Resources Books

Well organized and full of information for both the newbie and also a more experienced blogger who wants to deepen their effectiveness (or experiment more). I work with synagogues, and found the approach of blogging for "ministry" can be useful and much more broadly defined than for churches alone. Very easy to read, full of practical examples.

I was actually pleasantly surprised with this book. I knew going into this book that I was in for a lot of great information and disciplines in creating and maintaining a blog. I did not expect how creatively it was written. I think we have certain expectations for "how-to" books and this one surpassed my expectations.

If you have started a blog or are just thinking about it, grab this book. There is a lot of focus on churches creating and using blogs, but not to the extent that it leaves the individual out. The writers took time to teach us a little history as well as give us clear detailed info on the how, why and where of the blog world. Chapter 9 & 10 focus on starting a blog and then building a blog well. I love chapter 11 titled "Build A Really Bad Blog". It's kind of the how-to in reverse.

One of the coolest things in the book was hearing from bloggers around the country about their take on blogging and how it has affected their lives or the lives of the businesses/churches they are involved with. I enjoyed hearing the real world ideas.

This book really starts from the beginning by asking 3 questions...
-Is it a tool or a toy?
-What problem are you trying to solve?
-What is the return on ministry?

The writers go on to explain that "Blogs are tools, not toys. Blogs help solve real problems. Blogs deliver a true return on ministry."

I also appreciate the hopeful message from start to finish. As churches and Christ-followers, we have an amazing opportunity to share our story with others. The blog world is open and ready for the taking. This book consistently draws you back to intent. The writers want you to be excited about who God is in your life and they want that to burst out on your blog.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone thinking of or already in the blogging world. It's very easy to read. It is not extremely technical. And when it does get technical, they have done a great job of explaining themselves so no one gets left behind. It has real life stories and history. It is a quick read.

I learned a lot that I didn't know about blogging from this book. It would have saved me a lot of problems if I had had something like this when I started blogging a year ago.

If you are looking for some help in defining and establishing a blog for yourself or your ministry you will find this book helpful. It gives some great insight in to establishing a good blog for the right reasons.

This book is awesome. it will make you think about the various was you can reach people. It will make you take a look at yourself and motivate you to reach others in ways you havent thought of before.

These volumes are excellent quality. The paper is thin and buff color, the printing is two color, and the font is readable. They were much better quality than I was expecting. Thank you.

I realize that most of the readers of this review will be unable to carry out my suggestion but for those that can, I recommend this procedure to get the most out of the Liturgy of the Hours. After daily or even Sunday Mass, walk over to the rectory and suggest to the pastor that you would like to have the priests join and of course lead Morning Prayer in the Church before daily Mass. He will probably be overjoyed that you are that interested in praying 'his' prayers and will begin as soon as he can. In addition to the spiritual benefits of group prayer, you will be surprised how quickly you become expert in navigating the 'Breviary', even pointing out, diplomatically, the times the priests make a mistake. It becomes quite habit-forming and as others have said, your day will not be complete without it. Since we have two daily Masses, we are able to pray both Morning and Evening Prayer in common. The priests still pray the Office of Readings and Compline in private but who knows when we will join them for that. We have also printed up books with the Morning and Evening Prayers in them for those who do not wish to purchase the Liturgy. The only day we do not pray in unison is on Sunday and maybe someday we will bite that bullet. By the way, we are not the only parish that does this. I know of at least one other parish that recites the Morning and Evening Prayer and like us has a goodly number of participants. I do understand that work would preclude the majority of wage-earners from participating but for those who are retired or otherwise not working this does give you the chance to practice your faith. And finally, the daily reading of the Psalms mirrors so much of what is occurring in our modern life that it is almost scary. But then, considering the author, how else could it be?

It was just what I expected. It was given as a gift to a friend and I am so happy with the purchase. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to deepen their prayer life.

