Tools Books

I've found this book to be a terrific resource. It's comprehensive, practical and approachable. Kathy and Catherine take you through a wide variety of usability methods, explaining why and when to use each one. Highly recommended.

This is, in my opinion, one of the best books on usability ever written.

I originally read it when I had the opportunity to interview for an internship with one of the authors. Although the internship didn't materialize, I still feel that I have spent many late nights in focus groups and requirements gathering sessions with the authors, through the comprehensive and crisp detail of this book.

My big gripe about many usability books is that they often consist of overgeneralized research-based claims presented as broad truths rather than the personal opinions that they are (e.g. Nielsen). Other usability books don't even attempt to ground their knowledge claims in scientific or other substantive scholarship (e.g. Kuniavsky).

Baxter and Courage avoid both of these perils. What makes this book most valuable to me is that it's grounded not only in sound theory and research, but also in the extensive experience of the authors -- and the authors present a wealth of background to enable you to independently assess the rigor of their arguments. You don't have to turn off your brain and take their word for it.

I have relied on this book in my later work as a usability researcher, and have always recommended it to our consulting clients interested in better understanding how qualitative user research works. It's also a worthwhile introduction to give insight into what we do as researchers -- it's accessible without being oversimplified, and intellectually rigorous without being off-putting.

Finally, the visual communication used throughout the book is exemplary, making the book easy on the eyes and especially scannable -- a big help in those late nights preparing for a usability session.

Courage and Baxter did an amazing job writing this book, thank you! I really liked the fact that this book is based on years of realworld experiences from commerial high technology company.
They have very good examples from real projects - which is a plus. Like the book said, it's very practical! You can use it out of the box from day 1. As a product design professional with years of experience in this field, book confirmed some of the techniques and approaches that I have been using (but I couldn't share it due to commerical reasons). It also covered topics that I wasn't very familiar with. I especially enjoyed reading the section on group task analysis.

Book is organized very well, high quality paper, with great visual examples and photos!

I would also highly recommend this book for product managers, so hopefully they can write better requirements and specifications.

Courage and Baxter have assembled an extremely thorough, practical, and readable guide to a diverse array of user requirements methods available to the usability and design professional. "Understanding Your Users" will surely be an valuable addition to your bookshelf, but don't be surprised if it spends more time in your hands than on the shelf.

Baxter and Courage provide a rich, accessible toolbox of diverse yet interrelated usability methods that will enable a designer (UI, UE, IA, etc.) to understand user goals, values, and purposes. As a design professional without a human factors background I find this incredibly useful at the office! A handy reference guide with case studies and sample projects, there is also an undercurrent of strategic thought in terms of how to approach and intepret usability methods, thus complementing the designer's iterative art. This book should also benefit design students and educators, who may be seeking a robust compilation of methods that speaks to the "real world" of adroitly performing usability to advance a design's evolution.

Although a self-described "techie", I really enjoyed Reiter's book. She isn't anti technology as I expected she would be. Rather she seems to recommend taking a regular sabbatical from the Rat Race to "smell the flowers." As you question why you are taking that next business trip, take this book along and you'll question it even more.

It is incredible how much we are unaware of our total dependence on technology these days. Nancy Whitney-Reiter reminds us with soulful advice how important it is to remember our roots; much like Rousseau, a real return to nature is advocated throughout this well-researched book.

If you feel stressed-out by the outside world, want to get away but don't know how, this book is your bible. Without failure, it shall help you to sort through your many dependences on the plugged world and will loosen those dependences through easy-to-follow steps and exercises. "Unplugged" is going to hit the world big, and it should because our era demands a drastic transformation back to the essentials and back to our real selves.

We Americans work more hours a week than our counterparts in other industrialized nations. Yet, while many of us have found our society's "official trappings of success" (title, income, cars, houses, stuff), many of us haven't truly found ourselves. Why not? Author Nancy Whitney-Reiter suggests that before we're even out of high school, we're being fast-tracked into careers that we then dutifully perform until we wake up one day and finally say, "Even though I appear to have it all, I'm not happy."

