Interactive Books

Great book for math problems. Although high school level and there is no calculus, it still has great problems that touch up on important ideas.

This is a rather complete book for students and coaches who are preparing for mathematics competitions such as the IMO. It is loaded with problem-solving strategies for a large variety of mathematics problems ranging from combinatorics, number theory, sequences, polynomials and geometry to game theory, a topic which is not normally included in mathematics competitions. There are tons of problems (around 1300) to hone your mathematical skills. Another very good book in a similar category is the IMO Compendium. The books by Titu Andreescu are also excellent for mathematics competitions.

I am a student at a college in New England and I bought this book in high school. The book claims no knowledge of higher mathematics is necessary to complete the problems but that claim is simply untrue. You need higher mathematics to solve some of these problems. The author says anyone with a standard high school mathematics education can solve these problems. I strongly disagree. They are similar to high school problems but they are in much much greater depth.

Wow! The problems in the book are extremely difficult but not impossible. I would recommend only buying this book if you have access to mathematics professor(s) who can help you understand these problems for the Putnam Competition or you have a committed group of friends who like math. It takes me hours to solves these problems but I love it!

This is my top recommendation.

This is one book that I would like to keep with me all the time even after all my interest in Maths. is gone. For, it gives me food for thought and does not allow my mind to be dried of thoughts. This is a most fascinating book since the author, even when he gives hints at the solution, he does it in such an effective manner, that you have to really pursue a very thrilling chase of the solution. The challenge and thrill make it a pleasurable experience. I am sure this will be so for both the learner and the learned. Every mathematician should possess this book.

V. Krishnamurthy

If you want to understand programming the Flash Communication Server and it's capabilities this is a good place to start.

Although I'm using Flash Media Server 2, this book is still highly relevant as not much has changed. The core objects and language is the same so I would not hesitate to recommend it for anyone looking to use FMS.

This book is all about the design of applications using Macromedia's Flash Communication Server MX. FCS MX enables the building of media-rich web applications by taking care of the basic tasks required in the networking of the applications. Thus, you can focus on the application itself rather than worrying about low-level communication details.

Since this book is concerned with situations where multiple Flash applications will be executing on the same server simultaneously, there is going to be considerable effort involved in coordinating events, which is addressed by this book. You should already have FCS installed and running on your server and you should also have Flash MX available on the client. The following is description of the book by chapter:

Chapter 1, Introducing the Flash Communication Server - Acts as an introduction to FCS and an overview of the whole book.

Chapter 2, Communication Components - How the FlashCom communication components encapsulate commonly needed features such as chat, video recording and playback, bandwidth control,and user configuration. These components implement many basic building blocks for your application.

Chapter 3, Managing Connections - This chapter covers connections in more depth past the SimpleConnect component, including how to write custom code to handle various changes in the connection status as well as different errors.

Chapter 4, Applications, Instances, and Server-Side ActionScript - This chapter describes how to write Server-Side ActionScript and work with the objects that control application instances and the Flash movies that connect to them.

Chapter 5, Managing Streams - Offers a somewhat oversimplified but complete example that shows the basic steps in publishing one live stream and subscribing to a second.

Chapter 6, Camera and Microphone - This chapter explains how to use both the Microphone and Camera classes to record live streams. These classes are at the heart of most communication applications involving multimedia.

Chapter 7, Media Preparation and Delivery - This chapter covers many details for compressing and streaming audio and video.

Chapter 8, Shared Objects - This chapter starts an entirely new subject - shared objects, which provide a mechanism for the transmission of data between client and server.

Chapter 9, Remote Methods - This chapter also shows how to broadcast method calls to every movie and application instance connected to a shared object or stream, or send them to and from individual movies using RMI.

Chapter 10, Server Management API - Discusses the Server Management API and its applications, including monitoring a FlashCom Server, gathering statistics on application instances, and managing the log streams.

Chapter 11, Flash Remoting - Demonstrates how Flash Remoting can be used to add data connectivity to FlashCom applications. Flash Remoting can access web services, server-side scripts, CGI applications, XML files, or the local filesystem with the help of an application server such as ColdFusion.

Chapter 12, ColdFusion MX and FlashCom - Teaches some specifics involved in using Flash Remoting with ColdFusion MX and FlashCom. There are some practical working examples shown that demonstrate how you can leverage the benefits of Flash Remoting in conjunction with FlashCom.

