Interactive Books

certainly made me think, most of us cannot imagine life without electricity, but here we have people who learn to manage. I don't think I would have done as well as them.

In this second book Terri Blackstock continues her story of a world thrown into chaos by way of a "starpluse" which has rendered the use of all modern technology useless. Terri Blackstock explores how our world might "look" if this were to happen, how some grow in their faith, love, and selflessness while others grow in their selfishness, sin, and evil. A griping story of orphaned children in a world devoid of "services" to deal with such an occurance and a family willing to sacrifice everything to help these children, their community, and to serve God in any way he asks.

It was as fantastic as the first book. Can't wait to get book # 3!

Spellbinding and interesting! Safe to listen to with older kids in the car too! Love the fact that the family is living out their faith and that the daughter struggles with being bound to a non-believer. We couldn't wait to get back in the car and hear what was next. (Caution: a few scenes have drug use, gun use)

Three months into the world wide technology outage, the Branning family and their neighbors are beginning to get the hang of surviving. They are bartering for what they need and digging a neighborhood well.

But then they are robbed. Jeff chases after the thieves and discovers they are four children, siblings, who have been living alone for months. Against their better judgment, the Brannings feel compelled to care for these kids. Where is their mother? And will the Brannings be able to feed these extra mouths?

If I were viewing this series as a mystery series, I'd be highly disappointed. While there are some mysteries surrounding the kids, they develop in fits and starts. And the climax of that story is pretty weak. Instead, this is a novel about survival and what humans will do when faced with the end of our civilization. As a result, it is fascinating and page turning. I had a hard time putting the book down. The characters are real, and I found myself asking if I would have the faith and compassion to respond as they did multiple times over the course of the novel.

This book relies heavily on the events of the first in the series. There is a recap and character guide in the first few pages, so you could jump in here if you needed to. But I'd advise you to read them in order. And there are some great develops as far as the overall story goes in this book that made me look forward to the third.

This is another challenging and captivating novel from a great writer. If you want a great read, consider this series.

This is a good book, that covers a lot of info. It also holds up as a book, and not just a how-to. All the info in this book is good info, but it is better suited for large markets. Don't expect to be able to read this book and be able run a business right of the gates, but at the same time this will help get you on the right track. Get this book, it is a good look into how someone got into the business and was able to make it work for a long time.

A great book that gives you the important information you need to run your own production company! I don't know of another title that actually tells you how to get the work that will support your financial needs. After all, you have to have work coming in the door or else...

I am an instructor at advanced multimedia classes at a Business School close to Copenhagen, Denmark. I've been around for a while and have been working with 3D, animation, database programing and webdesign and I have also read parts of this book with great excitement and can't wait to finish it. This is a book that has been a demand for on the Danish market for several years...and now it is here. Wonderful. I particularly like the very direct and bold way it describes how the future entrepreneurs should behave on the market in order to survive. Conclusion: the absolute BEST step-by-step book ever written on the topic and a must for anyone going into the media business.

As a reader just finishing the final pages of 'Desktop Video Studio Bible', I must say I totally enjoyed it. This is an excellent guideline to starting and maintaining a business. I'll keep this as a reference for years.

My wife and I have recently started a media production business on the side as presently we both work for a large computer company. I have been in the engineering related field for over 20 years. We got started in this media business at home doing simple home movies and transferring video tape. Slowly the word spread at work and among friends and before too long we saw a nucleus for a potential business. This spring we presented a surprise 40th birthday video produced by our company at a party hosting about 80 people. It was a great success and was a rush and now we are hooked. Maybe this was a peripheral effect of the "Really Big Thing"? Read this book to find out about the "Really Big Thing".

Even though I have over 16 years experience in the video industry, this book has given me the tools, advice and motivation that I'll need to finally realize my dream of owning my own media creation business.

Not only is the book extremely informative, it has a very readable and enjoyable writing style that made me feel as if the author were speaking directly to me. If you have even the slightest interest in getting involved in digital video production and/or web production, you need this book!

