-as-much as many Therapists work alone, they are correct. I have 12 Therapists in 2 offices, 3 clinics and 3 hospitals. . . I do a small amount of marketing simply to educate the general public (and the medical community) on what's available; this book made that an easy thing. We also advertise our seminars (we do about a dozen free infant massage classes and roughly the same number of stress management courses a year) and this chapter helped me save some money there.

There is also some plain, common sense kinda' stuff that you just need to hear from more than one person before you believe it. I won't ruin the book by spilling it here, but there really is a lot of good material in this tome! If you don't know someone with this book, buy it or wait for the next edition to come out- It's really due!

There's a reason that this book (slightly outdated as it may be) is regularly used in Massage schools across the country.

this book is a must have for those starting an indie label. The book was interesting, it didn't bore me to sleep as some of the others on this subject did. I still refer back to it from time to time.

This book was an alright read. It went more to the legal side of starting a record label. We really wanted to do a lot of the stuff on our own. If you are looking to start a label then you won't be wasting your time by reading this, but there are plenty more books out there to read(keep that in mind.)

I am a hard to please person but trust me this book is worth every penny, it goes through everything you need to know for you to create a successful label. It s there for you, now it's up to you to work hard and do your homework cause this book is full of vital information!!!
One downfall, I wish there was a bit more in-depth information (I mean a REAL step by step book!!!). If anyone hear about such a book please let me know!!!
Appart from that, this is an overall really good read!

This book was definitely the best book that i have read about starting an independent record label. It took all of my scattered thoughts and put it together like a puzzle and made everything make sense. It gives a complete and thorough breakdown on the label itself (management and positions), as well as the music industry itself. Since i have read this book, I have started my own label, BackPack Records.

I was a bit skeptical at first because there are alot of con artists in the music industry, but I decided to take a risk and I'm glad I did. The author is very knowlegdeable and honest and he gives the best insight as well as a little humor to keep you interested in the book. I recommend that every artist who wants to be paid and secured financially, or wants to break into the business and control the show to purchase and fully read this book chapter to chapter. If you have to read it twice, I guarantee you will find yourself referring back to it. I make sure I reeducate myself from time to time because you never know to much in this industry all be willing to learn more. The more you know the further you will go. BY THE BOOK A.S.A.P. NO QUESTIONS ASKED!!!!!!!

I had never heard of the United States Information Agency until I read this book. Among other public diplomacy (read: propaganda) duties, the USIA is responsible for Radio Marti, the pro-US propaganda beamed in to Cuba and the Fullbright scholar program. The reason those of us living in the US don't know too much about the USIA's mission is that they are not allowed to use their propaganda skills on US citizens, even though their predecessor organization, the Committee on Public Information (CPI) was created during the Wilson administration specifically to convince the people of the US that fighting the Germans in World War I was critical to the security of the American homeland.

Post cold-war and especially during the Clinton administration, the USIA became the mouthpiece of NAFTA and the evangelization of people in other countries of the benefits of accepting American-style economies. This very brief book outlines much of this history and the author Nancy Snow makes it clear that any positive aspects of the program like the Fullbright program have been long buried under the pro-business propaganda machine of the Clinton and Bush the Younger administrations. The Fullbright program in particular became a tool to influence thought on market economics in Mexico and Canada, whose citizens were ambivalent about the promises of economic development promised by NAFTA.

Today, much of the USIA's work has been rolled into the State Department, headed by former advertising executive Charlotte Beers, who is charged with "rebranding America to the world" like the Uncle Ben's Rice she used to work on. The USIA is one of the vehicles of US economic and cultural hegemony, especially in countries that we can't go to war with. Snow's history and analysis ends with an action plan that is wider reaching than simply what to do with the USIA. It is really a series of concrete ideas for reforming the very government of our country.

This small book tells the story of the USIA (the US Information Agency), a government unit.
This institution was created with very good intentions (increase mutual understanding between people), but was diverted from its original goal and streamlined as a propaganda machine to promote the US economic system and business interests.

The author rightly stigmatizes harshly the democratic deficit in the US: a media monopoly, a political duopoly ruled by big business and big money, and a plutocracy which dominates without control public welfare, public lands, public airwaves and the pension trusts.
Prof. Snow proposes a seven point plan to restore true democracy, but the implementation will be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

This book should be read as a classic example of how particular interest groups take control of a public institution and turn it into a pro-private interests mouthpiece.

