Multimedia Books

A great book for those interested in learning a new language. Anyone with a basic knowledge of programming will be able to understand it. Although it is suppose to be learned in 10 minutes, it actually takes 10 days, but the point here is that u would master it at the end of the book.

Tim Evans has provided for all WWW users the best and simplest way to learn how to create first rate WWW pages using HTML. This is an outstanding "how to" type of book very suitable for everyone from novice standard and up. Tim takes you in a series of 10 minute lessons over a couple of weeks (or just a couple of days if your a fast learner) from knowing nothing about HTML authoring to producing quality WEB pages of the highest standard. And then adds to this with valuable advice for those new to Internet and a list of brilliant sites from which to retrieve more HTML tools

Short, sweet and to the point - this has the meat I need without any of the fluff. It helped me quickly get up to speed in no time. Easy to follow lessons with great tips.

If you need to quickly learn Dreamweaver, this is the book to get!

The books introduction says excatly how I feel about Dreamweaver, its complexity, its feature rich environment, and its power to captivate you, the user, when you click "Save As..." for the first time and realize how simple creating a web page could be.

What the introduction does not say is exactly how I feel about the book now that it is done and available for you to purchase. Although I am disappointed that I was not able to write more about a program that truly amazes me every time I use it, it does offer a beginner's level introduction to a variety of the features that are at your fingertips. I know that afyer reading this short book, the wheels will begin to spin and you will be just as captivated and amazed by Dreamweaver as I have become over the years.

Zak

Many people appeal to the concept of "common sense", but the problem with that is that people are often neither common nor sensible. Humans, particularly when under stress, often behave irrationally; doing things that were best left undone. With that as a premise, there were very few of the 100 ways listed in this book that most people with decades of work experience have not done at least once. The key, like all judgement calls, is to do them infrequently and with the lightest possible severity.
The situations listed are in most cases common ones, one that I consider most unlikely is number 19, "Send your boss an e-mail about him or her by mistake." That is one that I have never encountered and only rarely have heard of. Others are very obvious and avoiding them should be applied as general principles of the working environment. Some examples in this category are:

#11 Be a poor listener
#15 Have hidden agendas
#18 Avoid getting to the bottom line
#21 Be evasive
#28 Don't read what your boss sends you
#29 Be a know-it-all
#31 Look at work only from your perspective
#32 Hide your mistakes
#86 Never ask for clarification on assignments

All of these are obvious and should never be a fundamental part of your work persona. Most are deadly to your credibility and it will be destroyed very quickly.
I enjoyed this book, every item in this collection of snippets of advice is sensible and should always be foremost in your mind. Working should be an enjoyable experience, not a way to kill eight hours with the benefits of a salary. By thinking long and hard about how you can work within these guidelines, you will brighten up your work life, improve the work atmosphere of everyone else and quite likely make more money as well.

Reviewed by Bette Daoust for Reader Views (2/07)

Sometimes it does not take much to be on the wrong side of your boss, just look at anyone's track record, even my own! Do you have a boss that you want to avoid because you always get negative feedback? Is your boss one that only speaks to you if something goes wrong? Are words of praise lacking at your workplace or if there are some, it is only destroyed by the fact that they want more and more from you all the time? As with most businesses, we navigate a world of minefields and to make things even worse, we all find many ways to get on the wrong side of the boss.

Peter Garber's book details all the things we do to ourselves to ensure that things do go wrong and how we put ourselves into jeopardy in every aspect of our life. Yes, there is a boss at home too. At first the title seemed like it was subversive, but once I started reading the book, a whole world of connecting why things go wrong and how to improve situations came to light. Giving insight to the problems and offering solutions is one of the key elements that provide the reader with ways around creating aggravation.

What this book does is give sound practical advice for everyday situations. The advice can be applied in almost any situation. If you read between the lines, the advice given is sound and practical. Tip number 69 talks about making unrealistic requests and the problems that are created as a result. Your credibility goes down the drain each time you make another request and the perception of your work also comes into question. The solution provided is to ask for exactly what you want to provide that you and your work are credible. It reminds me of the budgeting problem in most organizations. You have to ask for money beyond your needs in order to get exactly what you want. The reason this happens is for the same reason, the corporation is used to people making unrealistic requests and in turn, reduce your budget by half or more. Would it not be better to put in a budget that accomplishes exactly what is intended and demonstrate the truth? Garber puts this point across through a solution that requires you to plan well and not to bluff your way through the process.

The book has a solid foundation on good approaches to making your work environment a place for solutions rather than problems. Garber makes excellent points on what makes a boss crazy and even better yet, suggestions on how to perform and work within an organization. "100 Ways to Get on the Wrong Side of Your Boss" is a must-read for anyone that has a boss or wants to be one.