I had never heard the real King Arthur tale. I enjoyed it tremendously! Sean Bean's narration of this tale is exquisite. His voice is perfect for books on tape. Such depth. You felt you were really there. I would recommend this to anyone!

The whole family is hooked on this. The classical music that accompanies it is compelling. You think you are there.

Sean Bean does an awesome job on this production. His range of voices and dialects are amazing. Very eerie in the parts that are supposed to be.

It's hard to take such a well known tale and still make it fun to listen to, but Sean Bean's voice and cadences kept me listening to the end.

This CD was bought for our then seven year old son and we listened to it on a long car trip. What a fantastic way to pass the time. Sean Bean is phenomenal as the narrator and characters of the story. We have listened to it so many times and still never get tired of this great story, excellently told.

Thrown into this great story is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, another exciting story within the story of King Arthur.

This story on CD appeals to all ages from our seven year old to our sixteen year old and to adults. It is one of a few stories that you really can listen to again and again and still be enthralled. I would highly recommend keeping it in the car for the long trips.

We have been reading good night moon to our daughter since she was born till about 11 months. Our baby sitter gave us this book as a gift and our daughter loves it. For a few weeks we gave her the choice of which book she wanted us to read at night and every time she picked the wombat book.

Enough said. She giggles whenever we read it.

We received this book as a gift from family in Australia. From the first reading our son (16 months) LOVES this book. The little wombat goes through small little adventures explaining why he likes to certain things, like jumping as he can "to see how much noise he can make when he lands." Our son's favorite part is when little wombat sticks out his tongue and makes funny faces, he then also pokes out his tongue (very cute!) The book is brightly illustrated with easily recognizable Australian animals and supported with short uncomplicated text, which is the perfect length for our impatient listener ;). We believe that this book is a MUST HAVE for all little libraries

This is quite a wonderful book for little ones. My grandchild just LOVES it - it's one of her favorite stories.

You should read "Sometimes I like to curl up in a ball." It's so funny. It's about a cute little wombat and his feelings. The pictures are really amazing. I think your kids would like it. I think you should read it anytime you get the chance! I am 7 years old and I really like this book for bedtime. It helps me get to sleep. Take my advice and buy this book!

I got this book for my son 2 years ago and since then this book is read every night before bed. My son LOVES the part with the silly faces and the mud the character plays with. I often buy this book for friends when they have a child and it is a quick favorite for everyone I have given it to.

This book is the best tutorial for learning 3ds Max that I've read. It is not for novices, in that it assumes you know the 3ds Max interface. However, it is a step-by-step guide for creating professional quality animations for broadcast media. The author works for MSNBC. He breaks down 3 real-world projects in an easy-to-understand way, from storyboards to final output. This single book jump-started my understanding of complex modeling and animation techniques using 3ds Max. Although this book was made for version 4 of the program (the program is currently in version 9), the interface has not changed significantly in that it would make this book obsolete. I used it using version 6 and returned to it in version 8 with no difficulties. Well worth your time.

I am a beginner user of Viz and Max and will be using it for architectural 3D rendering. What I look for in a text book are lengthy tutorial exercises. I want to know step by step everything that I have to do to reproduce what the author is showing. This book is great for that. There are three main excercises that go the full length of the 550 pages of this book. As an example the 2002 voting machine tutorial goes from pages 182 to 315, covering each step of the construction. Chismar even includes alternate means of construction to show why one method works better than other methods.

I am looking forward to an updated book by Chismar on the lastest release of Max. I have not heard if one is being made.

One slight drawback...Chismar does not deal with the possiblities of drawing and rendering for architecture. If the new release of Max does include the architectural functions of Viz, then there will be a need for tutorials on those items. None the less the command structure of the software for Viz and Max is virtually the same, so learning that part from Chismar's book is still very important.

The most important feature of this book is the lengthy step by step tutorials. This is the first thing I look for in a computer book - to see that the tutorials are long. to me this indicates that the writer is very thorough with all steps in the project and does not leave out important steps along the way.

