Web Books

Blatner and Fraser have the right stuff. This book is based on what photographers need, unlike many of the Photoshop after market manuals. This is the text to use for digital photographers. Inspiring (technically) for the students and the instructor.

As an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop I think I can talk about this book with some soft of knowledge.

Well, this book is awesome. No doubts. From a certain point of view it's even embarassing: I've read things never seen elsewhere, small tips, too small even for the manuals (but sometimes really helpful), and Big concepts explained really well. Every single page of this book hides something useful. This might be not a good thing to say if you're a certified expert, but that's it.

Of course this book is not for everyone: you will get the greatest experience if you're an expert Photoshop user and you work daily with it, as it concentrated on productivity issues and professional tasks. Forget this book if you're a Photoshop enthusiast and you're just looking for pseudo-creative tips&tricks: there are no special effects recipes, no step-by-step tutorials and no bundled clipart CDs.

This is 800 pages of deep Photoshop production techniques. I think no other book, except for Dan Margulis' "Professional Photoshop", can teach such a lot of things to already-expert readers.

First off let say this. If you just beginning to used photoshop cs, this is not the book for you. This book is aimed at the experience user who not only want to know more advanced photoshop techniques but also want to know why photoshop does what it does, in other words how photoshop thinks. Its not an encyclopedia that cover every little feature methodically, instead it covers advanced concepts in themes such as Color management, image manipulation and output. Great book, very informative, like a textbook in some respects. Until you've read it, you dont' really understand photoshop.

This book gives extremely in-depth coverage to topics that cover the gamut from the basic of images and color spaces, through to image editing, filters, typography and finally output. The coverage is very in-depth. This is not a step-by-step book. The idea is to give you a fundamental understanding of the technology and then show it's application in Photoshop. The sections on building selections and using the sharpening features are particular standouts.

If you are the type of person who learns by understanding the fundamentals and not a raw process then it's a tossup between this book and Photoshop CS Artistry. The latter is a little more terse in it's style. This book is more relaxed in style so it's a little easier to follow.

This book is absolutely, no doubt, without question, surely the best book on Photoshop CS out there. It's a real pleasure to read a book by people who actually know what they're talking about. Scott Kelby's "The Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers" is an exceptionally fine book if you're just starting with CS and trying to get your photographs under control and don't have time to read about the finer points, but once you've begun to get the hang of it and want not only to know "how," but "why," this is the book you absolutely have to have.

Build a personal library of information using free web resources with the help of Tomaiuolo's The Web Library: Building A World Class Personal Library With Free Web Resources, edited by Barbara Quint. The Web Library is simply packed with web links and updates, as well as assessments of the pros and cons of given reference sites. Anyone can use no/low cost Web resources to build a comprehensive personal library of data, documents and images: The Web Library outlines keys to locating such gold mines and includes interviews with librarians and leading content providers alike.

I usually steer clear of web site directory books because they become obsolete very quickly. This book presents more than lists of sites. It contains some unusual and even provocative information concerning whether it is preferable to read in hardcopy or online; it also has interviews with people who create content at the freebie sites and this gave me a fresh perspective on the availability of free resources. The best thing is that isn't chock full of screenshots, it's full of information.

I spend a lot of hours searching the web for work. I bought a copy of this book and it kept disappearing off my desk--borrowed by co-workers. Now I keep it locked in my desk drawer--they'll have to buy their own copies! Well done, Nicholas and Barbara! Hope to see more of your books in print.

This book was a wonderful book which I was pleased to share with my co-workers, most of whom are all resourceful men and women who search the internet for work. As a businessman, I must say that this book was incredibly useful in my many projects and has brought my company's profit up by 3%.

I was lucky enough to be given this book as a gift, because my parents know that I often use the web to locate information for school projects. It has tons of useful websites and is well-organized. I definitely recommend it.

For me, Priscilla Cogan's wonderfully written story encouraged a spiritual sojourn that was long overdue.

Cogan is a very warm, introspective author. I have had the pleasure of reading all her books & would highly recommend all of them, starting with Winona's Web, then Compass of the Heart. Her characters have so much depth ~ truly refreshing. She knows the heart & soul of them each. I felt my soul grow reading her books. Do yourself a favor, & give her a try.

Excellent Reading!!! I laughed, I cried , - I read the book in 48 hours. I couldn't put it down. This book opened my mind to ideas I already knew existed but had never felt in my heart. The emotion was to real - and very fulfiling.

