Design Books

I come from a routing shop - never having a customer need for Multicast. This book brought me up to speed very quickly on the both the beauty and ease of Multicast. As a tool for my CCIE studies, I felt the first 200 pages were of immense value at helping my studies. I felt Chapter 5 (on DVMRP) was not nearly as valuable as Chapters 6 and 7 (on PIM-DM and PIM-SM).

Some typos I was able to pick out:
page 144 - 2nd line from bottom should read "...it too sends a Graft message to Router C" - not Router D.

page 168 - 3rd line on the 1st paragraph should read "...SPT to pull the (S2, G) traffic down to the RP..." - not (S1, G).

There are some other typos, but they are few and far between (but I'm not an expert on multicast!). I have heard of this book being talked about as the 'bible' for multicast - I can see why.

I give this book 5 pings out of 5:
!!!!!

I was skeptical about buying a book this old, but I just finished it and am still slightly amazed at how little has changed in multicast technology in ~8 years. I have read Doyle's multicast coverage, listened to InternetworkExpert's excellent "class on demand" (CoD) on the topic many times, and worked through over half of their 20 CCIE lab scenarios, all of which have multicast sections. This doesn't make me an expert by any means, but I know enough now to recognize that the material in this book is still worth reading.

The differences between this book and Doyle's (2004) are:
- Williamson dedicates a lot more effort to explaining the mroute table. This was my single biggest stumbling block in multicast routing
- Doyle, IMO, gives IGMP a better treatment
- Doyle goes over mtrace and mstat
- Williamson spreads the information out over more pages via liberal usage of config snips and diagrams, often one per page. This allows him to go into *brutal, painful and excruciating* detail about every line in the mroute table, every flag, every state transition, etc.
- Williamson does a more thorough job of explaining exactly what happens in PIM-SM networks (100+ pages to Doyle's ~25)
- Doyle goes over Anycast RP and gives a better explanation of MSDN, which appears to have been rather cutting edge when Williamson put finger to keyboard

I finished the book in about a week of serious effort, but I skipped the following chapters (Cisco has not put much effort into the technologies described), leaving me with about 400 pages of groovyness:
DVMRP
CBT
MOSPF
Connecting to DVMRP Networks
and several sections of other chapters

To be sure, some things have changed. I didn't see any mention of the "ip pim autorp listener" command, which negates the need for sparse-dense mode when configuring Auto-RP (can't recall if Doyle mentioned that either). Also, in current versions of IOS one *does* need to specify the RP on the RP itself, whereas Williamson (and Doyle) explicitly say this is not the case (they were both right at the time of print, Cisco has changed this). Overall however, I would say that easily >95% of the material is solid here.

So which book to buy? Well if you're serious about the CCIE and/or running a multicast network you'll get both, and read them both several times. I do hope Williamson updates the book though, as he alludes to several draft proposals, and gives a "state of the multicast internet" address that I would like to know more about without digging through two dozen RFCs. Also, the few things that have changed would be a boon to the book.

Multicasting is truly a technology solution in search of a problem. Excepting highly specialized conferencing applications (a few of which are mentioned here) it is difficult to see how multicasting can be a money-making service for carriers and providers, and the protocols have yet to really penetrate to wide deployment. That said, knowledge of this separate realm of IP networking is a must for any professional in the telecom space.

I'm glad to say that this book rewards determined scrutiny. As a technical writer supporting a very complex product line that has recently added PIM-SM to its bag of tricks, I've found this book painstaking and tremendously informative. You will need to understand IP networking before approaching this title; on the assumption that you do, you will fully understand shared trees, SPTs, and their combination in PIM to an absolute fare-thee-well. My focus when reading this book was on IGMP and PIM-SM, so I have not read absolutely every page of this title. However, Williamson breaks the processes down packet-by-packet for each protocol in the multicasting suite in almost excruciating detail. Advanced coverage of topics such as registration, pruning, and Rendezvous Point behavior means that you will have complete mastery of Cisco multicasting, and for any platform that conforms to the standards, by the time you are finished.