I wanted to buy the Liturgy of the Hours, but I wasn't able to buy all 4 volumes at once. So I've been buying them as the season for each comes. They are amazing! I used the Shorter Christian Prayer a little before, but each of these complete volumes is better. There is more variety in the prayers and it is great when it is a saint's feast day and you get to read about the saint. Not to mention the Office of Readings which often includes a homily from an early Church father! I recommend this to, well, anyone!

The Liturgy of the Hours is, after the Mass, THE universal prayer of the Church. Composed of Psalms, Biblical readings, intercessions, writings of the Church Fathers, and prayers specific to each day of the liturgical year, this beautiful prayer orders the day and unites each person to the other members of the Mystical Body of Christ, who are saying the same prayer the world over. I truly love this 4 volume set, finding it to be a deep well from which I daily draw the spiritual drink I need.

This book was given to me by a colleague and has changed the way I think about organiational dynamics. The twin concepts of Jestership and illumination of blind spots are powerful learnings for those who aspire to lead great organizations. Everyone who works to positively contribute to their company should give this a read.

The Secret Life of the Corportate Jester provides specific, practical, and highly relevant insights into how to more effectively lead and manage organizations. The book's approach - on on-going interaction told in story form - engages the reader and keeps interest high to want to know, "What comes next?" Anyone who wants to better understand how to make a difference in organizations will gain value from this book."

Dave Riveness did a great job with 'The Secret Life of the Corporate Jester'. I read it cover-to-cover on a flight and couldn't put it down. The combination of Greek mythology and lessons for organizational change was a very interesting idea, and Dave's writing was crisp, clear and accessible. All in all, this is a great read on how to transform an organizational culture from the inside-out.

I highly recommend The Secret Life of the Corporate Jester - both entertaining and insightful! This book empowers readers to influence positive change in their organization -- regardless of organization or position. Corporate Jester will help you (and your organization) discover blind spots and influence others.

Thank you Mr. Riveness for simplifying what has become an over complicated topic! This entertaining story gets to the heart of True Leadership... that True Leaders are not defined by their positions or titles, but their courage to seek and speak the truth at all times.

The Apprentice Guide stories provide insight and guidance to uncover personal and organizational blind spots. A great read to increase individual and organizational effectiveness.

The authors take the mystery out of how to create a tuned-in, turned-on profitable workplace. Well written. Well researched. I'm juiced! Two thumbs up!

Great book with down to earth practical info - You can taste Joe's depth of knowledge, background and experience on almost every page. - JA

A very good read. I found many useful strategies for maximizing workplace productivity. Concepts were clearly defined and well thought out. Everyone (employers and employees both) would benefit by reading this book!

I have a free lance consulting business.....and this will be one of
my top books I will recommend to those who want to turn around
the harmony and productivity in their workplace.

Having read many management books previously, I was expecting more of the same, old boring stuff. This book offers new insights in an easy-to-read way. All managers, both new and experienced should read this book! I have been a manager for many years, and was able to take away information and new methods which I could implement immediately in my workplace. I found the section on personality styles unique and very helpful in dealing with both my employees, and with higher management. This book is fun, educational, and a must read for every manager.

I'm vegetarian and have been for over 10 years. My husband on the other hand, doesn't like "healthy" food. So every time I present an argument for trying one of my dishes, he always wants to know what that particular food 'provides' him. This is my savior, when it comes to quick and easy reference to what food have what nutrients. Also contains helpful suggestions on how to shop and buy the foods as well as cook them.

I got this book 2 years ago when I was interested in finding out more about whole foods, even though what we ate was already almost entirely whole foods. I wanted to know about the benefits of each food, and find some new ones as well. This book quickly became, and still is, my most used book. I always take it with me when I travel. It's fascinating to pick it up and read about 1 or 2 specific foods at a time. The amount I've learned about the foods we're eating is tremendous, and for curious food-loving people the book is tops.

Every time I open this book, I find some new fascinating information in it. There are also great recipes and interesting anecdotes sprinkled throughout.
I'm very glad to have this one in my library.

A must have reference for those that need to know more about what they eat and how they can maximize their nutrtional needs through the understanding of "whole plant based" foods,...flavor need not be sacrificed!

