Internet Books

And a few groans thrown in.

Our minds travel to crazy places throughout each day, but most of those trips are lost as errant little side trips creep in. Our minds work in freeform, hopping and skipping from one bit of craziness to another. Somehow Dennis Fenichel manages to get it down. And to organize it into chapters. He takes us on his own little trip through his mind filled with totally silly and highly recognizable characters. He loves the world of words, and uses them to point out the ridiculous and the sensible. And he makes us laugh. There are a few tears, as his title predicts, and what would this world be without them? But what could be more healthy than finding the humor throughout life's journey? This book is human, and is just a fun read. Take it on your next flight.

There should be an additional warning on this book. Something such as, "Do not exceed recommended dose." I am afraid for some, that this may be the case.
To be honest, when I began reading this book I thought the humor was just plain silly, goofy, nonsensicle madness (Sorry Mr. Fenichel)
As I got drawn further into the stories however, I realized that this madness does have meaning. I found that the stories were really observations or lessons about life. Lessons about us, as humans.
Does this understanding make us mad as well? I don't believe so. I think it makes us realize that we are all a little goofy at times and that humor can be (is) the only way to therapize one's self.
Dare I say that I recognized myself in this book?
In the end I learned more about how we (humans) interact with each other and how we doubt ourselves in those interactions.
After all these years, I thought it was just me.. (Thanks, Mr. Fenichel)
I highly recommend this book to anyone suffering from "Life"
If you really want to laugh in the mirror; read this book!

Let's see...who better than a psychologist to have some fun at the expense of the human condition? These stories are irreverent and satirical, yet insightful. If you enjoy reading all the things you wanted to say but didn't have the intestinal fortitude to, you'll love this. If you enjoy plays on words and mincing words, Dr. Spincter is your man. Need a dentist? Advice on love? Got two left feet? Titters, Giggles, and Tears delivers (the author, almost literally!).

The author demonstrates what years of training and work in psychology does to the mind! If your IQ is below 100, you'll laugh at the raunchy parts and miss all the good stuff (like a kid watching the Simpsons). If your IQ is above 100 but below 130, you'll laugh at a lot of the plays on words even though you don't know what the words mean (like most of the crowd listening to Dennis Miller). For those who are cognitively well-endowed, I'd suggest wearing a diaper or sitting on the toilet to compensate for the incontinence that accompanies heavy laughter while you read.

Life, real or unreal can be funny if you know how to play with the words and circumstances of it all.
The writer playfully throws so called normalcy out the window and runs away with your funny bone, only to throw in a sober zinger a couple of times.
A must read! everyone needs to laugh out loud at life, and its related activities, or pretty much every thing.

Do you like stories that take you into a different world? Fenichel's stories are nonsensical, witty, satirical, absurd, and touching. Reading them is moving and living in the world of Monty Python and Alice in Wonderland for Adults while being totally sober. You meet characters such as the logically illogical proctologist Stanley Spincter who takes your word (but hands it back to you), learn the subtle perversities of the dentist's mind, the narcissist's pleasures of dating. Be touched by a playful, sad and tender Internet Romance, or the fate of the salesman's illustrious career. All these characters inhabit Fenichel's books, and are un-really alive. This is one of the funniest, most hilarious, comically strange books I have read in a long time. It takes you on a journey of laughs from beginning to end. I am already looking forward to his next book, and to meeting more of his originals and oddballs.

This book has a great html and cascading style sheet reference. This alone is worth the $$ the book costs.

This book covers it all, from Perl to ASP to XML and more! Has several very informative and often entertaining examples. I already used one example at work, with a little customization. If you're new to webdev or have been doing it for years, this book is packed with coding gems. A must have for any real web coder!

Bookviews by Alan Caruba, February 2002

Thinking about starting a web site business? Well, the single most complete and authoritative reference available is The Ultimate Web Developer's Sourcebook by Jessica Keyes ... and it runs over 780 pages, is two and a half inches thick, and worth every penny! The author is a noted authority on the science and business of technology and the book has contributions from more than thirty web development experts. It is a one-stop guide and reference that will enhance any existing site and help insure the success of a new one.

I'm pretty new at this business of creating web sites. I think I must have bought 100 books but none of then got me more than a few steps into the process. The Ultimate Web Developer's Sourcebook put me on the right path. I now have a good first site. I'm going to use the advanced portion of the book to provide me with the info I need to add a shopping cart and some animation to the site.

