Tools Books

Nicely done! I'm thinking about becoming a working bassist (after having been a working pianist for many years.)
This book has been quite helpful in that regard. Two thumbs up!

This book is a jewelbox full of great technical and practical tips. From gig and career planning, to basic and advanced technique, to hints for buying a new bass, this is a comprehensive overveiw on bass playing.

I have started playing bass after many years as a guitarist. I find Ed's book very useful with a lot of fun and intelligent exercises which helps develop your skills as a bass player. It is the best bass book I have seen yet.

Ed Friedland's book is truly deceptive. Packed into just over 100 pages and a single CD is enough information and advice to land a paying gig as a bass player. That a lifetime's pursuit could be so distilled without losing breadth is a testament to Friedland's writing. The musical examples are a testament to his fine low hand.

One weak point is the book's first chapter, Keeping Time. Friedland makes it clear that this skill, undergirding the other players with a clear time patttern, is essential to obtaining work as a gigging bassist. He fails, however, to include on the accompanying CD, examples of bass playing along with complicated metronome exercises in this first chapter.

Otherwise the book's punch is powerful. Friedland has given all bass players a challenging course to study and practice. His path will lead bassists to self improvement if not professional success.

This book and CD cover all the bases to bring you around the bases and back to home plate!

The chapters cover Core Skills (Timing, Charts & Ears), Gig Survival (getting thru tunes you don't know, attire, Jazz survival, etc.) Specialized skills (5 String fundamentals, doublin, Thumb technique, and Chords). Some of the material are re-prints of BassPlayer mangazine articles by Ed Friedland, but this book really covers all the bases.

What I like the most about this book is it re-inforces all the things my many teachers over the years have covered. Ear training - identifying chords and interval by ear. This is an invaluable skill! Also, the book covers fully typical chord progressions that you will invariably play. There's a very extensive recommended song list for the gigging bass player to know. Awesome!

This book is in no way esoteric. It is a straight forward, hands on book. The book covers virtually all styles of music you'll encounter on a gig.

I feel this book needs to be in every budding bass players wood shedding cabinet!

I bought it here on Amazon.com at a great price.

Peace!

An excellent book for writers in the revision stage. It's not comprehensive but it does a great job of covering 12 specific issues, in a very concise manner with good examples.

Unlike the grand majority of "How to Write" books that have crossed my desk over the years, Carroll Dale Short's little book is not only immensely useful but also a true pleasure to read. A Writer's Tool Kit contains practical suggestions and guidelines that will aid the student writer, and experienced writers will find themselves charmed by the observations of a learned (but not pretentious) author. My recommendation is to always Keep this one within arm's reach!

Choosing words for a sentence that will build to a paragraph that has meaning and interest for others is a craft. We are all apprentices in this trade when we commit to that first sentence. Carroll Dale Short has given us a 'tool kit' to improve these skills. This is a clearly written guide to a dozen ideas every writer should consider while working their craft. Short's primary focus is narrative writing, storytelling, usually fiction, but also the background, human interest story that goes beyond mere facts. Writers of expositional, fact-based reports, not stories, will also benefit from these tools if only by being reminded that the goal should always be to give the reader information in a straightforward manner. We might want to keep in mind John Gardner's (The Art of Fiction) quoted advice: "The meaning of a sentence should be as obvious as a grizzly bear in a well-lighted kitchen". This tool kit comes with a lot of examples from a variety of writers: Using 'transitions' to advance your prose in a coherent way; avoiding the vagueness of abstractions; using fewer words to make sentences more effective; tips on writing dialogue; avoiding redundancy and cliche's, etc. I think some of the best advice Short passes on is to re-read your material frequently (I suggest reading it aloud) as if you were reading it for the first time. Writing is not just a skill, it is a habit. So, commit to it, Nike-style. And trust your instincts. If a particular sentence or paragraph or concept keeps blocking your progress, consider that it may simply be unnecessary, a non sequitur, a dead-end. These are all good ideas for the writer, whatever their focus, as well as the serious reader who appreciates accomplished writing.