I absolutely love this book! Although I have only had it a few weeks, it is already a constant resource in my kitchen. I look something up in it almost everyday, and I've never been disappointed with the entries in the book. I am pregnant, and my doctors are concerned about me getting enough of certain nutrients. This book has helped me alter my diet to get as much of those nutrients naturally as I possibly can. It's informative, user-friendly and well written. I am definitely glad I bought it, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to eat a more balanced, healthy diet.

This book becomes more relevant every year! For organizations that want responsible employees, it challenges leadership to consider the assumptions that drive traditional HR performance appraisal processes - most importantly those arising from the common `parental' or `patriarchy' model of leadership and organizational development.

In this research-based analysis of the multiple purposes of performance appraisal, a labor attorney and an experienced HR professional team-up to explain why appraisals backfire - and they clearly accomplish that key goal of the book. In particular they explain why, in a world in which 98% of people see themselves as being in the top half of performers, the requirement to force-rank employees is a demoralizing and demotivating policy - if you then connect pay raises to this policy, it is a policy to pay money to demotivate the majority of staff! What responsible leader wants their name on such a policy?

So, is there a solution? Yes, but not a ready-made one. Because the authors recognize that the performance appraisal process is only a part of a highly integrated organization framework (the authors refer to this as `The System' - others ask you to think 7-S model) that drives organizational effectiveness, the book does not recommend a one-size-fits-all solution to replacing performance appraisals. Instead, it recommends that the reader make a paradigm shift away from the patriarchy model to a more adult to adult concept, think about what the organization really wants to accomplish (what problem is to be addressed), and provide choices for different individual situations. The book is not an easy read, nor does it provide a feel good solution - it is recommended for thoughtful practitioners who want to know what questions to ask for their situation, rather than what answers others have found for their own, perhaps very different, situation.

If you grapple with performance appraisal, then it might be worth thinking through the assumptions that you have built your performance appraisal system upon. And that's how Tom and Mary's book can help. They describe a series of assumptions that most performance appraisal systems are based on, and they offer up some more useful (and more reality-based) assumptions that provide the foundations for a more effective alternative (not an improvement - a completely different concept altogether).

Even if you aren't convinced to let go of traditional performance appraisal methods, you will still glean some valuable pearls from this book, that can help with problems you're currently having with appraisal.

Extensive research, good case studies, knowledgeble discussion of legal issues are strengths of this book. However, there are numerous weaknesses:
1 Linking enlightened management directly to ineffective appraisal systems. They are not nedessarily related.
2 Not acknowledging managers insight on employees performance.
3 Assuming apprasials are generally a high corporate priority compared with other management activities.
4 Not recommending one or two focused appraisal functions as an alternative to no appraisals.
5 Not providing an explaination of how to administer most pay raise systems (Hay for example).
6 Not clearly identifying how the rating drives pay, promotion and bonus. An alternative is required.
7 Not disussing how requirements may vary by industry job specifics or the impact of enviromental factors, such as, confidentiality and raises based on senioity. jrj

Get past the title, and the authors' "we are totally right" style, and you'll find good material in here. "This book is about ... choos[ing] ... the most effective ways of working with people, [and] refocusing on outstanding organizational performance."

It tells you why most formal appraisal systems have a lot of good goals, but the negative side-effects of trying to reach them through a regular, compulsory, recorded system prevent most people from reaching them. Suggests abolishing the single system, reviewing the goals, and setting up multiple voluntary systems to do the job better.

Read this book to remind yourself what real personal and group improvement communication is about, so that you can include it in your daily work.

I seached out this book when I was tasked to be part of creation of a review process for my smallish company. "Abolishing Performance Appraisals" operated as a great resource during the process.

Especially helpful were the case studies, which pointed out how real companies were creating alternatives to clunky performance appraisals.