Chapter 13, Building Communication Components - This is the first step in building complete applications, and is demonstrated through an extensive example.

Chapter 14, Understanding the Macromedia Component Framework - How to modify an existing component and how to create a new one. Also discusses server-side framework code and its core features and data structures.

Chapter 15, Application Design Patterns and Best Practices - Describes some of the best practices available to application developers. This chapter provides some useful design options, patterns, and best practices that will help you build better applications.

Chapter 16, Building Scalable Applications - Deals with building multi-instance and multiserver applications that don't bog down as the number of client connections increases.

Chapter 17, Network Performance, Latency, Concurrency - Traditional network design issues affect FCS also.

Chapter 18, Securing Applications - Specifically this chapter examines the three A's of security - Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting.

Excellent book, stuffed of examples very well explained, easy to read and to understand, essential for who desires initiate or even though to profound itself studies on FlashCom.
Obligator reference in projects involving FlashCom, either for fast consultations and advanced tasks.
Excellent approach of subjects as Design patterns and security, yonder a perfect demonstration about audio, video and much more.

If you're a developer looking into real-time server communication using Adobe Flash, this book is a must-have. It guides you thru various levels of application development in an easy to understand format, and provides well documented pieces of code to assist you in the learning process of putting together your project:

Topics covered include:

- learning about components and how to use them
- establishing and managing client connections
- publishing live and recorded streams
- local communication with clients
- remote communication with outside applications

The book also shows how to build and integrate your own custom components, and how to scale your application using the components that you've created. Other highlights include information on how to use shared objects and server management API, as well as ways to improve both design and performance.

I was so taken by this book that I purchased at a book festival today in Cincinnati as a Christmas gift for my 6 year old. I showed it to my mother-in-law, who flipped through it for over 15 minutes and then promptly took it over to her neighbors to show them. The neighbors had such a good time looking at the book that it was a half an hour before I got the book back. Needless to say, Ribbit is a wonderful book and greatly entertaining for all ages. I can't wait to get it in the hands of a child!

Both my 4 year old and 9 year old boy enjoyed this book in the car on vacation. The words are entertaining for my older son and the pictures silly enough for my younger son. They enjoyed make the different froggy characters.

My two 3 year old grandchildren (boy & girl) love this book. They find the pictures (and the many possible combinations), SO FUNNY. As the reader to the child, I found this book to have many, many wonderful spin-offs for discussions that encourage a child's imagination and desire to learn more. Bottom line: this book is not just for chuckles but affords the reader good teaching opportunities.

This book is wonderful! We checked it out from the library - loved it so much that we ordered it right away. The kids get hours of enjoyment from changing "froggy." We take it in the van, to church, everywhere. It has a nice sturdy cover and the pages have held up to many hours of page turning. I hope they come out with other books!

This is a great book! It has a lot of character to it. We had the publishers at our school and they did a great job of telling about the book and how it came to be. I definitely would recommend!

what if everyone knew your name in the book i could connect to it. i ask other people to help me make my decisions but they dont fuully make my dcisions for me. haley is 15 and she moved to hilsdale new jersey and go's to hillsdale high.she hengs out with the most popular girls in school and lives next door to her crush. she goes through her upe and downs/ but she's getting every bodys attention after she changes and she's getting reese's attention too. who knows! the main idea of this book is when your choosing your choices it's like making choices for what you would do and you woul face the concequences. the scene that i most reemember from the book is when haley goes to coco's house and they (coco and whitney) want to give her a makeover. when they're finished with her whitney says she looks hot and from then on she has a sanse of style and everyone knows her name.

This was a GREAT book. Okay, so actually, you get to choose your story so i guess anyone can say it's a great book. I mean who deosn't love to choose what happens?

I guess its not that fantastic, but it's original, which I love. So many people these days have similar books. Ugh! It's a great book and it's definitely worth the money because you can read it over and over and over. It's like 4 books in one! Haven't read the next book, but I can't wait!

