O Books

This is a must have for anyone interested in learning more about the traditions and cultures of Native Americans. Thoroughly researched, well written, beautiful color photos, respectful.

This book is very well researched, and it makes one want to spend time traveling and learning more about Native American culture.

This book is worthwhile for readers new to Arizona as well as for those who may already live there.

I lived in Arizona for 28 years and traveled to many of the sites in the book, yet I still discovered a lot of new things reading it. I particularly enjoyed the sidebar stories about people, places and events that presented anecdotes and little-known facts about Indian Arizona.

In fact, in reading the book, I actually became a little nostalgic for many of the prehistoric sites I personally visited and explored over the years. This includes a moving experience that I had while visiting the Heard Museum In Phoenix.

One final note, the writing style is very clear and easy to read.

When you launch your own discovery of Arizona's Indian cultures..., I suggest you begin by reading a comprehensive new book, "Traveling Indian Arizona," by Anne O'Brien... Anne is an experienced hand in the Southwest, working with museums in Denver, Flagstaff, and Phoenix. She has assembled something much more than an instructive travel book; this is a small encyclopedia of the many native peoples that continue their customs, and their arts and crafts, in Arizona. The many color photographs and the essays by elders and by anthropologists provide an additional dimension. --Richard Sims, PhD, Director, Sharlot Hall Museum, Prescott, AZ

This is a very well written guide for anyone traveling through the Southwest. The author provides excellent historical information as well as suggestions for routes, places to stay and nearby places of interest. On a recent trip to Canyon de Chelly, we used the book to plan our route, stops along the way, and as a reference for the history of the area. The author obviously feels strong ties to the native people of the Southwest..

I gave a copy of Treasures of the Heart to my grandmother and she loved it. She has been a Bible School teacher in Massachusetts for over 60 years, after reading the book, she commented "I wish I had read this book in the beginning, because Diane tells the stories so well and makes them so clear."

I read this review by Ron Kaplan in the New Jersey Jewish News and
wanted to share it:"That these stories are familiar in no way detracts from readers' enjoyment. Using copiously researched sources, Wolkstein makes the tales meaningful and lyrical as she traces Judaism's roots through its biblical generations.
Critical to appreciation of the stories themselves are the citations Wolkstein offers. As when reading the wroks of Shakespeare, one often needs explanations insofar as language, customs, and
context are concerned. Wolkstein's explications enhance the reading enormously. Books like TREASURES OF THE HEART are fodder for discussion, both on literary and religious levels."

I hope this book will be appreciated and enjoyed by many readers.

Pat Thurman

This book is extraordinary. As Peninnah Schram wrote in her
PARABOLA review:"Turning and weaving are the choreographic movements that Diane Wolkstein has used in composing her extraordinary expansive book. She has turned the Torah to
reveal its seventy faces interweaving, in various combinations, oral legends,
Talmudic and midrashic texts, history texts, academic findings,
along with her own interpretations and reflections....This is a
book that will truly give the readers an understanding heart, listening eears and vision through new eyes. Highly original in concept, it opens many pathways to understanding the spiral flow of Jewish time, the binding core of Judaism. Through the
sacred narratives that have been read aloud communally for centuries--and continue in synagogues today--the book highlights
the recurring holiness of sacred time....She infuses her work with the appreciation and learning gained under the mentorship of her acknowledged translators and guides, expecially Reb Sholomo Carlecach."
This is a very insightful piece that captures the essence of TREASURES OF THE HEART. I urge everyone to read it.
Nancy Kahan

I think of Diana Wolkstein as a female Martin Buber. She attempts to articulate a mature I-Thou spirituality just as he was, but without his abstract philosophical abstruseness. Instead, it is as if, in the true spirit of the feminine, she invites you to sit down at her cozy kitchen table and then announces that the constellations (the stars by which you guide your life) have shifted, but not to worry, "Have another cup of tea."

She says truly revolutionary things in such a loving way. Unlike the patriarchal prophets who threaten you with fire and damnation, she invites you to a loving partnership with God and your fellow human beings.

Her reading of the Old Testament is warm and inclusive. The focus is less on judgment, tribalism, smiting and warfare and more on what it means to have a relationship with God.