Exploring the TITANIC is a very profound read. Robert Ballard (author of this book) is an avid diver, with the dream of finding and exploring the TITANIC. He joined a bunch of French explorers, and traveled far into the deep of the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland where the TITANIC sank in 1912. Ballard used Argo (an advanced water-safe camera) to take pictures of the TITANIC until he found that he could not use Argo anymore because the rough waves were pounding against it. Minute after minute, hour after hour, the Knorr (the submarine Ballard was traveling on) floated in a sea of darkness because the only light they had was the light from Argo. About ten hours went by before Ballard decided to use Angus. Angus was an older camera that Ballard had used in previous explorations. In an hour or two, Ballard had found the TITANIC. Somehow he was not satisfied. He wanted to take clear pictures but did not know how to get them with the technology that he had with him. He pondered this for days. He knew that he was about 13 feet above the TITANIC. Then it came to him that he just needed to go down 13 feet more to get his pictures. Ballard convinced the Captain to go down the 13 feet. When they reached their target, they were able to get their pictures.
Ballard's dream was still not fulfilled because he had not yet explored the TITANIC. About a year later, Ballard and two other divers went underwater to explore the TITANIC. They had traveled down four or five times to complete their mission of exploring the TITANIC. Ballard's dream was fulfilled.
I would recommend this book to any reader that is NOT sensitive. This book told about people on the TITANIC who died. I think the author told us too much about people's lives and made us care about them too much. It was sad when you found out the person died. If they weren't killed, then one of the person's loved ones was killed. For example, Jack Thayer was talked about very much in the beginning. I became fond of him because the author gave so much detail about his life. When Ballard told us that Thayer had survived the crash, he did not stop there. He went on to tell us that Jack's father and his friend did not make it. This made me very emotional. If you would like to learn about Robert Ballard and his exploration of the TITANIC, then by all means, read this book. If the sad parts about the people who died bother you, just skip those pages and you'll still learn a lot about exploring the TITANIC.

I first read this book almost 15 years ago, at age 5 : I loved it, and read it uncountable times. Today it is still just as fascinating. Beautifully illustrated and clearly written, it was the first of many Ballard books that I read. I would also recommend the Discovery of the Bismark and The Wreck of the Isis, just as interesting but less well known. A great way to start reading about the great ships of the past.

Goes behind the Titanic. Why did the Titanic sank, why it was built, how they came up with the name Titanic etc. It has everything you need to know about the Titanic. Even has real actual pictures taken of the Titanic in the water and above.

Do you like old ships? Well, I know the right one for you. It is the Titanic. It is about a ship that hit an ice berg and went down. So go under water with Dr.Robert Ballard and explore the Titanic. Good Luck! This book is recommended for 8 and up.

It's a true story about the Titanic and what things Robert Ballard and his team find in the Titanic.

As a Christian home schooling mom, I always felt that there was something more that I could be doing for my children. I just couldn't put my finger on what that was. Of course, this was because I was still blinded by the world's educational system, and by their standards I was doing above and beyond. I taught them reading, math, spelling, history, science, and more but I never felt peace about the whole process. That is until I read The Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach by Robin Sampson. It was only then that everything began to make sense. Not only did this book open my eyes but it opened my spirit to receive a wealth of wisdom based on God's Word.

This book contains over 500 pages of solid biblical principles to apply to your vision for your child's education. Robin spent more than twenty years researching and seeking God to find our biblical history and she put it into this book. It will teach you so that you can teach them. It will give you revelation and insight to what truly matters and what doesn't. You will be relieved of all the traditions and learned behaviors you have been accustomed to and you will begin to see just how easy it is to breathe life into your children. You will see them come alive with a desire to learn more. That in itself is priceless.

In the first section, Lessons from Exodus, Robin shares her personal struggles with home schooling. I found it to be very similar to my own battles. She addresses issues like: Why am I so frustrated? Why don't the kids enjoy learning? Am I doing the right thing? Is this enough? I felt right at home reading about these burdens most of us face on a daily basis. In fact, once I started reading I could hardly put it down. I was learning how to let God lead me on this journey. I was retraining my mind to think His way. It was so freeing.

