Interactive Books

I enjoyed this book! A great story about the journeys we go on and how they can impact our lives.

Chris has a great sense of humour, and his love/hate relationship with the Irish shines through ih book as I giggled my way through the pages. It is great to read a 'regular blokes' writing!! :-)

Looking forward to the next adventure!

Not only is this book written by my brother an interesting and funny account of his travels in Ireland - more to the point - it has ME in it! Woohooo I'm famous... (Note to self: tone down my narcissistic tendencies). In all seriousness though, I enjoyed 'a few Drops short of a Pint', because in many ways it reminded me of my time and travels in Ireland too. Ireland can be a frustrating place, that is for certain, but those are the kinds of things you get through and look back and enjoy in retrospect. This is what Chris has captured, an essentially personal journey (in many senses of the word) in a retrospective angle. I think, having been tested time again, his character has shone through in his writing. There is a truthfulness to Chris' book that you can admire, I highly recommend trying it and discovering everything in it on offer yourself.

A. Dowding

Very well written book with a lot of humour. I found myself laughing at the craziness of the people Chris and Kerryn came across in their travels. Can't wait to experience Ireland myself!

Would recommend it to anyone interested in funny travel narratives!

The book chronicles Chris and Kerryn's time spent living and working in Ireland. It is one of the few books about the Emerald Isle that doesn't read like it was written by Ireland's national tourist board. It's an honest account of the good times and the bad and you can find out more about it at Chris's website [...]. Peter Moore, author of 'Vroom with a View'

...while not avoiding the dark side of the Irish character, Chris also explores the humour. Gregory Stanton, 'weekender'

...a full bodied travel memoir that gives the reader a taste of Irish life and history. Jennifer Scott, 'Sunshine Coast Daily'

It's the sort of travel book you can read over a few beers. Linda Muller, 'The Redland Times'

I have been learning flash in school and am attempting to learn After Effects. Not only has it been easy to understand and helpful in learning AE, but i have learned useful Flash tips. The set up and pictures helps my "right brain" enjoy the studying process.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book and the included media!

Chris Jackson has hit on the right amount of technical detail and practical content to make this book easy enough for a beginner to follow, while still keeping it interesting for intermediate users. My 11 year old son and I used this book and went through the projects together. We enjoyed it very much!

Highly recommended!

Chris Jackson is an excellent teacher. His classes in After Effects at the Rochester Institute of Technology featured notes that were far easier to understand than standard books on After Effects and Flash, and I always hoped he'd write a book incorporating some of the lessons taught in his classes.
He has, and it's a winner. Most computer animation books are heavy going, but this one is easy and fun to read. There is no waste, no padding, no jargon, just solid information. It is easier to animate 'parented' puppets in After Effects and export in Flash than to work in Flash alone--the enjoyable exercises on the enclosed DVD will have you up and animating your own characters in no time at all.
I can recommend this book to anyone who is interested in hand drawn computer animation.

This book is excellent and I highly recommend it for all animators! There are many tips, examples, and workflows that show exactly how to bridge Flash and After Effects. There is a nice balance of web and video examples and how to properly prep and animate assets for each. I found the chapters on character animation and visual effects most helpful. The examples clearly show how to get the most out of parenting, puppet tools and fractals. I found the examples fun and inspiring. Unlike many books out there, the artwork and examples are well thought out and look great! The book is also well written. All examples were very easy to follow. I commend the author for this wonderful book!

a great book for any flash student with superb examples . a must for anyone connected to computers..

This is a quite thorough book that picks up where Mohler's intro book leaves off. It's written as if a Flash instructor literally transcribed his class presentations, which is good and bad. Explanations are long, but at times are wordy and dull. It will remind you at times of tedious homework assignments and drills. There is quite a bit of slogging through pages with only two or three long paragraphs with no Flash code. That's not bad, but it's a sign that an editor probably could have tightened up the writing here.

Also, these authors need to lighten up and learn to write! The tone they take is often "academic", with all the snobbiness and overuse of big words and long sentences that comes with that. Often it's clear that one or the other of the two authors has written a particular passage--and there are some awful clunkers there. Better instructors and writers strive for a more human, friendly tone.

Also, there are coding techniques that seem to me not to reflect current or common Flash coding practice, like the frequent use of the eval() function and the set() function (which I've *never* seen other advanced Flash authors use).

One good thing: the two long projects in the book are kind of neat, definately better than in some other big Flash books.

I'm a beginning flash user, and I picked this book up as a follow up to Mohler's first book. Even though it explores advanced scripting, the explanations are clear enough for beginners like myself to understand. I actually understand OOP because of the great dog class example. There are some really great examples on the cd-rom. It's so helpful to have an actual Flash file to play with, so I can see exactly how it works.

I bought this book a couple of weeks ago and I love it. It has tons of examples in the CD. It is a great book to learn complex actionscripting.