"Unplugged" asks us to question whether we're enjoying the "success" we have while being connected to the "consumption driven matrix." If our answer is "no," or even "maybe not," then this book is a smorgasbord of food for thought. Whitney-Reiter tells us the stories of others have temporarily gotten away from it all, including herself, and then provides practical advice and resources for unplugging and re-thinking our goals without losing our shirts or our sanity. Our planning includes attending to family, friends, career, debts, house and car, and prospective world wide volunteer opportunities and other travel options.

The author reminds us that unplugging is NOT a vacation trip: it's turning off the chaos of cell phones, WiFI, the hustle and bustle of work, and even grand-tour sight-seeing agendas and making time to ponder who we are and what we want. We must plan how we leave work, perhaps through a corporate sabbatical, and how we return to the world we know some 3-6 months later.

This well-written book provides you with the well-thought-out advice you need to begin your journey and return with a new lease on life.

Unplugged: How to Disconnect from the Rat Race, Have an Existential Crisis, and Find Meaning and Fulfillment (Culture Tools)

Burned out? Had enough? Even if you never leave your backyard, this book is filled with tips on how to de-stress by unplugging. If you do venture forth, you will find Ms. Whitney-Reiters' book a plethora of suggestions on how to accomplish even the most minute details you will need to take care of before you pack your suitcase, in a realistic, logical, warmly human, and humorous way.

First of all, this is way more than a travelogue. As you read, you may find yourself questioning your own motives for wanting to disconnect. When I got to the end, I said to myself, "Time to put this plan in motion." I read through rather quickly because I found that I wanted to keep learning. Now I want to re-read it so that I can actually study it and do the writing exercises with which Ms. Whitney-Reiter has concluded each chapter.

Secondly, the source guide at the end is chock full of useful resources. I've been plugged in exploring websites and researching suggested reading.

If you've decided you are in need of a break from the life you're tied to, I suggest you give this a read. As I wrote in the beginning of this review, even if you never leave your backyard, I bet you'll look at your life with fresh eyes.

Unplug
Unplugged: How to Disconnect from the Rat Race, Have an Existential Crisis, and Find Meaning and Fulfillment (Culture Tools)

The other day I heard of a friend who was planning to go off on a year long sabbatical at Christmas. My mum rather dryly remarked 'Why would anyone want to do that? The girl's 35 not 25!' A typical baby boomer response to a modern day dilemma? Perhaps. My first response to this might be that many of us in middle adulthood are living quietly desperate lives. In the words of Henry David Thoreau 'The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation' and this isn't a situation which appears to have moved on much since he said this in 1854.

The problem with quiet desperation is that it is not so easy to get away from. How many of us wanted to cheer when we saw Lester Burnham in 'American Beauty', get up and leave his job, get fit and 'get it back'? How many of us wanted to get up from our seat in the cinema and follow his example, leave the prisons that we have built up around ourselves within the pretence of respectability.

As Abba suggest in their hit 'The winner takes it all', is building me a home and a family, and playing by the rules really such a good idea or a kind of false reality? Do a lot of us live in a fake half-life, of the type derided by Paulo Coelho in many of his blogs and writings in which he talks about the drive of many to acquire a status of permanent Sunday afternoon-style peace in their lives, with not too many challenges and everything played by the book? The human existence craves for so much more than this, and Nancy Whitney-Reiter is one person who appears to have realized this.

Her book 'Unplugged: How to Disconnect from the Rat Race, Have an Existential Crisis, and Find Meaning and Fulfillment' responds to the inner and unexpressed dilemma of many which asks, how do we reconnect with ourselves, when all around us the modern, fast-paced world appears to be going slowly mad?

As a mother of two small (ish) boys, I found myself reading this book somewhat wistfully, as it was clear that a person with no dependents would find everything they needed in this book to help them unplug. I was enthused and encouraged by the first chapters and compelled to read on and discover exactly how I would be able to unplug too.

Nancy talks about the reasons why you might need to unplug and I would suggest many of them are relevant to many people, everywhere.

All of this is laced with her own experiences, which are candid. The reader is given a glimpse into the journey Nancy has been on, having been caught up in the catastrophe of 9/11. She paints the picture of her former self, a full scale achiever, top earner and successful corporate player who, on the surface of her life, had everything. Maybe someone I would never have come across in my life. Thankfully for me and for many others who will read this book, this twist of fate meant that I did (albeit in the virtual sense).