Like a deep sea diver she plunges into the stories and comes up with the pearl of great price -- a spiritual vision of who we are, why we are and where we are going for a post 9-11 21st century. I cannot say loudly enough how important this is. The Bible is the hidden storyline for all our current global crisis, from terrorism, to Iraq, to environmental destruction.

For westerners, these stories are our cultural DNA.
By changing the order of the holidays and finding the feminine wisdom that has always been present in the stories, Wolkstein invokes this mature relationship with God and moves Judaism from a 4000 year-old cycle of grief, guilt and lamentation to a Judaism of embodied joy.

Wolkstein's lifelong spiritual search for her own good heart give her deep eyes. With them, she sees the Bible stories anew and shows how they can light our way into a joyous and compassionate new century.

The God of the Old Testament performs many functions: he is a severe master, a patient teacher, the leader of his chosen people,the inspiration to all. He is also frequently puzzling. In this wonderful book, Diane Wolkstein has scraped away all the old habits, the many accretions which had taken the life out of these stories.Thanks to her, their protagonists are people we understand, people almost like us.
The soul of Judaism -that base of Western civilization- is indeed one of the gifts the author makes us: but there is also much more. As we come to know one of the world's oldest religions, it is also ourselves we discover.
All that is is a very great deal; but there is more. Diane Wolkstein never lets us forget that she is an inspired story teller. Who would have thought that the Bible could be filled with suspense, or indeed that we would be made to care so much about many of its figures?
This is a book that anyone with interest in the human psyche, in history, in drama, in religion should read.

If you want to be successful when you turn green wood or newly cut lumber on your lathe. I recommend purchasing this book and reading it all the way through before you begin your wood turning project. When you use green wood there are different procedures that you need to follow than when you use dried lumber. I had tried to turn some green logs on my lathe and had many problems with wood cracking and was very unhappy with the results. After purchasing this book I learned the reasons why my previous attempts had not been successful. I only wish I had gotten the book at the same time I purchased my new lathe. It is an excellent resource on how to use green logs and newly cut lumber that can add flexibility and save money on wood costs when you use "found wood" and cut the logs yourself.

Great book - great photos - great ideas - great explanations and written so anyone can understand the directions and concepts (even me).

this is a good basic book of how to deal with green wood and also the use of crotchwood. well written and illistrated

Great and a must have for all turners. The book is more oriented toward bowl turning but covers a ton on green turning with plenty of pics and diagrams. Michael O`Donnell goes to great length to educate the reader on how wood dries based on where it is cut form the tree.

As a beginning turner, I searched for books that were both informative and interesting to read. This book approaches turning with 'green' in mind but also has some very good information about wood properties and turning in general. Very much worth buying even if you are an experienced turner.

This chapbook should be on every coffee table. Kathy is an outstanding modern poet with insite into our heart. I hope to see more of her work soon.

This book of poems is remarkable! The author is an inspiration to all her readers and truely knows how to touch the human heart. I give this book as gifts at every occasion, as I like to give the gift of uplifting a person's soul and brighten their day with a present. I reccommend this book to people of all walks of life for every occasion, it will bring a smile to your face. When will the author publish another?

Each poem struck me with several unique and powerful emotions. I was able to identify with many of the situations and felt very close to the author's work. I was easily able to lose myself in each poem and found myself living all the different situations. Definetly going to check out other works by this author and I definetly recommend this book to anyone who ejoys poetry that causes you to relate and use your imagination in your own personal life.

Wow! I've never been much in to poetry before, but one of my friends told me that "Underbelly" is a must read. I read the book straight through. The author of this book was so insightful in her writing. Each poem really made me stop and think about my own life. I would definetely reccommend this book to anyone, in fact, I am going to be buying several copies to keep on hand as I need a quick gift to give out to a friend.

Underbelly is an inspirational book that breaks the silence of secrets, portrays the struggle of healing, and the triumph of love. Most importantly, this book shows us how poetry serves as a vessel for personal transformation and victory over the challenges that life brings before us.

The author presents Unicode well from all possible angles. He also explains related topics like character encodings, transfer encodings, ways to input the characters in popular software programs, font issues, portability. It is well written.