New Day has a series of eight little action and rhyme books. This one is perfectly suited for a little children's Christmas play. The kids love the action and the repetitive and rhyming nature of the book makes memorization easy. The kids love it.

My three year old granddaughter gives it the thumbs up!

This is another favorite story from Bible in action rhyme. Stephanie Jeffs teams up with illustrator Chris Saunderson in this memorable story of the three wise men from the East, the Star of Bethlehem, and the giving of gifts to the Baby King, Jesus. The brilliant color illustrations, the action movements pictured and the simple narrative all combine to make this a delightful story for the Christmas season.

The search begins with the star, the vision of a new king, traveling from afar, and the discovery of the baby king. As the wise men worship the new found king they bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

"Follow the star with the Wise Men" is a good choice for the advent season. The story can be read by early readers themselves, dramatized, included in family time celebrations, or for bed time reading. A delightful reminder of the message of Christmas.
Reviewed by Richard R. Blake, a Christian Education Consultant

Action and adventures await the reader. The entire series are fun for kids. It is something kids and their parents can do together.

I love this series, Action Rhyme Books, from New Day Publishing. Each part of the Nativity story is accompanied by an action for toddlers through 1st graders to act out - "Point point" to the Star - "Search search" for the King. This could even be the script for a Christmas play; parents might even want a copy for themselves!

Hi from Down Under,

I had been casting around for some months for a user friendly New Testament Greek programme, a sort of 'Teach Yourself Greek - for fools and the gramatically ignorant' was what I was after. The Parsons CD 'Greek Tutor: Interactive Learning System' has more than adequately met my wish. It is a clear, FUN (believe it or not) interactive programme which - with much built in encouragement - leads one step by step without making the mistakes of other programmes I have tried, of either expecting prior knowledge or amazing intellegence. I can't recommend this programme more highly - Greek is hard work but this way it is also addictive. Buy and enjoy!

rosalene@clear.net.nz

If I could, I would give this software seven stars. I doubted that I would be able to learn Biblical Greek (they must say "it is Greek to me" for a reason after all). However, after just about an hour I know the alphabet and can make out several Greek words.

Greek Tutor was easy to install on my computer, it was done in about 45 seconds. It works great with XP, there are one or two very minor problems, but those do not impact the operation of the software.

Before today I had no background with Greek and was not sure I could learn it. However, I believe that using this program I will be able to read my Greek New Testament in a much shorter period of time than I thought possible.

This tutorial from Parson's is excellent. If you need to learn Biblical Greek this is a good starting point. Note that it is ONLY a starting point but a very good one at that. Of course nothing beats a live classroom environment for learning a new language but this tutorial comes close. The key is practicing and reviewing every lesson till you are sick and tired of the stuff. I've found that extensive practice is the only way that one can retain the stuff specially if one is 61 years young.

Another benefit of this tutorial is that after learing it I read the corresponding topics in Mounce's "Basics Of Biblical Greek Grammar" AND do the exercises in "Basics Of Biblical Greek Grammar Workbook". Just doing the tutorial may get you going as far as reading simple passages but for a deeper facility with the language one has to use Mounce or a similar text.

All in all this is an excellent product to get you started on a fairly difficult but immensely rewarding journey.

Learning a new language is always difficult. Learning a language that is no longer in common use is even more so. But Parson's Greek tutor reduces the effort with fun interactive exercises tied to both of the most popular Biblical Greek books. In a matter of hours I was able to pick up my Greek NT and start reading many passages in their original language. Quickly getting into reading and memorizing scripture in the original is an encouragement to read and learn more. A great resource perfect for the layman wishing to learn a little Greek or the seminary student looking for a little extra help on the side.

I went to school for video so a majority of the book was review. There were aspects I found useful. There are some differences in video production for the web. This book clearly identified them. Very useful tool to have beside the computer.

Do you ever published video online using Flash? Do you ever used Flash Media Server and don't know where to begin? Do you know how to make your videos look gorgeus online?

The response to all this questions (and much more) are beautifully explained in this book.

It covers from capturing video, creating a 3 point light studio for maximizing the quality and size of the compressed file, to the deployment of your solution using Flash Media Server. It's full of real world examples that you can use right out of the box.

Really really good book for starters. And if you want more, look for others titles of Focal Press.

This is an excellently mastered book. The writing style is clear. The step by step examples are appropriately illustrated. There is source video and a plentiful supply of links for needs. The illustrations are appropriate and carefully selected for the key points.

If you are a FMS (Flash Media Server) administrator or programmer, you will find answers to those user inquiries why their video looks poorly. You will have intelligent responses and tools to analyze the problems likely caused by the capture and prepartion of the video.

For videographers, this is your bible on how to capture video for Flash.

For video editors, this is your bible on how to prepare and compress the files.