I loved this book, and I loved Winona. Started reading it on a Saturday afternoon and finished it early Sunday morning and spent Sunday afternood searching the bookstores for the 2nd of this 3-book series. Winona's Web is definitely for any woman or some type of journey and most of those who are not. Winona is an example of a woman who has found herself and an excellant role model to Meggie, who has not. This book is to be coming out as a movie, and I can hardly wait.

This was a sweet book and I encourage women of all ages to read it. Our protagonist, Dr. Meggie O'Connor moves back to the family farm from New York City after her many year-old marriage fails and she is fast approaching her fortieth birthday. She is a psychologist and restarts her practice in northern Michigan. One of her early clients/patients is Winona Pathfinder, a Native American "healer" whose daughter has pushed her to therapy because she insists she will be dying soon, thank you very much. As this relationship grows it becomes more quickly evident to the reader than to Meggie that it is she who is being healed. Meggie learns a good deal about Winona's life, her decisions, and her reasons for the calm prediction of death and is drawn into the validity of the pipe-smoking, and the Native American `medicine' ways. In a very subtle way, Winona draws Meggie into a real change of view about who she is and what her value is. Finally, there is a love interest that, in a surprise in the end, makes the story wonderfully complete.

This is an amzaing manuscript. By leading the reader through the key discoveries in modern molecular oncology , Weinberg is able to elucidate the hallmarks of carginogenesis in simple, yet comprehensive ways.
This is a must read for any doctoral student. However, Weinberg simple and entertaining language will be enjoyed by anybody who has an interest in the pathways that lead to cancer.

Here's a book that I would recommend to those people interested in learning a bit about the beginnings of cancer. In One Renegade Cell, Robert Weinberg has written an informative narrative on the history of cancer and molecular biology research, focusing on the theories and evidence behind the early days of this field: the 1970's and 80's.

Weinberg's focus is on what he knows best: the mechanisms that promote and regulate the proliferation of normal and malignant cells. And for that, his explanations are the best out there. These explanations take up the first half of the book, corresponds to the early events in the development of a tumor, and makes up a coherent story. For example, he covers oncogenes, tumor suppressors, apoptosis, and to a lesser extent DNA repair, in relatively easy-to-follow language.

In the second half of the book, Weinberg refers to other aspects of cancer progression, more reflective of the later stages of cancer - angiogenesis, immune evasion and metastasis. He essentially provides the highlight reel for these aspects of cancer, and I felt that the transitions to such topics could have used some work. But that's okay in my opinion, because Weinberg comes right out and says it on the cover - this book is specifically about *the beginning* of cancer, first and foremost.

Weinberg also avoids using overwhelmingly long lists of references that are typical of more scientific writing, as well as skipping over the many highly-technical details that are involved in actually conducting such research, making it more accessible to non-experts. Indeed, he defines every term in a way that probably only requires a minimal background in biology to understand.

No prior knowledge of cell biology or genetics is required. I have gained an appreciation for the complexity of cancer research thanks to the book. I highly recommend it. You also learn a fair amount of the history of the development of cancer research. And don't think you need to read through hundreds of introductory pages to accomplish this. The book is under 200 pages.

Once again: What I found great about the book is it explains very clearly the current thories on how cancer starts and spreads without requiring any prior knowledge in the field.

For the scientifically oriented who are interested in the details, it has a big reference and endnote section. 5 stars for sure.

Extremely informative, written in interesting form like a scientific novel, a systematic mini-survey of the molecular biology of cancer. Takes you through 30 years of discovery, explaining how false expectations were replaced by the discovery in laboratories of right pathways. Among the useful pieces of information you'll pick up: cancer cells are not destroyed by chemo and radiation, only some DNA damage occurs. Unless the p53 gene is little enough damaged, then the tumor is not stopped, and Weinberg explains why. He fully describes the 6 mutations that are required, over time, to produce a metastasizing tumor. My wish: that Weinberg would next write a book about cancer treatments.

I end with an aside for those who are in love with the red herring called "holism", and imagine that "reductionism" is dead and of little or no use in the elucidation of complexity. The entire field of genetic and cancer discoveries, all of microbiology, is nothing but plain ol' reductionism applied to very long molecules, molecules so long and often disordered in shape that new techniques of chemical analysis had to be invented (like PCR). This book and any standard text on molecular biology provides full evidence for the truth of my assertion.