In section two Robin will take you back to your roots and reveal the inner thoughts of God and the purpose of man. She exposes where the fruit turned sour and weeds began to grow. This history lesson made me wish I had been one of her children seated at the kitchen table and soaking up knowledge from her diligent studies. I now understand my history. I know more about who Jesus is and that is helpful if I am to aspire to be just like him. If you want the truth go to the source. Robin will take you there.

In section three of this book she discusses the Heart of Wisdom methods. They are a collection of time proven techniques that actually work. They embrace and teach to every part of the child's being. Some of those that are discussed include the Charlotte Mason method, the Delight Directed Approach, Writing to Learn, Critical Thinking and Logic, and Unit Studies. There is also an in depth chapter on learning styles and the Four Step HOW Process: Excite, Examine, Expand, and Excel.

Sections four and five give you instructions and ideas to implement and create a perfect God centered learning process for your children. You will read the detailed HOW plan overview and the meaty guide for bible study. She will teach you to develop your own unit studies, create notebooks, and how to schedule by faith. After all it is all in God's timing, right? There is also an exhaustive list of resources that will leave you with need for nothing else but the presence of God.

The best part about the whole approach is that I can incorporate the materials I currently have and use, make my own, or purchase Robin's Unit Studies from the Heart of Wisdom website. In addition to that I need a bible, a pencil, and paper. How awesome is that?

This book is bible based, intelligently written, captivating to read, and abundant in life changing truth. This book is a definite must-have for any home library. I recommend it even if you don't home school. Every Christian should learn about their heritage. Every Christian should have a Heart of Wisdom.

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
--Psalm 90:12

Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach is like going to a grand buffet. There is a little bit of everything, and it's all delicious! The book includes, but is not limited to, a synopsis of Robin Sampson's own personal experience of why she began homeschooling, a history of education including a comparison between Hebraic methods of teaching/learning against the Greek approach, four different methods of learning and teaching approaches, and an extensive collection of resources to check out. The book is very well organized making it easy to use this book as a ready, frequently used resource.

Very informative and helpful. It gives you lots of options and ideas in homeschooling the Biblical way.
Neat historical information included. A few thing I wasn't impressed with but very minor. Still a good book.

Robin Sampson hits really strong on Bible first-and-all-day-in-every-subject.

Sampson also is a big promoter of the 4mat method which in a nutshell is: get them excited about the subject, study it, and show what you learned. You show what you learned best by lapbooking (scrapfolder) or notebooking or some other project- maybe a diorama or something.

Well, I am a strong believer in lots of Bible, but I did not teach it all school day. So, in that area, I was really challenged. I have committed to do this now.

If you have not read her book... I cannot recommend it highly enough. No other homeschool book has been more valuable. Worth every penny.

I read this book a year ago and it was great! But it was a new approach for me and it was very helpful. I've been actually using the different approaches she mentions in her book and have adapted them to our family's needs. I decided to reread the book, and boy am I glad I did! I understood more about where she was coming. If you are new to the Charlot Mason, this is a great beginning! Plus, you will LOVE Robin's 4Mat System!!! I have no doubt, this Homeschooling book is a MUST READ! and a MUST READ AGAIN:)

Herman and Gioia have done an excellent job of outlining successful strategies based on their own experience as well as the experience of successful organizations. Their simple, but complete, list of critical components for becoming (or remaining) an employer of choice provide a valuable guide. I particularly like the inclusion of examples and quotes from organizations that use these approaches and techniques. This is a complete "how to" guide. A must read...and, a must use book.

Herman & Gioia's EOC is a virtual quick-trip to understanding how the EOCs have achieved their elite status. Easy reading, practical advice supported by diverse cases from leading companies. The summaries of best practices alone are worth reading. Readers wanting more detail can refer to the chapter notes citing specific bibliographic sources.

