Vanessa Williams Books

Sepia Dreams is definitely a MUST HAVE for one that has a great appreciation for art/photography. The affirmations are inspiring. The book is a great gift to give to loved ones.

Beautiful. Intelligent. Inspirational. Sepia Dreams is a work of art and aspiration! With so many stories of the people we love the most, you can't put it down. A great gift, and a must-have addition to your home library!
--LLOYD BOSTON, author of MEN OF COLOR

From the moment I first opened this book, I haven't been able to stop talking about it to my co-workers, friends, and family. Never before have I been so proud to own a book . At a time when we could all use something upbeat and positive, this book is inspirational, motivational, and uplifting. I hope you enjoy it as much as I am!

I found this calendar to be interesting. It depict black children as real not high color black's. Not all of us blacks have streight and curly hair, some have kinky nappy hair, with a darker complection, I would like to see more of this on a black calendar, the true color.

This is a wonderful and inspirational book on the reknowned entertainer and former Miss America,Vanessa Williams.It's highly recommended!!Vanessa,we all love you!!

Note: This is a review of the particular "Cambridge School Shakespeare" edition [Edited by Rex Gibson, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000] of As You Like it and not a review of the play itself.

This edition (a) contains the unabridged play and (b) tries to explain and elucidate Shakespeare's play to teenagers of the age of maybe 15-17. It clarifies difficult language, highlights the main conflicts, puts the play into a historical context and the context of the literary tradition that it belongs to. It encourages the reader to think of different possible ways to play the characters and different ways to understand the play.

I am not a teenager and I am not 16 years old any more, in fact, I am 53 years old with a PhD in Economics and a Masters in Psychology. I read Shakespeare for fun, to challenge my brain, and to grow personally. I found this edition of the play very helpful and enjoyable. The commentary neither spoiled my fun by overanalyzing or showing off its learnedness nor did it offend my intelligence by oversimplifying. In addition, the layout of the book is quite reader-friendly.

If you are a Shakespeare scholar or a scholar of English Lit, this edition will probably be too simple for you. For people of my caliber, however, I can really recommend this edition. Enjoy!

The Caedmon recording of As You Like It is well worth the purchase just to hear two Redgraves soar in their performances.

As with all of Shakespeare, the concept of love at first sight is given far too much credit, but other than that, this is a delightful romp filled with much amusement. The language is as beautiful as one expects in Shakespeare, but is somewhat less difficult for the modern reader to follow than in some of his plays; I found myself being more distracted than helped by most of the footnotes. As with most Shakespearean comedies, it was easy to see that this play was intended for the amusement of the common people; the similarities in style between the plot here and in much modern pop culture were striking (the sexual innuendo to be had when a woman passes for a man and finds another woman falling in love with her, for instance). If it had a flaw, it was that the ending was just a little TOO pat and contrived, even for a comedy, but that's just a minor quibble.

As far as Shakesepare's comedies go, "The Comedy of Errors" will always be my favorite. And while this "As You Like It" never quite obtained the popularity of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" or "The Taming of the Shrew," one probably could argue that "As You Like It" is the best of Shakespeare's comedies. This play contains several plots that Shakespeare cleverly intertwines and it offers a happy ending with love triumphant. But more important than the triumph of love, the theme of reconciliation carries through to virtually everyone in the story. The story begins with the sibling rivalry of Orlando and his older brother Oliver who has hoarded the family inheritence. After a brief fight, Oliver hopes that Orlando may accidentally die in a wrestling match against Charles. This is where a 2nd plot comes in. The Duke Frederick (who has a daughter Celia) has banished his older brother (the true Duke who has a daughter Rosalind). But for now, Rosalind is allowed to stay and she has made good friends with Celia. Orlando meets these 2 girls and falls into favor with Rosalind. After the wrestling match, things start to go bad. Orlando learns that his brother Oliver is planning to kill him, and Rosalind is banished. But all is not lost. Orlando takes his loyal servant Adam and flees while Rosalind (in the male disguise of Ganymede), along with Celia, and the comical Touchstone will flee to look for Rosalind's father. And here is where the play becomes mostly comical. (Good comedies can often have a sad start. "The Comedy of Errors" shows this well.) Moving on, we meet Rosalind's father and his crew who have made exile into a paradise. From Duke Sr's party, we meet the melancholy Jaques. But he is arguably the most interesting character in the story. (In fact, the most famous passage from this play belongs to Jaques. The 7 stages of man which end in nothing. Perhaps Macbeth took lessons from Jaques: 'Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.') Duke Sr welcomes Orlando and Adam, and it isn't long before Orlando and Rosalind run into each other. Shakespeare maintains the comedy when Rosalinde keeps her male disguise on and tells Orlando he must practice wooing on him/her. Touchstone has some comical romantic moments with Audrey. And there is an interesting triangle where the shepherd Silvius loves Phebe, but Phebe loves Rosalinde (seeing only Ganymede)! We may recall this from "the 12th Night" when Olivia loved Viola in her male disguise. But after this comical moment, all begins to resolve. Oliver comes on the scene and he and Celia fall in love. (So much so that Oliver is willing to reconcile with Orlando and grant him all.) The play ends with not only the reunion of Rosalind and her father, but the joyous weddings of Rosalind / Orlando, Celia /Oliver, Audrey /Touchstone, and Phebe / Silvius, but more good news comes. Celia's father mends his ways and returns all to Rosalind's father. Jaques offers the crowning touch. Despite his cynical nature, he is NOT a villain. Ironically, this hermit type man converses with more characters than anyone in the story, and while he can not take part in the play's final happiness, he DOES wish everyone well. As I said, my favorite comedy will always be "The Comedy of Errors." But don't make the mistake of overlooking this comedy.