;)

I loved this book! It was interesting and fun to read. I really liked the way you got to choose what the main character does. I would recommened this book to someone who is 11 years old or older and someone who is ready for an adventure. This book is worth your time and money.
-Taylor, 12

The book What If... Everyone Knew Your Name by Liz Ruckdescel and Sara James was a realistic fiction novel about a girl who's family takes a road trip, moving from the Golden State of California to the Garden State of New Jersey. She moves to a new school called Hillsdale High and needs to know how she can fit in.
Haley Miller, the 15 year old going into a public school for the first time is scared and ready to be friends with anyone she can. While she wishes she didn't ever move, she meets a neighbor whom she thinks is very god looking. She befriends him and others while the story takes its twists and turns.
I really liked this book because of the way it was, how you got to choose what she did. It really makes you feel as if its you living in the book, not Haley. The book takes you through the up and downs of high school and you get to control everything; her friends, her grades, her love life, her future. You don't know how it will turn out either, so that makes it suspenseful, just like real life because you never know what life will throw at you next. For all you know in the book, Haley could be invited to the next big party, and make a bad decision and drink, or you could have her not take the drink and it turns out the stud she's looking at, doesn't like alcohol either.
I really enjoyed this book and I can't wait to read the other one like it called "What If... All the Boys Wanted You." It sounds just as interesting as the first one they wrote and I can't wait to see what that book throws at Haley this time.
I strongly recommend this book for any teen who likes books that will take them through the happy, and not so happy parts of high school. Some of these things in the book can really teach you some stuff you can use in real life, like many novels about teens. So if you are into real life situations, I defiantly recommend this book to you. It was a great read, and I couldn't put it down until I finished it.

WHAT IF...EVERYONE KNEW YOUR NAME is an interesting idea. It's a lot like those Choose Your Own Adventure books you read as a kid. The story is about Haley, a fairly average fifteen-year-old girl who has just moved to suburban New Jersey and is starting at her first public high school. She starts out average, so that the reader can pretty much choose everything that happens to her as the story goes on.

You make every little decision for her, even the ones that seem really minor, like riding the bus to school or getting a ride from her father. You decide who she wants to be friends with and what crowd she wants to be a part of. You decide everything about her.

While an interesting idea, and fairly well-written, this book isn't for everyone. If you're all about finding out what will happen, this book might not be for you, because you decide what happens. It's a cool concept, though, and a fun read, especially since you can read it more than once, with a different story and outcome. The characters aren't particularly three-dimensional, but I guess they have to be simple enough so that it is believable that they would make any one of the very different choices you choose from. This book is fun, but not a must-read.

Reviewed by: Jocelyn Pearce

I bought this book for my 3.5 year old as a party favor - and she LOVES it! There is a little plastic magnifying lens tucked into the front cover in a little pocket. Once we showed her how to take it out and look for Waldo, she does it over and over again. She walks around the house with her book, finds a nice spot to sit, takes out her magnifier, looks for Waldo, then once she finds him she finds another spot to sit in and does it all over again. It's really cute!

The pictures in the book are pretty tiny though, so it's a real challenge to find Waldo. It looks like they shrunk the images from the original version so they could fit them into the small book. I'm 36 (i.e. my eyes are not that bad) and I needed to use the magnifying glass in a bright room to find Waldo! The only downside to this book is if you misplace the magnifier, it's not as fun to find Waldo, but hopefully that won't happen to you.

As all you Where's Waldo fans may know. there were only a very few of these books ever made. I for one just loved them all as a young reader. Now, years later and by shear luck, my son was given two of those old books....which he fell in love with and only wished for more. A few months later, I was again lucky and found two more in a local book store and purchased those. Leaving only two remaining....now collectors items.....these were practicly impossible to fine. After searching (what seemed like) endlessly, one day I decided to check out Amazon. To my surprise....There They Were! And at a price that I couldn't believe! And only 10 days before Christmas! I immediately made placed the order and within just a few days (less than a week at normal shipping), there they were on my doorstep. I couldn't believe it! We finally had the complete series of Wheres Waldo Books! And both books were in prefect print condition!
Thanks Amazon! And another big Thanks for helping make a little boys Christmas great!
Next time, I`ll check Amazon first!

I purchased this for my five year old for Christmas. Before I could get it wrapped I was looking for Waldo! This is a great family book and really generates a lot of excitement for any age.

