Multimedia Books

This is the most outstanding book ever written on MS IE 4.0 for professionals . The book is perfect for a beginner or an experienced user, with it's step by step instructions that really does teach you how to master the software.

This books hold your hand as it walks you through using the internet and email. I have found it fascinating to see how it all works. Not only do you get shown how to do things, but it tells you how it works as well. A great book and a must for everyone like me that needs that initial helping hand.

An excellent 3D surface modeling course. Easily assimilated material. Allows both student and professional to quickly familiarize themselves with the functions and commands, then continues to serve as an online/offline reference. All of the examples within the textbook are on the cd -- complete with multimedia demonstrations.

Book was like new, great price, great shipping time, and most of all great seller! Thank you very much!

The quality of shakespeare cannot be underestimated. For those that tread the well worn path of Macbeth and Hamlet, the Merchant is not too far off the track as something different.

The cast do not outshine the story but still add the traditional life and warmth that everyone can enjoy.

The Arkangel production is a brilliant new collection of timeless classics. You will never be able to resist remembering those age old quotes. So shines a good deed in a weary world... enjoy

This is a very impressively effective method.
And it's definitely worth the money. It's actually a cheap method given the results.

I say this from the point of view of an "experienced amateur language learner". Over the last 4 years, I've learnt 3 Romance languages, I have revived and improved the German I had learnt at school, in addition to my mother language (French) and to English. I confess I have learnt some Arabic with Pimsleur's 2 levels for Syro-lebanese Arabic.

I could do this because 1) There are very smart rather painless methods that I discovered and used: Pimsleur and Assimil. 2) I had the time , mostly when driving or performing some brain-easy activities (running, walking the dog etc...) 3) The methods I used are so rewarding and effective that they prompted a crave for learning new languages. I can now have conversations (general and in my professional environment) in all 3 romance languages and German.

This lengthy introduction is not intended at boasting, but rather at making 2 points: 1) I think I now can identify a good language learning method when I try one. And 2) there are methods that are very smart and make language learning very easy if you have the wish to learn and enjoy speaking foreign languages.

So far I considered Pimsleur the best to start with because as it's only audio, it's quite natural, and your pronunciation is based upon what you hear, not what you read. When you read foreign words, you read them with a brain that may have difficulties producing an appropriate pronunciation because it will interpret the reading according to your reading experience in your languge. This is why so many French people pronounce English like Inspector Clouseau. Pimsleur is also very good because it brings you to constructing your own sentences based on other , different sentences. And it is a very quickly rewarding method, you soon realize you can actually speak the language. But thereafter, especially after the ideal Pimsleur method that comprises three 30 lessons levels , each intended 25 minutes, with one lesson a day (I did more on occasions for the easy romance languages) more so with short Pimsleur series, you do not have enough words and tenses to understand easily. And at times it's quite awkward to identify the sounds and reproduce them. But although you lack words you can express basic needs and have simple conversations. After these usually 3 months, you need to expand your vocabulary a lot, which Assimil is very good at doing especially if you work as much as you can with the CDs. There you will memorise words and many idioms in context . You'll need the booklet to understand the text that you'll need to repeat while understanding it, while listening to the CDs, like an almost simultaneous echo, which some call "to shadow the speech". Well that's how it works best for me..

But now I discovered this new "MICHEL THOMAS" Arabic foundation method, based on late Michel Thomas (MT) principles, and designed by a British teacher of Arabic helped by a native speaker of the Egyptian dialect.
THIS METHOD IS MUCH EASIER TO GO THROUGH THAN PIMSLEUR, and gives you more for your time and money. But it has the same huuuge advantage of being only audio (see details above.
The only problem so far is that only the Foundation course (8 CDs) is available and I'll be eagerly waiting for the "advanced" course" (March 2008) and the "vocabulary " course.

But IN 8 CDS, THE ACHIEVEMENTS ALLOWED ARE REMARKABLE.