Its side notes are also interesting - explaining things like Arabic right-to-left with its contextual characters with 4 different forms; or how they mused over using one common Chinese Han character to be shared by Japanese , Koreans and Vietnamese versus including a version of each in their languages' ranges of individually separate characters.

Are you an IT professional who needs to understand Unicode and work with it? If you are, then this book is for you. Author Jukka Korpela, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that explores Unicode processing generally, but does not go into great detail on all parts of the Unicode character space.

Korpela, begins by providing a self-contained tutorial presentation of Unicode and character data. Then, the author gives detailed information about using Unicode and other character codes. Finally, he discusses relatively independent topics to be read according to each reader's specific needs.

This most excellent book guides you through the Unicode and character world. More importantly, it explains how to identify and classify characters.

I had to deal with Unicode in greater detail for two reasons. I am working on some old ASCII and ANSI text converter for the web to be able to show them in text format in a browser, rather than converting them to an image as existing tools do. The second reason is XML and the normalization of the content distributed via XML and processed or used by XSLT or DHTML apps.

I realized that the whole subject is a lot more complicated than I initially thought and the number of questions that needed an answer to move forward with what I was doing increased significantly. I was finding stuff on the web, a little bit here and a little bit there and had it one day, because progress was slow.

I stumbled one day across this book via a Google search, which returned passages from it from its Google Book search results. I found a very good answer to one of my questions and answers to some other questions that were lying around unanswered from before. I checked the index of the book to see what subjects it covers and realized that it pretty much covers all of them. So I went ahead to Amazon and bought it right there and then.

I am glad to this day that I found it and can recommend it to anybody who has only little or no knowledge of Unicode and struggles with getting a grip on all those standards for data encoding, which make it hard to keep the data within XML and text files intact across platforms and prevent your XML based application or tool from breaking because of illegal data in your content.

This book is excellent. The author's writing style is easy to read and he pretty much explains everything about Unicode. It's perfect if you're working with multi-lingual Web sites or email, or just if you want to start using Unicode for all of your Web site development (something everyone should do).

The only thing disappointing about this book is that all of his examples and screen shots are for and from Windows. A reader could come away with the feeling that Mac OS X and Linux don't have as much support for Unicode as Windows which, of course, is not the case at all. The least he could have done is to mention and give screenshots of Linux's "Character Map" app and Mac OS X's built-in "Character Palette", both of which are pretty much just like the Windows "Character Map" app.

I'm surprised O'Reilly allowed a book about such a platform-neutral subject to be so Windows-centric. Hopefully they can hire someone to add Linux and Mac OS X examples into the second edition.

If you're like me, you probably think of Unicode as "expanded ASCII" and that's about it. But there is infinitely more to the subject than I thought, and Unicode Explained by Jukka K. Korpela is an exhaustive reference to all that is Unicode. And in this increasingly global computing environment, you will need to know this information...

Contents:
Part 1 - Working with Characters: Characters as Data; Writing Characters; Character Sets and Encoding
Part 2 - A Systematic Look at Unicode: The Structure of Unicode; Properties of Characters; Unicode Encodings
Part 3 - Advanced Unicode Topics: Characters and Languages; Character Usage; The Character Level and Above; Characters in Internet Protocols; Characters in Programming
Appendix - Tables for Writing Characters; Index

In concept, Unicode is real simple. An expanded character set using 16 bit encoding, and you can accommodate far more languages and symbols than straight ASCII. But the implementation is far more complex than that. Korpela starts with the basics of characters... what they are, what they mean, and the nuances involved. From there, you learn about how applications have to interpret the different encoding standards and handle things like case, sort orders, line breaks, etc. When I saw the size of the book (600+ pages), I wondered if the material was just a lot of reference tables that could be found online. Gladly, it's not... This is an exploration of everything that is Unicode, and you'd have to wade through a lot of web pages to even begin to glean the level and value of information that you'll find here.

If you have anything to do with programming or designing global software, this book purchase is a no-brainer. And even if you're not doing anything in that area right now, this is one of those reference titles that is worth having on your bookshelf and available for the first time you *do* need it. It won't take long to pay for itself...

In my opinion, this is the best book on UNIX programming I have seen. If you already know C and want to learn how to program on the UNIX os, this is the book to get. This is what taught me. I usually always have this book with me. I even like the color!