There are very few books out that give the reader an overview modern cancer biology. This short book gives a clear picture of a complex and current subject. It uses historical perspective on scientific discovery to enliven the reading. It's well organized and readable without background in biology, but with enough depth to interest biologists in other fields. I also reccomend Robert Weinberg's "Genes and the Biology of Cancer", written with Harold Varmus, which covers the same material in a little more depth.

If you are interested in promoting on line...there are some great tools and ideas explained in this book. Definitely recommend it.

My agent recommended this book to me. I'm finding the information contained inside to be very useful and I'm anxious to see it work for me!

This book is so full of information of which I had no idea that I flagged almost every page. The only problem with the book is that I now have to follow up on all the wonderful ideas and recommendations.

Penny Sansevieri does a very good job of making the information understandable to people who are not nearly as internet savvy as she. She also provides lists of sites in various categories as well as very specific instructions on how to maximize her recommendations.

After reading this book I immediately offered to buy another copy for my older daughter to help with her web businesses. I can't loan my copy because I'm using it to go page by page to market my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT on the internet.
-- Phyllis Zimbler Miller, author of MRS. LIEUTENANT and co-author of SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION

Confused? Here's an intelligent book on the application of Web 2.0 doo-dads that anyone can grasp. A public relations and promotional expert and author, Penny Sansevieri is well-qualified to dispense advice--and dispense it she does: from turning your site into a marketing "Billboard," to jumping beyond Search Engine technology into RSS feeds, blogging, podcasting,and Social Networking as a means of drawing a targeted niche audience to your site...then converting those visitors into customers of your product.

The writing is clear and structured,the often arcane world of Web 2.0 terminology thoroughly explained. Helpful chapter headings are contained in a nicely worked-out Contents section, with a full Index at the end of the book. 200 pages that will jumpstart your thinking about how a productive, up-to-date website should look and function.

This is a concise, information-packed guide through the maze of the on-line world as it relates to book promotion. I found the author's ideas and tips extremely helpful and current. Recommended for any new author!

This book is an absolutely fascinating read for anyone who came into contact with Equinox International, the Multi-Level Marketing company that flared across America in the early 1990s and lured thousands of Americans into handing over their money, time, and, most often, their self-respect in pursuit of quick fortunes. Equinox, led by charismatic leader Bill Gouldd, used slick promotional materials and pop psychology-based training techniques to induce thousands of people to purchase environmentally friendly products(water filters, vitamins, hair and skin care products) to resell to friends and family for profit. Eventually the US Government shut down Equinox for legal and ethical improprieties and fined Gouldd millions, but not before many people who had bought into the Equinox dream were left with empty pocketbooks and caseloads of unsold Equinox products collecting dust in their garages.
Rob Styler, a former Equinox Executive Director who was part of Gouldd's inner circle, sheds light on the machinations of this defunct company. Through a first person narrative Styler illustrates the way Gouldd helped prey on the naivete and blind desire of people; at its peak, Equinox was convincing lawyers, nurses, insurance agents, and other professionals to leave their stable careers to join the Equinox dream. Inevitably, the inherent flaws of Multi-Level Marketing led to the vast majority of Equinox participants making little to no money while Gouldd and a select few walked away with bundles. Styler interweaves his personal experience with the larger Equinox story to shed light on the workings of this simultaneously fascinating and horrifying company.
Styler's style is accessible and quick; I read the book in one sitting without strain, finding it difficult to put it down. The only minor quibble is Styler's devoting the last section of the book to describing a New-Age spiritual transformation on top of a South American mountain; this is the least interesting part of an otherwise fascinating book. Nevertheless, the majority of the book is devoted to recounting the Equinox story, which is a telling story of the perversion of the American Dream. If you didn't experience Equinox in the 90s this book will still be interesting, but for those who came into contact with the company, it is absolutely stunning. Kudos to Styler bringing the truth to light.