For newbies to Flash video, you have the soup to nuts book that breaks it down into nice chunks with examples.

Very impressive part of the text is that many assertions are supported with research from many major video publishing entities.

Finally there is a thread throughout the book that provides the market and industry information to help you assess your choice of Flash video as a web video platform.

You will learn the specific steps in major digital video software packages such as Adobe Premier and Final Cut to fix issues.

You can learn how to set-up a recording set with the correct lighting that will be best for Flash video format.

You can learn to install the Flash Media Server (free) and use it and not be a programmer, but willing to download example files needed. Or if you are interested in programming FMS, this gets you started.

The Hands-On Guide to Flash Video if full of good information for anyone interested in streaming video on the Web. For those interested in using streaming video for anything from professional level videos to those who just want to get something on YouTube, this book is a gem. Ranging from those who know absolutely nothing about Web video to those, like myself who need to learn more about taking videos and some of the technical characteristics of digital video, such as interlacing, you'll find this book invaluable.

The 19 chapters are written in a friendly and accessible style covering 1) Creating video, 2) Preparing video for the Web, and 3) working with Flash, including a clear introduction to Flash Media Server. Having worked with Flash Media Server (FMS) since it's inception, I have found that one of the best tricks for saving on bandwidth is good lighting and good sound, both of which are covered in this book. Likewise, for those new to streaming video, you will find how to set up a progressive download that you can set up on your hosting server without having to use FMS if you choose.

Among the many other topics I found revealing are the following:
1. Chroma keying - removing parts of a background so that any background can be inserted. Best known for weather reports on TV.
2. Cue points - adding triggers in the video that can be used as events. Cue points are very useful for adding information,
3. Interlacing and Deinterlacing in video files
4. Decision-making in setting video parameters
5. Optimizing light and sound for streaming video

An area that is in need of serious help is provided by the introduction to Flash Media Server. This will help in developing FMS2 applications for those who are new to open socket server technology. So for newbies to FMS, this will come as a welcome addition.

One of the interesting (and I think correct) decisions the authors made was to use the Flash CS3 platform with ActionScript 2.0 instead of ActionScript 3.0. Here's why. It will be at least a year or so before a significant number of users will have the Flash 9 plug-in for their browsers. Yesterday I bought a new iMac, and the Safari browser that comes with the Flash plug-in is still using Flash 8. (I found that out when I tried to play one of my apps built with AS 3.0.) What's important is that On2's VP6 technology started in Flash 8. So, no one is missing a significant video element using ActionScript 2.0 as would be the case with Flash 7 or earlier. [...]

I bought this for my 2 year old and he loves the book! We enjoy sitting down and reading all about Harry and his dinosaurs. We even have our own bucket of plastic dinosaurs that my son now carries around - just like Harry.

We checked this book at from the library awhile ago and read it about one million times before we had to return it! My 3 1/2 year old son loves Harry! We have read all the books and we just discovered the new TV series based on the books.

They o a great job of introducing dinosaurs to small kids in a friendly, non-threatening way, I hope they keep coming!

My son (just turned 2) refused to leave school without this book. We've had it now for a week and I've read it to him now approx 1.8 billion times, and I now have to return the book, so I'm getting his own copy. I don't know if this is a boy thing or just a kid thing, but he is absolutly fascinated by dinosaurs now and can even point out where tyrannosaurus is or stegmalopohopanopalisaurus (he actually knows the names better than I do). The book itself is not any kind of dino expert book, its just a very simple sweet storry about a boy and his toy dinos, but somehow it really struck a chord with my son.

i love this book.... the author has done a super job of introducing dinosaurs and indirectly teaches children the role of libraries and the importance of books..... furthermore it can help children foster the feeling of appreciation of what they have....

I love this little book of happiness. I have been a Hello Kitty fan since I was 8 years old, and this book only confirms that Hello Kitty cares about everyone! From Germany to Mexico she travels along and tells you about her journey. Expect to be dazzled by happy colors, cute drawings, and all Hello Kitty goodness. See Hello Kitty dressed in a African costume, a Kimono, a Dutch costume and more. See foods, bulidings, and landmarks from all over the world. A family treasure (it's hardback so a real keeper) to be passed down to generations of little girls who have or will grow up on Hello Kitty like I did. AWESOME!

When I came across this adorable book in (where else) Bookland, I was immediatly charmed. Being a Hello Kitty fan, I would have been charmed anyway, but even people who have never heard of this too cute feline would delight in this book. In this small pink volume, Hello Kitty travels to many different countries, learning some new vocabulary. Also along the way, Kitty teaches readers to say "hello" in many different languages, such as chinese, french, and japanese. Even though this book is aimed at children ages 4-8, I recommend it to anyone in the mood for a charming and alluring read. Hey, it even comes with four cute postcards, a bookmark, and three Hello Kitty luggage tags. Also, if you like this book, look for other Hello Kitty books. Enjoy!