This has to be one of Shakespeare's gayest plays (no pun intended). Whatever tragedy may have occurred in the beginning - at the court - is totally forgotten when the action moves to the forest, where Robin-hood like; a banished duke, a melancholy philosopher and a cast of love sick characters act out their lives on the stage.

Much of the play is centered on Rosalind - the female lead in 'drag' - who falls in love with the third son of a nobleman, Orlando, who has been cheated out of his inheritance by his eldest brother. Her father, the duke, has also been cheated by a brother and is now living in the forest with his `merry men'. Her short stay at court is disrupted when her uncle changes his mind about her and `graciously' gives her a few days to get out of the kingdom. This event leads to her escape into the forests with her cousin, the daughter of the duke at Court. As the play progresses more and more characters end up in the forest which becomes the stage where all these actors play out their parts - to paraphrase Jacques.

As a reader you sometimes have to suspend rationality in order to swallow some of the larger than life events that occur in this story (The snake - Lion - Lion killer scene for example). It's not meant to be taken too seriously I'd imagine, just a play about love and romance and the lengths one will go to because of love. The only rational person in this play seems to be the Malvolio-like Jacques, whose deer hugging antiques (forerunner of modern day Environmentalism?) and refusal to take part in the revelry make him the butt of the other's jokes. Even the clown seems to have been pierced by Cupid's arrows as he too weds a country `wench', something unheard of in the other plays where the clowns all seem to be eunuchs.

If you're reeling from any of Shakespeare's tragedies, or want to escape the ordered, (courtly?) existence that is your life and take a dive into an almost fantasy-like world where all is love and laughter, this play may be your ticket.

Was thrown into a project and knew little about SP 2003 at the time but this was a good intro and helped me get through at the time.

I am a Microsoft trainer that has taught numerous SharePoint classes. Vanessa's work is the most straightforward intro book out there. She goes a step farther by including simple sample solutions for common issues. All this is a real help to someone trying to get things rolling. All SharePoint admins should keep several copies available.

I've often said that a good Dummies book allows me to get a broad understanding of a product or technology so I "know what I don't know". This title is a classic example of that... Microsoft SharePoint 2003 For Dummies by Vanessa Williams. It's a non-threatening use-focused coverage of SharePoint 2003 that is a good introduction to the topic at hand...

Contents:
Part 1 - Getting the Lay of the Land: Getting to Know SharePoint; Starting with the Basics
Part 2 - Central Portal Administration: Configuring the Portal; Accessing SharePoint
Part 3 - Portal Design: Matching SharePoint to Your Business; Managing Portal Content; Branding the Portal
Part 4 - Build It, and Hope They Come: Collaborating with SharePoint Sites; Document Libraries;
Part 5 - Power to the People - Engaging Employees with SharePoint: Managing Employee Relations; Mixing Up Your Marketing Mix
Part 6 - Throw Away the Spreadsheets: Expense Reports; Technical Uses for SharePoint
Part 7 - Maintenance: Monitoring SharePoint; Backup and Restore
Part 8 - The Part of Tens: Ten Ways SharePoint Adds Business Value; Ten Ways to Screw Up SharePoint
Index

Williams goes after two different audiences here, and I'm surprised she pulled it off. She targets the average power user who might have access to build a site on the SharePoint server. With this book in hand, I would agree that a motivated person could do quite well on their own. She also targets tech people who want an overview of SharePoint so that they can get started quickly. Normally you can't mix those two groups and come out with something that's acceptable to either. Again, I think she actually succeeded. If I were going to start building SharePoint sites for a user base, I'd have enough information here to get started with an adequate mental framework of how it all fits. I'm sure I'd quickly need the "1000 page book" (as she puts it) to start pushing the boundaries of what's possible. But for basic "I need something now" sites, I could do it with the help of this book.