This is an excellent, excellent effort in what I think is a consistently solid networking series.

Multicast has for several years been used in LAN environments to easily exchange information among users, especially in educational and academic research environments. The advent of audio and video conferencing has increased its use in these environments, and it is now making its presence known in WAN and Internet environments. This book gives an overview of the how to implement IP multicast on Cisco devices, and does a good job in that regard. Readers with a general knowledge of networks, even those who have not administered Cisco devices explicitly, can gain much from the book. This reviewer was not interested in the actual implementation of Cisco multicast networks, which is covered in Part 3 of the book, and so this review will concentrate on the other three parts of the book. These parts are mostly descriptive, but they do discuss some of the performance issues involved with the deployment of IP multicast, although nowhere in the book are test cases discussed, even though their inclusion would have been extremely helpful. Multicasting by itself is not a complicated phenomena to understand and use, but when it is deployed over Layer 2 or when coupled with QoS some interesting issues can arise. This reviewer was mostly interested in traffic engineering in multicast environments, and the author spends an entire chapter on this topic.

The book begins with a history of multicast and the MBone, the latter of which is a collection of Internet routers and hosts that are interconnected and are able to forward IP multicast traffic. IP multicast is of course an unreliable transmission mechanism, based as it is on UDP. Along with stating the assigned scope of the multicast addresses over IP, the author also reviews the scheme for multicast MAC addressing. The MAC address mapping will cause a CPU performance hit though since the CPU will have to be interrupted in order to deal with all 32 of the IP multicast groups. This arises since the IP multicast address information cannot be mapped into the available space of the MAC address space. There is a 32:1 address ambiguity when an IP multicast address is mapped to a MAC address.

One can summarize the properties of the multicast routing protocols discussed in the book straightforwardly:

PIM (Protocol Independent Multicasting) can run in three different modes, namely Dense (DM), Sparse (SM) and Sparse-Dense. A router will always forward multicast traffic on a dense mode interface unless all the PIM neighbors of the interface prune themselves from the multicast tree. Multicast traffic will be forwarded on a sparse mode interface only if at least one of the PIM neighbors explicitly joins the multicast tree. In sparse-dense mode, the interface can be running in sparse mode for some groups and dense mode for others. There is a "hello interval" for PIM multicast which is the frequency at which the router will send PIM query messages, the latter of which are used for selecting a PIM designated router. The PIM designated router is responsible for sending IGMP (v1) queries. Bootstrap messages can be forwarded from an interface in PIMv2. This allows all PIM-SM routers in a domain to dynamically learn all Group-to-RP mappings.In PIM-DM, the multicast traffic is periodically forwarded even on pruned interfaces of a source-based distribution tree. This allows the learning of membership changes. This 'state-refresh interval' can be configured on the first-hop routers of the multicast source, allowing the interface to periodically send a state refresh control message down the source-based distribution tree. When doing multicast in an NBMA (NonBroadcast MultiAccess) network, a router will replicate multicast packets for all neighbors configured for broadcast (actually pseudobroadcast to use the author's characterization). To avoid this, one can configure the router in NBMA mode, which will then only allow the replication of packets for PIM neighbors. NBMA mode is only supported by Cisco for SM networks.

DVMRP (Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol) does neighbor discovery, where network routing information is exchanged between neighbors. This information consists of Route Report messages that advertise a source network and a hop-count. DVMRP generates two routing tables, one is a multicast routing table to the receivers and a unicast routing table to the sources. When forwarding, a DVMRP router will use the unicast table for RPF (Reverse Path Forwarding) checks and the multicast table for forwarding multicast packets. When doing unicast routing, the router will use the unicast table for the RPF check, but will use a different multicast routing protocol for forwarding multicast packets. There is a metric value associated with a DVMRP unicast route, which is the sum of the interface metrics of a route between the router originating the report and the router in the source network.

