Reality-Based Books

I loved this book. I spotted it while purusing the shelves in the business section at Barnes and Noble the other day. When I opened it up and skimmed the Table of Contents I found starting an online virtual assistance company requires the same skills and talents as starting an online coaching, teaching, or consulting practice. Even though at the time of my writing this review there are already 69 reviews posted for this book, I am writing this review because none of the reviews point out that this is wonderful book for anybody who wants to offer a service via the Internet. Sure, you can offer your services as a virtual assistant. But the advice offered in this book applies equally to people who offer their services through a Web site and email and provide coaching, teaching, and/or consulting pointers and advice. And providing these other services online will probably take just as much time as providing virtual assistance services, but pay a whole lot more.

I found this book to be well outlined and well written. It will definitely be a worthwhile tome to add to your library as you investigate and research the business plan you need to write in order to start your freelance operation regarding services you plan to sell online. So read this book with an open mind and do NOT limit you thoughts to just becoming a virtual assistant. There are all kinds of opportunities today to work from home in your PJs providing so many different kinds of services via the Internet. Forget about commuting. Forget about getting dressed up or maintaining a healthy wardrobe. Just worry about being expert at something and selling your time, knowledge and advice. 5 stars!

Other books I highly recommend you consider reading along with this book include:

>>Riches in Niches (EasyRead Large Bold Edition): How to Make It BIG in a Small Market
>>Start Your Own Information Marketing Business (Start Your Own...)
>>Entrepreneur Magazine's Start Your Own e-Learning Business (The Startup Series)
>>Start Your Own Coaching Business (Start Your Own...)
>>Four Steps To Building A Profitable Coaching Practice: A Complete Marketing Resource Guide for Coaches
>>Web Business Success: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Web Sites That Work
>>The Web-Savvy Writer: Book Promotion with a High-Tech Twist, Second Edition
>>Coaching Millions: Help More People, Make More Money, Live Your Ultimate Lifestyle

I decided to purchase book because I had seen it on military.com's military spouse career center. It does have quite helpful information for beginning a virtual assistance business.

not finished yet ..... need more time for something like this ...
have only briefly leafed ... that's how i gave it the three stars..

After having worked in the administrative support field for over 20 years, the entrepreneur in me was longing to get out. I figured with my skill set and having managed other administrative personnel, becoming Virtual Assistant (VA) would be a great way to start my own business on a part-time basis and, a perfect way to supplement my current income. I began browsing a number of VA and work-at-home websites to try to find out more about how to start my own practice. While the websites were helpful, I had yet to find a site that really got into the nuts and bolts of how to start your own business without having to pay for an expensive training course.

Then I stumbled upon a website called the Rat Race Rebellion. This is a great website packed with TONS of information and resources. That's where I first saw a link to The 2-Second Commute, written by Christine Durst and Michael Harren. I ordered the book from Amazon and was immediately impressed with the structure of the book which is straight forward and very well organized. This book is a "must have" for every aspiring Virtual Assistant!!

Durst and Harren do a magnificent job of explaining what a VA is (and isn't), how to build a successful VA practice brick-by-brick and how to navigate the work-life-balance of working from home. The assessment tools and resources alone are worth the books weight in gold. If you are an administrative professional who is thinking about starting your own VA practice, The 2-Second Commute is the perfect start-up manual.

This book had tons of useful information, written in a way that kept me wanting to turn the page. I will certainly keep this book for future reference -- I've dog-eared, highlighted, used post-its -- on so many useful topics.

This is a must read/own book for those invovled in reality based training (RBT). One of the best training components/tools for law enforcement/military is RBT, however, as "sexy" and as exciting as RBT seems, it is critical that training personnel understand the responsiblity for providing efficient, effective, SAFE!!! training. Kenneth Murray's book covers the major facets of RBT and how to execute safe and productive traininig.

Though I have not had the pleasure of attending Murray's training sessions via Armiger Police Training Institute, I did complete Simunition's training certification. There is no question that the fundamentals regarding SAFETY and goal oriented training detailed in Murray's book are universal.

If you are a firearms/defensive tactics instructor, you definitely need to read and own this book.

Insightful book on combat and preparation for combat. Well written. Easy to read.
I've read Dave Grossman's On Combat and this is a great book for more on that topic.

