Interactive Books

I recently purchased a copy of "Extensible 3D Graphics for Web Authors" and found the book to be a wonderful guide to this new field. The text is comprehensible and the material is laid out in a way that makes the book a delight to read. The authors are to be congratulated for producing this welcome contribution to web authoring.

Finally, a useful book on X3D. Up until now I had to rely upon the technical ISO spec documentation which is, by its nature, a bit obtuse. This book, in contrast, explains in plain language how to put X3D to use in a tangible way. It breaks the format down into the base components, and explains each in an understandable way with straight forward examples. All the technical information is here, but laid out in an approachable manner, and with plenty of context. Most of the visual examples in the book are a bit simplistic, which is just fine for explaining core concepts. However, they are not indicative of what is truly possible with this 3D format. With the knowledge presented in this book, what can be done is limited only by one's time and creativity. I keep this one within arm's reach.

Before reading this book, I was playing about with Flux Studio - going through examples and trying stuff out while trying to make sense of some of the terms used in the IDE. The Wiki helped somewhat but still left a lot of stuff un-explained. Since reading the book, which is written in a very accessible, matter-of-fact style, I am now aware what the capabilities of X3D are and how best to use it for my purposes. There are also many more examples available which illustrate usages and techniques. My particular purposes for exploring X3D are firstly to provide interactive demonstrations to better illustrate particular product concepts, and also to present software architectures in a more meaningful way that people can navigate through to discover the information they need. I am a Software Engineer rather than a graphic artist but I'm coming to grips with the whole 3D modelling thing as well as learning the X3D stuff. Anyway, overall I have found this book very good and it will continue to be a reference source for me.

For as long as there has been a World Wide Web, 3D has been the 'next big thing', but because of many factors, it never really took off. But behind the browser wars, the dot com boom and bust, and all the hype around competing 3D graphics formats, Extensible 3D Graphics (X3D) matured as the stable standard for 3D on the web. And it finally becomes accessible to everyone with this book. Following the simple and instructive examples, even a novice can create 3D models and virtual worlds for the web. The book and accompanying website provide both introductory and intermediate material, and it's useful across a wide range of skill levels.

From an educator's perspective, this book is long overdue. Often texts in 3D graphics focus on learning applications such as Maya or 3DS Max. While these tools are powerful and widely used, they do not teach the basics of 3D Graphics. This book takes a tool-agnostic approach, and focuses on the fundamentals of the scene graph, rendering, lighting, spatialized sound, and interactivity.

This book is the culmination of many years of work in 3D graphics and reflects the expertise of the authors' many years in the 3D graphics industry as both educators and practitioners. It's an excellent resource for the classroom and beyond.

Great learning tool for my son as we are trying out home schooling. It jumps into the alphabet quickly but then has lots of review of each letter. We usually can do two lessons in 30 minutes!

30 Minutes a Day Learning System is a great buy. My son looks forward to working on each lesson. Some take longer than 30 minutes, others about 10 to complete. The lessons help build on the things he already knows. Each mini-milestone adds to his confidence.

I bought this book along with Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills, Preschool edition to help get my three and a half year old ready for kindergarten. It's great and exactly what I was looking for. After the lesson pages are completed for the day, there are more suggested activities at the end of the chapter. The Comprehensive Curriculum book is also a great book, but the 30 Minutes a day book presents more challenges for her as you get further into the book. My daughter does not go away to preschool, so I am using these books together to prepare her academically for kindergarten.

This book is packed with everything you need to use Sony's Acid Pro to it's fullest. The information is clearly presented with lot's of screen shots, tips and suggestions. The chapters take you from just getting around in the program to detailed discussion of all the FX available and when and where to use them, to mastering loop manipulation, using MIDI, and publishing your work. I found useful information in every chapter. The book is well organized. Each topic in a chapter has its own sub-heading with usually about a half-page of text, making it easy to put down, play with what you've learned, and then continue. This book also explains several ways to jump from feature to feature, including menu navigation and short-cut keys. This is a great book for learning the software and to have on hand as a reference book.

This book not only will help you begin to expand what you can do with Acid Pro 5.0, but will also provide a review of basic music theory and song creation. It is more detailed, and not as fun to read as "Instant Acid" but can actually serve as a reference as you continue to grow in your technical abilities. You can hear how I used the info by lisening to Griffman on acidplanet.com

Sub-Title: The Official Guide to Sony ACID Pro 5 Software : The Official Guide to Sony's ACID Pro 5 (Power!)

ACID Pro, at about $400 retail (about $250 discounted) isn't the cheapest or the most expensive music processing software. It is probably the most popular loop based creation and remixing software sold.

