Internet Books

The Entrepreneur's Guide to Second Life: Making Money in the Metaverse
This book covers the entire range of financial systems and possibilities in Second Life. The information offered here is accurate but, I found it to be rather generalized. As is always the case the data can be gotten from other sources but, the organization that this author imposes on it makes it accessible to the neophyte. My only complaint was the huge mass of subjects prevents any detailed discussion of MY specific interests. Great for that initial think-tanking process and full of really great advice.

Entrepreneur's Guide to Second Life: Making Money in the Metaverse

I figured this would be a useful book because when I was interviewed for it the questions were in-depth, thoughtful, and non-fluffy. And it turns out that the book is even better than I expected. This is a GREAT book for anyone who wants to start an in-world Second Life business, or for someone who wants to improve their existing business. I would have turned a profit quicker if I'd had it when I was a newbie!

This book gave me a lot of great ideas for the Second Life platform. I had no idea of the type of businesses that were in Second Life. Now that I have an idea of how to purchase land and have seen the various software applications being used to create product, I plan on experimenting with it for the next 90 days or so. From there, I'm going to continue using the platform to launch my Second Life business. This Book is fabulous!

Lanesa Stubbs

outstanding. this step-by-step guide is well-written, informative, and easy to navigate. the structure of the book allowed me to get straight to the topics i was interested in - it's clearly laid out and having first-hand advice from residents/experts was extremely useful and gave me confidence - there's a great chapter on Setting Up Shop, for example. It's a comprehensive how-to that makes the metaverse accessible to everyone.

This book is a great way to learn about the many financial opportunities that await you in Second Life. The layout is clean and colorful, the examples shown are interesting and inspiring, and it is a good examination of Second Life overall. The lessons ignite the imagination...where would I like to concentrate my efforts as an entrepreneur? What does it really take to make a business successful? How have others done it, and what can I learn from their experiences? Terdiman did his homework on this project and the guide provides a realistic look at what it would take to create your dream career.

I am definitley a novice and your book is totally awesome!!!! Thank you

This is a great way to get into using the Net. I passed it along to the Librarian and Teachers at my kids' school. They said it was a fabulous resource for developing net-based curricula. Sites are grouped by subject in easy-to-use articles and the articles are grouped by general category. Pick a topic, hit the index and GO! You'll have a great trip.

Kitty Williams and Robin Lind have put together an excellent resource for net novice and expert alike. "Essential Net Novice Websites" includes nearly twenty catagories for websites to explore along with thoughtful backround material and explanations.

The book covers a wide range of topics and interests. There is something that will appeal to everyone. The business and government sites listed can get you to just about any professional site you can imagine. The information is summerized for the reader and is extremely helpful. Throughout the book the reader is consistently equipped with the means to further explore any topic as far as the imagination can take them. And there are also lots of places to go just for fun and entertainment.

My favorite aspect of this book is that it is a one volume reference that led me to all sorts of web pages that I would never have found on my own. My personal favorites border on the zany (Clifford Pickover's Web Page, America Unhenged) but there are certainly many practical websites covered as well (online shopping and travel arrangementa, etc.) At the very least, each article give the reader a springboard to endless net exploration. And don't forget to download the electronic companion which comes as a freebie with the book. It gives you the hyperlinks to every website mentioned.

Williams and Lind have done it all for you. Check out a copy of "Essential Net Novice Websites" and start you own personal exploration of the World Wide Web.

I handed this book to a colleague who had always actively maintained the internet was irrelevant to him. He reads voraciously, but wouldn't go on line. As he leafed through this book, he began to look like a kid in a candy shop! He wouldn't give me the book back. Give this book to your friends - whether or not they are on the net. It captures a sense (like no other book I've seen) of the ever expanding wealth of information and resources that surrounds us! Great Job!!