This book gives an excellent introduction to systems programming in unix. Within a couple of weeks of buying this book, I was able to design and implement a multi-process client server (socket based) application from scratch. The author also discusses the common C library functions used and the caveats there of. (for instance, the gets() function is a dangerous one!) Although I program a lot in windows NT, I still find this book to be a good reference, especially when porting applications from unix to NT. One thing that I wish the book had is a discussion on remote procedure calls (RPC).

This book isn't just a handy reference for programming in C in the UNIX environment; it's a useful reference for any C programmer. For example, the discussion of file I/O is very clear.

This book is written in a very easy and understandable way. It explains main concepts, system calls and their parameters and how to use them. It lays an excellent ground for a quick start in UNIX systems programming and prepares for more in-depth material like books by R. Stevens. I would say that this book is a must-read for all starters.

If there ever was a book that was badly advertised, this one is it. If we're to believe the cover and even the reviews on Amazon, it's just another book on Unix, when actually it's an essential Unix System V C libraries reference for C programmers. I haven't found anything remotely similar out there. I only bought it after flipping through the pages in a bookstore. It covers everything from file I/O through IPC. It contains tons of code that clearly show how to use each function. As it's a little dated, It doesn't cover pthreads or IPV6, but hopefully the author will make a second edition soon...and make sure that C programmers know that this book is what they're looking for!

Family and friends alike can attest to the fact that, after having read this book, I've changed. We hear many times over from respected authors, lecturers, t.v. personalities, and the like.. That at certain stages in life profound changes can, have and do occur. Some person(s), place, thing(s), circumstance and/or combination thereof can effect a marked change in one's very thought processes, thus affecting one's conduct and methods of accomplishing any number of goals. Even to the extent of altering their pursuit in life. Such is my case. Timing and mind-set are two additional and crucial components. This book and I were in the right place at the right time, when we met. My mind-set? Let's just say, for me, all the necessary aforementioned components for change were in place.. About this book it is heavily referenced with knowledge/texts that were supposed to have been lost and/or destroyed e.g. 'the book-burnings', etc., of the middle ages. After proving for myself (with my meager and limited resources) and accepting the contents of this book as true, change was nearly un-avoidable. I say 'nearly' because one does have a choice. I say 'change' and 'un-avoidable' because, well, consider the title.. Unveiling Satan- Her True Identity Revealed. This book challenges a foundational belief that argueably the whole world has been raised up in--the male-ness, if you will, of Satan. Our understanding of who Satan is and her role and impact upon our lives is critical to our belief- systems (faith). The importance of this knowledge can't be over-stated. In order of importance, I'd rank the question of Satan's identity like so.. (1) Who is the Creator/Heavenly Father? (2) Who is the Messiah/Savior? (3) Who is Satan? (4) Why is man(kind) here? (5) Where must I go to get the answers to these and other questions? This book is heavy and it weighs alot. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

Not unless you are ready to challenge one of the most entrenched beliefs in the history of this modern age. It turns out that Satan is not masculine!
When I first heard of this book, I thought, what the hell is he talking about? Mr. Hawkins proves his point beyond any shadow of doubt.
I learned more about human nature from this book than I can consume in a lifetime.

This book is a must for every believer in Yahshua the Messiah.It exposes the false ideas concerning satan .Shocking but Biblical proof is offered by Hawkins of her identity and work on the earth.If you have courage enough to be challenged in your beliefs then purchase this book.It is one you cannot put down.

1-22-99 Any one seeking Truth? This Book is the most informative book I have ever read in my entire lifetime. The facts are proven clearly within the confines of the book and references are given throughout. Clearly we must look at these Facts and begin to understand why it is that we are in such a Chaotic state on this planet, as well as the entire universe. It is also evident that the Author has a gift of insight,being able to explain the intricate details that are written in a very easy to read and entertaining method. Never losing the reader by boredom. Don't miss out on this one as well as the new book The End by the same author Yisrayl Hawkins.