If I had to have only 5 books on police and military training this would be one of the five. well written, concise, very well thought out. this is a book you will return to over and over again. augments well with real live training.

I can honestly say this is one of the most complete RBT books I have touched to date. Every aspect of saftey is covered. I'm actually reading it for the third time now and still collecting more information I missed the first 2 rounds. It is not the complete be all of a RBT program but it is a must as part of your RBT library.

This is a great book at RBT and also a lot of fun to read. Being a simulator engineer it gives me a good understanding of the customer (police, military) side. I am looking forward to the second volume.

On the downside the book lacks structure - not in the content but in the formatting. Shallow table of context (no numbering of titles, no visual hierarchy of titles, no Index).

Thanks Barack Obama!
I was really impressed by the analytic capacity of the author and as I am usually not reading books about economic affairs and also not about politics I am even more astounded to find it fascinating and suspense driven. Honestly, if it was not for Barack Obama to get me interested in politics I probably had never read a book like this.

The author managed to prove President Sarkozy wrong in every single aspect of his agenda, so far. In an astounding collection of facts Niemeyer demonstrates why the French economy is suffering so terribly under this Hollywood-President.

"History repeats itself" is a famous phrase and although it may not be 100% true there is yet something to it as the author pointed out citing similar developments in the 1920ies and today. Like 80 years ago there are `analysts' working for investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch speaking of "market irritations" while a depression is lingering around the next corner. And, it seems that what we call today `Globalisation' should rather be called `Imperialism', and I am glad that the author uses the accurate terms rather than any of the more fashionable expressions the Anti-Globalisation groups fancy. It is quite right to speak of Capitalism making majorities poorer in order to make rich ever richer as exactly this is happening as we all can feel when we see our standard of living constantly decline amid "economic good times" as media never gets tired to hammer into our heads. Why create a new term for that only because the phrase may sound old fashioned when, indeed, the strategies employed by the ruling class apparently are also old fashioned but still seem to work quite well for them?!

Fascism, Stalinism, Euro-Maniacism

It is really worthwhile not only to know the political and military history of the 20th century but also it's financial history. Especially the latter provides for explanations of the inexplicable, the World Wars, the rise of Fascism, Stalinism and now Euro-Maniacsim. Ralph T. Niemeyer must be a genius to be able to combine mathematical, statistical and political facts and make the read of normally dry matters exciting! Congratulations on a superb and unbeatable analysis. I wished our political leaders knew about it.

Ralph T. Niemeyer said: "Where only profit maximization reigns there is no room for Democracy" and he is damned right with that. The "survival - of - the - fittest - credo" of the economically more powerful is the opposite of Freedom and Equality. I admire his sober way of analyzing our system's flaws and I appreciate it a lot that he doesn't become indulgent about Marx or Communism which most people who have the same insight he has would probably would be in danger of as looking for the gene for a `brave new world' can lead into a trap as we have seen in Stalinism. Socialism has tried to break it's opponent's pride. Capitalism strips people off their pride.

"Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom: The realities of Online teaching" is a great book for someone who is interested in the possibilities of online education and teaching. Palloff and Pratt offer a lot of great tips and ideas that are very concise and easy to understand. They provide commonsense guidelines in conducting online teaching in a way that is simple to digest, entertaining, and useful to teachers, administrators, or whoever else is interested in the realm of online teaching and education.

I personally liked the way the authors really tried the simplify their views on how to make a successful online teaching experience. Their "Keys to Success" seemed to be very helpful and realistic for many institutions to implement with careful planning.

Another especially helpful idea throughout the book was their tips at the end of some sections. By providing these simple tips it helps readers summarize the section and allows readers to easily review the material after they have read though the book once or twice.

I feel that this book is a "must-have" for people who have some interest in this relatively new and every changing field of online teaching.

Growing numbers of K-12 schools, colleges, universities, and businesses have begun offering online instruction, taking advantage of computer and Internet technologies to deliver instruction once confined to the realm of physical classrooms. Indeed, the Internet, so-to-speak, has become a virtual classroom and community where all kinds of instruction can take place - anytime day or night, anywhere around the world.

Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom offers readers a broad treatment of the issues involved in planning, creating, and carrying out distance education via the Internet. In a concise manner the book introduces the issues, raises many serious questions, and provides many solutions to help meet the educational goals of instructors, their learning institutions, and their students.