"There are a ton of hard-and-fast rules about writing, but you won't find any of them in this book," says Carroll Dale Short, author of A Writer's Tool Kit. What you will find, however, is entertaining, insightful and eminently practical advice to writers of any age crafted around 12 basic principles, or "tools."

This is not a book about grammar. Rather, it's a book designed to engage both experienced and less-experienced writers, pointing the way to a more finely honed craft. Short gives example after example of dismal or marginal writing transformed into something refreshing and clear, as well as examples of good writing illustrating techniques used successfully by some of our best authors.

Throughout, Short writes with a uniquely cheerful and supportive voice. He dedicates his book to a favorite teacher, and readers are very likely to feel a similar attachment to Short after finishing this neatly packaged, 174-page paperback.

--Joanna Virkler, Charlotte (N.C.) Leader-News

Carroll Short's A Writer's Tool Kit: 12 Proven Ways You Can Make Your Writing Stronger - Today! is an immensely useful, accessible, and practical guide for beginning and experienced writers alike. Chapters cover a variety of ways to trim down and spice up one's grammar and prose, from pruning excess pronouns to using narrative sequence to make a story flow better, to bringing spoken dialogue to zest-filled life. Filled with examples and just plain solid advice, A Writer's Tool Kit is invaluable reading for all writers striving to improve their personal or professional wordsmithing abilities!

If you're not very knowledgeable on how to use, expand, personalize, and tweak Yahoo!, this book is for you! Author Paul Bausch, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that will help you do just that, in ways you never dreamed possible.

Bausch, begins by showing you how to become a Yahoo! power searcher by taking advantage of meta keywords in order to return more relevant results. Then, he shows you some unique ways on how to use Yahoo! Web Services, including monitoring your commute for problems, watching TV schedules automatically for appearances by your favorite celebrities, and visualizing your music collection. The author continues by showing you how to use the hacks to reach out and touch someone. Next, he introduces you to the backdoor that Yahoo! has opened for developers. Then, the author shows you how people are using Yahoo! data in their own applications and have a bit of fun in the process. Finally, he shows you how to get listed and introduces you to other Yahoo! components you can plug into your site.

You can read this excellent book from cover to cover if you like, but each hack stands on its own. Here, the author intends to show you what's possible when you view Yahoo! as a platform and inspire your inner hacker to take a new look at Yahoo!.

Paul Bausch's YAHOO! HACKS: TIPS & TOOLS FOR LIVING ON THE WEB FRONTIER tells how to personalize and use Yahoo! In new ways, from using keyword shortcuts and advanced syntax to get more from search queries to customizing Yahoo! Mail, using its blogging features and file share programs, and even building applications using Yahoo! web services. Everything there is to know about customizing and tweaking Yahoo! is in this book.

This book contains a hundred hacks to get Yahoo to work the way you want it to work. These hacks include tips for getting the results you want from a Yahoo search, dealing with advertiser cookies, tracking your stocks, getting news feeds and news crawlers, using Yahoo groups, programming Yahoo using various languages including Perl, Java, PHP, and VBScript and even how to plot multiple points on map at the same time. Of course the biggest question for many people is how to get your site listed at Yahoo and there is even a tip for that. Yahoo! Hacks is a highly recommended book to anyone who uses Yahoo or wants to know how to really master it.

When Yahoo! was created in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo it was the simplest of web sites. Just a collection of web pages laid out in a simple unordered list, the entire Yahoo! web site was only a handful of pages with only a single, simple use: to list sites on the web separated out by the content they provided. Probably when someone today thinks of Yahoo! the first thing they think of is that it is a search engine. Well the 1st generation of the Yahoo! web site didn't even have that. There wasn't even a form field present, the only thing being a bunch of hyperlinks which navigated to more hyperlinks for the few sites that were in existence back in the day.

My what changes a decade brings.

When you think of the Internet today, probably the first couple of web sites that come to mind are eBay, Google, amazon and Yahoo!. It is safe to say that with thousands of employees and millions upon millions of revenue that Yahoo! is one of the greatest success stories on the web, and to think that only 10+ years ago this site was just a simple list that grew into so much more. Yahoo! has evolved to not only provide a way of searching the Internet, but it is now a portal site that provides News, Weather, Sports, Games... basically if you can think of something that you can find on the Internet then Yahoo! is a great place to go to start your web experience. There is so much to do and so many places to go when you use Yahoo! that it can become mind-boggling and that is where "Yahoo! Hacks" can be used to make your net experience the best it can be.