Not to be missed.

Bad, both as history and as analysis, even the neo-Marxist sort that it unabashedly mimics. It's an embarrassment that the author has managed to turn this screed into an academic career as an expert on "public diplomacy." That she has done so offers a lesson on ambitious self-promotion in the academic world. She purports to tell the story about the former USIA, and ends telling no story at all.

She also misses the essential point about the former USIA: that its work was primarily in the field, people-to-people, and had little to do with politicized Washington policy-makers and attitudes of various administrations. Her litany of pleas for a sense of the real America of working-class people misses completely the large majority of Americans who are religious and socially conservative, exactly the kind of Americans who resonate well with Africans and Latin Americans, to name two important parts of the world. This isn't surprising for someone who freely cites Marxist Howard Zinn and places his photo on her website.

Ultimately, however, this non-book is just sad. USIA was a failure in many ways, but the story deserves to be told by a real historian, not a sham professor of "communications" who happened to do an internship in the now-dead USIA. Now that Snow has set the standard for interns, I'm waiting for Monica Lewinsky's analysis of the presidency.

Someone please put this woman on TV!

The pamphlet (so it describes itself internally) is titled as if it were a discussion of the US propaganda establishment, but is in truth a sketchy and afactual memoir of a two-year Clinton-era
internship in USIA. The pamphlet is only 60 pages long, being
prefaced by laudatory and emotional prefaces that stretch to 30
pages, probably reflecting some demand of the printing process.
About 20 pages of the pamphlet is devoted to demanding that the USIA be disbanded, the remainder to rambling far-left invectives
against the NAFTA, "globalization", "hegemonic corporations" and
other betes noires. This pamphlet may well be part of a tenure-quest rather than a knowledge quest. The reader is advised to seek knowledge elsewhere.

A very readable work that covers the relatively undocumented independent tank battallions in the ETO. The previous reviewers are right on the money concerning the strong points of the volume.

One minor criticism (of the publisher, not the author): some detailed maps of the smaller scale actions would have been appreicated and provided clarity.

I'm a B- amatuer military historian and thought the author's writing style was enjoyable, interesting and well researched. It filled in some of my personal gaps in ETO knowledge.

Author Harry Yeide has contributed one of the most gripping reads to hit the ETO lexicon in quite some time. With fast-paced combat narrative, and thorough research, Yeide has filled a long-standing gap in the European campaigns of 1944-45. The author tells the story of the American independent tank battalions that were attached to infantry divisions, and analyses the many tactical, and command and control problems this unique marriage entailed. Unlike America's armored divisions, whose ideal doctrine called for rapid exploitation, and deep penetration, the independent tank battalions moved at the infantry's pace. This homogeneous relationship presented problems throughout the ten month campaigns, as the author competently demonstrates. Yeide's narrative is clean, concise and to the point throughout. Tackling a topic that could easily fill volumes, the author never allows himself to get bogged down in a myriad of facts, or jargon. At just over 300-pages, this work can easily be consumed within a weekend. Undoubtedly, Yeide's gripping narrative is the strongest feature of the book. Organizational appendices add to the resourceful appeal, however, the five-pages of maps are over-simplified. The author hits on several important themes. Foremost, he points out that independent tank battalions were trained only in how to get ashore on D-Day, but not how to conduct operations from then on. Therefore, their primary role, that of supporting infantry, was a learn-as-you-go, on the job training process, throughout the campaigns in France and, Germany. The author touches on several significant technical innovations, such as infantry-tank radio communications, and special weapons. Some of the latter, like shells designed to penetrate concrete, and a tank deployed bangalore torpedo, called a "Snake" proved reasonably effective. Others, like a huge rollers fixed to the front of tanks to detonate land mines, were considered junk by many of the tankers. Yeide shows that for the first half of the campaigns in Northwest Europe, these tank battalions were attached fairly permanently (organic) to their perspective infantry divisions. Later, as manpower shortages were felt, tank battalions were repeatedly detached and attached to a variety of new infantry units. This parcelling out to unfamiliar infantry commanders with varying tactical notions on how to deploy tanks, presented more problems for the tank crews. The author's research is thorough, yet not meticulous. His notes cite sources, but are not explanatory. Yeide leans heavily on unit After-Action Reports (AARs), and quotes many at length. These passages are surprisingly reader-friendly, since AARs are usually dull, as a rule. These documents focus on problems encountered, and lessons learned in tank-infantry cooperation. Some contain insightful participant testimonies, gleaned from interviews after the battle. The ten-page verbatim transcript of radio chatter between tanks and infantry, was pushing this a bit too far, however. The author consults the usual secondary sources. A glaring omission, however, is Michael D. Doubler's _Closing With the Enemy: How GIs Fought the War in Europe, 1944-1945_ (1994), a benchmark in ETO tactical evolution. Yeide's work will appeal to the hardcore military historian, as well as the amateur buff. Yeide's work gets four-stars and comes highly recommended!