For multicast traffic, one can control bandwidth with: 1. Aggregate rate limiting, which sets an upper bound for all multicast traffic being sent on an interface. 2. Mroute table entries wherein each individual multicast stream is set to a maximum rate. 3. `Scoped zones' and multicast boundaries, which prevent multicast traffic with a high rate from traveling outside the provisioned regions. Doing actual multicast traffic engineering is complicated do to the need for calculating the proper RPF (Reverse Path Forwarding) interface (and not the destination IP address). The author discusses in detail some of the techniques that can be used, such as GRE tunnels and `pseudo load-sharing.' GRE tunnels are used to do load-splitting of multicast traffic, which cannot be done otherwise since multicast is allowed only one incoming interface. He also describes how to do traffic conversion between broadcast and multicast, this being allowed for Cisco IOS 11.1 or later. This is a useful capability for networks where the source or the receivers, or both, do not support IP multicast.

This is the best multicast book on the market. It is a must have whether you are preparing for the CCIE Lab or just want to understand multicast.

The explanation was simple and clear. There are tons of configuration examples covering pretty much all kinds of scenarios. The author actually explained every single line of the configurations.

I bought this book for my Lab exam, and after two days of reading, 99.99% of my questions were answered (the only one I still have is I actually made PIM-DM work in a hub-spoke frame relay network. The prune message from one spoke was actually seen by the other spoke, I don't know why the hub would forward it out).

I have to admit this is one of the best books I've read for a long time. Just like Jeff Doyle's TCP/IP Routing is the Bible of IGP, this book is the Bible of Multicast.

This book is the BIBLE for understanding and building your telescope. An absolute must read.

I am a beginning amateur astronomer, and this book has helped me immensely in understanding how telescopes work and what goes into building a quality telescope. Though I won't be able to afford the optics for my dream telescope for some time, this book is excellent for either the aspiring telescope maker or an amateur like me who wants to understand what makes telescopes "great" vs. "so-so".

The book is well-written and is a very easy read, even though it goes through some fairly complicated stuff at times. I highly recommend it!

This book is available directly
from the publisher for $29.95 at
http://www.willbell.com/tm/dobtel.htm

One of the hardest things a beginner faces when jumping into amateur astronomy is "Where do I start?". That question has been answered in great depth by this book. Considered by almost everyone to be "the bible" of amateur telescope making, if this book doesn't inspire you to start cutting wood, then you need to find yourself another hobby!

One of the authors is responsible for the "Obsession" line of high-end Dobsonian telescopes. This book is almost a step-by-step guide on how you can build your own large Dobsonian, with optics and performance nearly as good as an Obsession. Yes, you probably won't save much money over a purchased 'scope, but the pride of being able to say "I built this myself!" more than makes up for that. Plus, you will know (and understand) every single square inch of your telescope, so modifications and changes won't be as frightening to you as they would if you had to cut into a $3000 commercial telescope.

If you think you're going to use this book and build an 18" 'scope for $500, you're going to be in for quite a shock. The authors in this book both stress the importance of premium optics, and these do not come cheap. Expect to spend roughly $1500, or more, for a good quality 12.5" primary mirror alone. Quality doesn't come cheap, and with the only commercial Pyrex production line in the US shut down for the next several years, expect mirror prices to rise, drastically.

For those who can afford it, a scope like this can last for a lifetime. But if you can't afford such a huge investment, this book also covers construction of an 8", closed-tube Dobsonian (The larger sizes in the book are all truss tube models), which can be assembled for roughly $600.

Right now, several of my friends and I are starting to plan our dream scope, using nothing but this book as a reference guide. We're going to build slowly, completing one major piece at a time. This both insures that the finished unit is as high a quality as we are capable of producing, plus helps to defer construction costs over a longer period of time.

Even if you have no intention of every getting a Dobsonian, you will find many things of value in this book.