The book also goes into the necessary details you must consider if planning to unplug, be it during a sabbatical from work, or a full scale, life-changing, no going back style experience. It also looks at the different ways in which a person can unplug, as of course, not everyone considers travelling in the physical world a vehicle for life change. For some, unplugging whilst remaining at home, must also be an option, something this book recognises.

So back to me. How can I unplug after reading this book? I think that, for all my wistfulness, I realise that we make our own cages to live within. Mine is a somewhat hackneyed response about having too many responsibilities and people to look after to be able to get away, but forgetting something. The best moments of my life have been when I've made the effort to take myself out of my comfort zone, and this can be done by anyone, regardless of circumstance. At the heart of Nancy's book is the idea that we all can, and should, unplug in one way or another.

In case, like me, the book leaves you at a precipice of wanting more, in order to explore the idea of unplugging more fully, Nancy also offers ongoing support and links to helpful resources through her website ([...]). Nancy is brave and has come out of her comfort zone in a big way, but so can we, if we really want to. Reading her book will make you want to. Reading this book will help you to take that very necessary first step. As my husband's Sicilian grandfather used to be very fond of telling me, the hardest step is that of your threshold.

So, read this book! It is well worth it.

In fairness the Wii is simple to use but the sheer fact Wiley have published a For Dummies book on Nintendo's latest console means there is certainly a need, whether it's parents and grandparents trying to get their heads round these this gaming m'larky or just someone who needs a little more help than the manual can provide.

Kyle Orland's book is easy to read and also entertaining but it also goes beyond the boundaries of the manual by going into deeper depth on subjects like Wii Fit and importing. If you know a parent who doesn't understand how to play or you have kids who want a Wii for Christmas then this is the perfect book to read.

Mention the title "Wii for Dummies" to the general game playing populous and you might receive a chuckle. "Wii for Dummies? The Wii is already the most simple thing on the planet!" they might say. But Kyle Orland's book is not for this demographic. It is targeted toward the other group that Nintendo has been trying to woo: people who have haven't ever owned a video game system (or at least not in a while). For these people the Wii is not the intuitive piece of hardware Nintendo claims. It's a complex piece of technology that requires hardware and software setup, has deep system preferences menus, has features that don't explain what they do, and has an array of games that vary in quality. Wii for Dummies covers all these bases.

The Nintendo Wii is easy to learn, but learning implies a teacher. Wii for Dummies is aimed directly at those people who want a Wii but have no one to teach them. It explains (with accompanying photos!) how to set up the hardware on a TV and how to navigate the system's software. It explains the intricacies of creating Miis, how to use the various Channels, how to buy games on the Virtual Console, tips on browsing the web, and even a nice history of the Nintendo company.

Wii Sports and Wii Fit are also covered in great details in Wii for Dummies, two of the games that are the main draw for the non-game buying market. Kyle Orland also makes recommendations on games for different groups: the non-gamer, partis, and families. These mini reviews not only explain a bit about the game but make recommendations on who the game both is and isn't intended for (though some of the reason are tenuous). Between these recommendations and the Virtual Console recommendations, the new Wii owner is bound to find something to make their investment worthwhile.

If you haven't played games in a long time (or ever) and need a teacher, Wii for Dummies is a well written and well organized guide that's sure to answer all your questions.

Even though the Wii has proven to be a success with many different markets, its popularity with those new to gaming is remarkable. So while your average gamer should be able to figure out the console pretty quickly, there will be some people drawn to the machine who feel a little lost and need some guidance.

For that audience, Orland's Wii for Dummies will be a great help. There are copious illustrations, explanations and tips to guide the newbie through the steps, including posture advice for Wii Sports. Like many advice books, it doesn't rise to the level of literature, but it is clearly written with its focus in mind.

So if a non-gaming member of your family bought a Wii and couldn't quite figure it out, Wii for Dummies is a great gift idea. It will certainly prevent those early evening phone calls that ask you how to do something you already explained five times.

At first, I thought this book was only for people who bought the Wii as their first video game console. This book is definitely aimed at them and includes great information for first time users. There are chapters on how to set up the system (with troubleshooting tips), how to use the controller, and how to choose games, all written in simple, easy to follow instructions. The chapters assume the reader doesn't have any video game knowledge and holds their hands through processes such as reading the ESRB ratings and reading reviews of new games.