I'd been crashing around on the Internet and largely finding good sites by accident. Reading Essential Net Novice Websites was a real eye-opener. It was as if I'd been lost and authors Kitty Williams and Robin Lind had handed me a map. Suddenly the Internet had a shape and a form. And because of the authors' eclectic taste, I not only had the big picture but I could sample the many zany sites they had alerted me to. Internet tourists would do well to use this book as their travel guide.

I have obtained a new Acer PC with CD & DVD capabilities and basically no little about computers and the intetrnet. Through Amazon I was able to obtainn Internet for Dummies book at a reasonable price and find the book quite helpful. I highly recommend "Dummies" and dealing with Amazon. Good service and prices.
Sy R

I've first checked this book out from the Chicago Public Library three times and once kept it two months after the book check out expired. The I purchased the book myself. I can not offer enough praise for this well researched and written book on the Internet. This is definitely the "Book" for pros and "dummies" alike.

I have been working in technology for eighteen years with the U.S. Navy and using the Internet for nine years now and admittedly I only possessed about less 10% of the available resources that was presented in this book. Just visiting and bookmarking all those interesting link to various useful Web sites was good enough for me (100+ useful bookmarks from this book alone).

My college textbooks and other "big computer books" weren't as valuable as this one. With this new gained knowledge, I've referred this book to my instructor for the "Basic Internet Class" that I took at the one of the City Colleges of Chicago (Truman College) and my fellow classmates agreed that this book "The Everyday Internet All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies" was more informative than our classroom resources and textbook. Buy this book if you want to REALLY learn something about this subject.

One final thought, read Mr. Peter Weverka's "The Internet Giga Book for Dummies". You won't be disappointed in my recommendation on this wonderful read. Peace out and take care.

You'll learn more practical information about "everything internet" within the pages of this book than 7 years of online meandering. Seriously, just buy this sucker cause it provides clear answers to questions you don't even know you have yet, or should have. Excellent book. Truly a horizon broadener.

Pardon me for being immodest and giving this book a 5-star rating, since I'm the author, but I believe this is the best book going about the latest incarnation of the Internet.

These are exciting times for the Internet. Peer-to-peer file sharing, news aggregators, and other advances in technology have inspired a new generation of Web sites and services. Never before has the Internet offered so many ways to conduct research, entertain yourself, or learn new things.

The motive behind this book is to present everything on the Internet that's worth doing because it's useful, it's a lot of fun, or it's innovative and therefore worth checking out. Close to a thousand different Web sites are described in this book, but this book isn't a directory of Web sites. The focus is on doing things -- researching, online banking, communicating, making new friends, playing games, talking over the Internet telephone, online shopping, online selling, and blogging.

In the course of describing these and other activities -- everyday activities that can be part of your Internet repertoire -- I introduce you to the best and brightest of the Internet.

For those who are interested, this book looks at the technical aspects of the Internet. It tells you how to select an ISP and gives you instructions for connecting your computer to the Internet. The book explains how to protect your privacy and security, and keep viruses and spyware at bay, as well as how to use the different plug-ins (Flash, Acrobat Reader, and others). You will find advice for making the Internet a safe and rewarding experience for children, many Web sites for children and parents, and instructions for using America Online.

Find out how to use a Web browser and how to be an Internet researcher, or better yet, an Internet detective from this book. It explains search techniques for reaching into all corners of the Internet to quickly find the information you need. You discover how to get the latest news and how to stay on top of late-breaking news with aggregators, as well as how to use different e-mail programs (some free and some not). You get definitive instructions in this book for preventing your inbox from being inundated with spam.

Look to this book to refine instant messenger programs, create a blog, and find mailing lists and message boards where you can exercise your obsessions. You find out how to conduct research in newsgroups and subscribe to newsgroups, as well as how to join or create your own Yahoo! group and chat on the IRC.

For budding Web site developers, this book demonstrates how to create a Web site on the cheap and how to submit a Web site to search engines so the site gets more hits. You also explore the social networking phenomenon and learn about Web sites and services where you can make new friends and reunite with old ones. The book has detailed instructions for setting up your computer so you can make free long-distance telephone calls over the Internet.