The chapters on Culture and Enlightened Leadership contain insights into what leaders personally and specifically can do to create the kind of organizational environment that is attractive to employees. Those chapters would be useful to those leaders who sincerely want to "walk the talk." The chapters on Growth and Opportunity and Compensation & Benefits provide poignant "how-to" tips for addressing some of the key advancement, development and pay-related reasons that younger employees are defecting to other competitors. The chapters on Care of People and Meaningful Work would be useful to HR officers wanting to improve employee relations and job design to help reduce the skyrocketing cost of undesirable turnover.

In sum, Herman & Gioia's book is a cornucopia of pithy, actionable suggestions based on relevant EOC case examples. Any leader "worth his/her salt" should reap a significant ROI by effectively implementing even a few of those ideas to help attract and retain talented people.

How to Become an Employer of Choice was published in a year when the biggest problem most companies had was hiring and retaining talented people. Reading the book today it strikes me as a shame that companies are not as eager to pursue the excellent advice given in this book on building strong devotion to your company in the workforce. The problem may seem very far from your mind right now, but being an employer of choice has a tremendous value even when the labor market is easy.

The book starts with a good explanation of why you would want your company to be an employer of choice. One of the nice things in this book is that each chapter is peppered with sidebar anecdotes about real world examples of the concepts being discussed. Most of these anecdotes come from Herman and Gioia's personal research and consulting work, and they are quite helpful.

In the next chapter, there is a survey of the attributes of a company that is an employer of choice. This is probably the least prescriptive of the chapters, but it does offer useful ideas. The succeeding three chapters, on culture, enlightened leadership and care of people give very specific advice about things you can do to work on your company from the inside. There is a wealth of practical material here, and I find much of it as useful for smaller companies as for large ones.

The chapter on growth and opportunity gives excellent advice on nurturing your best people through education. I like the fact that the chapter gives an appropriate balance of suggestions about using both internal and outside educational resources.

The chapter on meaningful work emphasizes the usefulness of measurement and the use of culture to help employees get a sense of satisfaction from their jobs - no matter how small.

In the chapter "Compensation and Benefits" Herman and Gioia offer a wealth of ideas that go beyond the obvious "pay for performance". In particular, the ideas about making the benefits package fit well into your employees' lives are well founded. The whole chapter is a really good survey of ideas for rounding out your benefits package that I have found useful both for my own company and for my strategy clients.

The chapter on "Making a Difference" focuses on community involvement. This creates a strong sense of pride in the companies that do it, and the chapter has a number of excellent ideas for companies of any size or budget.

The last chapter, "Getting Started", unfortunately offers the least practical advice. This is a shame because I think for most of us, the challenge of applying the great ideas in this book will be daunting. Fortunately, there is a great appendix with some techniques for measuring your performance as an employer of choice, so we are left with what I would consider the most important tool for getting started.

Overall, this is a super book with good concepts, supporting anecdotes, and a treasure trove of useable, practical advice on becoming an employer of choice. Even if you are having an easy time with hiring right now, you will be much better off for applying the great stuff in this book!

(Robert Bradford is CEO of the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning and co-author of Simplified Strategic Planning: A No-Nonsense Guide for Busy People Who Want Results Fast)

Despite the "employers' market" created after thousands of layoffs since the tragedy of September 11, companies must work harder than ever to become an "employer of choice." Herman and Gioia have developed what is sure to become a standard for how to get and keep your most valuable employees.

With case studies from a variety of organizations that include actual accounts of what works--and what doesn't, Herman and Gioia have managed to walk the fine line between research and reality. In simple, everyday language, this practical, hands-on how-to guide explains the process of developing an "employee-centered culture" that allows employees and their businesses to thrive.

"How To Become an Employer of Choice" is a must-have for any business seeking an edge in today's ever-competitive marketplace.

Dianna Booher
Author of communicate with Confidence, E-Writing, and Get a Life

How to become an employer of choice is a well organized compendium of timely suggestions for things organizations can do to attract, retain and motivate high quality employees in this volatile labor market. The authors use clear, straightforward langage to identify the business rationale for creating and maintaining a work environment that invites and rewards the best and the brightest, and encourages them to stay, even in the face of other offers. The suggestions the authors make don't require a major overhaul or reorganization of your company. Instead they present common sense alternatives to the traditional business model that are relatively easy to implement. Good ideas here for all kinds of companies and other organizations.

