Web Books

I must say I was pleasantly surprised with this book. I actually learned a ton more than expected which is unusual for a book not meant to teach all 3 programs. It is certainly at an intermediate level as stated which is also a refreshing surprise.

The Fireworks section is quite extensive since all the examples rightfully are designed in or a major part of them are designed in Fireworks where they are then cut up, interactivity added (except for the Flash examples) and then exported.

The FreeHand section deals with primarily the tools that differ from Fireworks and things like perspecive, contour blends and bleneding. The blending feature allows you to do a shape tween type of effect and then use it in Fireworks for animation. Then there is extensive tips and tricks for preparing FreeHand files for use in Flash.

The Flash section is great fun and extremely useful. The entire section deals with ActionScripting projects, the author doesn't try to teach you Flash but useful ways to use it in conjunction to the other two programs. The projects such as the puzzle teaches more than it may appear on the surface. Sure, you may not need a puzzle, but it was a great way to demonstrate how to load movies that replace prior ones versus loading movies to a new level. This is just one example. There is also a jukebox that has four pieces of music (included) that uses a trick to load very quickly. A product display that rotates a full 360 degrees, a banner ad that allows you to print a brochure from within Flash and a banner ad that uses the color feature of Flash. There are more projects in this section.

Even though Dreamweaver isn't in the title of this book, it wasn't left out of the mix. There is an Appendix which takes an entire Fireworks design and places the images in DW and adds the behaviors, CSS Style Sheets in DW. There is also a section on adding FW pop-up menus in DW.

There are some great contributors that added value to this book as well. What I liked is they added VALUE not just their names. For instance, Hillman Curtis did a nice introductory piece on, "Motion is the Message" imparting some of his wisdom to us. There is also an entire interface given to us from Eyeland Studio that we can use and modify (with instructions on how)and banner ads from Figleaf Software.

All in all, I don't think you'll be disapointed in this book. I walked away with much more than I expected. This review took much longer to do than anticipated because the book is almost 500 pages (480) and is packed. Not only did I learn the strong points of each program but how to work more efficiently as well.

I already had Fireworks, and then I bought the Flash and Freehand bundle. I am used to Illustrator, and this book really helped me tie all the programs together. The projects are easy to do, but challenging enough to keep up your interest. They also build up your skill level so you increase your capabilities as you work in the programs.

The book is divided into three sections - one for each of the programs - and projects from one program are used in the other programs. There's just enough difference between the program interfaces to confuse you, but Ms. Evans has done an excellent job in clarifying them.

I especially enjoyed the rotating fishing lure exersize in the Flash section. I've wanted to do that effect for a long time, and her explanation got me through quickly and easily.

All in all, the book really will help you if you are putting up a website and haven't done a lot of graphic work before. The integration of these three programs is important, and the author did an excellent job in teaching. I recommend it heartily!

An excellent, in depth, treatment of this topic. Her framework addresses "core activities within a task landscape," ie, dealing with large amounts of information, finding your way through the analysis & making sense of the results. Then she presents case studies applying this framework to different fields, including the design of a visualization tool.

Provides frameworks for exploration and discussion of designing for usefulness. Due to the youth of the field it doesn't provide complete solutions or processes.

Brings together, organizes articulately, and effectively cites authoritative resources.

Provides a strategic framework for modeling users context/work at a process vs task oriented level.

Has relevant examples of complex situations that address meaningful issues for users
- Marketing Research - optimal product mix decisions
- Healthcare - complex social and technical systems
- IT - troubleshooting sophisticated systems
- Project Mgt - managing projects

This user-friendly reference showing how to use the Internet illustrated with screen shots and diagrams. Material is arranged in six sections on connecting to the Internet, browsing the Web, sending and receiving e-mail, reading and posting newsgroup messages, downloading files, chatting, Internet phone calls, and creating a Web page. It also features a series of short, easy to follow tutorials in the proven style and format of the 10 Minute Guide.

Intended for general users, "Internet 6-In-1" is composed of a series of short, easy-to-follow tutorials. The six major categories of coverage in the book is Getting Connected, Web Browsing, e-mail, Newsgroups, Creating Web Pages and Internet Yellow Pages. This solid book contains practical information that is provided on "working" not just surfing.

Good job!

I'm using this to teach an internet course and have been very pleased. Students seem to enjoy it as well and find it most useful - which is of prime importance.