I think that this is a great book.

I looked through the Dummies and Idiots book on this subject but they didn't offer much. What I wanted was a book that could start me out as a novice and then grow with me when I started getting good at it. This is the only book I found that could do all of that.

A WONDERFULLY fun book -- to read, to refer to, to give as a gift to alll your girlfriends! Endless information, up-to-date resources, very knowledgeable and savvy and the only book you need about vintage on the net. I hope it gets a new edition every other year or -- knowing the net -- EVERY year; I'll keep every edition, because none will ever be obsolete. These authors know their audience, know their subject, know their territory. A book you'll read again and again and never, ever, finish. :->

Virtual Vintage stands out from most other books on the vintage-resale-thrifting topic -- even though it is geared to the online market. First, the writing is both excellent and entertaining; I found the book hard to put down.

Additionally, the authors also offer some good tips -- laced throughout the text -- on HOW TO WEAR some of this old stuff. As much as I love vintage fashion, and have collected it for several years, I am often at a loss as to how to WEAR some of the pieces, or how to incorporate my vintage "finds" into my real-life wardrobe. So far, few books actually address this issue, and tend to focus instead on buying, selling or simply "collecting" vintage fashion.

This book is thorough and carefully put together -- like a great outfit. I hope the authors write more on this topic, and maybe put together a how-to guide to vintage fashion.

Kudos!

Usually I don't "read" antique guide books, but a couple of pages into this one and I was hooked. In Virtual Vintage you'll find common sense tips on buying and selling vintage on-line, the A to Z of navigating eBay (I learned several new tricks) and lots of design and fashion tips. The book presents useful info including international size conversion charts, how to remove stains from clothing and must-see Hollywood films for clothes lovers. It was so well done I wanted to learn more about Virtual Vintage's two women authors and how they came to write this surprisingly literary guide book.

Virtual Vintage has a section that rates many of the dot com vintage sites for content, ease of use and return policies. Virtual Vintage is considerably more user friendly than most other antique/collectible guide books that I've seen... I am also fond of the book because it gave my vintage site a great review! I will certainly recommend this book to my web customers.

Usually I don't "read" antique guide books, but a couple of pages into this one and I was hooked. In Virtual Vintage you'll find common sense tips on buying and selling vintage on-line, the A to Z of navigating eBay (I learned several new tricks) and lots of design and fashion tips. The book presents useful info including international size conversion charts, how to remove stains from clothing and must-see Hollywood films for clothes lovers. It was so well done I wanted to learn more about Virtual Vintage's two women authors and how they came to write this surprisingly literary guide book.

Virtual Vintage has a section that rates many of the dot com vintage sites for content, ease of use and return policies. Virtual Vintage is considerably more user friendly than most other antique/collectible guide books that I've seen... I am also fond of the book because it gave my vintage site a great review! I will certainly recommend this book to my web customers.

Virtual Vintage covers the world of online vintage fashion. If you are new to buying and selling vintage fashion online, its a great place to start. If you are not new, it still had plenty of tips that I didn't think about before.

The book is much more than online vintage fashions. It also goes into detail about what to look for from different designers, periods, etc. It has chapters on how to repair and care for your vintage fashions. The back of the book includes a directory (with summary) of online retailers to check out.

I found this book easy and enjoyable to read cover to cover rather than just as a reference. The authors write in an informative yet enertaining way.

The only negative thing I would have to say is; when will there be an updated version??? Some of the online sites and eBay information is dated, as is to be expected in a virtual world.

Once in a while an author appears who stands head and shoulders above most other technical authors. Kevin Wallace is definitely one of that rare breed of authors who has the unique ability to impart substantial technical information in a really accessible manner. I found this book incredibly easy to read, having attempted reading some other books on VOIP and not getting past the 2nd Chapter with most of them.
Even though the book focuses mainly on Cisco's VOIP implementation, the information is put across in such a way that you get a good understanding of VOIP principles in general. The chapter in this book on QOS alone is worth getting the book for, as it explains Cisco QOS in a most lucid and user-friendly way. His anologies are excellent and his occastional injection of humour also makes reading the book a most pleasurable and useful learning experience. If you are a newbie to VOIP, then I can't think of a better book to get your hands on. Highly recommended!