Why are you still reading this? Go and order a copy for yourself. Experience firsthand just how well written and useful it really is, and I'll bet you also start dreaming of cutting wood and aligning optics.

If you are interested in building a Dobsonian with professional results, this is the book for you. It even excercises pragmmatic guidance on what aperture should one choose by describing a series of scenarios one would not contemplate before building, but would clearly regret in the after.This is specially useful for those suffering from "aperture fever".

The author wisely leaves aside the craft of making your own optics. He reduces it to one chapter. The reason: if you you want to build a serious and large aperture telescope; buy the optics. This, with time and experience, comes as the best option.

Nothing is left aside on what building a Dobsonian may concern. I honestly didn't look for anything else after this book. (The only thing I surfed the internet for was for more images on Dob designs).

This is a rare book, for it accomplishes to fill virtually every doubt you may have on the subject.

I'm currently taking a class in PHP/MySQL and it's use in eCommerce, and this book has really helped me along the way! The author shows you the ways in which Dreamweaver can help you to reduce your development time, but still produced some really great, dynamic sites. He goes into detail on some of the code as well, which is helpful. Additionally, the author is very honest and recommends other resources for items he covers in a limited manner. If you want to learn more about connecting to a database or just using PHP for simple mailing forms, as well as some nice CSS tips, this book is for you!

I haven't finished this book yet. I have completed the chapter on how to setup a testing server for php. So far I am very pleased with the book it has allowed me to setup a server and test my php code. This book is well worth the price just for this.

This book is a wonderful assistant for people they like to dive into DW and PHP. It completes all my questions and it's tips are rule!

it is an excellent book. I'm not sure what exactly I actually expected from a book that has Dreamweaver, CSS, AJAX ad PHP (and MySQL) in its title. But one thing is for sure - this book is truly great because this book does something that a lot of other technical books do not do - it teaches you to use several technologies in a chronological way, by adding functionality to the same web site. You do not learn things by following many unrelated examples, but rather by following a step by step instructions which will lead you to the final product - a functional dynamic web site. I find this system of teaching to be the best, because it shows you the actual process of implementation of the techniques and technologies and how they work together on the same page. Teach by example. But beware, that this concept of teaching does not exactly explain the why's, but rather concentrates on the how's giving real world examples without pushing the reader to use a certain approach only to later explain why that particular approach was bad and show a good one.
Although this book is intended for beginners in programming, some of the stuff was rather hard to comprehend and you certainly should not entirely rely on this book alone and seek some more examples on the subject, just to give you more clarity. And you certainly should know your way around Dreamweaver. The author will give you a quick overview of the work environment and CSS, but this is not the book you want if you can't work with Dreamweaver at least at the upper beginner level. That applies to your knowledge of CSS too.
This is not a quick study book. You will see immediate results, but to understand what is going on and be able to use the knowledge to make your own applications will require a lot of determination and effort on your part. I personally like that - no pain, no gain. However, if you have the will to go through a lot of coding, reading, looking for that missing semi-colomn in your code and do not want to be bothered by childish examples and exercises, your perseverance will be awarded and this book will make you a better web developer. It's 5 stars and a big THANK YOU MR POWERS from me.

I have read many books on programming. While I have gleaned some value from just about every book, the page-count-to-learning ratio hasn't been great. And on a few occasions, I hit a roadblock where I simply wasn't getting what author was telling me I should be completely proficient with at that moment...anyone else experience that?? Makes me feel like a coloring-by-the-numbers code monkey. I've gone back to some of those books once I have gained some proficiency on the topic (elsewhere) to find that those authors made things unnecessarily complex. Who knows why, but it sure pisses me off.

I give you this background, so that when I say that this book is absolutely without equal in delivering actionable, easy-to-understand content on almost every single page, that is no exaggeration. I lost count of the number of times I came up with a question, only to read the very next sentence which usually went something like this, "...you are probably wondering why this is the case. Here's why..." It was incredible! And the exercises start to ween you off of the minutia at precisely the right pace (for me, anyway). It was a great confidence builder when the author wrote, "You should be comfortable with these steps at this point..." and I totally was.