I stupidly was involved with Equinox for a few short months back in the spring of 1994, I'm embarassed to admit. A good friend of mine had gotten me into the company (he had already been involved for a few months himself at that point). I can't remember how much money I put up but I believe it was about $2,500. Anyhow, I never really made any money. I did sell some products. But my friend very quickly got a bad feeling about Bill Gouldd & dropped out (plus, it was causing problems at home & his wife was almost ready to leave him over it). I stuck around for a few months & then realized it wasn't for me.
I have only read the first 3 chapters of this book but it is an excellent read & reminds of some of the "atmosphere" of a typical Equinox office. I was located in the New Haven, CT office. I remember one of the top guys there was a young guy named Dave Campo. I wonder what ever happened to him. I now wonder if he ever made any money with the company himself. And another guy named Mario. They seemed like nice guys, who believed 100% in Equinox. Maybe they were just good liars...? I don't know. I'd like to believe that they WERE good guys who just got caught up in this "scheme" like everyone else. Hopefully they didn't lose their shirts. I remember a few other names as well, Beta, Katie, Mike...
Anyhow, I do believe the products were of good quality but it seems like the products were almost an afterthought to these people. It was all about bringing in more & more people. I would always wonder, "if I'm just bringing in more people & then they bring in more people, who is actually SELLING PRODUCTS??" Nobody ever seemed to be doing any selling.
The last thing I have read about Bill Gouldd is that he had some new seminar company. But that was back in 2003. I wonder what he is up to these days. And how much money he has left. I seriously doubt he can be doing as well as he was in the mid-90s. I still don't know what to think of that guy. Was he a good guy who let money corrupt him? Or was he a bad guy all along? All I know is he should be in jail for all the people whose lives he ruined. Whether intentionally or not. His company's principles were built on quicksand.
Anyone who was ever involved with Equinox or any of these other pyramid schemes, should read this book. And stay away from companies like these. If it's too good to be true....

In the early 90s my former wife got hooked into the NSA MLM program in Baltimore. She chased her dreams of fortune at the clip of $4,000/month for desk rental, phone rental, seminar training for herself and paying for others to attend as she tried to con them into her new world. At one point the first office had to be closed, and several senior reps opened a new office. The idiots asked me to sign the lease contract, as none of them had the money or good credit to do so. I refused, and was immediately branded an enemy. The NSA product line was soon after moved to Equinox, and the heat for new recruits was turned up.

After that who I met Bill Gouldd once in a Building Blocks seminar my former wife forced me to go to (yes, I also paid $300 to go, plus she paid again). What a smooth operator, spawned from the loins of Satan himself. I saw right through the hype. But my wife saw glamor and riches.

After that came the Journey seminars for herself and others she tried to recruit. $2,500 a crack, and she paid for these folks in the hope they would buy into her dream. I finally called American Express to advise I was no longer going to pay for her card use. It was her account, they refused to close it. I never paid another dime for her account. I hid every dime I had left after she burned through over $80,000!

I remember she did not want to pass on shipping charges or sales tax. She absorbed it, as though magically losing money was going to help her break a profit. I was all about getting new suckers in her downline, the hell with good business sense.

So much of what this book says is so true, the cult mentality was so pervasive, and the attempt to alienate new recruits from other Neg Heads permeated everything. After the former wife burned through over $200,000 (most of it conned from my own parents behind my back), and wound up all but bankrupt (my CA home was in my name, and I had my own credit and money - now I am independently wealthy due to hard work in the computer software business), she decided I was to blame (more Gouldd cult influence) and filed for divorce. Good fu@^ing riddance. She was later impregnated by some Peruvian guy who bolted out of the USA upon hearing of the pregnancy. Poetic justice. The last I heard she could not afford to pay for repairs for her BMW, left it for the repair shop to sell to cover the bill, and wound up in a rusted out Taurus from her parents.

Drawing and Quartering of Bill Gouldd would not be enough to mete out justice. Bravo for the author to have come out so clean in the end. I do not blame Bill Gouldd, or anyone else, for my rather nasty turn in life. His influence merely brought a basic fault in the ex-wife to a very costly head. I survived financially, and kept my own pride intact, but so many others were deep into a downward spiral even in the earliest days of my seeing all this going on. All in denial, the next big deal was just around the corner, just had to get to some more $eminars... Meantime get a fancy car before going totally broke, "If you can't make it, fake it." Gawd, the memories...

A cautionary tale of greed gone oh so wrong, Spellbound made me thankful that my experiences with direct marketing have all been with a company that actually wants its sales force to make money. For those of us who believe in capitalism and have done direct sales with a well-run and fair company (Mary Kay Cosmetics), this book comes as a sad surprise.
What particularly left me with respect for the author is that Styler makes no victim of himself, instead admitting his own culpability in everything that occurred; and makes no hero of himself for helping to bring down a selfish and dangerous man who gave direct marketing a bad name.
Spellbound is a readable book. The tone is confessional but without maudlin sentimentality. Pick it up when you have plenty of time to read; you won't want to put it down.