The "R" rated cover of this hardcover book is eye catching. The sexual organs of Adam and Eve seemingly had been covered by leaves making a "G" rated picture. It almost looks like it was totally produced by the publisher for shock effect. The explanation on the inside front cover says that it was painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and sponsored by Pope Julius II between 1508 and 1514. Either they were "dirty old men" creating the Devil Serpent into a woman for purient purposes or they knew something most people don't, even today. This author apparently has revealed astounding and undeniable proof of the FACTS that have been hidden for hundreds of years. I checked out the color photos of the Sistine Chapel in a library and found the actual picture to be the "naked truth." The book also shows other pictures painted centuries ago that depict Satan as a female. As an interested skeptic,I also was shocked to learn that Satan is God and that the Creator and Heavenly Father is not God, but a Supreme Being known as YHWH (in Hebrew) pronounced Yahweh. This book will shock the average reader, as it did this reviewer who is also a skeptical investigative writer. It will make you revaluate your core beliefs. All is proven by ancient Hebrew texts translated into modern English of today without the "art, and thee and thou." There are numerous photos and illustrations that make for lucid explanations and historic reference. At times it read like science fiction, but then on the next page it documents everything said. If you are a "seeker" with an open mind and want to learn more about a true religion that is not taught today but prophesised to be revealed at the "chaotic end days" then this is the book for you. It is not Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheisism or new age religious mysticism. As revealed in the fascinating reading, it is the oldest true religious belief in the world that seems to be also the youngest that would be re-established toward the end of this century. It combines the old and new testament into a core belief that the Messiah and the Apostles taught. You just don't read this book, you study and cross check.

Valerie Griffiths' excellent translation and abridgment of the first volume of Ayako Miura's autobiographical Michi Ariki series is a pleasure to read. Miura's unflinching honesty about herself and about the world comes through clearly. The book spans Miura's life from the end of WWII (after she lost faith in all forms of authority, in herself, and in the line that separates truth from falsehood), through long and life-threatening illness, till she finds faith in the God of the Bible and gets married to Mitsuyo Miura. The second (as yet untranslated) volume of the series covers the early years of their marriage and the start of her enormously successful career as a novelist. In the third volume (also untranslated) Miura writes about her Christian faith.

The original book has had an enormous impact on Japanese readers, and, judging from the other reader reviews here, its message is meaningful for English-speakers as well. I found the cover illustration of Intervarsity Press's English version (1977) to be off-putting, however, and I wonder how much that had to do with their apparent lack of success in marketing the book when it first came out in the US. It is very unfortunate the book didn't reach more readers, for whatever reason. It is absolutely worth taking the trouble to track down a copy of this book.

The story is set in Japan. It's a very powerful and gripping book about a young woman's journey during the years following Japan's surrender.

The book is part one of three from Miyura Ayako's autobiography. The other two parts are not available in English to my knowledge. I really recommend this book for anyone who wants an interesting perspective on Japanese culture. Of course, it's set about 50 years ago, though... but still very interesting and as I said, powerful.

I found this book in a tiny drugstore in Idaho. So, keep your eyes peeled and you might find it yourself somewhere.

One of the most memorable books I've read. Very Surprised to here it's out of print.

Other than Bruchko, I have never read a more powerful story of how nothing can separate us from the love of God. I found the out-of-print book close to 10 years ago when I wandered into the church library of a large prominent congregation here in Atlanta one day while I was waiting to meet someone; it had not been checked out in many years. But I learned when I was a young woman that in relatively unused, dark and sometimes dank libraries of old churches, one can often find hidden unknown treasures among the biographical books. I have since given the book to many of my peers, all of whom reported back how much it had impacted them as well. But this week I was blown away at a birthday party for my friend who helped me to know the Lord more than 30 years ago. One of her daughters, a gorgeous, elegant young woman who is a beauty consultant at a very sheik store in San Francisco, had flown in for her mom's birthday. At some point the conversation turned to great books, and this young woman told me that unbeknownst to me, she had read the copy of this book I had given her mom and to her it was the best book she had ever read. I had assumed that a large part of the book's enormous appeal to me was the fact that I was in the baby boomer generation and have had to struggle to come to terms with the War that so shaped the world into which I was born. But now I know such is not the case. So for any of you who, like me, would love to read a riveting true story that is more incredible than any fiction, get a copy of this book while you can - and pray that someone will translate the other 2 books in the triology into English.