Very Good! Easy reading for anyone. If you have no experience with VoIP this is the book for you. I found it also helped with my CCNA study. Anybody who wants to learn VoIP should begin by reading this book first.

For those who are intending to go for Cisco Certified Voice Professional but don't have much knowledge about Voice, this book would be an excellent introduction to general Cisco Voice Networking.

It introduces you to many expects of voice from ground up without giving too many technical details to the point you can get bored. For voice newbies, this book would be a great companion.

Kevin Wallace's VOICE OVER IP FIRST-STEP joins others in the 'first step' series in providing a basic introduction to IP telephony services. You don't need to be a programmer or even a computer whiz to understand the basics as presented here: whether you're a home user interested in lowering a monthly phone bill or a business person using data networks, chapters provide real-world applications using case studies throughout, no prior IP telephony experience is required to learn the basics here. And networking instructor Kevin Wallace knows how to cover them easily.

The title of this review pretty much summarizes my thoughts about the book. This is an excellent, quick-to-read book that provides all the basic info about VoIP, focusing on Cisco's offerings.

Although I read the book over a couple of days, I believe I put in less than 3 hours to read the entire book cover to cover (over all those days).

The book is very simple to read. The book is ideal for network administrators as well as system/equipment design engineers to quickly introduce themselves to VoIP. The book is also good to understand all the varied VoIP offerings from Cisco and how stuff plugs together to provide an integrated service.

The last chapter of the book goes beyond vanilla-VoIP, by discussing (in brief) Cisco's IPCC and other interesting offerings.

Great book! Read it to quickly and easily understand the fundamentals of VoIP as well Cisco's VoIP equipment.

Received book in record time. It was in new condition as promised. Great Seller and would order from him again.

This is the third in a series of books the author has written. While some of the concepts in e-commmerce are outdated due to the dotcom crash, the architectures, data management and functional aspects are still useful for e-business and e-commerce. The author discusses many of the challenges in managing databases on the web and shows the need for this technology for web data management.

This is an excellent book on e-commerce and databases. However it is somewhat outdated as the book was presumably written during the dotcom boom. Nevertheless many of the ideas are still very useful. I would suggest that the author updates this book to reflect the recent developments.

The book covers a great deal and provdes a broad overview of web data management and e-commerce. It starts with a lot of background material on database systems, the web, data mining, etc. and then focuses on web data management technologies in Part II. Finally it describes how the technologies may be used for e-commerce. I like the writing style of the author, rather casual and takes a building block approach. He sort of tells a story about supporting technologies, web technologies and e-commerce. My one concern is that the book was written during the dotcom boom years. While the technologies are all still valid and useful, although they have advanced quite a lot today, the idea that the web and e-commerce will take over is long gone. At one time we may have thought that we will be doing all of our shopping even buying groceries on the web. But this has still not happened in large scale. Therefore, it may be time to take another look at the ideas and perhaps get another edition out reflecting what is real today. But then one never knows what the future will be. Maybe once the technologies mature and our approach to the web evolves, the dotcom ideas may take off again.

I found this book extremely useful. The author starts with some excellent background material on web data management and then goes into more details on architectures and models for web databases. Finally, she discusses their applications to e-commerce. At times I thought the book was too detailed (e.g., in data management) and at other times I felt that the book ought to have given more details (e.g. in e-commerce). Nevertheless the book emphasizes on web data management and all aspects of this topic. It was very easy to read and as a newcomer to the field I found it very thought provoking. I thought the author explained the security aspects extremely well, partly because she is an expert in database secruity. At times she dwelt more than it was necessary on security as the focus of the book was not on security. I would have liked to have seen more discussions on how specific organizations carry out e-commerce. Since the field is evolving so rapidly I would love to see a follow-on book giving details and examples on e-commerce and the applications of web data management to e-commerce. On the whole an excellent, easy to read book.

Several years ago there was great suspicion about the Internet and websites because some of them were fake. While some fake sites still exist, this suspicion has largely disappeared and in fact, completely reversed. Now the web or Internet is often the FIRST place that people turn when they have a business need.