This book covers a subject I had never read about before in years of WWII study. For that reason alone, it's interesting in that there are stories here that are fresh even to avid students of the war.
That said, the scope is limited, partially as the author explains, by limits on the detail and comprehensiveness of After Action Reports and post-war writings by the heroic soldiers of these battalions, and partially due to simple space limitations.
There are maps here, but they don't offer enough detail to give the reader more than a general idea of where the actions took place. There is no map for the final section of the book that covers the drive from the Rhine to VE Day.
While the battle descriptions are gripping, other portions of the narrative are more pedestrian. A good amount of space is devoted to hardware background - the M4 and M5 tanks etc.
One theme carried throughout a good portion of the book that would have benefited from more analysis and explanation is the fact that these independant battalions were often not rotated out of the line with the infantry divisions they supported, but remained in the heat of action to support the relieving GIs. The excellent appendices show attachment relationships between infantry divisions and the indy tank battalions by date, but don't fill us in on how much of that time was spent in the front line...a data set I would be interested in seeing. A look at this information compared to the in action days of the supported divisions would give an interesting new insight into the whole American army replacement/rotation system in the ETO that has been much discussed in recent years. Overall, a good addition to your WWII library, if for no other reason than it deals with a gutsy group of tankers who have not had their stories told before.

Although many books have been written on tank warfare in various theaters-both from a strategic, tactical, and theoretical point of view, Yeide's Steel Victory gives us an excellent first-hand impression of what it was like to be Sherman tanker during World War II. It is not all guts and glory. Hampered by the American tank theoretician's idea of what a tank should be able to do and not do, Yeide succeeds in capturing the bitter lessons learned by those units in which it was employed to support infantry, and describing the frustration of those who drove and fired Shermans with orders from the generals who seemed to know little about how to employ them properly.

It is probably a testament to the tanker's ingenuity that not only did they learn to offset the Sherman's poor design, but also developed tactics at the smallest unit level (often the platoon) to defeat German defense in the Bocage country, and the much more dangerous Panther and Tiger tanks that appeared in increasing numbers after D-Day, by improving infantry-armor coordination.

Steel victory should prove a solid read to both military buffs and novitiate alike.

I really wanted to like this book, but confess I stopped reading halfway through. First of all, it reads like a well written executive briefing, done by someone charged with researching a topic about which he knew very little. Unfortunately, this author really does not seem to know much about World War II. For example, he keeps referring to soldiers as "Doughboys" and "Doughs." The correct vernacular term for WW II soldiers was "G.I.'s" or just "soldiers." "Doughboy" is a World War One term, but this author seemed to like it, so he tried to write it into the history of the Second World War.

Second, the author marvels at the fact that General Leslie McNair's tanks fought as Independent Tank battalions, but he clearly does not know why this occurred. And, he correctly mentions how the independent tankers and soldiers eventually came to the conclusion that working in concert (just like armored divisions) worked best. This should have come from the command structure, but with McNair's units the learning curve came from the bottom up.

The author neglects to mention (perhaps because he doesn't know) that General McNair was vehemently anti-armor. In fact, McNair was so politically well-connected in the Army that he attempted to quash the use of armor (in favor of the "tank destroyer"), and almost succeeded in doing so. Lucky for the U.S. that Colonel George Patton made McNair look bad in war games during the late 30's, and proved that armored divisions could work. Patton did this by running roughshod over McNair's divisions using his concept of armor and infantry fighting in concert.

There was some good information in this book, but the author never really pulled it together. He seemed to see a lot of trees without realizing that he was in a forest. The context was not really there.