The real beauty of the book lies in its effort to motivate instructors and learning institutions to think through the issues for themselves - to evaluate the unique circumstances they face and to encourage them to seek more effective ways of accomplishing their goals. Because each virtual learning experience will be unique, a number of important considerations should be weighed to determine course structure, content, and delivery, such as:

What technologies should be used?
Who will create the course?
Who will own the course material(s)?
How will the course be delivered?
How will assignments, projects, and exams be administered?
How will instructors and students be prepared?
How will student participation be controlled?
How will student behavior be controlled?

Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom does a superb job of fostering community among educators and their students. The authors express the importance of creating learning communities were serious dialogue takes place - dialogue that enhances the learning process and leads to achieving specific educational goals. This book is must reading for online educational course development.

If "the devil is in the details" of online learning, Paloff and Pratt have done an excellent job exploring the promise and pitfalls of distance learning programs. Anyone in the process of designing online courses or programs in higher education should read both this book and their earlier book before they launch a new course or program. Personally, this book helped me avoid several mistakes I otherwise would have made in my first distance learning adventure.

The book looks at both teacher and administrator perpsectives, and understands that both insitutional support and instructor skill are key elements for success. While the authors are genuine advocates for the medium, they understand that interactivity does not equal mouse clicks, and that building learning communities takes skill, practice, and structures. The book is full of very helpful examples, learning constructs, and realistic assessments of distance learning successes and failures.

GREAT BOOK! This simple to follow workbook makes writing a business plan for a small business an easy to understand, easy to complete task! The book contains worksheets within each chapter, which, when compiled, leave you with a written business plan that makes sense. Best of all, the book is written in plain english -- no jargon, no complicated ratios and formulas, no assuming you already possess an MBA. This book is perfect for real world use -- nothing theoretical here. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

What a delight! Intelligent, thoughtful, provocative, helpful, thoroughly entertaining. A rare find!

I found this book to be simple to follow and full of practical, real world advice. There is no business theory here, just real steps to take to market on a shoestring, write a business plan, manage cash flow, understand financial statements, set goals and keep records. I enjoyed the common sense approach, and easy to understand advice.

CBM rips the top off the scary world of school construction and other public works and exposes the truth about the bureaucratic bungling that wastes tons of money annually. School districts that aspire to rise above the usual predatory and adversarial approach to construction projects need to make Richard Lingenjo's book required reading for all administrators and board members!

Experienced construction professionals will encounter humor and a fresh perspective. This book has incredible HOW TO examples for use by all facility owner representatives, architects, or contractors. Even those remotely involved (school board member) in the on-site building effort will gain an "insiders" understanding.

It's scary to think about it but AIDS is for real. You gotta read about how this woman deals with it and her life. It's funny and serious all at the same time. Let your kids read it first.

This book has an excellent coverage of all topics of HCI and Usability for Medicine and Healthcare. Each chapter illustrates the related work in details. Each chapter also illustates different methodologies and implementation details. It also discusses the future directions. It will be very helpful for any people in HCI and Usability for Medicine and Healthcare. It is a must book for researchers, practitioners and software developers in medicine and health care.

This book is divided into four parts. The first three parts present data from the realms of natural sciences, pyschical research and mysticism repectively. The fourth part integrates this data with a discussion of karma, reincarnation and the meaning of life. From the book's Preface:

"I have endeavored to take selected and representative scientific data, and to say in effect to my reader: if these things are acepted as true, what can we then infer about the nature of the world we live in and the nature of human life? My survey of the data of psychical research and the data for mysticism has been undertaken with a similar end in view. If these data also have to be accepted, what more can we infer abour our enviroment, our nature and our destiny? These three fields of enquiry seem to me to take us into regions of deep significance. The questions I have tried to illuminate - it would seem almost a presumption to say "tried to answer" - are the age-old questions which return to haunt every generation, in spite of all the volumes of philosophers and all the sermons of divines. These questions revolve around the nature of Man, his origin and his destiny, and the nature of the cosmic drama of which he seems so small a part."

I am so grateful for having found this book. It's like having a personal mentor impart years of wisdom and knowledge that otherwise could only be learned through trial and error. Don't be an idiot. Read it once, read twice, it's required reading for anyone considering investing in real estate. It just might be the best $25.00 you'll ever spend! Warning: Don't lend your copy to "anyone," because you'll probably never see it again. Thanks for an awesome book John!