I was also impressed that she dealt with the cultural issue of collaboration software. As a long-time Notes/Domino developer, I know and understand all too well that collaboration isn't something you can mandate or force on people. People who get it will gravitate around the software right away. Those who view information as power will horde it and refuse to participate. And it doesn't matter how good of a developer you are or how slick the site is. The application will fail... By addressing these issues, Williams sets a realistic picture of what to expect if and when you install SharePoint.

Good material, and a good way to get your feet wet on SharePoint 2003...

Being a Beginner and having to teach myself how to use Sharepoint, I was stymied by many of the technical books on the subject. Finding Sharepoint for Dummies helped alot! Vanessa Williams book is easy to understand and answered many of the questions I couldn't find answers to anywhere else. I still have a lot to learn about Sharepoint and Ms. Williams has been very helpful to shed extra light on difficult problems. Thank you very much for all your help!

Being given the task of constructing an intranet for our company's service desk felt a bit daunting, but then being advised you're going to use Sharepoint 2003 (which I'd never heard of) just added to the pressure...

My initial reaction was that I needed to get "one of those books for dummies" on Sharepoint...I've never really liked reading and am still not the biggest fan, but Vanessa made it easy in the way she set out "Microsoft SharePoint 2003 for Dummies". You have the option or reading it from cover to cover, or jumping to the section that you're currently having an issue with. A real well structured and informative book.

After you've finished reading comes Q&A time...yes, if you have any questions for the author, she'll respond within a few days and be as helpful as she can...forget those geeks and professors that think they're high and mighty that they've written a manual or textbook, Vanessa is down to earth and will take the time to address your questions...I was semi-shocked when I received my first response, but then to receive a second, third and fourth blew me away...

So, for all you beginners out there, or even those that just need a point of reference, this book is a must for your shelf...

This book is good for a first overview of what and how do to with VS 2008.
The reader should have minimum programming skils, not a dummie at all.

This book has been a great reference and learning aid. From start to finish it gives you a great insight of Visual Studio 2008 and the versatility of this program. There are many step by step examples of the many uses of Visual Studio 2008 as well as many tips and web site references. From building application programs (such as smart client and web applications) to accessing data(by using XML or SQL Server) this is a great reference for any programmer. I would strongly suggest that this book become a part of any programmers library.

I haven't read the entire book yet, but my initial impressions are that it is an excellent beginning book for Visual Studio 2008. It also touches on some topics not immediately related to Visual Studio, such as modern programming practices, which I found valuable as a junior programmer.

If you are a veteran Visual Studio user, this book is probably too basic for you.

Most of the chapters are overviews, rather than in-depth coverage of any one topic. However, the content is very practical and concise, and contains a lot more useful information per chapter than some more poorly written books would.

From what I can tell, this book is very similar to the previous edition for Visual Studio 2005, with much of the same text. This new version includes mostly the same chapters, with a few new chapters on new features - notably AJAX and LINQ. The new JavaScript debugging does not appear to be covered, which would have been nice.

The new book is missing a few chapters that were in the 2005 edition - one on SQL Server Reporting Services and another one on Using Enterprise Library.

The omission of Reporting Services is unfortunate, since that is a popular alternative to Crystal Reports. (The 2008 edition still has the Crystal Reports chapter that the 2005 book had.) However, if you are going to use Reporting Services you'll probably get a separate book for that anyway. And perhaps the RS chapter was left out of this 2008 book in anticipation of SQL Server 2008 (scheduled for release later in 2008).

All in all, this is an excellent overview and introduction to Visual Studio 2008. If you have a little .NET programming experience and want to learn more about the basics of Visual Studio development, this book is for you.

This is exactly what you need to get started with Visual Studio 2008. Whether you are a novice programmer or an experienced developer this book has something for you. It is a very easy read and has a basic step by step approach throughout. For anyone interested in programming with Visual Studio 2008 or if you just want a good reference guide, I would highly recommend this book.

Many people like the style of the "Dummies" books, but most will find this one tries to cover too much. It aspires to be the Swiss Army Knife of anything you could want to do with Visual Studio but that would take 5000 pages so it falls well short.