Well, my case is special since I did not start from scratch, having done Pimsleur's level one 1 year ago and level 2 one month earlier in another Arabic dialect. But the Egyptian dialect is somewhat different.

The teaching is quite slow in purpose (I guess) so as not to put the learner under stress. It seems that the quiet environment created by the gentle pace and tone of the teachers, their nice and positive attitudes towards the students, all of this seems to be essential to open our minds and help us memorise and eventually speak. Well you realise this when later in the course you're asked to say something and you actually do say it.

Of course this basic course with it's 8 slow paced CDs does not teach you many words, less than a 30 lessons (15 CDs) of Pimsleur, but I think it's a more effective method for a difficult language like Arabic. I had to spend much more time on Pimsleur than 30 minutes per lesson for level 1, sometimes having to do the same lesson 3-4 times before I could pronounce /identify the sentences. In the MT program, it's way easier. And still you are led to build sentences on your own, being fed the bases earlier.

My impression is that those 8 CDs can be used without going again and again through the same "lessons". I did not need to listen more than once.
And after completing it you'll be much more at ease to further progress using either other methods or the aforementioned next steps of the program, pending for release.

I DEFINITELY RECOMMEND THIS "ARABIC FOUNDATION": if you want to learn Arabic it quite certainly is the best to start with and you'll see , it's not very difficult. Then you 'll probably find it easy to move on either with the "advanced course" which I understand will be available in March 2008 and the vocabulary course later or with other methods.

RESERVATIONS:
1) I cannot speak from the point of view of a naive learner from scratch. Nevertheless I found the method not boring and I did understand post hoc some details that had escaped me while doing the Pimsleur program. I'll certainly try the Mandarin or Russian program from the same publisher on the same principles, then I'll know the value for the absolute beginner. 2) The choice of Egyptian. I think this is a good choice since many sources and Arabic speakers I know indicate that it's understood by almost all Arabs, mainly because so many TV series and films are from Egypt (Hollywood on Nile). Many methods teach you "Modern Standard Arabic". You never hear that Arabic spoken except maybe on TV news on international Arabic channels. I find it better to learn one of the dialects, either Egyptian or Lebanese/Syrian: all those are understood in Jordan Irak and the gulf, and Egypt. Egyptian might be more understandable in Northern Africa for the reasons mentioned above. . 3) No teaching of the writing. So what? I don't care since I just want to communicate orally. Learning the writing would definitely slow down the pace of learning and make it more difficult. A good learning has to be rewarding so keep that for later, when you speak the language. 4)The 2 students in the course. Strange as it may seem I think they help. First, they have hesitations and make mistakes that you (I ) have or do. Second they help convey the positive empathy of the teachers onto you. This is supposed to ease the learning process in according to MT's principles. I do find the students helpful. 5) As you're exposed to only one speaker who speaks clearly and rather slowly, you are not prepared to understand a flow of Arabic at normal speed, and this is what expects you, because when Arabs will hear you speak well (you will, I think) , they will assume you understand as well as they hear you speak. This is also a problem with Pimsleur that facilitates a nice pronunciation, which exceeds the lower quality of our understanding. But you have to start somewhere and here again this MT Arabic Foundation I recommend wholeheartedly.

CONCLUSION
I think it's an excellent and cheap but effective method to start with. Very rewarding for the short duration it lasts. Hopefully the next levels will be as effective.

Think it's amazing book. One of the best TCP/IP book that i had or saw.
I had TCP/IP Network Administration of O'Reilly (2nd edition). That book didn't really impressed me. It don't covers the aspects that you'll want to know.

This book covers more aspects, it have very good structure, clear explanations of all covered subjects. Think it's very handy book for everybody, even if you're not sysadmin.