This book is intended to be both a tutorial and a reference book and it does that by spending the first couple of chapters leading you through a tutorial before moving to a more reference like format. It is intended to be a supplement to the manual that comes with the product, at once providing more basic understanding of the underlying philosophy of loop generated music.

Mr. Frank, the author is a multimedia artist specializing in digital video production and scoring. He has used ACID to create music for a wide variety of customers.

This is an intermediate to advanced level book, as the author says, play around with the software first, and then we'll settle down to doing some work.

I was glad to read a book with diverse writing styles and insights into the authors life. I found some of the stories heartfelt and sweet and one in piticular that was a bit disturbing and dealing with abuse.
The writer tells her views in interesting formates and even made me look at things ordinary a bit differently
I have read her works on line before and am pleased to see her published and availabe to share with others now. Good idea and as the back cover says I am looking forward to more of her work in the future!

For anyone contemplating learning/practicing writing, this is the book for you. When one imparts wisdom, the limit is the wisdom she/he has. When one imparts joy, the giving is unlimited. Diana Day Admire brings joy to all she touches and this book of hers is one of the many ways she brings joy, and the joy of writing to you.

This is a very interesting book. It gives the reader the opprotunity to express themself as well as read the heartfelt and creative works. This is a great gift for children, who are learning how to write creatively as well as adults who are suffering from writers block. I found this filled with great poems and tales. The format is innovative, creative and useful.

Pablo's Agent Secret is a very popular character in our house. If you liked Super Secret Super Spy, you'll like this book. It's good for helping younger kids learn to read since they already know and like the story.

Book is fun and there are many different voices you can use...evil Lady in Pink, Agent Secret is more of a James Bond in our house, evil dimwitted henchman, a computer, and Austin has many different voices since he is in disguise most of the time. We have a good time reading it and doing evil laughs. My daughter has now been talking like a robot though, but very cute.

my children just love anything backyardigans and this story we have been reading at night before bedtime and they love it

My preschool students adore this book. The picture viewer gets them hooked from the very beginning.

My son loves to look at the viewfinder and has learned a lot from this book.

My son is 2 and loves Little Einstein. Thought the book might be a little young for him but he knows exactly what to do with the spinning circle. He just loves it

I bought this author's Autodesk VIZ CD and liked it so much I decided to try the AutoCAD 2000 CD because that's what I use. I really liked it too. The things I like best are:

1) Its cheaper than other CD's and covers more commands.
2) It also covers more than even the big books like
Inside AutoCAD. Its _all_ tutorials so its easy to
understand.
3) Its easy to install. Just follow the directions.
4) Its easy to use. I like using ALT + TAB to switch back
and forth between it and AutoCAD. The READ THIS FIRST
page is the only thing I had to read in order to
understand exactly how to use it.
5) Its easy to print the tutorials. I set my properties
when I print to put two pages on each piece of paper
to save printer ink. I read the tutorials like magazine
articles - they very easy to follow because there are lots
of pictures. You should do this too. The tutorials are long
sometimes.
6) No animations, which is good because they suck up space
and you can't print them, and they are boring to watch -
if I wanted animations I would buy a video which there
are two million of.
7) The index is very good - commands are easy to find
8) It covers everything - beginner, intermediate,
advanced topics. Lines, arcs, circles -> object tracking
and dimension styles -> dimension families, plot style
tables -> 3D commands & custom menus/toolbars. I think
its like 80 hours or more of training. I haven't finished
it yet.
9) The author writes back if you email her questions about
the tutorials. I didn't understand Otrack (even after
I did the tutorial which I didn't read carefully enough)
and she wrote back when I emailed her. She knew exactly
what I was doing wrong. She's very polite.

I recommend this CD very highly. In fact I like both the
things I purchased from this company. The VIZ CD is very good too.

One warning - this isn't a "for dummies" product. Its for people that actually want to learn the product and use it to do real work. If you are looking for something really easy this product might not work well for you.

Easy to install, lots and lots of projects, covers the easy stuff and works up to the hard stuff. I bought it for my office and now everyone is borrowing it. The publisher does answer questions about the tutorials by the way. You email them - they email you back. Pretty cool.

I can't believe this CD is so good! I never knew it was possible to get training, REAL TRAINING, without going to a class. But this CD really delivers. In under two weeks, I've gone from a beginner to an Expert. (Well, I'm making 3D models which seems like expert stuff to me.) Oh, and I got stuck and sent an email to the publisher. Within 24 hours I had an ANSWER from a REAL LIVE PERSON that got me going again. Tell me another publisher that cares enough about its readers to answer their questions. This CD is like a teacher in a box!

I thought it was a very informative course. From beginner to the more advanced. Very user-friendly (which is rare) in-depth lessons.