VS 2008 for Dummies is arranged into 7 "mini books" (not 6 as the cover artwork here on Amazon shows). And while each book has some great information, it typically covers too little to do much real development. Overall, it's biased towards web development (asp.net) using databases but also includes desktop applications, smart phone apps, deployment, unit testing, extending Visual Studio, etc. Unfortunately, unless you just want an overview, most of the mini-book topics really needs its own book.

There's a reason most beginning books on say just C# or Visual Basic are around 1000 pages. This book tries to cover both languages in only 163 pages.

Trying to cover so much information with relatively few pages creates problems. For example, Book 5 is titled Coding. Likely to save space, C# and Visual Basic examples and descriptions are intermixed on nearly every page. So the C# programmer is confused by all the Visual Basic examples and text, and visa versa. It's far from ideal unless you really do want to learn two complex programming languages at once, which seems like a bad idea for a beginning programmer buying an intro "Dummy" book.

So few pages per topic means a lot of important things are not covered at all. If you want to go much past useless "Hello World!" applications, a lot of what you'll likely need is just plain missing--i.e. basic file I/O using FileStream, ReadStream, etc. Many windows forms controls and other common .NET resources are also not covered.

I can imagine a few sorts of people for who might want to buy this book. The first is someone who wants an overview of the capabilities of VS 2008 but doesn't need to actually develop anything. An example might be someone managing a group of developers using VS 2008.

Another target audience might be experienced developers coming from a different or older development environment (such as Linux/Eclipse, VB 6.0, etc.) who only want to get up to speed on VS 2008. They would still likeley need to know (or buy another book on) the current .NET framework, however.

If someone just wants to play around and develop a few "Hello World!" examples, this book will get them there. In the "Dummies" tradition, it holds your hand fairly well through the basics.

If you're the sort of person who likes to read 2 or 3 different books on the same topic, this book may also prove useful. Visual Studio 2008 is a very complex product and this book presents some good information I've not seen elsewhere. And it presents information found in other books in new ways.

If you want to do some serious application or web development you either already need to know what you're doing, or you'll almost certainly need another book that covers your particular development area in more detail. This book will not, for example, teach you object oriented programming, or the full syntax of Visual Basic, ASP.NET or C#. It also doesn't cover the .NET framework and libraries in sufficient detail to do much more than play around.

In summary it's a useful overview, but unless that's all you need, you're probably better off with a book that targets the particular area of Visual Studio development you're most interested in. Many beginning books on C#, Visual Basic, ASP.NET, etc. do a good job of also covering Visual Studio 2008. So if you only want to buy one book, this might not be the best choice.

Author has included some email and web site information for ski area accomodations, tourist offices, etc, but it just touches the tip of the iceberg.

Verbier, Switzerland, one of the top ski areas in Europe, only gets 5 pages in the book. Does not provide any commentary on accommodations in Verbier other than number of stars in rating and prices. Some other large ski areas get better treatment. The Arlberg region gets 9 pages of coverage.

Book lacks maps of Europe and of ski areas.

Overall the book is a good starting place for researching a trip, but descriptive information is brief and basic. Still this book is the most recently published on the topic as of 10/98, so the currency of the information should be decent.

This is the third edition of Leocha's ski guide that I've bought. It tells me everything I might think of to ask about each resort. My wife and I rely upon this guide to help make our decisions on where to ski in the Alps before each trip. His mountain and skiing descriptions are right on for all classes of skiers. We've used his recommendations in choosing accomodations and restaurants and haven't been disappointed even once. The very best feature is that it is written so well that we've tried resorts (Arosa, Wengen) that we never considered before and found them to be wonderful.

Ski Europe was a great book for my winter stay in europe. The thing i liked most about it was that it was the only book i needed. It offered all the skiing info i needed for each resort (even a scection in each resort on snowboarding!), but it didn't stop there. Its an all around guide with info on the night life, hotels, and restaurants. it gave concice information about all the aspects of a skiing vacation, which made my off the slope hours much more productive. i strongly recomend this book for any skier or snowboarder, any level.
=Z

I live in Munich and use this book often as a reference. It contains very accurate information on lodging, prices, and qualities of the resorts. Very accurately summarizes the differences in the ski experience between the different countries.

Needs more detailed maps of the resorts and slopes with hotels, restaurants, etc. clearly marked. Needs to be more critical of some resorts so the reader can make a better decision about which one to visit.