The book is well written. The story is familar in terms of mobster literature. Its a pretty good read. She leaves me cold. She divorced said mob and turned her life around when she had no other choices. Maybe that was the best she could do given the particulars of her life, but something is too off putting for me to be able to sympathise.
And turned her life around to what? We arn't give any particulars of her new "independent" life. For safety's sake? Who knows" Ultimatly, who cares?

I found this biography fascinating (in the vein of "The Glass Castle"), but there were too many typos - at least in the edition I read. These mistakes (often 1 or more to a page) were disconcerting and inexcusable, in my opinion, since the book was co-written. You'd figure one of the two writers would have found the other's errors. I have to give Andrea credit, though, given her childhood, she's truly a survivor. Her story makes me wonder what might have been had she experienced an ordinary or a privileged upbringing.

I read this last week while lollygagging on South Padre Island beach where they have the 3rd largest Spring Break every year. This book is a definite page turner. Andy grew up poor and abused and got the attention and money from men that she craved and never received as a child. Unfortunately, she was abused as an adult as well and the money and power she acquired was not worth it in the end. I hope she and her children are still alive and well in PA. She is a tough cookie so I am sure she is doing fine. If you like true stories about the mob you will want to read this one.

I couldn't put this book down. I am a big fan of mob stories and this was a good one...I am just glad she got her life together and got her kids out of that mess. The author is a strong woman with incredible survivor skills. I wish her all the best!

I'm still waiting for the other part of the title to materialize. That is, when did she become an independent woman? She leeched from man to man and then to the Witness Protection Program. She even needed a man to help her write the book.

She might talk the talk but she did not walk the walk. Even when her world is falling apart (again), she first thinks of who is going to care for her first before she thinks of putting food on the table for her kids. Me, me, me, me, me.

One got the feeling she was only sorry she got caught. If she had never been caught, she'd still be mooching off the organized crime system.

If she had to do it all over again, you know she'd do it again in a heartbeat.

The transaction was easy and I received the book in a reasonable amount of time. The book was in good shape and came just as described.

I got this book because I needed something to study for my M3 clerkship shelf exam and I was told Blue Prints was not good and there is no First Aid. It took me a long time to go through all of the questions and extensive explanations but it was totally worth it. Some of the questions I had on the shelf were almost identical to those in the book. I have since loaned my copy out to several people with rave reviews. This has been my favorite book in medical school so far!

I used this book while on my Fam med rotation during 3rd year of medical school. At the time, there were not many books designed for medical students specifically on FP. The was no First Aid or Blueprints Family Medicine book for example.

This book was just average. The FP shelf exam is one of the most difficult ones. I found that the format of the questions in this book did not really reflect the types of questions usually asked on those shelf exams. This book was not that helpful, it was tedious to work through, and overall not an efficient use of study time.

I found it more useful to read through the Blueprints books again on Int. Medicine, Peds, and Ob/Gyn. The "Outpatient Medicine Recall" book is actually really good and I would recommend that book very highly.

Overall, this family medicine question book represents a decent review for the clerkship and shelf exam. I spent countless hours working through this book and managed to get through it once before the shelf, but I wonder if my time would've been better spent with another resource. Here are some things I noticed:

1. The cover clearly states "nearly 500 all new questions", but I counted about 870 questions! While more questions are welcome, it is definitely hard to master so many in a 6 week rotation. Had I known the true number of questions before, I would've considered purchasing the new Pretest Family Medicine book instead.

2. The style of questions does not resemble the nbme shelf exam questions (my subjective opinion after taking the shelf)

3. Some questions require a very detailed level of knowledge - to the point of splitting hairs to get the question right. Even after looking things up in several textbooks, there were some questions that I still could not find the answer to. I sometimes wondered if these were valid teaching points.

4. The answer explanation format could be better. Instead of listing each answer choice separately and stating why each is correct/incorrect, there is a paragraph. It was sometimes difficult to know which sentence went with each choice because there was no transition from one answer choice explanation to the next.

Just use this and your set. I had a 4 week rotation in fam med & had not yet had, ob/gyn, peds or IM, but I did well using this text. I only got through half of the text, but did that the night before. I only wish I'd got it sooner.