I devote part of the book to online finances -- how to research investments and get the latest financial news, maintain an online investment portfolio, and do your banking chores online.

You will find many shopping search engines and Web sites that specialize in comparison-shopping, as well as online catalogs, stores for bargain hunters, consumer-report Web sites, and an "online shopping bazaar" with hundreds of off-beat online shops worth visiting. I take you to a number of online auction houses, including eBay, and you discover how to search for, bid on, and buy items at bargain prices, as well as how to pay for items with the excellent PayPal service.

You find out how to be the first on your block to be an online seller and how you can make money by selling or conducting a business over the Internet.

Finally, the book looks into different Internet pastimes and pursuits. I'm warning you: Some of these activities are addictive. You discover the many excellent genealogical research Web sites and how to conduct genealogical research for free over the Internet. The book also looks at games sites, including novel games such as Geocaching. For travelers and armchair-adventurers, I direct you to Web sites where you can get travel advice, plan vacations, purchase tickets, and book hotel rooms and rental cars. You discover how to turn your lowly computer into an entertainment console by purchasing music online or sharing music files.

I am intrigued by the idea that a Web site is a creative endeavor in and of itself -- that a Web site is a clickable piece of artwork. For this book, I chose not only Web sites that are useful for finding information or buying things but also Web sites that I consider intriguing, wonderful, astonishing, bizarre, or entertaining.

Some people are calling this latest incarnation of the Internet "the Web 2.0." This book is your guide to the next incarnation of the Internet. It was written to show you how to make the Internet fun and useful again.

I turn to this book all the time for information on how to build and maintain my blog (phatmike.motime.com). The best, most informative book that I've ever read on the subject.

Thanks, Mister Weverka!!!

JimBob Joe
Master Blogger

I'm a little leery of taking the title "Missing Manual" literally. Other books in this series have discussed the Macintosh and other Apple offerings, where indeed typically Apple provided only a paucity of information in its manuals. But for Excel, Microsoft does offer comprehensive hardcopy documentation. This book is really one of a numerous set of third party offerings that try to improve on Microsoft.

The strongest argument for this book is that it appears to combine a comprehensive description of Excel with a conciseness of that explanation. In other words, it really doesn't belong in the Missing Manual series, but rather in O'Reilly's regular and long running series of texts, that share these properties. You know, the books with the purple covers.

Granted, the book is bulky. But that reflects over a decade of Excel being continually refined and added to. The conciseness of the explanations means typically some prior exposure to spreadsheets in general, and Excel in particular, would greatly aid your understanding.

This is the ideal Excel walkthrough. It's a balanced blend of basic and advanced information that has a gentle learning curve that will take you all the way from creating your first spreadsheet through the basics of macro development. The book is organized into eight parts, though the first four make up the majority of the book. Part one covers the basics of editing, files, printing, saving. Part two is all about formula creation. Part three is about templates and lists. Part four is about charting and graphics. After that it's into networking, macros, and more advanced topics.

The writing is excellent and the use of screenshots is effective and not overwhelming as with other books. A superb walkthrough of the fundamentals of Excel.

When I start to look at a book on Excel I first turn to the index and look up Pivot Tables. Pivot tables are an amazingly powerful tool that allows you to turn the data around (pivot even) and look at it from another point of view. It's also amazing that a high percentage of books on Excel simply ignore pivot tables altogether, or perhaps give them half a page. This book has an entire chapter on pivot tables. Furthermore, if you read the Microsoft help screens on pivot tables you get 113 topics to read. In this book the description of pivot tables explains what they are, shows you some examples to illustrate what can be done, and then leads you through using them. This is truly what the manual should have shown, if of course there was a manual that came with Excel.

The next thing I look for is XML. This is really the big thing that makes Excel 2003 a new edition of Excel. Sure enough, a chapter on XML as well. (Except for this section and a few very minor points, you can use the manual for earlier versions of Excel.)