If you buy used make sure the disk is included.

Overall, it is a good book with clear instruction for intermediate user.

I give it 4 stars since it doesn't tell you the detailed procedures to reproduce the cool special effect described in the Part 4 (Real World Case Stuides).

This book is a fantastic example of how all computer text books should be structured - Step-by-step tutorials that demonstrate experienced solutions to real-world projects. I know I speak for many people when I say that I learn by DOING, not by reading paragraphs upon paragraphs of text and lengthy descriptions of "what this app can do for you". No one likes to attempt to digest a "features description" manual and try to piece together the various complexities of a high-end application like 3DS MAX from various disjointed sources. I need a seasoned, talented professional, with years of industry experience, to step me through exactly how an application performs various industry tasks, e.g. how to make a 30-second TV spot from scratch, how to make a highly-professional News program opener, or how to make robotic-looking voting machines animated together in a 3-camera shoot. John Chrismar performs this tasks with a detail and finesse that is extremely hard to find in the computer textbook industry. I look for this style in every computer book I pick up, but don't often find it, if at all. The industry giants on the programming side of the industry, like Wrox Press, should use John's book as an example of how to write an effective computer textbook. Don't waste my time with information overload, stuffed together losely by a quasi-team of 6 geeks. SHOW ME how you solved a problem with the application or programming language, from start to finish, while I follow along, bit by bit, line by line, click by click. Show me how to build a genuine and valuable creation using the tool you are teaching me to use. This is exactly what John does.

I started with the last of three tutorials and worked backward through the book, because the News Program Opener tutorial looked the most intriguing. I learned more about 3DS MAX after that one tutorial then I had by reading the documentation or from any of the other three 3DS MAX books I own. I saw someone else mention that there were some small mistakes and missed "figure" numbers on the screenshots here and there, but this did not detract from completing the tutorials in the slightest. Two extra seconds of thought got me passed these minor editing oversights very easily, and they were very minor in comparison to most computer textbooks.

It was beyond refreshing to witness and practice along with a professional at work from beginning to end: from importing your vectors from Illustrator, to cleaning up the splines, to extruding, modelling each piece, assembling, naming conventions, creating materials, shortcuts, to animating, adding a soundtrack, right down to post-production and final render. I absolutely can not stand books where Step 1 is "Import our half-finished Design #643.2 from our accompanying CD-ROM". Not the case with this book. You are stepped through the process, end to end. When you are done with each tutorial, you have a finished work of media art THAT YOU CREATED and a head full of usable, retainable 3DS MAX knowledge that can be carried into any job or hobby.

Excellent job, John. You have gained a new fan. I will purchase your other books, regardless of topic. :D

Thank you.

Not soemthing I would read cover to cover, but the individual "Hacks" that I have read are pretty good. I have lots of books along this line and this is one of the bet. I put it up there with Stu's "DV Rebels Guide" which is also incredible. If you like the Rebel guide, you will probably like this as well. Lots of good stuff. Enjoy!

Great book with great content I recommend it to anyone who want to take there film making a step forward and is to busy or lazy to download the information from the internet becaue it is all there. Spread around of course but you will find every piece of information even most of the pictures used in this book so. If you have time and dedication you can save yourself the money by looking it up on the internet.

This book covers many aspects of video. Labeling tapes, making excel spreadsheets for saving information, time code on tapes, how to achieve certain effects, lighting, and green screen effects just name a few. The book is general to most all video software and is a very usefull tool I'm glad I purchased. Don't let the term "HACKS' fool you it 's only refering to tips or tricks.

I found the book to be very practical and have the
kind of "nuts-and-bolts" pointers that I like. You
don't have to read it cover to cover (I didn't) but
can pick it up and go to the points that interest you
or where you are currently in need of help. It refers
to various "commerical products" that the author has
used to get the job done. I found this helpful. With so
many competing products to chose from it's nice to
hear, "If you get product X you'll be able to do Z,"
rather than buying and hoping (or not buying and
wondering). Kuddos to the author.