Truly excellent work by David Powers and Tom Muck (who did the technical review). And they've kept their errata/updates site up-to-date with DW CS3, which definitely came in handy as I encountered current-version discrepancies with things like Spry 1.6.

One miss was, the very last exercise did not work for me. After thoroughly reviewing the sample code, my code, etc. I submitted it as errata...waiting for a response.

This book completes the series of Mandala coloring books by this author. Well worth the money spent.

I teach an alternative high school class and these designs have helped my students focus and relax at the same time. Anyone who works with troubled teens should have these at their disposal...one more item to add to your bad of tricks!

I think this will be fun to color with my granddaughter. We love to color things together, and we love designs. Thanks.

I enjoyed this book very much. I kept it on my coffee table and would color in it to relax. Now that each page is colored I have moved it to my bookshelf.

Out of the half dozen coloring books we bought last year this one was our favorite. Every design felt well thought out and was quite fun to color. My only complaint is that there weren't more pictures to color. This is well worth buying if you're looking for a challenge to your coloring skills.

This is a WONDERFUL Book!!!!
Thanks SO much!!
It arrived just in time!!

this is a great book! it has so many wonderful pictures. it's perfect for anyone studying fashion or costume related interests.

Many costume history books emphasize the historic aspects, or the costume aspects, of a collection's garments but "Fashion" presents the garments, as the title implies, as fashion. It is easy to envision these garments being worn by real people living real lives (the period accessories -shoes, hats, gloves, reticules, fans, stockings etc. - don't exactly hurt) and the presentation, right down to showing the garments on mannequins of the contemporary fashionable body shape help make the clothing `real'. The book definitely lets the garments speak for themselves; each century has a brief introduction, but besides those few pages, text is restricted to garment description and short `blurbs' here and there.

Costume historians tend to get really excited about books that bore other people to tears. This is not one of those books. Every one of my friends who has seen this tome has found in it something fascinating. The beautiful presentation of the garments, the large images and clear colors make this an ideal coffee-table book and an ideal gift for anyone interested in fashion, history, or the art of clothing. I saw the "Fashion in Colors" exhibit at the National Design Museum in New York (check out the book!) which featured many garments from the KCI, and I was happy to find they are as beautiful in the book as they are in person.

My main interests lie in pre-WWII clothing, but the arrangement of many of the collection's contemporary Haute pieces had my nose to the page. I reference this book constantly for inspiration (I'm a fashion major), for education, and simply for my entertainment. The KCI's publications can go out of print pretty quickly so beware! There is also a new book out "Fashion: A History from the 18th to the 20th Century, Volume 1", I've been having trouble getting it but it is supposed to be as beautiful and detailed as "Fashion".

This is an exquisite book filled with highly detailed images of beautiful garments. It is a refreshing look at western fashion through the ages since the clothing featured hasn't been photographed in every other book out there. Of particular interest to me were some 18th & 19th century paintings showing a garment paired with a photograph of the actual piece (or of a similar piece) now in the collection of the museum.

The span of time the book covers is from the 18th century to the 20th century. This not-too-tight focus enables the reader to see a good selection of garments from different time periods without running the risk of becoming boring. It also makes it easy to see the progress of fashion during those years.

As other reviewers have mentioned, this book is a great value. Nearly every page contains large, brilliant photos. A must-have for any fashion student or costumer.

I have owned this book for a while now and would like to highly recommend it as one of the best picture books on costume history. The photographs of extant period costumes are stylish and detailed, with a strict attention to accuracy and art. Because one cannot trust later renditions of costumes, having a contemporary resource is crucial, and with such lovely examples as these, this is a fantastic book to use.