But suppose you are not up to guru level and wanting to know about pivot tables and XML. Well, the book starts off with Creating a Basic Worksheet and goes on from there.

In summary, here is everything you need to know about Excel from the very basic steps to just as far as you want to go.

Becoming good using Excel is like learning how to ski/snowboard. Riding up the lift looking down on the experienced skiers/snowboarders ride down the mountain having fun and making it look so easy and graceful, and you think to yourself, if only I could do that, I would be happy. Will I ever be able to ride like that, maybe, but how long? That is what it is like learning/using Excel out of the box. After flipping through many a Excel book, I finally through the dart and picked The Missing Manual. The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald is a wonderful instructional piece. Written in a manner that does not put a person to sleep nor so techy that tears just fill your eyes trying to hold back the pain whilst reading it, because you tell yourself this is good for you. I find myself going to the Missing Manual all the time, for things that I never knew how to do, and to remind me of things I did once a long time ago and cannot recall. This book is a great resource for the newbie to intermediate.... which if you are looking for a book on this subject, I bet you most likely fit into that category.

This manual has help me to master pivot tables, macros and lookup functions, which has made me a much more productive user of Excel. I strongly recommend this book to people who want to get the most out of Excel.

Good Things:
Lots of excellent real life code examples
Good reading for beginners to advanced users; helpful for advanced concepts but also built up to them by explaining the basics ones.
Great code optimization recommendations.
Well written, easy to understand.

Bad Things:
No CD that comes with book containing code examples. I also did not find a website with the code examples.

This book is about Oracle JDBC programming, not generic database neutral JDBC programming but Oracle specific. There are many JDBC books available and many Oracle and Oracle programming books but this concentrates narrowly on JDBC for Oracle, and how to get the best performance out of that combination. It is aimed at an audience that already knows Java and probably already knows a little JDBC. It is written in a dry but very readable style and plenty of code examples. At just over 700 pages it is a fairly fat book, but I felt everything was justified and there was nothing that felt like "padding". The code examples are fairly short and tend to be complete programs with a main method rather than snippets that need to be incorporated into a runnable program. Each code example includes a comment about which version of Oracle it will run with, and mostly this covers at least 10.1 and 9.2.

The main emphasis is on compatibility with Oracle 10.g. There is an emphasis on performance which is clear from the title of Chapter 1 "Performance Toolkit" and graphs are used to illustrate the influence of various parameters on performance. The book makes use of UML style class charts, tables and plenty of performance/time line graphs. I particularly liked the use of a flow chart to illustrate the statement processing algorithm. Flow charts seem to be old fashioned, but they are almost perfect for illustrating this type of information. If you were being overly critical of the diagrams, you might describe them as unsophisticated. Thus in Chapter 15 the "Our example application" illustration looks like it was taken from the clip art of a DOS program from around 1987. But if you want pretty pictures you can buy any glossy "Illustrated Walking and Chewing Gum" book that takes your fancy. This book by contrast, concentrates on explaining essential technical and performance information, in the simplest clearest way possible, and they achieve it.

The coverage tends to keep to how Oracle is used in most common "real world" situations, thus the index does not even contain a reference to Grid computing and there is no coverage of distributed transactions, which are described in the introduction as a "less commonly used JDBC feature".

Although chapter 3 is entitled "Introduction to JDBC" it is a lightening tour with code examples that assume they are accessing an Oracle database. There is an emphasis on performance with chapters on statement caching and connection pooling. It not only covers the Oracle specific classes, but also covers where they do not work exactly as per the specification. For example
in chapter 4 "Transactions" there is a note

"In 10g Release 1 and 9i Release 2, the method setReadOnly() of the Connection interface internally does a set transaction read only. This is a bug, as it isn't the intended behavior of the method setReadOnly().."

There are many examples of notes such as this which could be vital when you are struggling with some unexpected quirk of behavior.