I learned so much from this book. In fact, I've already implemented several of the ideas and have had great results. If you're semi-professional (video has been added to your responsibilities but you have no experience with this medium) BUY THIS BOOK.

Who would have thought of parchment paper and clothes pins to diffuse light and create a softer, more natural light over the subject? That's just one of the great tips I've already started using.

I've bought several digital video books while trying to learn this medium, and this has been by far the most useful.

FOr all the fans also read
NOTES FROM THE MIDNIGHT DRIVER...
both jordan sonnenblichs are in my top two favorites.
(i cant decide which one i like better)
this book is good for anyone
my friends and family that have read it
a jock,
grandma,
mother,
cousins,
father,
brother,
preppy girl,
girly,
punk,
as you can see this book is good for anyone so READ IT its amazing...... and quite sad

This is my favorite book of all time. I loved everything about it.. one thing is the fact that you can relate to the character so well, and it is like you are right there beside him.. but you can't help him in his time of despirate need. i feel so bad for him and his family, but mostly him.. i mean how hard would it be to have your little brother get sick and for a whole day think that it was your fault that you left him there on his stool alone, when you know darn well that you aren't suppost to, and then spacing out all day and having that be the only thing that you csn think of. i would be crushed. Then on top of that having your mom gone for weeks and a time and the first week her and your little brother are gone your father doesn't even talk to you let alone look at you.. and little did you know that your mother is calling him every night but your father isn't telling you the condition on your little brother.. that he really does have luekmia. But he deals with it pretty well with his music and stuff. that would be the way i would have to do it to.. because to Him and I music is everything. Anyway. i hope that everyone who can get their hands on this novel reads it... because this is truely an amazing book.

From the title, I was expecting a story about a hopeless junior high kid in a quest of girlfriend-finding. But the story turns out to be more about the relationship between the boy and his kid brother. And such a sweet story indeed.

The author manages to make the character realistic. I think the boy is a bit sappy at times, but hey, I never went through that whole experience of being a thirteen-year-old--having been born with a missing Y chromosome. Besides, the author is a middle school teacher. Dare I argue on how a thirteen-year-old boy should be feeling?

The little brother is so cute. I still laugh over the line: "Yeah, Steven! That's my brother!" (Or something to that effect.)

Overall, a very recommended reading.

It is unbelievable the response i received from my entire eighth grade reading class. This book was eaten up by all, including my very reluctant readers. As many of them said it was a book they could relate to. I used the book in all my classes and believe me many students were sad when we finished it. We did have one advantage. My students and I were fortunate enough to meet the author. He was an incredible down to earth person who freely shared his inspirations.

I'm a intermediate school librarian in Utah plowing through the Beehive Award Books before school starts, and although I have not read them all yet, this is my favorite so far. It has a wonderful message with great laugh-out-loud humor and real emotions. The situations are believable and although I was fearing a sappy ending, happily I was wrong! The book is great from cover to cover.

This is a great book that shows how to make wonderful critters, creatures and scenes, just by using fingerprints and some imagination.

To give you an idea about how cool I think this book is, I'm not going to sell it, like I do hundreds of other books. I'm saving it for my daughter who is studying to become a teacher. This books is full of dozens of ideas and hours of fun!

I love this book. It's great for a party craft (as I first used it) or for sending/making cards.

I remember this book from when I was a kid. My 4YO loved it when he got this book. We've recently given it as gifts with a stamp pad. I would highly recommend it,since kids can make adorable pictures with little effort.

I used this book for 400 Girl Scouts at a day camp. The fingerprint animals and people worked for all ages and the girls loved to try new things from the book. Thanks for all the great fingerprint ideas. :)

I was not familiar with this book before I bought it; however, it was recommended by the teachers of the students for which this and several other Ed Emberley books were purchased. From the thank yous I have received, this book was a real hit! It is used in a Native American Mission School with great enthusiasm and even better results. What more could you ask for?

This is a benchmark book for interactive design. It separates the design process into information design, interactive design and presentation design. Those who head the process and focus on information design tasks at the beginning of an interactive project will find that costs are lower.