If you are a small business owner, you need to harness the power of the Internet to increase your own bottom line and visibility. WEB MARKETING FOR SMALL BUSINESSES is an invaluable resource. With detailed and current examples, Stephanie Diamond helps every reader understand the changing roles and the necessity of a new mindset. Then she walks the reader through a seven-step action plan to discover your niche, capitalize on your brand, tell your story, jump higher in the search engines, write good content (persuasive landing pages, minisites and sales letters), social media tactics and finally tried and true tactics (newsletters, article marketing, white papers and much more).

Stephanie Diamond is a seasoned expert in this field and writes with authority about a subject that she knows intimately.

This easy-to-digest text is a book that I will use over and over. The worksheets alone in the back are worth the cost of this book. Small business owners who follow the wisdom in these pages will profit in many ways--and I mean much more than your bottom line. You will gain a presence and visibility which will only enhance your financials and increase your business.

The internet is a powerful tool for many things, such as marketing. "Web Marketing for Small Businesses: 7 Steps to Explosive Business Growth" is a guide for small time entrepreneurs who seek to use the internet to turn their companies around. With advice on finding the right tools and methods to doing so, using the concept of 'Web 2.0', connecting with your customers, online selling, and keeping track of this massive monster, "Web Marketing for Small Businesses" is a must read for any small time business who want to expand.

If you have a product and/or service worthy of selling, please do us all a favor: Right now, buy this book. When it arrives, USE IT IMMEDIATELY!!! And yes, I know I am yelling, thank you very much.

As far as I know, there is no other book out there that has such useful information that is this easy to implement with such immediate results. Measurable results are the gold standard in business. An increase in profits and return business are two of the side effects of using Stephanie's book. Thank you Stephanie for sharing such a gem with us.

Cheers,

Stephen
[...]

I am a web developer and I deal with issues described in Web Marketing for Small Businesses every single day. I would spend hours and sometimes days researching things that are presented in this book in a simple, clear and very well organized format.
This book is packed with practical recommendations for the small and not so small businesses who want to make money online.
Whether you are a small business owner or a search engine optimization marketer, in this book you will find tons of information you can use every day.
I am rating this book as 5 stars!

Marketing is probably the biggest challenge for small business owners and executives. We typically spend so much time running the business day to day that establishing and maintaining a marketing focus just doesn't happen. The accelerating pace of Internet marketing change makes it all that much more challenging.

Happily, Stephanie Diamond has written that rare book which both forces us to think in new and different ways about marketing issues-and simultaneously provides a detailed roadmap so that we can put those thoughts into action. Once you have finished the book, you will be ready to develop and deploy a successful Web marketing strategy.

Her new book, Web Marketing for Small Businesses, is a much-needed addition to the literature of online marketing. This book enables us first to grasp complex concepts and then to put them into practice with easy to follow steps. Even solopreneurs will find significant value in Stephanie's book. I know that I have already begun to implement several of the strategies about which she writes so knowledgeably.

Stephanie conveys so much valuable content in her book that it is difficult to do it justice in a short review. So, I will simply share some of my favorite stuff.
My 7 favorite lessons learned:

1. Making it easy for your Web visitors to buy from you is essential, but it's even more important to make it easy for them to tell your story to others. This is the key to word-of-mouth marketing. You must tell stories that are so compelling and memorable that dozens of others will be retelling your stories to dozens of others.
2. Power has shifted from sellers to buyers on the web. This means that your web presence must provide plenty of compelling content that makes it easy for buyers to take action. Don't give them an excuse to look elsewhere for essential information.
3. Develop a precise and in-depth understanding of your buyers. Create a `persona' for your buyer that makes her a flesh and blood human being for whom you can craft just the right messaging.
4. Simplify. Simplify. Simplify. Make it incredibly easy for your web visitors to understand why your products and services will provide perfectly tailored solutions for their most important needs.
5. Always think of what actions you want your visitors to take. Provide content within an information architecture that will lead your visitors to take those actions naturally and effortlessly. This action-focused approach applies to every part of your website.
6. Your website is effectively a direct response mechanism. Therefore think like a direct response copywriter and ask "so" questions. For example, "our widget is the lightest in the industry." So? Then finish the equation... "so you can carry it with you wherever you go."
7. You must do usability testing no matter how small your marketing budget. It's really just a question of recruiting several users who know nothing about your company, your products or your website. Put them in a room in front of a computer and let them figure out what your company and your products are all about-and what action you would like them to take. Keep repeating the process until even the most clueless user instantly and intuitively understands what your website and your company are all about.