It captures the essence of each period, shows off details, and does so with taste and care. Every page is in full color, covered with pictures of groups of mannequins, posed to look like portraits with abstractions of hair in the shape of the period. Anyone can read its gorgeous images and find inspiration in its pages.

I find the book "Fundamentals of digital logic and microcomputer design" very useful. I am a Cal Poly student, and took a few courses from Professor Rafiquzzaman. He is an excellent professor. It seems to me that the unproffesional comments by the other Cal Poly student are motivated. He probably took Professor Rafiquzzaman's class and received a bad grade. You should go through the book yourself and make your own judgements. The topics in the book are presented in a very simplified way. It's easy to understand. The CD included in the 5th edition is very handy. I am sure once you go through the book, you will know what I mean.

The content of this is easy for user to understand, and there always an examply in the theory. The author also combine Verilog in this book, so the student can understand Digital Logic efficiently before they can start Verilog. This will help most student understand the content of both Digital Logic and Verilog.

I haven't read this book, but from the reviews it seems that this book and the author are abnormal.

Makes understanding the subject simplistic. It tells you what you need to know and tries not to confuse you with all the other garbage some Digital Logic and Microprocessor Design books have in them. I also took a couple of courses with the author and I know that this guy has had a lot of experience with what he writes. He has written training material for certain companies in the industry. I recommended another book that he also wrote, "Preparing for an Outstanding Career in Computers," because he refers to this book in his courses and usually uses the examples from this book as a supplement to the class.

The first half of this book does an excellent job of teaching the background information needed for digital design. Unfortunately, the CPU-specific sections that follow are badly out of date. The author spends altogether too much time describing the 8086 and its family of (ISA-bus-specific) support chips -- devices that are almost never used anymore. It needs to be revised to talk about current technology.

I'm quite impressed with the author's memories of her mother and how she uses that as a base to help others get in touch with their own loss. Writing down family stories is so valuable to the one recalling the memories and to others in the family who read them. Remembering food, our mother's activities in the kitchen, what we shared together there... these are all powerful memories.
The author gives the reader the tools to get in touch with your loss and grief and to heal through your memories and writing. Through memories the person is still a part of our life.
The sections are titled:
Where to Begin: Follow Your Senses
Keep the Memories Alive: Laughter Is Good Medicine
Look for the Lesson: Hindsight is 20/20
Treasure the Touchstones: Make Rituals from Memories

Does the smell of baking bread take you back to a familiar kitchen? Does the first snowfall of the season remind you of holidays past? Robin Edgar shows us how to use these memories to reconnect with our past as a way to heal our present and preserve precious family traditions. In My Mother's Kitchen is a rich medley of Robin's own recollections of life with her mother. Each section of the book is followed by a set of practical exercises aimed at assisting the reader with the delicate mining of memories and the careful excavation of the attached emotions. "Your memory is like a muscle", the author tells us, "the more you use it the stronger it becomes." And like any good coach she leads us through the calisthenics that will get our memory muscle back into top form. If your goal is to preserve family history, work your way through bereavement, or recognize the value of the people, places and things that have shaped your life, this workshop in book form is a great place to start.

Robin Adelman's storytelling flare is what lures us into this very helpful guide to remembering. In a pragmatic (workbook format), yet sensitive way she turns us inward to the stories that bring lost loved ones back into our consciousness and back into our hearts. In My Mother's Kitchen teaches us to tell our stories, painful or peaceful, happy or sad. Because telling our stories bears our souls, we become transformed in the process. Robin took me to places that I had forgotten to go. Read this book and become nourished In My Mother's Kitchen.

Better than grief counselling, or assistance with medication, In My Mother's Kitchen is a must for every bookshelf.
Healing by reminiscence created by the author, is a unique method of dealing and overcoming grief, and loss.
I was priveledged to have had a personal encounter with Robin and her book, at the time of my Mother's stroke.
In My Mother's Kitchen has helped comfort and humour me through this difficult period, and I regularly reach for the book in times of need.Thank you Robin.