Providing 100 tips and tricks of how to best use Yahoo! to your advantage, Paul Bausch pulls no punches and doesn't skimp on the details. From learning how to use and customize 'My Yahoo!' to setting up and controlling your mail to setting your own personal TV listings, you can learn how to do this with this guide. From tracking your investments to created advanced searches that remember personalized settings to installing Yahoo! Messenger, you will learn the ins and outs with this book. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to discussing all that Yahoo! Hacks has to offer. RSS, blogging, Calendar, sharing photos... the list goes on and on.

After reading Yahoo! Hacks you will soon feel like there is so much to offer from Yahoo! that you could do everything you needed to at one web site and never have to go anywhere else! Now with this guide you can get the most out of your Yahoo! experience and have fun while doing it.

This is what Hack books are supposed to be about!! For all Yahoo! enthusiasts out there who want to learn how to use Yahoo! to the fullest, this is the book for you!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." That quote might apply to Yahoo when you look at all the mindshare that Google has garnered of late. It's almost as if Yahoo is irrelevant and Google owns the search world. Not quite, and Paul Bausch's new book Yahoo! Hacks - Tips & Tools for Living on the Web Frontier reminded me of all the good and incredibly valuable things you can do with Yahoo...

Contents: Search; Services; Communicating; Web Services; Applications; Webmastering; Index

Like all Hacks titles, you have a number of cool tips and tricks that you can do using Yahoo as your technology starting point. In this case, there's 100 of them that cover a wide range of topics. For instance, tip #39 - Monitor Your Commute shows how Yahoo can provide updated traffic conditions overlaying a map of your driving commute. Even better, those traffic updates can be formatted in RSS and put on your My Yahoo page. I did that one right away. Tip #83 - Randomize Your Windows Desktop Background shows how, using Yahoo's web services API and some VBA code, you can create a random Windows wallpaper each day. Just hope you don't choose a search term that isn't "work safe". :) The whole Web Services chapter shows how you can access Yahoo's API using a variety of languages such as Perl, PHP, Python and a few others. Once you get the basic core structure down, you open up a whole universe of possibilities in terms of programmatic integration of Yahoo into your applications. This is really cool stuff...

I've been just as guilty as the next person of getting all "Google"-y eye'd at other search engines and forgetting the site that opened up a whole world of internet realities. Many of the things we take for granted now were ground-breaking ideas that Yahoo was pushing in the early days. Having two strong competitors in the search arena will lead to even more innovative thinking as they play off of each other. I can see how the Yahoo! Hacks title could go into multiple editions without even trying...

Excellent read with lots of code you can use immediately. If you've wandered away from Yahoo for other pastures, perhaps it's time to wander back and see what other options are out there. Yahoo Hacks will expand your thinking as to what you can do with search engines...

This is a quick read, but contains a lot of great advice. It is oriented toward the smaller mom-and-pop retailers who have to compete with the big-box stores. However, even a retailer such as the one I work for with hundreds of stores can get a lot out of Phibbs' ideas. This book has many great concepts that center around employee training and customers relations.

Bob Phibbs takes running a small business seriously and he takes customer service VERY seriously. Best of all, he explains his principles well, without being condescending or preachy. This concise, well-organized book lays out the basics of "killer" marketing and customer service that can make your business stand out above the competition. YCC will light a fire under the complacent or discouraged business owner, as it provides a much needed motivational wake-up call for every independent business trying to stay afloat in corporate America.

You Can Compete!

This is a great straightforward read. It offers practical and simple to implement, small tactics to differentiate yourself from the big boxes. Instead of modeling them--cutting down on services and stock piling merchandise and heavy couponing--hire and train people full of product information and teach people to be sales people, not cashiers.

Many of his beliefs align with techniques I use in my sales training and consulting, those are what I'll highlight.