7 step plan for "explosive business growth"

Plenty of variables may affect the business growth you can achieve by following Stephanie's seven step plan. But, because so many of us will never create a thoughtful and realistic plan on our own, her seven steps are just what the marketing doctor ordered to spark significant growth.

Stephanie devotes an entire chapter to each step with description, references, and examples. I think you will find just about the right amount of information in each chapter to begin developing and deploying your strategy. Here are bare-bones descriptions of the 7 steps:

1. Niche-precisely define your perfect customer and developer niche to match.
2. Brand-make it "obvious, repeatable, and ready for storytelling by the customers who will carry your message."
3. Story-tell stories about your company, its people and its products that are true, compelling, and unique. Make sure these stories are easy to retell.
4. Search-be easy to find on the web. Craft your content so that it is search engine friendly and so that it can be found quickly by your ideal customers.
5. Tactics-social media-carefully consider core social media methods such as business blogging, videos, podcasting and the social networks. You can experiment with each of these inexpensively and should probably choose one or two as a starting point to avoid straining always limited resources.
6. Tactics-tried-and-true-although for some small businesses these tactics may be somewhat unfamiliar, they have been effective online for a decade or more. Among these tactics are: eNewsletters, article marketing online press releases surveys and loyalty programs.
7. Results- you must continually reassess each of your online marketing initiatives to determine what's working, what's not, and what to change accordingly. Measurement online is easy and essential.

Plenty of practical elements in the book

Stephanie gives just enough description and explanation so that those of us who are not steeped in Internet technology and leading-edge marketing practices can understand fundamental principles. And, most importantly, she teaches us just how to put those principles into practice.

Throughout the book she provides worksheets that enable readers to begin laying out a practical plan for a successful Web marketing strategy. These worksheets lead you from where you are today to the new kind of thinking you'll require, to a definition of your customers and your niche, and ultimately to the action plans to execute your Web marketing strategy.

Thanks to Stephanie's book, developing a successful Web marketing strategy has now become eminently doable for even the smallest organization.

I needed a book to get myself jump started using Filemaker's API for PHP when I found Jonathan Starks book. Jonathan brings you through the process from configuration of Filemaker Server to the creation of small Product/Inventory database. The examples are very informative and Jonathan explains the code so its understandable to both the newbie and the more experienced developer. Sample files are available on Jonathans website. Jonathan uses the "Template" method for PHP coding and I found it to be a great way to do development. I highly recommend this book. It will get you off to a great start and give you the basics to get started creating some great sites.

A great introduction to working with Filemaker and PHP for publishing dynamic web pages. Written by brilliant developer extraordinaire Jonathan Stark, this book will break down the basics and give you everything you need to get started quickly.

His method of breaking down code into manageable chunks with inline comments really helps you wrap your head around what would otherwise look like daunting pages of PHP code.

Experienced developers may skip the first few sections about basic Filemaker and HTML and dig right into the heart of the PHP API for filemaker. Good stuff!

Over the holiday break I had some time to read (a better word might be "consume") Jonathan Stark's book "Web Publishing with PHP and FileMaker 9." In a little more than 250 pages, Jonathan manages to do the impossible: He explains how to put the FileMaker API for PHP to use.

The book is divided into four logical sections. The first section provides background information for those new to the world of Web publishing, including an introduction to HTML and PHP. After reading this section, you won't be an HTML expert, and you certainly won't be a PHP pro. But you will have a good understanding of the technologies involved in Web publishing and development, and how those technologies fit together.

The second section of the book provides a foundation for the examples that are used later on. The section includes a chapter on how to setup a FileMaker database (creating fields, working with the database, performing finds, and so on). I'm sure that the majority of readers will find this section to be unnecessary and might be tempted to skip it. However, the chapter does cover one key topic that you should take a few minutes to check out, and that is an explanation on how to setup a FileMaker account (and grant it the correct privileges) that PHP can use to connect to the database.

The second section also covers installation, deployment, and configuration of FileMaker Server, as well as the new PHP Site Assistant. Jonathan makes a recommendation -- and one that I heartily agree with -- that if you do not absolutely need your own server, then using a server provided by a Web hosting provider is an ideal solution. However, if you do have your own server, you'll find this information to be of great use.