Germany-bound skiers should not waste their time on this book. Although Germany has more than 300 winter resorts located in the German Alps, the wooded hills of the Hartz Mountains, the Black Forest, and the Bavarian Forest, Ski Europe, 11th Edition devotes only 5 pages to the entire country. Only two of these pages directly comment on skiing (rather than accomodations, dining, etc.) and they focus only on Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the surrounding area. Even skiing in Spain gets more coverage than Germany in this book!

The authors are also the inventors of Proactiv Solution, the #1 acne treatment in America....

This book is very interesting and contains a lot of helpful hints to combat acne. However, it also contains suggestions for women and teenagers as young as fifteen to go on sythentic hormones for hormonally triggered acne. Synthetic hormones play havoc on a woman's body, let alone on a young teenagers. They even go as far as saying that teenagers(as young as fifteen)can "welcome the opportunity to prevent pregnancy while helping treat their acne." I think that Drs. Rodan and Fields need to stick to acne care and keep their opinions of teenage birth control out of it.

"Unblemished," is a fantastic comprehensive guide to acne treatment and prevention. The book dispels acne myths and is filled with invaluable information, facts and resources on skin care. The myriad of recommendations on treatment products and make-up is incredible.
Dr. Rodan and Dr.Fields, the creators of Proactiv Solution and the wonderful Rodan & Fields products CALM and RADIANT, are clearly the leading authorities on acne and skin care and they share their vast knowledge and extensive research in this book.
It is obvious that the dermatologist duo are passionate about treating acne and helping people get the healthy beautiful skin they desire. Rodan and Fields have developed an easy to follow three step program that has been proven to be effective in treating even the most resistant acne problems.
Rodan and Fields discuss the often debilitating psychological and emotional problems that can accompany acne with a deep understanding and compassion. This is a wonderful book and is unquestionably the best book on the subject.

Basically, it's a review in progress. As with any "...For Dummies," product one only needs to tackle problem areas that one is unfamiliar with. In my case, it's more or less linking, and setting up a hypertext.
At the time I purchased the text, the university that I'm enrolled, has a Share Point server, called MySite. So getting a general sense of what Share Point is and how it functions, I've been pretty impressed so far. But then a very tragic thing happened last week, the Share Point server crashed, and will be down indefinitely. So right now, I'm forced to perform my Web page on Google/gmail.com. And that's a totally different animal. So, if and/or when, the server gets back up, I'll be working off Google for awhile.

Usually Dummies Books are a great way to get into something, and I've been trying to make sense out of Sharepoint administration. Unfortunately this book put me to sleep without clarifying anything.

Don't by mislead by the title. This is not written by a dummy or intended for dummy readers. This book is very organized and covers important points on approaching testing, getting management on board, avoiding possible implementation problems, and so forth. This book is very practical and hands on. If you're an advanced technical admin of Sharepoint, this is not your book. But if you're someone with a decent IT background and just getting your hands dirty, this is perfect.

If you ever run out of toilet paper, don't use those old Sears catalogs, use this book. At least then it will be serving a purpose. I tend to like the "For Dummies" books, but this one was also written by a dummy. There's nothing better when doing server setup to find out about a few pages in that there are other steps you should have done first. The real kicker is that these other steps are not listed. Wonderful! I bought this book based on reviews. Not sure what the others were reading, but this one is garbage. I had it less than 2 days before both myself and the server admin went looking for other books. This book is one to avoid.

This book matches the clear, concise, and practical style of all the "Dummies" books and might be very good for those who are installing, configuring, or developing SharePoint sites. However, it was not until I reached page 4 that I finally was advised that "This book isn't really intended for end users." That advisory should have appeared on page 1, or better yet, on the book's front cover. If you are an end user who is merely trying to learn how to use SharePoint's various functions, you might want to look for an actual "user's guide," e.g., Essential SharePoint 2007: A Practical Guide for Users ... (etc).

It took a couple of weeks to get this. Book was in good shape when I received it, but delivery was too slow.

Well written and packed with useful info. I'm a Delphi programmer (trying to learn C# using VS) and this is my first VS 2005 book. You get a lot for your money with this book and the author's writing style is clear, concise and often entertaining. I highly recommend it.

Helps you to know some of the visual studio, if you want to do a project, this book will not help. it has only an introduction for each part of the studio.

This book is big and full of rubbish. The examples are not useful and you have to read lots of pages to get a little bit of explanation which it could have been done with few lines. I would not recommended to anybody

This book gets to the point without speaking in another language so it's easy to understand. Even for the complete beginner or advanced user. It has great referrences and is easy to navigate. A must for your bookshelf.