I picked this book up, not because I am a consultant, but because I am an executive at a company that uses consultants frequently. I was hoping to spot in these pages all of the "tricks of the trade" that consultants use so that I would be a smarter customer of consulting services. As someone that occasionally loathes, and infrequently appreciates the perspectives of so-called outside experts, I was pleasantly disappointed (yes, pleasantly disappointed) to see that what Holtz and Zahn are suggesting in these chapters is non-manipulative, ethical, and above board practices that in no way try to take advantage of a customer that is not as sophisticated as perhaps they need to be. I was disappointed because I wanted to be armed with ways of combatting what I perceive to be the car salesman approach taken by far too many of the consultants I have worked with in my career. Perhaps the fault is as much mine as the consultants we hired. Maybe I have to spend more time doing exactly what this book recommends consultants do when it comes to; scoping out projects, ensuring agreement on objectives, managing project timelines, and agreeing on how to fairly compensate the consultant for his or her assistance. I found this book pleasant in that it convinced me that not all consultants are cut out of the cloth of the "give me your watch and I will tell you what time it is" type. Seeing what the consultant is SUPPOSED to be doing when engaging with a client (me) and being able to compare that to what happens in my company makes me want to buy this book for a few of our most senior executives and dog-ear those pages that they need to read. The chapters on how to set up a business, accounting, and other organizational necessities were initially of little interest to me as my focus was on the actual working with the consultant, but even those chapters were enlightening in that I better understand why the consultants we use pressure me about some things and not others. The point made about cash flow being critical to the success of the consultant over and above other issues was not something I would have realized on my own. Now that it was explained, I can understand and appreciate it better.

This classic "instruction manual" for consultants has been well-known for years in the consulting world as a primer for people just starting out, or for those who are thinking of making the jump from working for others to working as a consultant.

However, the last edition was showing its age and I'm glad to see that this 4th edition breaks a lot of new ground while retaining the great "blocking and tackling" advice from Herman Holtz which drew raves in consulting circles worldwide.

New co-author David Zahn has taken this classic and put an afterburner jet on it and zoomed it in to this new millenium with up to date advice that resonates with clarity and strong, well grounded counsel. As I read the revised volume - which was just released in March of 2004 - I found myself nodding vigorously as he discussed cash flow (the consultant's biggest obstacle year in and year out); marketing in today's internet world; the use of email as a newsletter medium; and so many other great directional points that I realized that an experienced consultant could also benefit greatly from this new volume.

If you are reading this review, you no doubt are considering purchasing this book and you're probably wondering if it is worth the money. That's what I use these reviews for here at Amazon, and that's why I wanted to post this review as soon as I read the new edition....because I believe it can help EVERYONE in the consulting profession hone their skills to a much sharper edge.

From my perspective, the 14th chapter (How to Handle Negotiations, How to Set Fees and How to Handle contracts) alone is worth the cover price, and then the rest of the book is a remarkable bonus. And I speak from personal experience, having been involved in consulting for 14 years - first working for a midsize consulting firm and then going out on my own several years ago.

I think this is a TERRIFIC book that you'll use again and again...and again. And if you are thinking about joining the profession of consulting, it will give you a real eye-opening peek at what it takes to enter, survive and prosper in the world of consulting.

Highly recommended.

Take a deep breath and sit where the light is good as author David Zahn (who wrote this with the late Herman Holtz) attempts to describe everything about consulting in 400-plus pages of small type. The book realizes a good bit of its ambitious goal, though not without cost. Information is abundant, but not tidy. In this fourth edition, chapters pile up as the authors add coverage of new technologies to their previous reporting on older forms of media. The result is a big onion: layers and layers of information. Some are useful, topical and important; some dated, redundant or irrelevant. You can skim the parts that don't affect you, but a tougher editor would have slimmed it down and combined some basic chapters, such as the extra treatment of marketing and second careers. However, if you persist, you will garner some valuable information, especially about the competitive process of bidding for government consulting contracts. We consider this book worthwhile for those who are serious about becoming consultants. Just be diligent about ferreting out information that is pertinent to you (and bring a magnifying glass).

I can't believe the authors are consultants who write for a living. This book has good information but suffers from redundancy, typographical errors, and uneven modernization between editions.

I read this book straight through, and I think I read the same anecdote three times. There's some good advice buried in there along with some so-so advice, but the (minimum three) parenthetical passages (per page) make the text hard to read. Along with all the typos. (I had to laugh when they went on for several paragraphs about how proofreading is important because typos will "torpedo" a report to a client.)

In places they emphasize the changes made in the newest edition, but it seems the end of the book didn't get as much attention to these changes. The section on computers is talking about tapes!