Robin Edgar's book is a comforting, charming memorial to the loving relationship she had with her mother. It could have been just that and still be an enjoyable read; however, Edgar takes the reader further by suggesting rituals to call up special times with a lost loved one and exercises to help one write family stories.

In My Mother's Kitchen can be read in a single sitting, yet it is worth returning and savoring the memories which Edgar's reminiscences trigger. She writes of her mother's disapproval of the young Edgar's experimenting with makeup. I immediately recalled my own father telling me, "Wipe that lipstick off your face. You could paint the side of a barn." I imagine many women have a similar memory which is a great story to pass on to our daughters and granddaughters. Or don't they wear makeup anymore?

Edgar writes of her mother's illness when Edgar is fifteen, and of her mother's struggle for the next ten years. However, this is not a sad story. Instead, it is a celebration and a savoring. Each vignette is charming within the four chapters: Where to Begin: Follow Your Senses, Keep the Memories Alive: Laughter Is Good Medicine, Look for the Lesson: Hindsight is 20/20, and Treasure the Touchstones: Make Rituals from Memories. I felt that the author was talking to me.

The book has been used by families in Hospice and grief counseling situations. Joy Johnson, founder of The Centering Corporation, a bereavement resource center, in her foreword calls In My Mother's Kitchen one of her favorite tools.

This is a gentle book for pleasure now, and for healing when we need it.

Reviewed by Judith Helburn
For Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviews.org
reviewing books by, for, and about women

Goes quickly, but he writes well and if you're a cat owner, you'll really develop a rapport with the cat stories in here. Not just for "cat ladies" - my husband picked it up and couldn't put it down.

Look you haven't heard a story read until you've heard it read by Christopher Timothy!!!! This guy could make a phone book interesting to hear read! These stories are great! They'll have you laughing and crying! So becareful if you listen in your car ;0) I was driving my 18 wheeler down a rural road in Luisiana getting all teary eyed! Scary thought, right?

When I sent away for this book I had no idea that it would be so beautifully illustrated in full colour. It is a real little treasure of cat stories told in a way that only James Herriott can. I loved it.

We loved this book so much, we named our two cats Olly and Ginny. 'Nuff said.

James Herriot writes of his veterinary experiences as no one else could. Full of humor,sometimes sadness but always spellbinding and interesting. I could not put this book down.

This book is great. It teaches jQuery very effectively and in a manner that all people can understand. I highly recommend it to anyone needing/wanting to learn jQuery.

very complete overview of the topic with well layed out examples. The reference book is a better long term value.

Learning jQuery: Better Interaction Design and Web Development with Simple JavaScript Techniques is a wonderful introduction to JQuery framework. The book offers many informative code samples and extremely helpful tutorials about how to make JQuery work for you and how to deal with common issues as well as not so common issues such as; acquiring information with the use of AJAX and manipulating tubular data. From the first page it is easy to see that this book is unlike any other.

This book will aid in taking away some of that fretfully complicated mess and help the reader get a sound start with JavaScript code, serving to reveal techniques that will make the reader's code much richer as well as much more efficient.

Unlike many in of it's like this book is designed more for the jQuery beginner. All that the reader need be equipped with is a general knowledge of HTML, CSS, and a firm understanding of the syntax of JavaScript, absolutely no jQuery or framework experience is needed to understand what is being expressed in the book, or to benefit from the information that is brought to light within its pages. That said I must also stress that the book can still be immensely enlightening to those with a great deal more experience with jQuery, it can teach is old pros new and more efficient techniques.

The information provided in this particular book is concise, clear, and essentially easy to understand. Important information is highlighted to ensure that it grabs the reader's attention and the same strategy is used with helpful tips. The code sample throughout the chapters are formatted well and broken down for easier reading, there are also addition sections of code bolstered. Perhaps one of the most useful as well as unique aspects of learning jQuery is the live examples provided on web sites.