This books took a tremendous amount of courage. First to walk away
from a lot of money because Styler discovered unethical practices,
then to stand up against a $200 million dollar company and later shut
them down with his testimony...that takes character. When you read
the story, what is really surprising and interesting is how honest
Styler is. He does not make himself out to be a victim. He owns his
faults and learns from them. It is a fascinating read.

This is a great resource for both publishers and authors. There are endless suggestions that have proven beneficial to me. I went from being a print publisher of sixteen years to publishing some of my titles electronically. This book saved me a lot of time and her ideas stimulated my own creativity as far as promoting effectively. The book is inspiring and the enthusiasm of the author proves to be contageous.

"...most comprehensive guide for e-publishing that I have read. It is jam packed with useful, complete information for publishers as well as authors. I highly recommend it!"
--A.J. Russo, Ph.D., President, HyperTech Media, Inc.

"...this is the book for writers, particularly those
interested in publishing an e-book, or who already have. ... This book is worth every penny. ...I, intrepid promoter, am paid to write a column on book promotion. There was nothing I could learn. I knew all the tricks! Ha. I went from her book directly to my Writing To Do list and frantically updated it. In two minutes of reading I had gotten over a dozen new ideas."
-- Required Reading for Book Promotion

"A potpourri of ...resources for e-book promotion includes examples of a press release and press kit for a newly published e-book. E-published authors share some creative ideas for ebook promotion varying from ingenious tips on how to utilize the Free Gallery of Author's Voices, where to apply for awards, teaching on-line workshops, free book excerpts, and even emery boards imprinted with the ebook's title and ISBN were used to promote their e-books. A comprehensive list of e-book publishing and promotional resources round off this outstanding guide making one of the best I have come across. Overall, [this book] lives up to my expectations and I highly recommend it to all e-book authors, whether they have been e-published yet or not. Wiesner's growing knowledge of the e-publishing industry and her meticulous research in producing this e-book definitely shows and the quality shines throughout. In fact, I am so impressed with this resource that I have given it the eBooks N' Bytes Award of Excellence for the ePublishing Book of the Year."

"Karen Wiesner has done the publishing world an immense favor and gone through a massive effort to construct this resource. The great thing about Electronic Publishing is that you can buy it [in electronic format] and have instant access to sites listed-saving the time and aggravation of typing addresses into your computer. ...The book is written in a clear question and answer format. ...lists a variety of unexpected ways to promote your e-book, including the contributions of successful e-book authors and promoters. ...If you're serious about participating (or learning about) the e-book world, this is the most comprehensive resource I've come across since I've been doing business on-line. And I'm digging for everything I can find on this new format for producing and selling books. "
--Dan Seidman, Editor, SPANworks

This is a cute story about duck detectives out to solve the case of the pilfered vegetables.

This is a well crafted book that even reads like the old show. I found it was easy to mimic Jack Webb's presentation. What is also cute is the incorporation of old children's fables for extra characters.

The artwork is fun and my girl liked to say the tag line "Dum de dum dum"

You can't go wrong with this one. I have had to read it couple times every day so far.

My son brought this book home from school. We read it over and over again. It was actually lots of fun to read! We loved it so much we're ordering our own copy!

I read this book to my five year old son tonight with my "Dragnet" voice and we laughed as the catchy Dum De Dum Dum was read. I decided to read it to my 8 year old daughter as well and she also loved the book and said we have to get it. I came back to my son's room down the hall where he should have been going off to sleep, and noticed at 8:53 the he was still up listening to me read the book to his sister, he liked it that much and now I am ordering it from Amazon this instant! Dum De Dum Dum Dum!

This was one of the funniest kids books I have ever read! It was hilarious and downright entertaining. It had my children and I excited about turning the page. I even called my 15 year old sister, read it to her and she loved it! Ms. Palatini should make this a series. I would buy every one!

Let's say you're a parent that loves nothing more in the entire world than to sit down and watch a little "Dragnet" on the telly. Now let's say you're that same parent, but you'd like to instill the wonders of Jack Webb in your little one. Enter Margie Palatini and Richard Egielski's, "The Web Files". More "dum de dum dum"s than you could shake a fist at.