I couldn't keep this book. My son lost this book from the library. Looked for this book everywhere and finally found it at Amazon! Thanks Amazon! The book was really inexpensive too!

My four-year-old son loves Waldo, and we've had a lot of fun looking through this book EVERY night since he got it. It's his favorite book. There's so much to look for, more than just Waldo and his stuff -- there's Wenda, Wizard Whitebeard, Odlaw, Woof and all their props, as well as 25 Waldo Watchers scattered throughout the book. From an adult perspective, the postcards aren't as much fun to read out loud, but overall I love sharing the book with my children.

I have been working on each chapter every week and I can't wait to start the next one. Not only does it give great tutorials which are easy to follow but while you're reading it gives tooltips that make you work faster or even better, if something goes wrong how to fix the problem. I recommend this to anyone who is just starting to learn editing or just needs a quick refresher. A+

I went from knowing absolutly nothing about Final Cut Pro HD to knowing enough to be top of my class in Film Editing. The lessons go by quick to. Easy to learn and really hands on. I HIGHLY suggest buying this if you are interested in editing video.

Like the rest of the series, it gives basic how-to information for newbies. It's well written and concise.

This was my first Apple Training Series book, and it was a very good experience. Going into this I had never learned a software package, let alone a complex one, almost completely from a book, and this experience proved it possible for me. It's no-nonsense, as comprehensive as I would want as a beginner, with very few errors, and user friendly - much more so than the tutorial that came with my software. At times it was very challenging, but that's the complexity of the s/w. Pictorials may not be as colorful as in other books, but this quickly becomes a non-issue as they are more than adequate and offset by the clarity of the text.

After several attempts at learning FCP, it was this book that did the trick. Each lesson is clear and concise. Not to mention, the book follows a logical progression in what it teaches you. In the end, I recommend this book without any reservation.

This is a great book for kids and even adults! Love the innovative way the vocabulary words were incorporated. The interactive technique makes it fun for kids to read, comprehend and apply what they've learned towards a healthy lifestyle. The colors and illustrations are very nice...not your typical kids' book. Look forward to the next adventures!

I loved your book! Characters are truly loveable.

I received my book today and I LOVE IT! Your characters are simply the best. Good Luck!

The Book is so creative! The perfect holiday gift. The website looks good too! [...]

Truly a loveable story. The characters have child friendly humor. Robert Montano explicitly illustrated each page at its best. My children love it! Ozzy appears to be my son's favorite character. Can't wait for the cartoon.

We bought this book for my daughter when she was five or six and she adored it. It is a delightfully written book about a series of letters written by a girl who is reluctant to give up her tooth and the responses from the tooth fairy. The book is funny, charming and beautifully illustrated. It comes with little tiny letters written by the tooth fairy. My daugher is seven now and she still loves reading it.

My daughter received this book as a gift, and it has become one of her favorites. She especially enjoys all the notes and other goodies the Tooth Fairy leaves tucked in envelopes. I read it to her [...] class, and both boys and girls loved it.

Our Granddaughter lives in another state, so I haven't seen this book. Her Father told me she chooses this book for him to help her read it before her bedtime.She likes it very much.

We bought this book for our daughter and neice when they lost their first tooth and had so much fun reading it. Our daughter LOVED it and even wrote a letter to the tooth fairy after reading this book. It is a great interactive book and answers questions that we never even thought of. I highly recommend getting this book!!

My 5 year old son lost his 1st tooth. When we went to look for Tooth Fairy books he didn't like all the "fairies". He wouldn't even consider this book because it was pink. I started reading it and loved it. When I read it to him at home he LOVED it! He got so excited to open the envelopes in the book. He had me play the riddler that came with over and over again. His eyes lit up when he found the gold fairy coin. It is one of his most requested storytime books. Highly recommend!

My 2 year old son got this as a gift. Of course, being two he's already tore off half the tabs, but so what! He still loves it! It definitely won't last until his sister is old enough to enjoy it but we've already gotten our money's worth in the short time we've had it. I plan to buy another copy soon.

My 5 year old grandson loves the moving parts in the book and like to pretend while he looks at it. Enjoys it alot.

Another big vote for this book. As a small red plane pilot, I've given out two of these books to friends kids, with very positive results. 90% of the activities are amazingly accurate, from "chocks away" to refueling.