With this book you are not getting a re-writing of the documentation, but a description from someone who has actually used the classes. Although the heart of the book is JDBC it does have some excellent coverage of general Java/Oracle programming and configuration issues.

I was particularly interested in the sections on Connection Pooling/Caching and security related issues. These chapters would be of value for anyone writing JDBC for any target database, as it explains some of the implication of connection pooling in terms of authentication. Chapter 15, "Security-related issues" covers the issue of Mapping an end user to a database user. This covers the performance issues of a one to one mapping and the benefit of proxy authentication to get around this.

Performance Performance

Chapter 2 is called "Oracle Fundamentals", thought it might have been called "Oracle performance fundamentals". It covers issues such as the impact of Oracle record locking and the value of using bind variables for inserting records. This includes a performance graph typical of the book. Without bind variables, the graph curve is like an ascent of Mount Everest. By contrast where bind variables are used the increase in time taken represents a very gentle slope. This is the type of advice that could make the difference between your code being optimal or being unusable. In chapter 2 the author gives his mantra for the book as

"we should not just produce code that works; we should produce code that works well".
I interpret that as code that "runs fast" and code you can prove runs fast.

One of the few parts of the book that is probably not essential is chapter 8 which covers Oracle Objects. This can be summed up unfairly as "Oracle supports objects but you probably don't want to use them". However as most Java programmers tend to have an interest in Object Oriented concepts they will probably get some value out of it, even if they decide not to use JDBC to access Oracle Objects.

What about PL/SQL?

The author is not a Java Zelot and puts convincing arguments for when PL/SQL may be a better choice than Java/JDBC. He makes the expected performance argument, but more interesting is the argument that sometimes using PL/SQL may be more portable, in that you should use the procedural language of your target database, e.g. TSQL in SQL server, PLSQL etc. I think this is stretching the argument, and database portability can be more important for some categories of application.

Summary

This is not a book for students who want to learn JDBC from scratch. It is for people who want to write high performance JDBC for accessing Oracle. It takes the view that to build the best application you need to understand the underlying database as well as JDBC. If you are writing Oracle JDBC you need this book. If you are writing platform neutral JDBC you could still benefit from this book as it would allow you to avoid performance bottlenecks specific to Oracle.

The previous reviewers are absolutely right about this book. This book is definitely the best book if you are looking to exploit JDBC in combination with Oracle. Note that it covers JDBC on its own right but then suppliments it with info on Oracle. It is way better than any other JDBC book in the market (I have read through most others.) What I liked about this book is:
1. The author gives complete examples for you to work with. He also explains these examples step by step.
2. The author always provides proof for any statement of performance claims he makes in terms of code that anyone can run. This is a refreshingly different approach than some authors who simply state the claims (that are more often than not incorrect)
3. Author's approach is practical and can be used in real life projects.
4. The author goes in-depth into all topics he covers and is not afraid to delve into the details of Oracle architecture when required.
5. There is no "fluff" or "padding". There are no reams of pages just giving API information that is readily available on the web. Instead the author suppliments the JDBC API info and the Oracle documentation on JDBC freely available on the web.

In short, this book bridges the gap between J2EE developers and database developers (focusing on Oracle, of course.)

The only thing to note is that as a reader, you could get bogged down by the first two chapters since they give overview of Oracle architecture and performance tools the author uses. But as you would read the remaining chapters, you would appreciate the contents of these first two chapters.

If you are using JDBC on Oracle, then buy this book! You won't regret it!

"Expert Oracle JDBC Programming" is part of a new series called OakTable Press. This series is written by Oracle experts, making the quality very high. In fact, one of the technical reviewers of this book is "Ask Tom."

This strong relationship with Oracle results in trying to convince the reader to use stored procs/Oracle specific code. This isn't a good or a bad thing - just something to know up front. The author clearly shows what is Oracle specific and describes the tradeoffs.