However, even with the writing for a new user, there are still nuggets and useful information for more experienced readers. For instance, the section on Channels in the Wii is extremely helpful, uncovering information I didn't know about the console. The list of websites specifically optimized for the Wii and setting up a specific Channel for Wii Fit was information I didn't know and found really fun. The book also includes suggestions for games on both the Virtual Console and Wii for all types of play: party, solo, and in between.

I think the most useful parts of the book for both new and experienced players are the suggested resources that are included in each section. Links to websites that cover kid-friendly games, links to mainstream video game review sites, and tips to find out new information on the console are invaluable for the book and teaches the reader where to find information the book can't cover. It's definitely a good primer about how to become informed about video gaming in general.

I found Wii for Dummies to be chuck full of useful information that both applies to the Wii and gaming in general. The writer does a great job of writing simple to follow instructions that are entertaining and witty. Sometimes I read a section I already knew just to see his funny take on it. I definitely would recommend the book for users who just got the Wii and don't know exactly what to do with it or as a gift for a relative or friend who is not a gamer. For more experienced players, I would still recommend it for all the great content on using all of unexplored features of the console.

Wii For Dummies (For Dummies (Computers))

I've been excitedly tearing through Wii for Dummies since the moment it arrived on my doorstep. In fairness, I already understood how to use the Wii, but this book allowed me to explore the dusty corners of my new shiny console and taught me interesting history lessons regarding Nintendo. Suggested reading for amateurs, interesting reading for pros. Everyone wins.

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.

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!

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...

Good book - exactly as it says - rules for a great marriage - it may "step on your toes" a bit but it has a lot of wisdom in the rules

WOW! This book is a must read for every couple!! The "rules" he applies are truely so simple yet most often forgotten. The book is very small and easy to read. He gives great examples and if applied to any relationship I don't believe a divorce could happen. If both parties read and apply these rules I am sure you will find things you both could improve with and simply move toward a great marriage as the book title states. I have shared this book with friends that aren't married and they too find things that can help any serious commited relationships. I have bought several copies to give with wedding gifts as I believe every marriage will need these reminders at some point! I was so impressed with this book I actually bought his other books in hopes they will also be nice little pointers for life. I haven't read those yet but I can tell you on this one .... you can't go wrong with 20 rules and tools for a great marriage!

As a professional therapist, I'm always looking for good resources to share with my patients. When I read this book I was especially impressed with the simple, straight-forward approach the author took to communicate the fundamentals of healthy relationship skills. The nice short sections and example behaviors spelled out are custom-made for men who may have difficulty staying up to speed in this area. BTW The other books in this series are pretty good also.

Beside the bible,this book is the most wonderful tool in order to have a solid marriage. I recommend it to every married couple.

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.

All the basics, and more, on how to select, care for, and use and Axe - plus more on wood, felling, stacking; and comparisons to other tools so you can make an informed selection.

The text along with S.L. Whipple's illustrations (I wish there were more) is concise and informative. Every page has something new. Mr. Cook details the hazards as well as the benefits of using this powerful tool. To summarize, the titles on the cover: 1) The Lore and Science of the Woodcutter and 2) A guide to axmanship, wood and the hand tools of a woodsman say exactly what is contained in the book.

Throughout recorded time, the ax has been a principle tool for carving out from the wilderness the homes, farms, and roads so necessary to the advance of civilization. Even today, those who use chainsaws and other power equipment still need to be familiar with the hand tools of their craft. In many situations, only a hand-ax will suffice for the felling of trees, the rough shaping of lumber, the creation of firewood, and clearing out the nooks and crannies of forested areas for other purposes -- including the planting of new trees. Cook's The Ax Book is an ideal "how to" manual of instruction enhanced with the illustrations of Whipple to provide what is simply the best introductory guide to the subject available to readers today. The Ax Book is a "must" for anyone needing to use a hand ax for any purpose, under any circumstances.

I have used an ax for years, and have heard stories from my family that included the ax, but I learned so much from this book I couldn't believe it. any one who uses a ax should have this owners manual.