I agree that it is a little fragile, as some of the cardboard effects are a bit ambitious, but worth it for the detailed appreciation of flying.

Captain Brian says "take off!"

I am writing in response to the reviewer who said that the book is especially great for boys. (let's not gender-type!) This is our daughter's favorite book. She is 13 1/2 months now and it has been her absolute favorite since we started reading it to her when she was just a few months old and we just ordered a second copy because hers is so tattered from use. Highly recommended for girls as well! :)

My two-year-old son loves this book but he has already destroyed more than fifty percent of it after two months of use.

This book has many interesting features, from radio sets connected by string, to "radar blips" on a screen in a cockpit, little planes "flying" through the sky, to a steering wheel that changes the view out windscreen as you "come in for a landing--and that isn't even half of the activities in the book.

The problem is that it requires a high degree of fine motor skill to operate many of the activities. The "radar blips" were difficult for me to spin, for example, and the steering wheel kept getting stuck until mommy tore it in one of her many attempts to "Fix it!" under pressure. My son also removed all of the little "flying airplanes" in less than a week of play.

Don't get me wrong--my son still LOVES this book, despite the fact that it is now falling apart! He has a blast using the things that still work, and explaining to me how the things that are broken used to work.

I would recommend waiting until a child is at least four before buying this book for them unless they are very careful players or there will be parental help all the time it is in use.

And, I would like to add that the girls in my son's playgroup loved this book as well--it is DEFINITELY not just for boys!

First let me say that this book is very well written and easy to understand. It gives the reader wonderful info on MP3's and other music file formats as well as the comparsion from the standard CD format vs. MP3 format. Before reading this book, I had well above average knowledge of the various types of music files, playlist, jukeboxes, and MP3 and WMA and other music file formats. However, it did fill in some gaps that I had overlooked and I learned even more after reading the book. This is a very good reference book for the beginner. However, since it was written several years ago, it only touches on WMA's. Not that this book was written with more info on MP3 formats. Today we have in many Internet online stores the WMA/DRM (protected music). These types of music files need a newer MP3/WMA/DRM player that will handle the WMA/DRM music file format downloads, which many online music stores have. This is a great book, however, a bit historic. The MP3 players as described in this book (available at that time) came with only 64 meg flash drives and 64 meg flash cards. Now the norm is at least a 1 GIG flash player, and many MP3 players today have huge hard drives. However, this book still has good overall BASIC information. I highly recommend this book to a beginner just learning about MP3 music.

MP3's have become one of the hottest new things on the 'Net, to the delight of music lovers everywhere and most likely to the chagrin of the music industry. This book covers a wide variety of topics regarding MP3's, starting off with a brief description of how mp3's came to be, where to find and download mp3's, Internet radio stations, etc. The chapter on digital music and copyright law also contains useful information on just what it and is not legal with regards to having and/or downloading mp3's.

It also tells you what software and hardware is the best for playing mp3's and "ripping" your own mp3's. The descriptions of the software and hardware you can use are quite good. Next are three chapters describing in detail digital audio, along with MPEG audio. Then comes the section any mp3 "ripper" will be most interested in, ie converting music into mp3 form, by first converting it into a .wav format, then into mp3 and finally recording your own CD's.

The book's final chapters are a 'tutorial" on various mp3 software ripper programs like Audio Catalyst and Cool Edit. There's also some info about using WinAmp, which is one of the more popular mp3 players (and the one I use). There's also further information about related web sites, other books, even a glossary.

The future still looks bright for mp3. Not only is it a way for music lovers to download their favorite songs, it also is a way for new artists to "break through" by offering their music on various web sites in the form of mp3s.

This book offers quite a bit of good information about the MP3 phenemenon.

This is an outstanding book on Internet and personal computer audio with emphasis on the MP3 audio-encoding format. It covers the whole range of online audio from the Internet or CDs as well as streaming audio.

Starting with an overview of digital music and the Internet, the book explains why there's so much excitement over MP3 and online audio, discusses how to find music on the web, and reviews Internet Radio. The authors include the best discussion of digital music and copyright law I've seen anywhere.

The chapters on how to prepare your computer for digital audio discuss everything from what software is needed to what to watch for in selecting the best computer hardware, from CD drives, speakers, sound cards, and the cables that connect these things together or with your home entertainment system.