Phibbs has an easy repeatable 5 step approach to approaching a customer - and goes beyond the overused "are you doing ok"? I was in a big box after reading this and counted 8 times this was chanted to me, and I was in the store less than ½ hour. I agree with the author, this becomes distracting--can't I just look? (Geez, I was standing in front of envelopes!). I left without a purchase--I couldn't think.

He gives a step by step approach to training - and why the first 30 days is the best you'll get from a new hire--unless you build a process and "inspect what you expect".

Discounting doesn't work--in fact I train how it works against you. I know which stores provide a coupon and there are multiple times I have pulled in front of the store, discovered I don't have the coupon, and drive away without coming in for my purchase!

I also have a story illustrating his examples of how signage can create a "sales prevention" department. Signs that say "don't' touch"--displays are meant to be touched! My favorite hates are those saying "no soliciting, no change, no bathrooms". I was recently in a big box with a sign on a copier (that you pay self serve per copy) "15 minute limit". The retailer went to the expense of putting in a copier, hoping it's a profit center, and now tells you not to use it.

This book is not only how to compete, how and what to change and how to differentiate. There are plenty of reasons to choose an independent vs a big box--if yours is just to "support the little guy", stop and buy this book before you close your doors, content its their fault. You have a lot to offer, read this and get energized.

I'm a consultant in the jewelry industry and this book tells it like it is and is like having lunch with a mentor once a week. Bob tells you exactly what to do in sales training, hiring, pricing, maarketing and just plain out how to compete against whomever your competition happens to be. Many thoughts are one or two pages on what to do. Some of it it's the number head on. Soemtimes it's a pep talk.

Example: Bob talks about if an employee doesn't work out in a short time or constantly comes in late to FIRE THEM.

This is a correct way to handle your business, it's just that many a store woner are WIMPS. "We're all family here". yeah, right. When it comes down to "who doesn't get a pay check this pay period-cash flow sucks" see who volunteers. YOU.

If this book doesn't nothing else than to make you a STRONGER manager it will be worth a 100 times more.

I give seminars to jewelers on pricing and sales commissions. I felt so strongly about the value of this book that I ordered 50 copies to give out to my attendees this June in Vegas.

Bob talks about commissions and marketing. There aren't as many extra books on commissions out there (Bob spends one to three pages on one" but there a few excelent books on advertising you should read, expecially if you're retail:

" The 33 ruthless rules of local advertising" by Michael Corbett.

Also 2 excellent books (Bob talks about branding-buy these 2 from anexpert) on advertising and marketing:

"The end of marketing as we know it"
"The end of advertising as we know it"

Both by Sergio Zyman. He used to be in charge of marketing at Coca Cola.

David Geller
www.JewelerProfit.com

As a former owner of a retail/service business and continuing entrepreneur, I read Bob Phibbs' book with great interest. There is simply not enough I can say about this book. It is an easy read that is not bogged down with anecdote after anecdote trying to make the same point over and over again as so many self-help books are. Phibbs make his points with short, concise, relevant vignettes that more often than not pack an A-ha! punch. Any independent business person with a lick of sense who hopes to compete with the big box retail vampires will have Phibbs' book - not on their bookshelves, but in hand. Personally, I've always believed the little guy could compete, but how? Phibbs tells you exactly how. Interestingly enough, I happen to live in a community where Phibbs cites success stories and was surprised that I am a customer of one of them. I remember when Starbucks moved in a few doors down from Polly's with the sole intention of putting Polly's out of business (there's another Starbucks just a few blocks away). I didn't think Polly's would last a month, but Polly's began to change and began a campaign to beat the giant. Now, at least two years later they're still here... and thriving... and better than ever with Phibbs' expert guidance. You Can Compete is filled with his expertise in an organized, personable package that would almost make you feel as if Phibbs was your own personal consultant. I would recommend this book to anyone who is in the retail business or thinking about going into it - don't wait for the giants to come barging into your backyard. You could not ask for a better guide for success than You Can Compete.