This lady's life story has helped me understand both the Japanese people and how God's grace extends itself in the context of the culture of those receiving it. It would be fascinating simply as a biography of triumph in the face of life. It is made much more so as a spiritual journey's unwinding. Miura (I believe her married name is Hotta ?) also has a most gentle way of bringing other people's life intersections with hers into a focus I have rarely read in an author....One feels one is there in the room with the people she meets. Honesty to a fault was a breath of fresh air. She does not attempt to spline the curve of her actions and thoughts closer to some more genteel model. Reading this one is privileged to meet Ayako Miura and the Answer she discovers to the meaning of life in bold relief.

Sometimes, a book in the Annoyances series is one that you can use to fine-tune an application you use often. And then there's this one... Windows Vista Annoyances by David A. Karp. Regardless of whether you hate Vista or think it's the best Windows OS out there, you'll be finding useful and applicable tips on every other page here. Vista is just tailor-made for a book like this, and Karp takes full advantage of the opportunities.

Contents:
Get Started with Windows Vista: Editions of Vista; Install Windows Vista; Migration to Windows Vista
Shell Tweaks: Customize Windows Explorer; Working with Files and Folders
The Registry: The Registry Editor; Structure of the Registry; Registry Tasks and Tools; File Type Associations
Working with Media: Playing Video; Handling Online Video; Sound and Music; Photos, Pictures, Images; Media Center Annoyances; CD and DVD Drives
Performance: Trim the Fat; Make Your Hardware Perform; Hard Disk
Troubleshooting: Crashes and Error Messages; Dealing with Drivers and Other Tales of Hardware Troubleshooting; Preventative Maintenance and Data Recovery
Networking and Internet: Build Your Network; Internet Me; Secure Your Networked PC; Web and Email
Users and Security: Manage User Accounts; Permissions and Security; Logon and Profile Options; Share Files and Printers
Scripting and Automation: Windows Script Host; build a VBScript Script; Object References; Wacky Script Ideas; Command Prompt Scripting; Windows PowerShell
BIOS Settings
TCP/IP Ports
Index

When I bought my new laptop , it came loaded with Vista. Since it was pretty early in the Vista release cycle, I thought it would be good to learn it since adoption would be widespread in a short period of time. Yeah, right. Vista turned into one of the most annoying operating experiences of my life. Slow performance, endless "do you really want to..." dialog boxes, reboot times that took forever... While you can't get rid of the overall pain of Vista (unless you "upgrade" to XP or a Mac), you can use Karp's information to lessen the daily headaches. For instance, he takes you into the Performance Options settings to help you figure out what eye candy you can live without so that you actually get work done. He shows you how to tweak the registry to eliminate the menu opening delay. He also goes into some depth on how to get Vista set up to greatly reduce the start-up time (and that's a MAJOR accomplishment). And that's just a fraction of what you'll find here that will find immediate application in your life with Vista.

It's always a good thing to get a decent reference guide to the major software packages in your life. Vista is no exception. But there's a few packages where you need someone to tell you how to *live* with the less-than-stellar results on your screen. Vista's the poster child for that. Windows Vista Annoyances should be *very* close at hand as you work with the operating system. Assuming you haven't already switched to something else...

For the advanced user, this book is a gold mine of information! I've bought half a dozen books on Vista, and this is the one that turned out to be actually quite useful. (The others, although quite thick, still mostly just cover basic stuff I already know.)

Windows Vista holds many annoyances for users and has many quirks stemming from bad design, so having WINDOWS VISTA ANNOYANCES in a developer or web applications collections is an important key to successfully using the system and working around common issues. From customizing Explorer and managing Vista's Registry options to optimizing the PC and using it to work a network, WINDOWS VISTA ANNOYANCES is packed with tips on how to make it work efficiently and well. Highly recommended as a methodical, practical series of applied steps and insights.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

The XP version of this book (Windows XP Annoyances for Geeks) by the same author, had Appendix A (Setting Locator) covering 700+ individual XP settings and showed how to drop down through the menus to get to the respective setting/s. This was (and still is) of tremendous benefit to me.

The Vista book (Windows Vista Annoyances) does NOT have this Appendix and it is a major ommission, IMO.