This book also suffers from an over-focus on government contracting, a specialty of one of the authors.

I purchased this book when the third edition first came out. I found the information so brilliant and so helpful. It has remained a constant bottom line reference for those hard questions that have simple answers! I have referred the book to many other who were trying to establish viable consultanting businesses and were searching for all the 'questions and answers' of getting started. And more important - "how do I figure out what to charge???" When I purchased the book, please note, I was living in the highly competitive North Eastern United States!

I've been an MT for years, and even worked as an IC for many of those years, but needed new information on contracts, liability insurance, and HIPPA compliance. Found it all in this book....and more. I think it's a great reference!

Probably the most common reason to purchase this book is to gain information about becoming an independent medical transcriptionist, but I really was disappointed with this book as far as that is concerned. Technology and medicine both advance and change on a daily basis which leaves this book, printed in 2002, in somewhat of a dark age, especially now that the most cost effective, time efficient, and popular way of transferring all sorts of data is electronically.

While there is some good information in this book, I don't think the amount of information that is relevant is worth the price. Most of this stuff can be found on the internet more accurately than in the pages of this book.

I read this bokk, this to to let all you people related to Medical Transcription that this book is great. Has useful material for Medical Transcriptionists. Book gose into details on setting up and becoming a good Medical Transcriptionist. This book is being kept in our library and we will ask all our Trsnscriptionist to read it and but it, as it has useful tips. ...

This book can be informative at times but most of the time, I felt like I was reading the book version of the home shopping channel. If you're already a transcriptionist, you don't need this book. And if you're a newbie, The Medical Transcription Career Handbook has more and better eye-openers to help you get started.

Despite being revised in 2002, much of the information in this book is still quite dated. For example, it still assumes WordPerfect is the standard for word processing software, and it talks about upgrading your computer to a 486!! Not sure what they did in that 2002 revision... Given how behind the times the book is, it is of limited usefulness. However, there are some good sections and it is a reasonable general overview of setting up your own independent transcription service.

I am person, from the lower-middle class, who went to public school, state universities for my B.S. and my Masters. When I read this book and the book, of The Art of Getting Things Done by Richard Brislin, several years ago, I began to understand the political deftness and self-confidence of people I meet who came from well to do families. From birth, they model the lives of their parents who are highly paid professinals in professional service firms like law or accounting or high-powered exectives in Fortune 500 corporations. As both books point out, then through have these behaviors ingrained until adolescence, where then private education's honing influnce takes shape. The practice of self-government of the schools by the students, a ruthless ethos of performance and results of making the grade, practicing behaviors that are the signals of leadership are honed in the classroom's demanding education and the politcally charged enviornment outside the classroom. It was a huge "AHA" momement about myself. For example politicians, John Kerry and George Bush both went to the same private school. Barrack Obamas went to private schools in Hawii paid for by his grandparents. I better understand my limitations and constraints and why I have hit certain ceilings in my life. The system does reach down and pull in the highly intelligent and promising candidates from the outside to bring in new blood. However, these are the extreme outliers on the bell curve. Throughout history, the rich and powerful have been sought to pass on to their offspring these mindsets and behaviors.

great book, although dated (80's), lots of info, stats, and gives a good feeling to what life is like in and out of the elite boarding schools.

I enjoyed this book but I felt like I was reading a history book. I wish the authors would update it to reflect the current situation. One list of the "most prestigious schools" dated to 1956, 50 years ago!

I read this book for a class of mine on education. I had never really known much about boarding schools until this book. It is a readable and accessible account of boarding schools; although, this book is slightly out of date as the information was from the 80's. The income and tuitions numbers are completely off by today's standards. Other than that, for us who have gone through public schools and any non-elite schools, it is a glimpse into the world of the elite education. My instructor did e-mail one of the authors, Cookson, and learned more about his background. He was not from any elite boarding school, where Persell did attend a boarding school. Interesting, is that these types of schools produce such outstanding alumni and yet no one really knows about them. I'm sure the information is getting out of date; the copy I had had yellowed pages and was printed in 1985. Yet, it is still interesting for people interesting in educational differences and opportunities. Or just very curious people.

I enjoyed the anthropological-based approach of this book. The methods and collection of material seemed appropriate and balanced. It also kept my attention with great quotes and inside opinions. A must read for anyone interested in the prep-school experience - just remember that the material is a bit out of date.