I have found that these examples give the reader a better understanding for what the codes really do. The example alone are worth the books weight in gold, they are very high quality and can be applied to various real situations. The examples are also accompanied with screenshots that enrich the information.

I call this the second javascript book that you will ever need because you will first need some background and understanding in javascript such as from: Simply JavaScript. However, once you begin working with Javascript you'll find yourself wishing for an easier way to accomplish numerous tedious tasks. The solution is jQuery an open source javascript library that is supported by a sharp team of developers. Jquery uses an OOPS approach to many common tasks and provides a framework to accomplish in 1 or 2 lines of code what would take dozens using javascript alone.

Although Jquery is pretty straightforward the online forums and documentation aren't always clear and directions for someone starting out in Jquery aren't the best. That is why I bought this book and it has been an incredible help to me by giving me a structured, ordered and organized explanation of what Jquery can do. You'll find yourself savings plenty of time with it and expand your javascript capabilities exponentially.

I love JQuery. This book is a good reference and will give you insight. I think they could have done a better job in picking the examples but what they provide is solid.

There are some excellent tutorials linked on the JQuery home site that give a better intro than the book, but having read those first the book brings some more distintions and is worthwhile.

This is one of the best books you can buy if you creating a website, looking for ideas on how to make your site better or just need simple easy to implement ideas. Ginny has created an easy way to focus on your "audience" make any site practicle with simple solutions. Tips and trick that any one can do without functionality. This is a best value!

This book is an absolute must read for anyone who develops websites. Ginny Redish provides great examples of web pages and how the visitor is affected by the arrangement of the content. I love the way she presents a website user and allows you to "think" like a visitor.

I'm a big fan of technical communication texts. This book is exceptional, and stands apart from others in many ways:

- Many technical communication texts repeat the same rote guidelines. Although this book does not ignore the "classic" rules (e.g., "Write in inverted pyramid style"; "Use space effectively"), many of the rules are unexpected or even contrarian (e.g., "Use a sans-serif font"; "Long lists are o.k. for familiar items"). All rules are backed by examples that demonstrate their effectiveness.
- The book provides clear examples of real-world Web content, including many "before" and "after" images that demonstrate the book's principles.
- The production of the book is excellent. The color printing and rich layout help to make the book attractive and approachable.

Although the focus of this book is Web communication, the rules, principles, and guidelines are relevant to any form of written communication. The number of examples and diversity of the book's guidelines make this an ideal text for technical communicators and Web content developers of all levels of experience and proficiency.

Here's the ultimate compliment: I need to buy at least three copies, one for me and two for clients--who will love it, too!
Years ago, a professor of mine told a story about his being informed that his work was so easy and fun to read, it could not possibly be scholarly enough for a particular publication(!) This book might receive a few of those sorts of comments, too. On first glance, people with a fair amount of experience in this field might say it's too basic--but they would be wrong. This book is thorough, in depth, and deals with a wide range of issues--and explains why certain alternatives are better than others, instead of just saying, "here is how things should be." It is a thorough presentation of highly useful and relevant information in a enjoyable, understandable, and audience-aware and audience-friendly way.

Writing for the Web is not like writing a college term paper -- or even print ads. It takes understanding what your audience is seeking when they come to your website and presenting it in a manner that allows them to find it easily. Letting Go of the Words is a brilliant, easy-to-read book that explains how you can write usable copy for projects of any size.

Redish writes about the difference between the three major types of pages and what should be on them (and what shouldn't).

1. Home pages
2. Pathway pages
3. Information pages

She also gives useful advice on
* Focusing on your essential message
* Making your design easy to use
* Using lists and tables
* Using headings and illustrations effectively
* Writing links that get clicked, and perhaps most importantly,
* Fitting this all into a process that allows you to set expectations and meet deadlines.

Anyone involved with building websites (or writing blogs) can find value in this book. I learned a lot from it, and I think you would, too. I strongly recommend it.