_The Internet and the Madonna: Religious Visionary Experience on the Web_ by Paolo Apolito in the series "Religion and Postmodernism" consists of reflections on the relationship between the internet, the Christian faithful, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. This book attempts to map out the new terrain made prominent with the growth of various discussion groups and websites dedicated to the Virgin Mary and her apparitions on the internet. The book discusses many of the major apparitions, including those at Medjugorje, Garabandal, and Fatima, and the role that modern technology is coming to play in their propagation. The book also discusses many of the seers and visionaries who claim to receive messages directly from Jesus or the Virgin Mother and who write about their experiences on their own personal websites and in discussion forums. Among these seers are Laura Zink, who lives in Vermont and allegedly receives messages from the Virgin Mary, Vernoica Leuken, of Bayside apparition fame, and Vassula Ryden, a Greek Orthodox visionary who has written about her experiences. While many of these figures remain controversial, it is interesting to note the sort of relationship that has developed between the Catholic church hierarchy and various visionaries claiming to receive messages from the Virgin Mother or Jesus. The more famous apparitions, including those at Medjugorje and Garabandal, remain controversial because of friction that has developed between the visionaries and the church hierarchy over their interpretation. The author attempts to explain how the internet has opened up an entirely new component to the experiences of the visionary, which often take place entirely outside of church sanction. The author also devotes a good deal of space to discussing the role of various modern technologies, including film and television, but also modern scientific instruments, in the determination of the miraculous appearances of the Virgin around the world. While some of the apparitions may be scoffed at by skeptics (or even regarded as satanically influenced by some fundamentalist Protestants or even some Catholics), they remain an important development in modern religious experience. And the internet is coming to play a much larger role in that experience as well, by serving as the method for propagating religious belief.

Belief in the "end times" also plays an important part in the life of many religious mystics in the modern internet age. Many of those who adhere to the messages of the visionaries believe in an imminent apocalypse, often accompanied by natural catastrophe, nuclear war, and other political upheavals. They have come to embrace a culture of survivalism often combining with right wing political elements. The internet is particularly important for such individuals as it allows them an opportunity to spread their ideas to others free from the scorn of the general public. With the appearance of the Virgin at Fatima and her prophecy there, various websites have sprang up focusing specifically on these end times events.

As a form of modern technology, the internet has problems which the unprepared believer may encounter in his or her search through the web. The author explains how the internet has created a vacuum in authority as well as a trend towards levelling which reduces all systems of belief to the same common denominator. In addition, many individuals have specifically linked these apparitions with the New Age or with various "hidden mysteries" websites. The author also explains how often an unsuspecting individual may encounter links to various disturbing, blasphemous, or even pornographic sites simply by following the trail of links on a given webpage.

This book provides a unique study of the relationship between modern religious experience and the role that the internet and other modern technologies are coming to play in that experience. Many of the faithful have flocked to the internet as a means to spread their message to many others easily and effectively as well as being a source of prayer. While the internet poses its own set of challenges, it remains a unique tool for Christians which can allow for groups and nontraditional communities to meet which would never have the opportunity to meet otherwise. Although many among the traditional faithful remain wary of new technologies, many others are meeting the challenge of the modern age by taking advantage of the internet as a medium of communication.

The Virgin Mary has appeared to devout Catholics for centuries. Famous apparitions have included the one that asked Bernadette Soubirous in 1858 to dig into the grotto at Lourdes, from which spouted a spring, from which sprang all sorts of miraculous healings. There were Our Lady of Guadalupe and Our Lady of Fatima. There was a decline in such sightings in the mid-twentieth century, especially around the secularization of the sixties. But Laura Zink of Vermont hears and sees Mary and Jesus daily, and gets messages from them, and has put up a website so that anyone could read the words of the day. And she is far from the only one doing so; people are responding to visits of Mary more than ever before, and at least part of the reason for this is that the internet is making it acceptable (or trendy) for them to do so. In a wonderful anthropological tour of one specific aspect of the internet, _The Internet and the Madonna: Religious Visionary Experience on the Web_ (University of Chicago Press), Paolo Apolito explains that the other reason for the boom in Virgin-sighting was her appearance starting in 1981 at Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but even that visit has so many citations and pages on the Web that it has become far more influential that it ever could have in pre-internet days. Is the proliferation of this aspect of religion on the web changing the way people practice religion or think about miracles?