This is one of the most inspirational and positive books I've read in a long time. It is so simply stated and motivational. I plan on buying several more to give as gifts to my friends and family. Surely this will sit on our bookshelf and we will use it like a reference book with our children. Many thanks to the author for sharing his gift with other parents who are trying to do their best to raise happy, healthy, and thoughtful children. This book speaks to so many people, not just to parents but to any adult who feels they may have lost sight of their purpose, or who may be missing out on all the joyful things in their lives.

This is a fantastic book. I loved reading it. It is so beautifully written and genuinely insightful and inspiring. The author has truly been open, creative and honest. What a great dad to write this for his son. It pulled at my heart strings and is a must have book. I cannot say enough how this book can inspire you to be the person you always wanted to be!!!!

You could buy this for a friend, partner or family member. Everyone that reads it will take something from it!

Volume II picks up where Volume I left off by concentrating on more current real time rendering and game engine topics. Where Volume I painted a broad sweeping overview of real time graphics topics, Vol. II extends this and ties in more closely with how many of those ideas affect the actual creation of games in a real 3d games engine called 'fly3d2' included on CD with the text (a more current and improved version of 'fly3dsdk' from Vol. I). All source code is included for the engine and can be kept current via the website through downloads as it is steadily updated. ... the complete source code for all engine modules and utilities requires purchase of the book.
Mr. Policarpo the coauthor maintains the site and regularly contributes to threads so support remains current (a real blessing in a rapidly advancing science such as this).

Some of the topic covered include: Gamespace (BSP, PVS...) management, LightMap creation and challenges, Camera control, Collision Detection and Response, Path Planning and AI, Shader and TexureMapping with various effects, Character Animation, Skeletal Mesh Animation and related issues as well as the fly3d2.0 environment and support and tutorials to play with and to make these ideas real...

The book covers most of the features include in the engine and anticipates extensions that may some day be added as well. The engine design is modular and lends itself to the creation of plugins that can leverage classes already included or that are completely new created by the user. Users can design levels, characters, objects, and control how they interact with the engine. Tutorials are included in the book as well as on the website with new ones being added by members of the community quite regularly. The modular design (in C++) and utilities that adapt Microsoft's Visual Studio and Discreet's 3dsmax (as well as Quake level conveter and a few others) allow seamless integration of these tools into the environment for a wealth of creative possibilities.

The text is clearly and concisely written and Mr. Watt demonstrates a commanding expertise in these topics without a lot of gimmicky embellishments or self-aggrandizement common in other more fly-by-night texts. This is a real hardcover edtion made to last by a quality computer technology publisher. Watt obviously maintains a close relationship with coauthor Policarpo the designer of the fly3d engine so writing ties in well with the fly3d platform but is not limited by or to it.

I cheerfully recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning the sometimes difficult and challenging topics of game creation, expansion and maintenance. It is a demanding subject not for the weak of heart that can be difficult and time consuming to master. I've found there are a lot of other books out there that promise to deliver by tempting the potential buyer with the ease and completeness their books will include; however, I have not come across any others as yet that come close to the coverage and approach this (and the previous) volume supplies.

Before I bought this book I already had tried other approaches to learning this material but found the all the books I'd bought offered poor to none of the support and potential that 3d Games Vol. II together with the fly3d platform delivers. To learn this material one needs to be able to play with the ideas and be excited about the possibilities and have the ability to play with real tools in a real games environment. 3d Games Vol. II is concise, helpful, well-written, and enjoys a small but dedicated community available through the website.

....
Mark Carleton Maguire
Boston MA

This book is a huge help to game developers. I found it a great read while writing my first game engine. It covers so much stuff it makes you want to try and add it all to your game! I am really happy with this book.

This is one of those books that I use all the time. Because this is the first book I've given 5 stars, I'd better explain.

First, I like the way the book organized itself along the lines that the ActionScript editor or toolbox lists the different ActionScript terms. The parallel makes things easy to find. Second, I like the way the examples are used. For instance, the author explains the geometry behind the cosine of an angle explaining the Math.cos() method and then provides an example that draws a perfect circle. That's a lot better than I get in just about any other book. (Maybe that's more than some need, but I appreciated it.) Third, I like the level range. The beginning of the book is only 2 chapters, but it's a good 2 chapters that provide a quick explanation of ActionScript and scripting. However, further on in the book, it also covers more complex things like registerClass() with a detailed examples. The same is true for all of the new objects like LoadVars().

Finally, I have found myself using the last several chapters covering UI components. Before I got this book, I really didn't use UI Components very much, and now I use them constantly. In fact, those chapters (Pt IV, Chs 14-21)are what I find myself using the most. If this book had nothing but Part IV, the book would have been more than worth it to me.

I think the book is worth 6 stars -- 5 for the first 3 parts and an additional one for the last part covering UI Components.

After Flash 5 ActionScript, I didn't think that it would get much bigger. Flash MX ActionScript is huge, and this book makes it available. The author spends only the first two chapters with the basics of writing ActionScript in the context of Flash MX and makes a nice transition from Flash 5 to Flash MX.