If you have done a lot of self help, and didnt take any action get this book. This man learned from the best in the marketing industry, people who influenced millions to spend billions. He truly understands what is needed to create the drive inside of you to CAUSE action.

I say CAUSE because if you follow the program dilligently, and listen actively, you wont have to MAKE yourself take action. It will just happen as a natural process of your new thinking. Heres an example;

I always wanted to hit the gym. Im a skinny guy, and I know that working out will give me more energy and muscle. After reading the first two chapters, I stopped and did every exercise, answered every question he mentioned. This took me an hour, and at the end of the hour I literally got up and went to the gym.

Im not big on hype, but if you really want to change your life pick this book up. Its filled with ideas that will shift your reality far beyond what you thought was ever possible for you.

This CD's set is worth every cent paid. It is easy to listen to, knowledgeable in insightful.

I really enjoyed this book. It has some very powerful ideas that the only thing a person needs to make them more successful is to use them. It is so full of information about the inner working of the human's motivation patterns.

Fans of Glasser, Jung and Victor Frankl will appreciate this book. Counselors can find techniques for all types of interventions. Beeler blends a unique mix of spiritual and psychological components to top off the complex matrix of the human hierachy of needs. He supports himself with research and facts. As a person who needs scientific research and facts, I found this book to be progressive and perhaps ground breaking in that it challenges some traditional beliefs about the importance of spirituality in our daily lives.

This is a helpful book for personal and work growth.

Packed with powerful tips and techniques, this audio book gives you real results in decision making, problem solving, memory, and creativity. It helps you change habits and develop a positive outlook by teaching you confidence and decisiveness. It's great for anyone who wants to maximize his potential and make the most of his mind. Interesting to listen to and easy to see the amazing results.

I wish that this book had been written years ago. It is an excellent read.
A close friend recommended this remarkable book to me. I'm greatful he did because I was in need of this book.
I can tell the author has done his due diligence in researching goal setting and time management, and that he really enjoys writing about these subjects. I would pass this book on to a friend or family member in a heartbeat!

Self-help books rarely accomplish what Le Blanc is able to do in ACHIEVING OBJECTIVES MADE EASY! For starters, he does give his readers easy ways to set goals, manage time, and be more successful in their professional and private lives. In short, by accomplishing his own goal to offer practical tools and techniques, he helps us to make our lives more than simply manageable but more meaningful.

Le Blanc has clearly accomplished this in his own life, and nothing is more inspiring than knowing an author practices what he preaches. Presenting us with simple ways to help balance our days, select priorities, and have plans of action, he offers a platter upon which we can place our clutter, eliminate energy drainage and avoid the pitfalls of procrastination. Ultimately, he empowers us with motivation, the motivation we all need to be successful.

In the fast-paced rat race of 21st century life, Le Blanc offers building blocks to living with less stress, thereby increasing the potential for us to be more spiritual, while improving our finances, as well as our professional and personal relationships. He provides not only techniques but wisdom. Most importantly, perhaps, he gives us hope that dreams can be realized! Bravo! A real contribution!

Linda Appleman Shapiro, Psychotherpist,
Author: FOUR ROOMS, UPSTAIRS: A Psychotherapist's Journey Into And Beyond Her Mother's Mental Illness

Thanks to this book I'm able to do much more in less time ! Now I understand how important setting goals is and even more important how easy it is and the fun and joy it brings.

I've been jazzed to read the incorporated wisdom/life benefits of self-management as presented by the author.

Agility is a term that is ventilated for a long time in the academic and some business community. However, so far the question remains broadly unanswered on what it really is about and what difference Agility makes.

This book makes a difference, saying that agility is about managing dynamic change and what consequences this has for the entire company management.

Ted Goranson does a great job in giving the reader strong pictures and cases about Agility first. But he does not simply stay with some (war-)story telling. Instead he ventures to develop general concepts and models with scientific rigour.

Linking his models to existing mainstream theories and some innovative developments allows him to show, what agility is - and what it is not.

And it allows him to trace the consequences of becoming agile into such distinct management functions as corporate finance, human resource management, manufacturing and innovation or information systems.

A book invaluable for all, who plan to apply the concept of agility and even more for those who develop methods, tools and system to support agile enterprises.