J.Kriek
Mech. Designer
Triple/S Dynamics, Inc.

This is a MASTERPIECE OF TEACHING something this complex in the easiest way possible!!! I had about 3 weeks to find a way to learn Inventor. I researched the author and found he was a certified Autodesk Inventor instructor for over 10 years and his course is certified by Autodesk, as confirmed on the Autodesk website. I also found these courses for Inventor 8, so I could see he had lots of experience creating the courses. After viewing the demo on the TEDCF website, I knew the technique would work, and I liked his presentation style. I purchased Autodesk Inventor 11 Accelerated Productivity: Solid Modeling, An Interactive Course for Autodesk Inventor 11, Autodesk Inventor 11 Accelerated Productivity: Assemblies and Advanced Concepts, An Interactive Course for Autodesk Inventor 11, Autodesk Inventor 11 Accelerated Productivity: 2D Drafting and Customization, An Interactive Course for Autodesk Inventor 11, and Accelerated Productivity 11: Sheet Metal Design--An Interactive Course for Autodesk Inventor 11. As recommended, I listened to all of the lessons, and took notes to keep track of the big picture. There were a number of areas I would not need, so I just listened enough to know whether or not I needed it for my project. Then I organized my project and started creating my models and saw my invention come to life. It was an exciting moment made entirely possible by David Melvin's masterpiece of teaching. I go back and refresh my learning all the time. The memory jogger will search for the concept in the lessons and take you right to it. I believe the proof in his teaching style, borne of hard work and experience, is that he taught someone outside the profession to create models in Inventor 11 is so short a time!!! If you don't know how Inventor works, the program will not let you do anything. The only error messages I received were simple and easy to fix, because David Melvin taught me to the big picture, and I designed my models using his experience to guide me. My only formal training is an engineering drafting course at University of Florida in 1965. Later, I changed my major from engineering to accounting, and am an auditor/CPA. David's straight talk on concept after concept makes it possible to focus all your energy on learning Inventor in a very short time. I shall always be grateful to David Melvin for producing these courses and teaching me something I'll enjoy using the rest of my life.

Any one new to Inventor or just CAD drawing in general will benefit from this course. Even if you are experienced with Inventor this tutorial series will help. Its also a great reference, you can jump into any topic and watch a tutorial on what you are attempting to do. I did the first several chapters on the basics and then began dong my own drawings. Open your Inventor 11 program, launch the course, and do the steps they teach you in your own drawing, pausing the tutorial at each step, you'll get a great hands-on experience and remember it. If your going to buy anything for inventor 11, then buy this first.

I got the book because the boy on the cover looks like my son. I bought it when he was four months old. He's one year next week. He's eaten the edges, bitten the cover, turned the pages, vomited on it (that was fun) pointed out the baby, pointed out the moon, thrown it, carried it, dragged it, patted it, yelled about it-all in the last nine months. I may have to get a new dazzler and one to replace this one but this is by far the best $3.00 I ever spent. (Ocean State Job Lot)

I had never seen this book, but since I had seen Shiny Seaside and Sparkly Day before, I figured that my daughter would love this one too. Sure enough, she does. She's 18 months and I had checked out Shiny Seaside and Sparkly Day when she was about nine months old. They were such a hit that I asked for all four in the series for Christmas and she got them. She loves to look at the bright pictures. They really capture her attention. I highly recommend these books.

My 10-month-old received this book 3 months ago from his uncle. It was, then, and still is, clearly his favorite book. His face lights up and he smiles at every page. I don't know if it is the sparkly mylar cutouts or the bright colors and simple characters that make this book stand out above his others, but I plan to order the other 3, just because it is so much fun watching him enjoy something so much!

Not only is this book musical, but it's interactive as well while you're reading to your little one. There's 10 pages, 5 page spreads, and each page has a description of what's on it, and a face in a circle at the top that corresponds to the faces in the music box part.

What's great is the interactive part, you can do more than just read this book, or just listen to the music and look at the pictures. The point is, for example on one page to talk about animals that have wings, on another it's about animals with tails, another page points out ears. We also use it to learn the names of the animals, my son will point to them. He loves the book, and he's the critic, so I give it 5 stars!

My son who is 15 months old loves this book after almost a year. And to my surprise, he hasn't been able to rip or bend it like most of his other books. He has learned to push the buttons himself and now dances to the classical music. The book rhymes and it has common animals that he recognizes and points to. I love Baby Einstein books and this is one that I highly recommend. A+

I bought this as a Christmas Gift for my niece who is now 9 months old and she loved it! Obviously she isn't much into the actual words but the melodies and the illustrations keep her happily entertained.