I was pretty satisfied by the contents of this book. This book is a comprehensive guide for network administrators to implement Commerce Server 2000 and administer and secure it effectively. The configuration examples are comprehensive and I could configure Commerce Server 2000 with ease after reading the contents of this book. The authors seem to have a thorough hands-on experience with Commerce Server 2000. I liked the chapters on deployment, security and integration of Commerce Server with BizTalk server. This is indeed a great buy!!

This is a well-written and very helpful book. I am a musician of many years, however I was fairly new the world of MIDI until a few months ago. It's amazing how far it's come, and I played with it in the early days and didn't think much of it. As far as it's come, MIDI has become very sophisticated and complex. I purchased Cubase several months back, and I expected to get a handle on MIDI editing quickly. Nothing doing. What I discovered is: You can be a great musician, have spent years studying composition and arranging in a traditional sense, and none of that will necessarily help you when it comes to advanced MIDI operations and MIDI editing. Cubase has a very, very extensive and complex set of features and thoroughly understanding them is no easy task.

The Cubase manual is helpful. But, I soon discovered, it's a bit like learning to drive a car by reading the car's manual. What I realised is that I really needed a book that would walk me through various MIDI editing situations and help me get acquainted with those features in Cubase. Then, I found this book by Steve Pacey, which is exactly what I was looking for.

I just picked up the book. Having browsed through it, read the intros, and the first chapter, I can tell you it's well written. Pacey appraochs topics in a straightforward way, and his explanations are really clear. I'm going to be spending an hour or two each day to work through the book sequentially, and I think it will really pay off. If you learn best from books, then you'll really like this book. If you're taking a course in a similar topic, then I imagine this book will probably help you a lot, too. Unfortunately, music technology was nothing like it is today back when I was in school.

MIDI editing is a fairly advanced topic in my mind, and this book goes into depth. You should be generally familiar with Cubase, and you should have a reasonably good knowledge of music fundamentals. (Not to scare people away, just that if you don't know what time signatures are, for example, you might have trouble in the Quanitizing section of the book.) In this book, Pacey also covers related topics, such as score editing. He doesn't go into depth---which makes sense becuase it's a topic worthy of its own book---but, he does tie those other features of Cubase to the MIDI editing, which really helps to round out the instruction.

On a technical note, the book is written with reference to the PC version of Cubase 4. If you're using the Mac version of Cubase 4, you'll probably notice some superficial differences with the book. If you're using a previous version of Cubase, such as SX3 (which I am using on a PC), then 95% of the book will still apply to your version. (You could probably use the OEM "LE" version of Cubase and still find this book helpful.) Have the Cubase manual handy while you're working with this book so that you can cross-reference (which is something the author recommends anayway). The included CD has demo files which are specific to Cubase 4. You can't use them with a previous version of Cubase, but not a big deal---you can still work along using your own MIDI file. I'm not saying there's no value to the included demo files, just that you can easily get along without them, if need be. Don't hesitate buying this book if you're just worried that you don't have Cubase 4.

I am surprised that a book devoted to MIDI editing in Cubase hasn't come out until now. Thank you to Pacey and editors for recognising that gap.

A Table of Contents is published at the Thomson Course Technology website. I am copying it here for reference. I hope that is permissible:

Table of Contents
A Quick Look at the Key Editor
The Tool Buttons
The Toolbar
The Controller Lanes and the Line Tool
The MIDI Menu
Working with MIDI in the Project Window
The In-Place Editor and the Edit Menu
A Closer Look at Quantizing MIDI
Working with MIDI Effects and Modifiers
The Drum Editor
The List Editor, Logical Editor, and Project Browser
The Score Editor
Now That You Know Everything There Is to Know about Editing MIDI in Cubase
Working with Multiple MIDI Tracks in an Editor
More Shortcuts
Index

I have been struggling with the Reason program for many months now with limited success. After reading the first 30 pages or so of this publication I was cranking out songs in less than an hour each. VERY usefull and effective tutorial. Thank you Steve Nalepa for a job well done!

Papa Homer Brinlee