Since 1994, at least nine books have been published dealing with the topic of agility or agile manufacturing. The first book, published in 1994 was my own, Agile Manufacturing: Forging New Frontiers (Addison-Wesley). The ninth, published in 1999, entitled The Agile Virtual Enterprise: Cases, Metrics and Tools (Quorum Books) is by Ted Goranson. I have all nine on my bookshelf and I have read them all! Books two through to eight (I won't mention them by name) all have one common specific feature - they are largely unrelated to each other. They are also not much related to the topic of agility either, but that's another story. Moreover, books two to eight are not much related to books one or nine. In fact there is a massive gap, nay gulf! However there is a common thread between the first and the ninth book.

In Agile Manufacturing: Forging New Frontiers I insisted (and I still do) that there were no agile firms. Also I was keen to point out that the notion that one could figure things out in advance and then design a strategy or an enterprise configuration based on this specification was, dead in the water. This approach simply does not work well when one is faced with significant change and uncertainty. In this kind of environment a whole new approach is needed. Ted Goranson's book makes a significant contribution to the development of this new way of working.

To be found in Ted's book are accounts of the development of virtual enterprise from the days of whaling and the importance of trust, lightweight agreements and case law in supporting the formation of agile virtual enterprises. Also to be found are discussions on what agility is and what agility is not, and why agility is important, along with comments about how agility relates to flexibility, electronic commerce and lean production. There is a detailed Agile Virtual Enterprise Reference Model and also descriptions of some agile virtual enterprise practices based on a number of case studies. From these case studies comes confirmation that agility tends to be isolated within specific parts of a firm and is often fortuitous and unplanned. These agile practices are not institutionalised and are not part of some grand agility strategy.

The book makes an important contribution to measuring agility. There is a detailed description of a modelling technique, based on communicative acts, that allows one to generate simple metrics that one can use to establish and compare the agility of different candidate processes that form part of the Agile Virtual Enterprise Reference Model. This is a novel and useful development.

This book contains a lot of substantial material and is very stimulating. The only minor point of criticism is that the description of flexibility does not make use of the frameworks and literature on that subject. I believe this would have helped to improve the positioning of agility in relation to flexibility. However, the theory of agility is still very much in the early stages of development, and this omission just highlights the fact that a significant amount of work still remains to be done on the development of agility theory.

I have no reservations about recommending this book. This is the first time that I have been able to do so, because quite frankly, most of the other books dealing with the topic of agility are embarrassments and do nothing at all to recommend the topic to industry managers. Ted Goranson's book is a milestone in the development of the topic and should help people to better understand the subject, as well as help them to deal with the real and pressing problem of unexpected change.

Paul T. Kidd

Goranson presents a clear and compelling case for the value of agility in the enterprise, complete with easily understood historical case studies. Unlike so many other works, he does not confuse 'agility' with speed, lean-ness, or the ability to cope with expected change, as do so many other authors writing about agility.

My one disappointment is the Tools section, which is most theories and algorithms, rather than reports on and references to software tools available in the marketplace. Given this work was published in 1999, I suspect this is because there were not tools for agility widely available- and not at all the author's shortcoming. It would great to see an update to this section, if in fact there are now tools that have been designed as "agility tools."

This book offers a impressive review and explanation of agility and virtualness, describing through the examples how these both concepts influenced our past, present and future.

I am personally using it as a reference for establishing in Brazil a Virtual Organization as well as for my under and post-graduation courses.

I highly recommend this book for people who really intend and need a strong basys for working with agility and virtualness.

Congratulations for Ted Goranson for this excellent work.

This book contains terminology, pics and all those terms that sometimes you have heard at the dojo but were afraid to ask how to pronounce or write correctly. In addition it has the kanji for the terms, which helps a lot if you plan to travel to Japan to train- since not all dojo have terms spelled out in "romaji." I used it in order to prepare for a trip to train in Japan and found it invaluable. I highly recommend this book, whether you are a beginner or an advanced level student.

This book is a good resource on the roots of the basic terminology of Aikido and the Japanese language. Any disciple of Aikido should read it and keep it in their reference library.