Then, from Chapter 3 to the end of the book's 21 chapters, the author decided to follow the order of actions in the Actions toolbox in the Actions Panel. That makes it very easy to find stuff because it's organized along the same logical patterns as the toolbox. Even so I found myself going to both the detailed TOC and appendix to look up terms, and I never had problems finding what I needed.

Anyone can explain the easy stuff like the old gotoAndPlay() actions, and so I went to the new OOP materials and XML socket section. The OOP stuff was mixed with non-OOP throughout the book, and OOP-related methods like registerClass() were explained in detail and supported with a good example using something that made sense in the context of Flash MX. In fact, the whole book was filled with good examples. Some examples extended over several pages and others were little ones that gave you a quick insight. Sanders is an ace with examples. As for the XML socket material, not only did the explanation explain to me for the first time ever what the blazes a socket server was, it provided a URL where I could download a free socket server, which I did. Then I worked the example, and now I have my own mini-chat in XMLSocket. I'm happy.

The last several chapters were in-depth explanations of the different ActionScript terms used with the new UI Components. Each component got its own chapter, and I found it invaluable for designing with the components. It does not cover re-skinning, but I was able to get the look I wanted by changing every element in the components and I am a big user of UI components. (You can change all the little parts of components like highlight, higlight3D, face, darkshadow, etc. without re-skinning.)

There were a lot of little details I liked in the book. The examples were mixed, interesting, and clarifying. Undocumented terms, like onData with LoadVars(), were included, and I found what I needed. One suggestion for people getting this book: buy some of those little colored tab stickem things to bookmark all of the part of this book you'll need to reference again and again.

This book stands out due to the diversity of its chapters. All together, they show a great amount of current research work in different research areas as well as different application domains, all dealing with adaptation issues in hypermedia systems. This diversity helps the reader to see new aspects and generate new ideas.

Everyone interested in Adaptive Hypermedia Systems must read this book. It captures the state-of-the-art in this fascinating field and delivers an one-stop reference volume for researchers, designers and developers of Adaptive Hypermedia Systems

I began trying to use Encore DVD a week ago. Prior to this, I only put together very simple DVDs with DVDit PE. I used a video training DVD from Total Training to become accustomed to Encore DVD, but when I sat down and tried to put together menus for a friend's DVD, I ran into one problem after another and didn't have the video to help. I had this book, though, and found solutions for each problem very clearly explained. By the end of the afternoon I had menus with moving video in the backgrounds, music, and buttons that linked perfectly. Steve Tomich has done a great job. Books aren't always easy for me to use -- I'm a visual learner -- but this was easy and I highly recommend it for people learning this great program.

Just want to share after reading and following the excercises of this book, that it is truly amazing how such a short book (300 pages) can teach you in such a complete manner. It starts from the beginning for the complete novice and takes you from the ground-up to an master level in the DVD production using Adobe Encore. If you have some experience using layers (something pretty basic) with Adobe Photoshop you can integrate both products incredibly. Also experience with Adobe Premiere and After Effects is a plus but not required.

Now I can do any kind of custom made DVD with all the bells and whistles (menus, timelines, chapters, subtitles, audio tracks, menu animations and more). I think you can read this book in just a couple of days even doing the practice on your PC with Adobe Encore 1.5.

Highly recommended, easy to use, step by step guide and everything is illustrated with details.

I was new to video editing so I decided to buy this book. I didn't have time to read through 500 pages of text. This book and CD was just what I hoped for - a visual way to jump start me into the world of video editing. The videos cover the basic techniques. There is a second video that you can purchase directly from the author at Brainsville.com that covers more advanced techniques.

The software is so complex I cannot imagine trying to learn this product just from a book alone, I recommend this method.

I've been fighting with Premiere for more than 5 years.
I've tried to learn to use it A LOT OF TIMES.
Finally, FINALLY, this book and CD got me working with it!
Thanks, Bonnie! Your approach is clever. The .mov lessons
run smootly on my laptop and you are really GOOD explainng
those details I never could grab before...!!!
I hope to send you soon a mini mpeg thank you movie
using the knowledge I've gain in just the first couple of hours!

Best regards from Caracas, Venezuela.

Practical benchmarks, Keen insight, & logical categorization. If you want to know more about the communication paradigm after hype of the concept, brand, this is a perfect and wonderful book

There's a growing belief among ad industry pros that the possibilities of conventional advertising media approaches has been exhausted and new media challenges point the way to a different advertising approach, yet Ads to Icons: How Advertising Succeeds in a Multimedia Age is the first specific guide to modern media advertising which analyzes in depth how the industry has developed these new approaches. 50 advertising projects from around the world are considered in case studies showing different uses of advertising in the post-digital world, making for a solid reference for any college-level business library where advertising and marketing are top subjects.