The book has three sections, starting with an introduction to JDBC. While JDBC knowledge is not required, it is helpful to get full benefit from the book as advanced concepts are introduced very quickly. The book relies heavily on code with all examples clearly explained. The second section goes into Oracle specific concepts. The last section explains best practices, issues and specific performance related concepts.

This book is distinguished from others by the emphasis on good quality, high performing code. Benchmarks are provided from the beginning. Chapter 1 even covers how to time your code.

As you can tell from the title, the book is Oracle specific. So you can copy/paste the code and run it on Oracle. All code examples specifically state whether they work on 9i, 10g or both. The focus of Oracle also allows the author to demonstrate exactly what needs to be done to run/test the examples on Oracle. I recommend this book for Java developers on Oracle.

This is an excellent book with a very refreshing hands-on approach to JDBC programming for the Oracle database. The author tackles fundamental database concepts, with a strong emphasis on performance. The approach that the author uses includes the right combination of theoretical fundamentals and hands-on coding and testing. The result is a book that is ideal for both the novice user looking to understand fundamental database concepts and the advanced user looking for in-depth analyses using code examples and benchmark numbers. Best of all, the book is not just about the Oracle database in isolation. It is set within the context of JDBC programming, bringing the world of RDBMS programming to the Java community.
This book is a must have for the enterprise software developer who is even half serious about leveraging the enormous power of the Oracle database in her/his application.

A must for anyone who is interested in learning about this subject

This a book which enables a group of people to have fun following a sport. It teaches you what to look for and how to prepare yourself. It is a book that will help not only the so-so sport fans but also the very hard core sport fans. The one thing that I would have added to it would have been Chapter 23 How to go from 9th place in your league to 1st in the last five weeks of the season, but then again that's me. If you have a group of friends who like sports and don't know how to set up a league this is a great book to buy.

it allows for the whole family to come to the table as one and play the game the way it should be played. the team of gus and jim is outstanding!!!!!! i can't wait for the next version!!!!!

This book covers all the beginner aspects of the fantasy sports game. It offers the necessary steps to beginning your own league and if your a seasoned veteran helpful hints to get the winning edge. I can attest to the George Griefs and the Jermane Allensworths from my own experiences.

The book is an excellent tool that allows all to enter and enjoy the wonderful world of Fantasy Baseball!!!!!

When the news got out here in Australia that Fierce.com had finally landed in the "real" world, I raced out and bought a copy of "The Exclusive Book for Web Elitists" faster than you can say "Happy Hour at Sizzlers". Being a Fierce fan for longer than I care to remember, these guys have made me laugh over and over. And continue to do so now offline as well as on.

Tor and David are two of the craziest, abrasive, outspoken and out-of-control guys (with no particular quality attributed exclusively to either one) it's ever been my pleasure to come in contact with. And Matt is just plain unhinged. But all are hilariously funny and do the best "baffling with bulls**t" routine I've ever come across.

Just buy the book - it'll make you laugh, it'll probably make you cry and it will certainly make you look at the Web as it should be viewed - with one eye on the screen and the other on just how crazy and unreal (in the true sense of the word) this virtual reality world called the "WWW" really is. In other words - cross-eyed. (Well, it's worked for them!)

An excellent resource for "The best of the best", websites on the Internet. I will be visiting all of these websites and utilizing this book for quite some time to come. It was this book that brought me to Badpuppy.com, which I find to be the biggest best Gay & Lesbian Portal on the Internet. At the very least I now have a home on Badpuppy where I'm with many others who go through the trials and tribulations and the lifestyle questions the Gay & Lesbian community have come to expect.

Thank you Fierce.com for bringing all of these fine sites to the surface. I will be purchasing your book for years to come.

The Fierce-sters have been there, done that, and are eminently qualified to direct us to the ultimate best of the Web. Follow their advice without hesitation. You'll waste less time and find more quality in your Internet surfing. Not to mention enjoying their fascinating reviews.