Bazza

Can anyone remember in recent memory an operating system more hated from the start than Windows Vista? The outcry from users, developers, admins etc have caused this OS to become infamous to say the least. With all the changes and confusion for this latest generation of Microsoft Windows, it's great that a book like 'Windows Vista Annoyances: Tips, Secrets, and Hacks' is out on the market. This book is perfect for IT Admins that are having problems with this "upgrade" from the mighty Micro$oft. With over 600+ pages of material, this book is jam packed full of information to get things up and working (and STAY up and working) right away. From creating scripts to troubleshooting problems when Vista won't load up or crashes for no good reason, this is a perfect book to have on your desk. The audience is for IT admins but any hacker could get something from this book if you are not enjoying your Vista experience.

***** RECOMMENDED

...THE WONDERFUL O is a charming book. It's full of wit, wisdom, and social commentary. It's a great story and plays around with the English language in a most interesting way. This is a book that appeals to both adults and children and would also work well as a text in an upper elementary English class. It's a great book. Oh, yeah. Has anyone seen BRAVEHEART? There's a connection between the two.

If there is any way to get this back in to print, I would buy copies for most children I care about.

"The Wonderful O" is a delightful book for our younger readers about a dastardly group of pirates who invade the island of Ooroo looking for treasure. Oh wow, with a name like Ooroo, this place is just asking for trouble. Seems that Black, the pirate chief, hates the letter O, because when he was a child his mother got stuck in a porthole, and he couldn't pull her in, so he had to push her out. Poor Moms. And now Black is about to consolidate his capture and takeover of Ooroo by banishing from speech and print every word and name which contains the letter O. So how are we to pronounce Ooroo? Or Otto Ott, whose name comes out sounding like a terminal stutter? Or consider the case of poor Ophelia Oliver, who, when she lost her O's, vanished from the haunts of men.

Thurber has written a hilarious book showing the pure chas and cnfusin that reign when the language is stripped of its O's. How can you tell a cat from a cat? Or a bat from a bat? Strip the O from the language and we will all be indeed bgne and webegne. Not to mention losing words like hope, love, valor, and the greatest of all, freedom.

Black may have stripped the language of all its O's but he can't break the people's spirit, and eventually he and his crew hoist anchor and sail away into the sunset, leaving the people and their island with all their O's intact. Kids will love this book for the hilarious play on words, as well as for the message it gets across. A wonderful bk (oops, I mean book) for youngsters and oldsters alike. How could there be youngsters, or oldsters, or books, if there weren't any O?

Pirates come to plunder a small island. When the spokesman tells them they have no treasure "except the blue of the water and the pink of our maidens' cheeks and lips, and the green of our fields," the pirates don't believe them and search high and low.

Meanwhile, the captain of the ship, who hates the letter O, issues an edict. "I'll get rid of the letter O, in upper case and lower...All words in books or signs with an O in them shall have the O erased or painted out. We'll print new books and paint new signs without an O in them." Thus objects and words with Os are banished from the land forever.

Disaster! Imagine the impact on community life! No houses, cottages or bungalows -- only huts, shacks, sheds, shanties and cabins without logs. No dough for the baker, no gold for the goldsmith, no forge for the blacksmith, no cloth for the tailor, no chocolate for the candymaker. (NOW you've gone too far!) No poetry without Os.

Thurber writes, "A man named Otto Ott, when asked his name, could only stutter. Ophelia Oliver repeated hers, and vanished from the haunts of men."

"We can't tell shot from shoot or hot from hoot," the blacksmith pointed out in a meeting with other townsfolk. "Oft becomes the same as foot, and odd the same as dodo. Something must be done at once or we shall never know what we are saying."

The islanders decide that there are four words with an O that must not be lost. Hope, love and valor are three of them and the fourth is the point of the story.

This is a beautifully written, rhythmic tale. THE WONDERFUL O will appeal to everyone who loves language. The story is a challenge to the imagination of the reader.

I read The Wonderful O years ago as a young adult and find myself recommending the book to others. But, alas, the book is out of stock; I mean, the bk is ut f stck. Please, Mr/Ms Publisher, put this wnderful bk back n the bkshelves. As yu can see, we can't live fully withut the letter, r withut this wnderful bk.