The third section of "Web Publishing with PHP and FileMaker 9" includes what I consider to be the most valuable information in the book. This section covers the FileMaker API for PHP (often referred to as "FileMaker.php") itself, and does so using an example Web application that is developed and expanded throughout the section. The application is one that most readers will be able to associate with -- an online product catalog.

The section includes chapters on how to select, sort, and do finds against a FileMaker database using PHP. Another chapter explains how to alter FileMaker data over the Web, including the creation of new records and updates and deletions of existing records. There are also chapters on how to view, add, edit, and delete related data via PHP (which is accomplished using portals), as well as some very useful information on how to work with images (including images stored in container fields and those stored by reference using URLs).

The last chapter in the third section describes a very interesting concept: Developing a PHP application that automatically updates as the FileMaker layouts that it is built on are updated. For example, if a field is added or removed, the PHP application automatically adds and/or drops the field as well. If you are looking for an easy way to let your FileMaker users "self-manage" a PHP application, then this chapter will prove to be invaluable to you.

"Web Publishing with PHP and FileMaker 9" covers a lot of ground, and does so in a way that makes it a fast and enjoyable journey. Jonathan's writing style and "voice" make it easy to follow along with the material. His expert knowledge of PHP and FileMaker is apparent, and he does a great job of sharing that knowledge in the book.

If you are looking for a good book on PHP and FileMaker integration -- whether you are new to the topic or consider yourself to be a pro -- then I highly recommend picking up a copy of "Web Publishing with PHP and FileMaker 9."

Un muy buen libro. Muy diferente al estilo de los libros de "* for dummies", utilizando ejemplos concisos y bien explicados para darse a entender.
El libro es un excelente prefacio a PHP, y Filemaker desde cero, y llega hasta la configuración de servidores, que pareciera ser un proceso exclusivamente administrativo.

FileMaker and PHP are absolutley the way to go, and this is
THE BEST BOOK to get for Filemaker web publishing.
As a "non-programmer" who has struggled in the past trying to bring a database to the web,
I found the examples in this book easy to follow and understand.
It definately took me to the next level.

I bought this book in 1996, and referenced it again and again. I still find it so useful on web server technology, especially on web security. A worth-while reading.

This book is excellent, if you want to understand the general properties of a Web server. The book explains the basic jobs a Web server can do in simple way so that many people can understand it. The description of the tasks, which will be performed on a Web server, is not too detailed. Excellent is the explanation of the different types, advantages and disadvantages of process concepts which can be used for Web servers. The securtity issues and the chapter about searching on the Internet are also highlights. I recommend this book for everyone who wants an detailed overview on Web servers and related topics.

I thought this was an excellent book. For a newbie interested in learning the details of web infrastructure components, including SSL, this book is a solid choice. I read it a year ago and I still find it a useful reference.

Tired of those IT books that look like help files or manuals dumps? Tired of books based on programs rather than concepts? If your answer is yes, than this book is for you. It is simply the best book about Internet/Web technology ever written, of great importance for anyone thinking of working with the Web. A must read: concepts, explanations, examples, everything as clear as it should be.

A great book for understanding what's happening on the web--essentially a must-read for anyone publishing there to any significant extent.

Collaboratively written in a light and engaging style, by Brian E. Travis and Mae Ozkan, Web Services Implementation Guide Volume 1: Getting Started is a straightforward and "user friendly" instruction manual that accessibly teaches the reader what web services are and how to take advantage of them. Written especially for systems architects and developers, it describes in direct, friendly language how to automate internal systems, determine integration points, and then reveal integration points as web services. Enhanced with a tutorial on the state of web services standards, real-life examples of web service use, code samples and more, Web Services Implementation Guide Volume 1: Getting Started is an excellent beginning guide for anyone ready to take the first step into capitalizing on the manifold advantages of what the World Wide Web has to offer.

These guys know what they are talking about. Web services with real life examples and great points such as web services inside the firewall. I greatly recommend this book!

Real life examples, diagrams, easy to read, and is up-to-date - this book is recommended for architects, managers, developers, who would like to get a good understanding of SOAP and XML Web services. This book contains answers to your "what", "why", and "how" questions pertaining to XML Web services. The chapters flow nicely. It also talks about BizTalk and ebXML and how they fit in Web services paradigm. This first volume ends with discussion on more recent Web services standards (WS-****).