Apolito explains that technologizing the visionary and the signs and wonders that have an ancient tradition has indeed weakened the institution of the church. It is very seldom that priests and authorities of the church have a personal presence on the web or in chat rooms, for instance. There is no way of controlling visionaries, of course, and the visionary can set up a web page, it gets linked to other Marianist pages, and it is a world story advanced by those of similar beliefs and untouched by the church hierarchy. What is more, web sites may be set up to promote visionaries and visions while criticizing church officials who are not sufficiently enthusiastic about them. Such niceties of prior eras as parish life or the involvement of the local church in helping out its neighbors are seldom mentioned. Sometimes the visions reinforce each other, but often they contradict, undercut, or even debunk each other. This sort of immediate interaction between particular visions, their visionaries, and their fans was never possible before, and those navigating such sites will look in vain for firm points of reference. Believers can further be inspired by digital representations not only of light effects, but of statues that cry, paintings that come to life, a photograph that has an actual heartbeat, and other remarkable manifestations. Apolito has found significant problems in web navigation that would frustrate or endanger what he calls "the worshipful surfer," and he gives advice on surfing safely. He gives many examples of how those seeking devout sites might, by a few mere clicks, be taken to anti-Catholic or even pornographic sites.

Apolito has written an academic tome that is often dense and scholarly, but considering the liveliness and immediacy of its subject, is never dull. The original was written in Italian, and the translator (Antony Shugaar) has taken pains to try to preserve the wit in the original. Most of the websites Apolito has visited are American, since the US is has had the biggest burst anywhere of visionary phenomena. "If the Virgin Mary now speaks English, she speaks it with a decidedly American accent," he writes. Though much of the book, especially the descriptions of some of the web pages, is funny, Apolito is an anthropologist who has written before on apparitions and is not at all condescending about them. He has fulfilled his charge of documenting the activities of this part of the Internet, and says little about the validity of the beliefs of those involved. It is clear from his documentation, though, that the Internet itself is limiting the power and the influence of the formal church as the visionaries become more influential; the visionaries continue to increase in number as the Internet attracts more followers to them and more copy-cats. There will be an increase in the number of people viewing the world the mystic's way; this will not please skeptics, of course, but it should not please the church, either.

Very nice book. I have two copies. Selling one. The book lists what appears to be thousands of family-oriented website addresses with descriptions. Everything for fun and games, to schoolwork, science, history, etc. The book comes with a CD that is still sealed in its original jacket.

Very informative.

I like this book very much but I am confused about who wrote this book. On the book, there is only one author, but you list two authors. I am not sure what to tell friends who want to find this book. There is no mention of anyone named Kathy Ivens in the whole book. Did you guys goof?

There are three characteristics I like about this book. First, it explains the technology of the Internet in sufficient detail for a manager to understand how it is relevant to his/her business. The reader learns the capabilities and limitations of Internet technologies without becoming bogged down in the details of how to make it operational. Second, the book analyzes the Internet technologies and e-business from an economic perspective, using the tools of the micro-economist. The resulting conclusions are more rigorous and authoritative than those offered by other commentators on e-business. This is the first time I've seen such analysis aimed at other than an academic audience. This is the first time I've seen some of the analyses in the book aimed at *any* audience. Finally, the authors have combined old information distribution techniques (the book) with new (a website) by making a website available to purchasers of the book with a promise to keep the website up to date. If you buy the book, don't lose your receipt, as you need to send a copy of it in in order to get access to that website.

Choi and Whinston's new book presents another landmark publication in the e-commerce literature. A very well written account of the economic mechanisms that drive the new economy. Among the most accomplished academic researchers in the field, the authors achieve a great balance of high readability without sacrificing rigor. Truly in spirit of the Internet economy, it is much more than just a conventional textbook. The physical book complements one of the most innovative and accomplished e-learning portals (smartecon.com) to be found online to-day. One of the richest learning and teaching environments for topics related to the new economy, it contains modularized learning materials (so called learnules), teaching cases, research articles, FAQs, links to other sites in academia and industry, presentation slides, and a whole range of other features useful for students and instructors. The purchase of the book allows the buyer full access to the SmartEcon e-learning portal.

The book comprises a fine selection of customized learnules from the online site that covers the current issues in the digital economy debate. Unlike other authors in the e-commerce area, Whinston and Choi develop their concepts from principles of economics research and thus provide new insight into why certain technologies or business models succeed or fail in the new economy. The book includes a review of the essential Internet computing and communication technologies but the focus is on their economic applications. In particular, they discuss online market mechanisms, e-business firms, smart marketing and interactive customers, digital product spaces, online auctions and electronic marketplaces, trust and privacy, e-crimes, and regulatory and governance issues. This book should prove highly valuable to anyone with an interest in fields related to IT, E-commerce, or economics.