Bill and Web (partners) are working the barnyard shift when they hear trouble ah-brewing. Someone's been pirating a peck of purple peppers (ready for pickeling). It's off to confront he usual suspects, when our heroes get a lead. In the end, you can rest assured that the dastardly villain will have met his just desserts and our brave ducktectives can work another day.

There are people who will buy this book, read it over and over, and love every minute of it. They'll revel in the exceedingly terrible puns that crop up with frightening regularity. They'll soak up the detective atmosphere (a combination of "Dragnet" and Ed McBain). They'll never get bored with this puppy, and that's all right. There really are some nice things in this book. Egielski's adept illustrations compliment the rising action, best displayed in a scene in which a variety of fairy tale characters hound the police precinct with tales of woe. I was especially taken with the third degree our heroes give a distraught Little Boy Blue.

As for myself, the aforementioned scenes are gold. But the puns.... lordy begordy the puns. Admittedly I have a low pun tolerance. If you can read the following sentence without twitching, then this is undoubtedly a good book to get: "A lot of squawking going on down in the coop area, Ducktective Web. Looks like fowl play. Report says feathers are flying. Chief says we should check out the chicks." You get the idea. I, personally, had problems with that sentence, but that's just me. Other people will adore this book. It does have some nice touches here and there and is chock full of enough movies and cop shows to bring a chuckle every other page. If you like a good rousing yarn and don't mind slightly painful text, this is the perfect book for a dark and rainy night. Hint: Have your kids hum the "Dragnet" closing music when the book's villain is tried and convicted. The book supplies all the "Dum de dum dum"s itself.

The GlassHaus "Constructing Accessible Web Sites" book has been a great find. I began working to build sites and applications for use in Web browsers that had to be used by individuals with disabilities in 1997. Over these years I picked up a lot of hard won knowledge and experience, but have never run across a resource that fully backed what I had gathered. The GlasHaus Accessibility book not only echoes what I have learned, but has provided new insights to improve upon what I already have. The best part of this book is that I can point others to it and I am assured they will be able to build an accessible site or Web applications that can meet high standards.

Many folks think accessibility is a great inconvenience, but it takes a little thinking and planning to do it right from the beginning. Having a great resource at hand makes the process a cake walk. Not only are the processes and guides helpful for creating sites that are accessible for those that are disabled these steps outlined also make the information in the site future ready. Sites that are accessible are much easier to use with a handheld PDA device or from even a cell phone browser. Accessibility for everybody in more situations improves with structuring the information properly, which is all making Web enabled information really requires to get it ready to be consumed. Is your information ready to be consumed by everybody?

I don't usually come it the "lyrical type", but to find such a worthwhile book on such a worthwhile topic is a breath of fresh air!

Above all else, it offers practical advice on how to actually do the right thing. Unlike certain titles with animals on their covers, there's more here than just reams and reams of tables containing cut-and-pastes from the man pages on the subject.

It's also of a nice size. (I know that would be no recommendation, if the book didn't actually teach you anything, but it does - and you don't feel intimidated, like you can when you pick up some dirty great Red tome from a Certain OtherPublisher.) You feel as if the subject is managable. Knowable. It may be just me, but if a book is smaller than my own head, I generally feel that there's an outside chance I may be able to fit the contents inside my own skull!

I'll have to keep an eye open for these blue things... they're quite good.

Of the books and resources that I've read on accessible web sites, this is by far the best - especially from a UK perspective.

The main UK legislation that specifically mentions web sites and accessibility comes into force in October 2004 which, at the time of writing this, is still over two years away. This means that there isn't a great deal of information and certainly no legal cases that we can draw on from our country, so we have to look elsewhere to see what is happening.

This book benefits in that, although it does cover Section 508 and other already in place legislation, it also gives a great all round understanding of the topic, and is very easy to read. Having chapters written by different authors means that you get a far greater depth of experience and information, which can only benefit the reader.

If you're going to buy one book on accessible web sites, this should be at the top of your shopping list.

Two new words have joined the vocabulary of web designers in recent years - usability and accessibility. You will often come across them used in tandem.

Usability really became an issue when Jacob Nielsen infamously denounced Flash as 99% bad. Accessibility became a priority for web developers working on government projects after Section 508 was brought into law in the United States.