I read the book very easily. It thought me so much about web services, how it evolves and where it is going to. It cleared many questions I had in my mind. I am technically enhanced now! It is fantastic to understand the cool technologies.

This book is one of many new titles on web services (the book's introduction makes the case for using a lowecase-w in "web" services). Most of the books that I have seen cover the world of web services in terms of this or that tool. Java J2EE, Microsoft .NET, IBM Web Services Toolkit, etc.

This book gets beyond a particular implementation of code and talks about the business reasons for implementing web services. This includes planning, automating processes behind the firewall, determining security issues and so forth. This is the only book I have seen that covers such architectural facets.

As a developer, I found the coverage of the technologies very helpful. As my company's chief architect, I found many things to think about in the book.

The book covers the standards (XML, XSD, SOAP, WSDL) in a very accessible way, with witty commentary so it does not get boring. This is quite a feat for such an acronym-rich technology.

I am an amateur when it comes to using any Web design software as well as software that can be as intimidating as PhotoShop. That's why I think Sherry Hutson's book is so good. She is a teacher, and that shows throughout the book. She is able to break everything down into steps that are clearly understandable. Too many of these guides skip just enough steps that you can't follow. Not this book. It has helped to take me from being an amateur to not being afraid to try different things with Photoshop. The index is very helpful, too. I have a question, go to the Index, and invariably find the topic I'm looking for. You can't go wrong with this book even if you have never used Photoshop at all.

Yaah! Finally a book about Photoshop that even a beginner like me can really make sense of. The Web Wizard's Guide to Photoshop has introduced me to the joy of improving the images that I download from my digital camera. My friends and family are delighted with the much improved, innovative, and high quality, images that I am now able to create using this fun, user friendly, program. The clear and simple explanations in this book have encouraged me to move on to the next step. I am now in the process of designing my own web page. What fun!!! If you're interested in improving the way you work with images and/or in trying your hand at designing a website, this is definitely the book for you. If you try it, you most definitely will like it.

mick rasley, Sculptor,silversmith, September 20, 2004,
Breath of fresh air
Well spent $s. It costs more to get film developed today.This book was what actually cured my of 'film',and put me in the world of digital photography(and comfortably too).Glad this book was recommended to me ,and I will for sure pass on the 411.

Sherry Hutson has produced one of the most informative and consise books on Photoshop that I have ever read. It covers all tehniques of a very complex graphics program in an easy to read (and learn) format.

As a former student in many classes taught by Sherry, I can attest to the value of this book (I now design web sites, myself). A definate value for beginners and a strong resource for the expert.

Sherry Hutson obviously knows exactly what we Photoshop beginners are facing and what language to speak... no arrogance in this `how to' masterpiece. I have books on other programs in my bookshelf, as well as on Photoshop, which are about 800 pages and my eyes just gloss over so I've never even tried. When I started this book, though, I just followed step 1 and kept going because it was easy to understand and stuff miraculously started happening.

Although I'm not a website designer, my work requires me to create and maintain the company website along with my other duties. In small companies, the few wear many hats and it's terrifying to create a website when you don't know what you're doing. My nephew recommended the Web Wizard's Guide to Photoshop and I decided to go for the `keep it simple' approach, using the book's "Do's" and "Don'ts." Now feel like I've published a site as appealing as some of the big corporate ones.

Under "Features" on the back jacket of the book, the list reads, "Assumes no Photoshop experience . . .; Progresses in a natural order . . .; Contains extensive reference material, including a Web-Safe Colors chart, keyboard shortcuts, and annotated tool bars . . .; Provides tutorials in each chapter . . .; Uses full-color screen shots, so what you see in the book is exactly what you'll see on the computer screen." I'm usually pretty skeptical at such claims, but it's all true for once.

Don't be afraid. Just get the book and start in. I bet you will be surprised at how quickly, for example, you catch on to working with and correcting pictures, and the different types of image formats and when to use them. I had tried to figure out layers once before, but now I understand exactly what's happening. I've done the exercise on how to make an animation and it's amazing. The eagle actually flies.

This book is straightforward and very much a "fast start for beginners." I'm giving it five stars.