These guys are incredible. They write about websites, but you hardly have to go on the web to enjoy this thing. It's really about the twisted lives and relationships the author's lead. That's what makes it funny.

I actually got the book as a gift from my mother because she knows I use the internet. She saw the book in the store and decided to buy it for me. I was nonplussed at first when I saw it. I mean, after all, who wants a book about the web for a present. I put it in my bathroom and took a gander one fine day and I could not stop laughing. These guys are so funny. And there're these fake parody type articles in each chapter of the book that are really bizaare and didn't really know what to make of but they're pretty damn funny, too. Anyway, it might be a shameful thing to say, but I know about a lot more sites now so, really, they make surfing fun. Thanks, Fierce.

Doug Florzak's Free Agent Marketing Guide is more than just 100+ marketing tips; its success comes from its combination of concisely-stated, actionable ideas, case studies,and resources.

The case studies bring the ideas to life, the resources point the way to carefully-chosen books and web site resources that can help readers learn more about a particular approach or technique.

At a time of rapid technological change, the Free Agent Marketing Guide provides a needed overview of tools and techniques combined with a one-stop, carefully-compiled "centralized resource" to keep everything straight.

A valuable bonus: the book is impeccably designed and produced. The design isn't "padded" with decorative touches that distract and unnecessarily increase the page count.

I live for checklists and ideas -- and that's what this book has in spades. When I get tired of the same old marketing activities for my business or they're not paying off, this is the book I turn to for a fresh idea to get going again.

Use this book to avoid re-inventing the wheel and pull out some great marketing ideas that will shake things up.

The Free Agent Marketing Guide provided countless resources to start, improve or enhance your marketing and sales effectiveness. The book is filled with short, easy to read, practical strategies to grow your business. Some of it is basic and some more advanced, but no matter where your are in your business cycle, you'll find words of wisdom and value. I bookmarked numerous pages and took advantage of the many of the vendors and websites recommended.

Another excellent book with sound advice by Florzak. His marketing techniques, both traditional and non-traditional, are practical and useful for both start-up and established businesses. The Resource information alone is worth the purchase price. Easy to see how implementing just several of his 100+ marketing ideas can pay off.

In The Free Agent Marketing Guide: 100+ Marketing Tips For Free Agents, Independent Consultants, And Freelancers, Doug Florzak (Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach and Associate Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication) provides 112 marketing tips thematically appropriate for time-stressed and budget-challenged freelance agents. In addition to his own impressive body of professional experience and expertise, Florzak also draws upon scores of resources and interviews with free agents who successfully implemented their own marketing strategies. To put it simply, The Free Agent Marketing can quite justifiably be considered as the "bible" for freelancers, free agents, and independent consultants.

This book really hit a home run for me. It was easy to understand and well written for a Business Marketing book dealing with its subject. The 5 Step Framework should work for anyone needing help in planning to launch and effectively brand a website, as well as any product or service that might not be related with the Online world.

In fact, the Authors' 5 Step Framework is quite practical to apply to any type of business with any size marketing issue. The saavy Marketing Executive will be able to apply this Framework to guide them through a refined process resulting in successful execution of their projects!

My bet is that this book will result in a cult following ala G. Moore's "Crossing the Chasm" and M. Hammer's "Reengineering the Corporation"! I also think that it would benefit the college student seeking additional reading materials....because they don't teach this in Buisiness School....yet! ...Five Stars...

"From Bricks to Clicks" is an easy read that provides a straight forward framework, or process if you please, for creating an Online Brand. In my opinion, I trust that the 5 steps could easily be applied to any business whether online or not! I am flabber-gasted to think that finally in 2001 that this is the first book I have read which clearly addresses these complicated and sometimes overwhelming marketing issues that most every company faces from time to time.

The book's real world examples highlight the authors' experiences, knowledge and how they arrived (step-by-step) at excellent solutions to the problems. Implementing the defined process proves its value time&time again in the book. The 5 step framework they describe is simple and should be easy to apply to small and large projects at any size company.