I have been practicing aikido for 13 years and I still don't understand some of the Japanese Aikido Terminology. It's a good thing that Michael Taylor published this book because it helped me understand them. This book covers all of the Japanese words used in aikido with its kanji character, meaning in english, and pronounciation in an easy to use manner.

This book is not a technical book on aikido techniques but a terminology guide of japanese words used in Aikido just like a dictionary.

I highly recommed this book to all practitioners of aikido who wants to deepen their understanding of aikido by knowing the meaning of Japanese Words used in Aikido.

"The best Aikido Terminology book I have ever seen." Shihan Carmen Pelusi - Eight Winds Aikido.

"A helpful guide for anyone who wishes to truly grasp the meaning of Aikido terminology. Steve Wade - long time Aikido practitioner.

Aikido Terminology is the most comprehensive Aikido terminology book currently in existence.

It includes a description of all fundamental Aikido terms, the Japanese kanji characters as used in Aikido, their meaning, a phonetic guide and cross-reference to a kanji guidebook for those who wish to study their meaning further.

The body of text is conveniently broken down into the following logical categories: stances, grasps, strikes, falls & rolls, fundamental techniques, various Aikido actions, body parts, weapons, Aiki-wear, ranks, special training and miscellaneous items.

Most importantly; all terms are quickly and conveniently referenced by two complete indexes located at the end of the book. The result is the most useful Aikido terminology book on the market. It is an indispensable tool for all practitioners of Aikido.

i bought this book as a gift for my father in law. when i recieved it my husband who is also into old tools read it first and said that he wanted it too! i guess that means the book lives up to its standards. i liked the pictures that went along with it so you could actually see the tool they were talking about. overall, good book!

hay i collect antique tool and enjoy my new book i would like to have another just like it for a friend.

I am very well please with this book.Highly recommend it to any tool collector.

All I expected. Alot of information for the tools it advertised

This book brings together articles from all aspects of digital audio from a multitude of authors into one volume. To find the same information you would have to dig through countless journals and troll the web, thus this book's first service is saving time for the researcher. Most books on digital audio focus on one particular audience - the programmer, the signal processing professional, or the recording professional. This book has a variety of articles from all of these fields. Thus it is likely that not every article will be interesting and useful to everyone, but the book should have enough articles of value to make it worthwhile to anyone interested in this fascinating field. The author himself cites Andrew Glassner's "Graphic Gems" series as an inspiration, and you could indeed rename this series "Audio Gems" and not lose any meaning by the retitling.

Of course, there are articles on the basic science of sound that should be of interest to anyone starting out in the field such as "Understanding the Decibel" and "Sound Propagation". Those interested in signal processing and programming of algorithms will enjoy Perry Cook's "Introduction to Physical Modeling" which condenses much of the material in his book "Real Sound Synthesis for Interactive Applications" into one digestible introductory article. Included are some of Cook's programs that assist in physical modeling, but he saves his real contribution to this field, his Synthesis Toolkit in C++, for volume two of this series. Likewise Albert Bregman's extensive research on the subject of auditory scene analysis is condensed nicely in the article "Perceptual Organization of Sound" and acts as an accessible introduction. My personal interest is in synthesis and signal processing, thus from my perspective I found the article "Timbre Trees: Integrating Sounds and Images" to be the most interesting article of the bunch. It explained a fascinating concept I had never heard of before involving an integrated approach to motion and sound. The entire concept is not explained in this one article, but there are references to other sources of information if you want to learn more details. This is the whole purpose of this book and its series - to introduce the reader to a topic in digital audio via a clear article, and then refer the reader to more in depth material outside the scope of the book should you need to know more. I highly recommend this book to anyone involved in the field of digital audio.