Sure the program comes with a PDF manual but having a printed reference can make learning so much easier. This is not a book on technique, it's a book on features, functionality and workflow. I primarily use Final Cut Express, thankfully most of the tutorials contained in the book are applicable. There's nothing terribly exciting about the book itself, the information is presented in a no-nonsense fashion. If your looking for anecdotal storytelling, humor and opinion you'd do well to consider another title. I keep it handy at all times, it's saved me a lot of time and frustration...well worth the money.

I like Lynda's personal publications best but anything bearing her title "H.O.T." is worth having. Very practical and useful. Norman Borge

When looking for a book on FCP, I just read the various reviews. Even though some others looked quite interesting, I chose this one and am glad I did. I wanted a specific type of instruction because I have some expert-level chops and ignorance at the same time. I'm new to video but am a professional recording engineer by trade. I'm fully conversant on the Mac and non-linear audio programs so I needed a book that got both completely simple (for video concepts new to me) and also provided some depth at the same time.

The type of instruction in this book is having the user execute step-by-step, starting at the most basic level but progressing into more complex stuff fairly quick.

I forget the wording but there's some Chinese proverb........something like
You tell me, I hear
You show me, I see
I do, I learn

That's me and this book suits my learning style nicely. I'm sure there are other books as good but I doubt that any are better, hard to see how you could go wrong with this one.

I consider myself to be a "seasoned user" of Final Cut Pro. I have been editing with FCP since the original release of version 1.0 and have worked on numerous documentaries, features, commercials and episodic television.

I learned about this book from the Apple website. This is the official textbook used for Apple Pro Certification (FCP Level One). So I decided that I would "forget" everything I already knew and begin with Lesson 1. I'm very happy I adopted that attitude because there are so many neat little tips that I picked up in the first few lessons. Now I wonder how I ever survived without them. Those tips have already saved me a lot of time. I have only completed one-third of the lessons thus far and I can already see an improvement in my productivity.

Every chapter of the book is a "hands-on" lesson. The files and media for each lesson are provided on a DVD-ROM (included). You will first copy those files to your hard drive and then open each lesson file and then follow the step-by-step instructions in the book.

I'm looking forward to getting my Level One certification with the help of this book, and I can't wait to continue onto the Advanced Level certification with the second book.

Please note this is essentially the same book as the the "Final Cut Pro HD" book. The DVD is the same and so are the exercises. I had a chance to compare both and noticed only only one minor detailed (a detail is now circled on a screen shot) and, of course, there could be some that I missed. Even so, the back cover of the HD book acknowledges...

"This book was previously published under the title "Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Pro 4. If you previously purchased this book, there is no need to purchase this revision: All the project files and exercises in the previous edition can be used with Final Cut Pro HD."

Bottom-Line: Newbie or Pro? It doesn't matter! This is a GREAT book to own if you use FCP.

Until I purchased this book, I had owned FCP4 for six months. I had learned my way around the software well enough. I felt comfortable, but not necessarily proficient. In order to improve my editing time, I went ahead and ordered this book, also with the intent of getting my Apple certification, as this is the same text used in their classes. Normally, I am the type that I will skip sections that discuss things that I'm certain I know, but I went ahead and followed every step in the book.
What a difference! Each chapter takes approximately 30-45 minutes to complete, using video clips on the included DVD. After 3 days and 10 chapters, I was hardling touching my trackball. Not only had I learned quite a few shortcuts, but the book helped me understand the editing process itself a little better. I feel that this text is very well laid out, easy to understand, and can be done relatively quickly with a sharp learning curve. I highly recommend this to anyone new to Final Cut Pro. With a little time and effort, you'll be flying around the video editing, the soundtrack design and the Live Type titling package. And, after you have completed this book, go ahead and buy Apple Pro Training Series: Advanced Editing and Finishing Techniques in Final Cut Pro 4, you will not be disappointed.