I am pleased that they would share this knowledge and their 5 Steps Framework in this book. I recommend "From Bricks to Clicks" for any high-level Marketing Executive and I look forward to future books or seminars by the Authors.

a great book about branding and marketing with substance! Most of the books I've read about the web, marketing, and web-marketing either use case studies (many of which are quickly obsolete) to make their case or branding theory. From Bricks to Clicks clearly is written with an understanding of both the value of hard-core branding (not just creating a logo, but building a brand by building a business) as well as what business is all about. I found it engaging and interesting. I especially liked the section on globalization ... I don't think I've seen that discussed adequately anywhere, and this is a great start with really good insight. The last 18 months showed what happens when companies forget/or don't know the basics of identifying and selling value - this book makes doing that right a lot more understandable.

This book is pleasantly different from the other brand books out there, not only because of the method, but also because it logically articulates branding on and off the web-- and integrates it with other areas of marketing. Lots of times branding is a distant cousin to marketing and corporate communications, and this book makes it all fit together. As the creator of a small business, it's useful to me but I can also see how it will help big corporate executives as well. An enjoyable read, and very useful.

This book answers a lot of my questions about how to make branding more of a tangible part of business. It is not so much written about the dot-com failures and successes as it is how the web is integrated with a method that's worked for a long time ... which I think is much more compelling. The international/global elements also added a lot because U.S. companies really need to understand this side of things better. It's an interesting, quick read. The only pseudo-negative I might add is that the cover information actually does the book an injustice ... it sounds too web-centric when in fact the book goes far beyond that. A great alternative and next-step book after the trout/ries and geoffrey moore texts.

I put this book on my "must have, don't loan it out," shelf right away.

I really like the approach and the presentation. The teaching style is casual and encouraging with a welcome absence of jargon. Don't get me wrong, if you follow the chapters you will get a FP site up and running, you just won't have to suffer a barrage of technical details to do it. Why utilize FrontPage in the first place if you are excited about the all the nuts and bolts of how web site programing works?

The included CD helps tremendously ... the combination of reading it and seeing the author go through the steps just further demystifies the process. Between the two presentations, you're bound to "get it." I watched some of the how to's, that I didn't even want to do yet. It got me interested and curious and gives you a sense of all the things you can do with FP2002.

I already had the FP Bible 2002 by this author. Did I "needed" the Virtual Classroom? ... Yes! The Bible is great for digging deep into the FP world, but the Virtual Classroom is clearly the right way to get yourself up to speed and in the running as a web site designer, painlessly. My advice, if you asked me, would be to get yourself a copy.

I found everything I needed in this book and the cd that comes with it. Having known nothing about FrontPage before owning this book now in just a couple of days I know a lot of things to create my perfect web site. Thanks David Karlins. You are one of a kind. I am looking forward to your other books to be published with the same format.

If you want to have an instant website without wasting a lot of time, this is the book for you. The CD takes you step by step to creat a fairly sophisticated website with input forms, scrolling/fly in text, differing themes, inserting pictures and video. etc. Using the CD, I really did not need the book all that much. Well worth it!!!

Text and multimedia combine in David Karlins' 384 page instructional reference guide, Frontpage 2002 Virtual Classroom to create an effective and "user friendly" learning experience. Readers will learn how to create large or small Web sites that are sophisticated and attractive, and effectively manage the organization, content, and style of their site. Readers can follow along on the CD-ROM as the on-screen guru explains and demonstrates the techniques discussed in the text. Frontpage 2002 Virtual Classroom is a confidently recommended "how to" introduction for all Frontpage 2002 users.

I am so glad I bought this book! It is truly a lifesaver! I learn better visually, so the CD Rom Virtual Classroom that's included helped me tremendously. Thanks to David Karlins' for sharing his knowledge of FrontPage. I hope to have my website up & running very soon!