Together with the online materials the book can be customized to perfectly fit a range of e-commerce classes. I have used a preliminary version of the book with great success teaching MBA and MSc students at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, the premiere Business School in Asia. The combination of dynamically updated online materials (digital) and a convenient reference and textbook (physical) make The Internet Economy: Technology and Practice a unique product in the literature. In some ways this combination successfully parallels current trends towards brick-and-click models. I highly recommend it.

Want expert advice on everything from harvesting wild foods and supplying one's own energy to saving money on autos and treating injury? If you don't wish to spend hours surfing the Net, use Rich Gray's quick Internet Guide To Survival And Self-Reliance: More Than 300 Web Sites To Help You Live Better, Live Cheaper, And Survive When Things Get Tough. Many books would offer just survival info: Gray's goes beyond this, addressing quality of life issues which face those cut off from their usual utilities and stores, linking itself to the author's own web site of links to make it easy to copy and paste website recommendations, and adding the author's owner personal tips to compliment overviews of each recommendation.

Want expert advice on everything from harvesting wild foods and supplying one's own energy to saving money on autos and treating injury? If you don't wish to spend hours surfing the Net, use Rich Gray's quick Internet Guide To Survival And Self-Reliance: More Than 300 Web Sites To Help You Live Better, Live Cheaper, And Survive When Things Get Tough. Many books would offer just survival info: Gray's goes beyond this, addressing quality of life issues which face those cut off from their usual utilities and stores, linking itself to the author's own web site of links to make it easy to copy and paste website recommendations, and adding the author's owner personal tips to compliment overviews of each recommendation.

I picked this up as we were moving our front-end web servers to IIS 7 and as Stanek's other books have been extremely helpful. Having read it cover to cover and compared it to other IIS books available, I found it to be the best by far. This book focuses on exactly what I needed to know to get up to speed and to get the job done every day. As a reference manual it can't be beat.

I've had IIS 7 Administrator's Pocket Consultant for several months now. I've read it cover to cover and refer to it all the time. I'm always amazed at how much information William can pack into his pocket consultants and especially with this one.

William starts out by telling you IIS 7 is completely different from its predecessors and then showing what you need to know right away to be successful. Then chapter by chapter he teaches you everything you need to know to be successful with IIS deployment, configuration and management. The book also includes excellent details on monitoring, backup, recovery and troubleshooting.

What I like best about Williams' books is the friendly easy to understand language. He's always very organized and clear. He doesn't stray off topic into tangents and has a solid sense of what's important and what's not. I like to think of his approach as being like the cool History teacher who teaches everything you need to know, while you're having too much fun to realize how much you're learning.

There's a wealth of real world examples and reference materials throughout. This makes the book perfect for administrators and for developers who build and manage IIS installs. Highly, highly recommended.

Fred Hofstetter is an educator (U of Delaware), programmer, author, speaker and writer who knows digital technology from traveling the road of hard knocks via programming his own authoring package (Podium)to the subtleties of surfing the Web for goodies. This most recent book, Internet Literacy ,(Computer Literacy preceded it, I believe) is a very good compendium of just about any topic a general user would ordinarily want to explore on the subject. I believe purchasers may also obtain a CD-ROM (through separate purchase?). You can't miss on this purchase even without the CD though.

I made a review of the book as a request of one of my friends at college. I work as a Computer Instructor at Interamerican University of Puerto Rico (Ponce Campus). The book is a good start for someone not related to computers. It is also a good reference for educators. Sometimes you need materials related to the Internet and this is good book to find them.

The Internet Publishing Handbook takes you through the process of Internet publishing from beginning to end, using examples and advice gathered from Internet publishers around the world. This book focuses on World-Wide Web, Gopher, and WAIS as the most easily used methods for distributing information on the Internet and discusses additional tools and options, including hiring an Internet consultant to create your publications and maintain your data. I highly recommend reading Chapter 10 first! This book is wonderfully informative and is a must buy for all interested in internet publishing.

The Internet Publishing Handbook takes you through the process of Internet publishing from beginning to end, using examples and advice gathered from Internet publishers around the world. This book focuses on World-Wide Web, Gopher, and WAIS as the most easily used methods for distributing information on the Internet and discusses additional tools and options, including hiring an Internet consultant to create your publications and maintain your data. I highly recommend reading Chapter 10 first! This book is wonderfully informative and is a must buy for all interested in internet publishing.