Who *doesn't* love Hello Kitty? Supercute Sanrio cartoon spokeskitten gazes at you with her round black eyes, red bow askew on her left ear, from thousands of Sanrio products ranging from backpacks and stickers to the Hello Kitty toaster (highly recommended) and bathmat (almost too cute to use!) While this isn't Hello Kitty's first foray into the book field, it's certainly the most attractive.

Basically plotless but attractively designed, each colorful two-page spread takes Hello Kitty from country to country, dressing her up in native costume (you've not lived until you've seen Hello Kitty in a Mexican 'Day of the Dead' mask) and showing off various food, animals, objects and places from that country, and a friendly way to say "hello!" in that country's language. My only disappointment? Hello Kitty doesn't visit England (she *lives* there already, if you follow the Sanrio official backstory).

A pronunciation and translation guide in the back helps you through saying what you've seen in the book, and punch-out Hello Kitty postcards, luggage tag and bookmark are a fun extra bonus!

The beauty of this book is its dual appeal: not only will it be fun for very young children to learn about other countries, but the appeal of the character and her wonderfully simple but smile-inspiring design has made Hello Kitty the most popular Japanese import since Godzilla. Whether you enjoy this as a simple kids' book or a giggle-inspiring camp item, you can't deny the gentle and happy appeal of Hello Kitty. And hey, it's easier to display on a shelf than that Hello Kitty vacuum cleaner or the Hello Kitty spatula.

A great book for kids. Hello Kitty is very cute in this one. If you love hello kitty this is a book for you.

We started reading this book to our now, two in a half year old, at 18 months, she adores it! We definitely interact with lots of tickles and she anticipates it every time we turn the page. She has already memorized all the characters names and knows when it's time for the ticklebugs to come out! I recommend this book to all parents who take the time to read to their children. The colors and story are unique and very fun.

I came here to give this book a glowing five star
rating and was very surprised to see a two star
rating. This is my four year old daughter's favorite
book by far. She loves the Tickle Bugs. We read it all
the time and have never laughed so hard in our whole
lives. The artwork is all computer animated and, in my
opinion, is excellent - it's creative, cute, and
vibrant. I'm really amazed that anyone wouldn't like
it.

Children's books are made for kids, not adults. Out of
about 60 books, my daughter loves this one over all
the rest. She's crazy about it. For that reason, if I
could, I'd give it six stars.

Clearly, everyone has different tastes. Hopefully
there are a lot of other parents out there who like
this as much as we do, because without a parent
playing along, this book isn't going to be half the
fun. If you enjoy quality time with your children, I
full-heartedly recommend this. The amount of fun we've
had thanks to this book is priceless.

I was drawn to this book for its cool artwork. When I gave it to my friend's three year old son for his birthday, I was amazed. I don't think I could have given a better gift. He loves this book and is crazy about the Tickle Bugs. He literally carries it around with him wherever he goes! On so many levels, this is a very special book for kids.

This book is very, very, very, very, very cute and fun, and the tickle bugs are so great and adorable!!! We love it!

This beautifully illustrated book is translated from the original French, but the story is sure to keep children ages 4 through 6 engaged and thinking as they figure out from one page to the next, which beach item is missing. I can imagine teachers using this with little cut outs of the beach-bound items so that children can solve each page's mystery as the story continues. A great find.

My 3yr old son loves this book. We have gotten it from the library several times. We like it too because it is interactive, making him think about what item is missing at each stage of the story.

A mother wants to go to the beach, and like any good planner, wants to bring a few things: a turtle, an umbrella, a book, a ball, and of course, her baby. But every time she tries to get there, the mode of transportation makes it so she has to leave something behind...which she is not willing to do. What is missing in each picture? Little ones will enjoy guessing, and they will also enjoy finding the teeny ladybug in each picture. I liked the Mama's aplomb as she searches for the perfect solution to her problems (look at the picture where she wears the turtle like a bicycle helmet!). My little guy wants this book read over and over, and with this charming interactive adventure, it's my pleasure!

Briefly, we have a young lady who wants to go to the beach with her baby and sets out to do so. She has quite a number of items she wants to take with her and after their car breaks down, she must find some sort of transportation to use rather than her broken car. Each mode she attempts to use has some drawback, i.e. the item, such as the bal, a turtle, etc. will not fit. The reader and the child must guess what item she is unable to take. This is fun and the little ones seem to like it. The writing is simple and repetative. The art work is great and quite eye catching and has charming details - it is funny. It has a rather European flavor to it which is kind of nice. The story flows perfectly with the illustratons. Brigitte Luciani is a good story teller and you certainy cannot fault the skill of the artist, Eve Tharlet. This book is perfect for preschoolers and 1st and maybe 2nd graders. This review is of the hardback edition. I do highly recommend this one.