Accessibility became an issue in Australia during Maguire vs SOCOG in 1999, when a blind man filed a complaint with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) that neither Olympic Games tickets purchasing information nor the souvenir programme were available in Braille. Most importantly he alleged that the SOCOG website was not accessible, and to make it so would have been well within budget. SOCOG was found to have discriminated against the complainant and damages were awarded against the organization.

Accessibility is now a civil rights issue. It is also not that difficult to implement on a website, once you learn how it can be done. This excellent book, Constructing Accessible Web Sites, teaches you all that and more. It is the first on its subject, and will not be the last, but it is damned a good beginning.

All eight co-authors have been pioneers in the field of accessibility, and Glasshaus deserves praise for having assembled such a team. They cover more than website accessibility - their expertise extends to the accessibility of web design tools themselves. An apt reminder that the web is as much about reading as writing, for writers as much as readers, a real medium of two-way communication.

All websites can now be made accessible to varying degrees, even Flash websites since Flash MX, as Macromedia Senior Product Manager for Accessibility Bob Regan demonstrates in Chapter 10. So there are no excuses for failing to add increased accessibility, and usability for that matter, to that new project you are just about to commence.

Ensure you have a copy of Constructing Accessible Web Sites at hand when you begin. And also take a look at another equally essential reference on the subject due out any day now, Joe Clark's Building Accessible Websites. Accessibility is the newest and most necessary website building skill. There are no excuses now.

The GlassHaus "Constructing Accessible Web Sites" book has been a great find. I began working to build sites and applications for use in Web browsers that had to be used by individuals with disabilities in 1997. Over these years I picked up a lot of hard won knowledge and experience, but have never run across a resource that fully backed what I had gathered. The GlasHaus Accessibility book not only echoes what I have learned, but has provided new insights to improve upon what I already have. The best part of this book is that I can point others to it and I am assured they will be able to build an accessible site or Web applications that can meet high standards.

Many folks think accessibility is a great inconvenience, but it takes a little thinking and planning to do it right from the beginning. Having a great resource at hand makes the process a cake walk. Not only are the processes and guides helpful for creating sites that are accessible for those that are disabled these steps outlined also make the information in the site future ready. Sites that are accessible are much easier to use with a handheld PDA device or from even a cell phone browser. Accessibility for everybody in more situations improves with structuring the information properly, which is all making Web enabled information really requires to get it ready to be consumed. Is your information ready to be consumed by everybody?

If you are looking for a book to really understand the outgoing Net Revolution, don't look further. Martin takes you to the center of the digital movement in a cristal clear writing. This is a book to change the way we think, the way we live. The beggining of a personal revolution

An *EXCELLENT* book, written in a very easy-to-read style, that puts the Internet revolution in perspective. If you are a confirmed 'nethead, then this book is not for you - it is only telling you what you already know. If you don't "get it", and/or you are sceptical about the net, then GET THIS BOOK. It has changed our lives and will continue to change it for some time to come. Chuck uses real examples from real companies and people to drive home his points. Some of the links need to be updated on his website, but other than that, I highly recommend this. A good companion read would be James Martin's "Cybercorp"

In a domain positively viscous with lame literature, this book doesn't have any serious competition. It's very helpful at all levels, but its witty and humane approach is particularly good for business people moving onto the Web for the first time. Martin gives sound, detailed explanations of Web advertising, branding, business planning and building an on-line community by using the actual experiences of Net companies that are building today's new Internet economy

If you've been awake and actively using the net over the past few years, you probably already know just about everything in this book. Martin has very good insight into what the web can really be...beyond all the technology hoopla, building virtual communities, supplying appropriate content, making a corporate web site that is actually useful to consumers, etc.. A GREAT read for those trying to make sense of the web, understand how people use the web, and see how other companies have created successful enterprises or applications integrating the internet. The copy I got had some duplicate/missing pages in the introduction of the book.

This book is a "must read" for all company owners and managers involved in the corporate planning process. The Digital Estate digs into the successes and failures of pure on-line businesses and electronic efforts of other companies to define the principals of doing business today. This is not a "technology book" and is not targeted for "net heads" or persons already in the Internet business. It is a business book for executives that contrasts the "old way" and new methods that are transforming business thinking. It is a book for business heads that need a grounding in business on the Internet. Written in a clear and concise manner, sans hype and jargon, it is engrossing, clever and insightful. I can not over emphasize the importance of this book to all business executives.