The portion of the book on understanding digital audio contains one of the best overall discussions of how sound and digital audio technology works anywhere. Especially valuable is the discussion of the tradeoffs involved in different selections of parameters in digital audio, such as bit-rates and sampling rates.

The book wraps-up with several excellent tutorials for basic computer tasks used for digital audio. In addition, there are tutorials for common tasks using several popular computer audio software programs.

Bruce Fries is a technology consultant & writer and an Associate member of the Audio Engineering Society. He also is the founder of TeamCom, a new media publishing company. Marty Fries is an audio engineer, technology consultant, and blues pianist. His audio engineering work includes designing and building studio sound equipment systems.

This is the best-written and edited book I've read on Internet audio and streaming audio to date. It's easy to read and explains complicated terms and concepts in terms anyone who can use a computer can understand.

Throughout the book are excellent links to additional resources, as well as an extensive index of websites on the topic of Internet audio. While the focus is on MP3 and audio files (vice streaming audio), much of the information applies to Internet radio as well.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in working with MP3 audio files, whether beginner or experienced "ripper." I also highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in how to improve the recording, playing, or streaming of audio files from their computer. Finally, I recommend this book for anyone concerned about what is and what isn't legal in working with digital audio files.

Review by Mike Powers, Internet Radio Guide, October 1999

I'm the author of the MP3 and Internet Audio Handbook and I've just finished a new book, Digital Audio Essentials, that has approximately twice as much information plus detailed chapters on editing audio, digitizing vintage records, and setting up an Internet radio station. It covers both Macs and PCs and has instructions for using iTunes, Musicmatch Jukebox, Media Jukebox, Sound Forge, and Peak.

... This book by Bruce and Marty Fries covers THE FOREST and THE TREES - concerning all things about MP3 music technology - equally well! In other words, you will no longer be lost in THE FOREST about all things MP3 because of THE TREES! The authors cover the OVERVIEW (The Forest) of all things MP3 just as well as they cover all the minor DETAILS (The Trees). ... The authors make EXCELLENT teachers: they KNOW their subject well, and they know how to PRESENT it to you so that you NEVER get lost or feel left behind! The book is VERY well ORGANIZED. It is layed-out logically and flows from one chapter to the next in a natural and easy-to-follow way. Reading this book is NOT HARD, and because it is so easy to understand, you will learn faster!

... I can't say that I knew NOTHING about MP3 music and technology BEFORE I read this book, but after having read it I feel like I REALLY understand everything I need to know to make the right choices about how to record, play, and listen to music in the MP3 format. Most importantly, the authors do not only tell you ABOUT MP3 technology, they tell you HOW to use it, DO things with it, and WHERE to go on the world wide web to get more INFO on whatever you might be interested in concerning all things MP3. The book is packed to the gills on almost every page - cover-to-cover - with web site URL addresses where the reader can further their search for information about MP3 technology!

... The book is VERY thorough and detailed, with an easy-to-follow lay-out, easy-to-read text and design, and very helpful photographs and illustrations that make it almost impossible to NOT "get it"! After reading this book, if you don't know just about EVERYTHING concerning MP3, you just were not paying attention - because the authors have left NO STONE UNTURNED! ... The only regret I had was that they wrote the book (as they themselves confessed up-front!) for the IBM-compatible, PC crowd - and I am driving an APPLE iMac computer!!! ... I recently wrote to the authors about this, and they said that they are working right now on a revised edition that will have more information in the HOW TO SECTIONS for people using APPLE computers. This will be a welcome relief!

... Even so, there is a lot of helpful mention of places and products that concern the MAC CROWD (of which I'm one! : ), and they DO agree that the SOUNDJAM MP software by Cassidy & Greene "is one of the best for the Mac." (page 69). So, even if you're a Mac-man like me, you really can't go wrong reading this book because it covers all the bases. It's MORE than just an introduction. It's a great REFERENCE book to keep by your computer at all times - whether you're a consumer interested in LISTENING to MP3s or a musician who is interested in CREATING MP3s in order to upload onto musical web sites, over the Internet, on the world wide web so that ANYONE in the world can listen to and/or purchase one's music! ... My hat is off to the authors for a job well done! ALSO: this book is FUN to read! ..