This book is a great book for anyone that works with digital audio. Audio Anecdotes introduces us to the practical side of audio. Just take a look at the Table Of Contents to see that there are papers on a wide variety of topics. Each of the 25 papers are written by experts in their respective fields, and each provides practical tips for creating great sounding audio. These tips aren't ideas that are obvious even to those with years of experience in the field- many of them come from years of research. In addition to the tips and techniques, Audio Anecdotes is filled with example code so you can play around and hear exactly what the authors are writing about. The CD-ROM comes with demos and explanations for most of the topics as well as the software to compile and run each demo. The software includes Caliper (a custom, text-based program used for controlling demo parameters), Flavor (a language, based on C++ and Java, great for multimedia applications), Octave (a language similar to MatLab), the PortAudio Library (a C library for audio I/O), and STK (Synthesis Toolkit- a set of C++ classes used for audio synthesis and processing). Whether you're going to use all this software or if you're simply looking for some practical mixing tips, I recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn more about the practical side of digital audio.

Audio Anecdotes: Tools, Tips, And Techniques For Digital Audio is an anthology of essays by a wide variety of expert authors concerning the exciting field of digital audio, lessons that can be learned from its past, discoveries directly applicable in the present, and anticipation of new changes in the future. Cutting-edge, practical, advice-filled instructionals include "Timbre Trees: Integrating Sounds and Images", "RampTest: Quantifying Audio Performance", "Designing a Movie for Sound", "Perceivable Auditory Latencies" and much more. A highly recommended supplementary educational text for anyone pursuing or involved in a career in the digital audio field, Audio Anecdotes is clearly an excellent addition to career-themed professional libraries as well as audio technology and technical reference shelves.

Ken Greenebaum, who co-edited this book with Ronen Barzel, and wrote some of the articles, indicates in the preface that his motivation for putting Audio Anecdote together was to get the book he had wished for when he was starting out in digital audio. What he came up with is a wide-ranging collection of 25 articles on various aspects of sound--what it is, how we hear it, how it affects us, how it can be produced and altered, and how it can fool us. Some of the articles are rigorously scientific and technical, while others really are anecdotal and personal. Most significantly there is a wealth of information about the manipulation of sound, and there is some history of the development of our understanding of sound.

Most of the material is aimed at people who have an intense interest in audio, and audio reproduction and development, and who already have some knowledge. However this book also works well for a rank beginner (such as myself). The articles are clear and well-presented with many black and white illustrations, tables, diagrams, and mathematical formulas, not to mention programming code! There is a glossary and there is some overlap in the "anecdotes." For example, after a brief overview of the book, Greenebaum begins with an introductory-like article on what sound is and how we measure it. This is followed by a more technical article by Hesham Fouad entitled "Understanding the Decibel." This in turn is followed by Greenebaum's essay on "Sound Propagation." His exploration of the physics involved is clear and easy to read.

One of the many things that I discovered is that "When we speak on the telephone, a portion of our voice output is intentionally played back to us through the earpiece." Derek DiFilippo and Greenebaum explain in their article, "Perceivable Auditory Latencies" that "If we didn't have a clear sense of hearing ourselves speak, we would tend to talk louder and louder because we [would] assume that the listener on the other end...[wouldn't be able to] hear us either." (pp. 74-75)

I also learned (from Oscar-winning sound director Randy Thom in his article, "Designing a Movie for Sound") that the wise film maker should make his movie with sound in mind pre-production, not as something added on afterward. As Thom points out, in the great cinematic experiences, "the visual and aural elements are working together so well that it is nearly impossible to distinguish them." (p. 406) He mentions the opening of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) and the bird attack scene in Hitchcock's The Birds (1963), and the opening of David Fincher's Seven (1995) as examples. And I can't help adding the striking opening sequence from Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter (1973) as another preeminent example of how sound can be as important, or even more important, than visuals in making a scene a lasting experience.

Included with the book is a CD that you can listen to with examples of sounds keyed to the discussions in the articles. The effect of latency ("the time between human input to a system...and system output," p. 65) and many other sound phenomena are demonstrated in the most effective way possible--by hearing them.

Special mention might be made of writer Adrienne Ross's personal contribution, "Understanding Hearing Losses and Hearing Gains...," which truly is an anecdote, beautifully written about her discovery of a hearing defect that she had lived with most of her life without realizing it. The fact that she had compensated for the defect by using her other senses, dramatically demonstrates how our experience of sound is not isolated from our other sensual experiences.