Information design changes are easiest at the beginning of a project and create large cost problems at the end.

If you have proceeded with good information design then interactive design and costs are much less difficult and less expensive.

Finally if you have made good information design and interactive design decisions, then you have a vast arrays of how to present the final product. It is at this stage the costs the highest with graphic designers, video producers, web developers, programmers and so on.

Read the book and memorize the process.

The book promised a lot based on previous readers' reviews and the publishing house's reputation but I was disappointed with its contents. The information is well presented but too simplistic. Lacking any further elaboration this book is of little use if you have some experience in the field of interactive design. A good brain-storming session at home would come up with the same findings of this book.

I have had this book for 4+ years. I loaned it to a friend once who didn't return it, so I bough another one.

Among the dozens of books I own and read on usability or project management, etc. this one is fantastic - a real stand-out.

The one drawback is that it's not as contemporary/up-to-the-minute as newer books. [shrug]

This is nicely organized, introduces important concepts and explains them in plain english. I used it as a textbook for a multimedia class and it was well received.

You will not find fancy tricks and designs, but you will get a good overview of multimedia, interface design and project management. It is 'outdated' so it is not suitable for experts but its information is excellent for an intro class, especially for people with little graphics experience.

For once, someone makes the distinction between information design, interaction design and presentation design. This book was invaluable in helping our division more clearly define our process for product development.

I thought this was just a really interesting book. It generated some great discussions in our family and I am looking forward to reading it to my students. There are so many interesting topics within this book. I would highly recommend it!

It's often difficult to get my son, who just started fourth grade, to read. However, he really liked No Talking and I never had to battle with him to read while he was reading this book. He really enjoyed it and picked it up every night and never gave me a problem. It was our first Andrew Clements book and we'll now try other.

Last weekend I ordered my daughter away from the TV and requested she pick a selection from a bag of library [paper] books and audio books we had borrowed a few days earlier. She started listening to 'No Talking' and didn't come out of her room for hours. I had to check on her several times because I never figured she would listen to the ENTIRE book in one sitting. She LOVED the book, and the narrator as well. So, although I didn't hear it firsthand she did give me a little synopsis of the book and it was an afternoon well spent!

No Talking by Andrew Clements is a great book set in fifth grade where the students have challenged each other to a contest...boys versus girls. The rules of the contest are simple but can be very hard to follow. Students may talk at school only when an adult asks them a question, but then they can only answer using three words at a time. Students can not speak at home, on the playground, or in the lunchroom. The students keep track of their words and use the honor system to report them. When the principal demands that the contest must end, the students join together to silently face a new opponent in the competition. Clements does an excellent job of showing the voice of these students through their dialogues with one another. Their personalities shine through the pages.

Teachers will love the ideas and discussions that stem from this book. The book sparks conversations about peaceful ways to settle arguments like Mahatma Gandhi did in India. The teachers in the book complete many activities that allow students to follow the contest rules and still learn. One my favorites includes creating a story as a whole class where all students add to the story using only three words at a time. Students will love completing lessons that follow these from the book. It may even inspire a contest.

This book is about 5th grade girls and boys who compete over who can talk less. So who is it going to be - the girls or the boys? Read the book to find out!

One day Dave, the main character, is trying to see how long he can go without talking. When he is not talking, he hears some girls constantly talking behind him at lunch. The next thing he knows he has challenged the girls to a no talking contest. The rule of the contest is no talking to each other, and not talking to teachers with more than three words at a time. The boys and the girls do funny things to each other to try to get the other team to talk. Are the teachers going to approve of this, or are they going to savor the quietness? You'll have to read it to find out!!

This book reminds me of how much my friends and I talk. As much as we talk, I still think we could beat these kids in the contest because they NEVER stop talking!!

I think that No Talking is good for both boys and girls ages 8-12. I really like Andrew Clements books, and this one might be my favorite!

So if you like realistic and funny books that take place at school, this is definitely the book for you!