Applications Books

Well worth buying, extremely handy, tons of information very much organized for you

Of course this book cannot be compared to " A course of modern analysis ", but as a book in special functions, it have served its purpose. I would also like to make a tribute to Richard Silverman for translating ( not just direct traslating, he translate in a style make it readable to English world. )

This is a book which I cannot say much about except for the unusual thoroughness, accompanied by detail and depth in treatment of the underlying mathematical properties and applications of Special Functions.

Lebedev is the quintessential mathematical expert in applying Special Functions to problems in Physics and Engineering, being that he can illustrate all important concepts clearly and umambiguously with carefully prepared diagrams as well as words. I was able to cite the solution of the a problem involving a propagating electromagnetic wave along a transmission line for an important Engineering course project. For such a problem, Lebedev offers a far more detailed and precise solution with given Special Functions than anything I have ever seen in other books of the same nature with the possible exception of a specialized treatise by an MIT EE faculty member on applied electromagnetism. He also comes across as meticulous in derivations of solutions to problems worked out compared to many other authors whose works I have read. This is because he hardly ever skips an important step in deriving a solution for any given problem by leaving it out for the reader's imagination. Yet we know Lebedev as perhaps a mathematician who may not be realistically expected to come up with such complete and exhaustive solutions to practical or real-world problems, worked out with clarity as well as precision and depth. There are numerous other examples which he worked out for different applications (e.g, Legendre's and Laguerre's functions) invariably after he took pains to delineate the various mathematical properties of the Special Functions utilized to obtain the closed-form solutions. He also covers various mathematical functions which may not be as familiar to many engineering practitioners but nonetheless have an important place in applied mathematical analysis. In a sense, he saves them for occasions when we as readers may need to probe further into unfamiliar territory.

So if you are looking for depth and precision in analysis of physical problems in Engineering and Science, or are trying to cope with reaearch problems in Applied Mathematics, try out this book by Lebedev. It can initially come across as difficult to understand, but Lebedev expects the reader to follow along through diligence. It is almost one of a kind, being that it is very clear and lucid without noticeable loss in depth and mathematical rigor. I highly recommend it because I believe that few other books can even come close in offering good examples in solutions to real-world problems and, at the same time, demonstrate the power of Special Functions in applications. Of course, it is also very inexpensive.

As the title indicates, the book is designed with the goal of application front and center. That said, it is also important to note that the theoretical background is developed with full mathematical rigor. You can easily see this from the fact that whenever an infinite series is differentiated, its uniform convergence in the region of interest is always established beforehand. And this is just one example.

Now, given the fact that special functions is a vast subject, and the fact that the book is barely 300 pages long, it is obvious that the theoretical coverage, though rigorous, has to be reined in. By this I refer to the fact that most functions are developed from the point of view of series solutions to differential equations, while solution by contour integrals in the plane is basically absent. But then again, it doesn't matter how you develop the functions, the key is to know their properties and be able to apply them. The book will show you just how to do that. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

For a more broad-based theoretical coverage, I recommend Whittaker and Watson (but of course), and the book "Special Functions" by X. Z. Wang. These two books complement each other like lovers.

Yet another excellect translation by Silverman. I've only been in possession of this book for a few days but it's already becoming a favorite mathematics text. Not a pure mathematics text but certainly a very thorough, lucid and most certainly enjoyable discussion of applied mathematics with a particularly engaging discussion of the solution of partial differential equations (Laplacian, Poisson etc.) by means of separation of variables and integral transforms. Along the way it develops the theoretical essentials of gamma functions, exponential integrals, orthogonal polynomials, Bessel functions, spherical harmonics among others. Clearly written with an emphasis on explaining the process of discovering solutions rather than merely presenting particular solutions (though it does have enlightening examples). IMO, well worth the price.

In this book, every teacher is going to find what he or she appreciates most: the voice of a respected, professional high school teacher and invaluable materials that will help students produce successful narratives. Mary Jane Reed has done her homework; she knows what English teachers need to know and what colleges look for in personal narratives.
If you teach the college narrative or if you value narrative writing, this book is great reference material. Let Ms. Reed's experience, research, handouts, student examples, and ideas for lessons make your life easier and your lessons more powerful!

Mary Jane Reed, a former English Department Chair and current writing consultant, establishes herself as a respected voice in educational writing in her first book, Teaching Powerful Personal Narratives: Strategies for College Applications and High School Classrooms. Hands down, this is the best book I've seen for teachers in a long time. It's one I believe every teacher of English should have on her desk.

Having taught sophomore, junior and senior-level English, I view this book as a resource for all three levels. In this slender, but informative book, Reed writes in an approachable, friendly, but intelligent way--as if she's the teacher at the next desk, sharing some great ideas. "I can't encourage teachers strongly enough to include more narrative-writing in their curriculums. Students should be exposed to the personal narrative no matter what grade they are in" (xii). "A good first draft is an oxymoron" (31). Reed, herself, clearly did her homework when preparing this book. She interviewed admissions counselors at schools such as Cornell, Emory, Ohio State and the University of Michigan and gathered up-to-date college application questions. Reed provides the information needed to get a jump start on the application process, but also provides a plethora of helpful suggestions for narrative writing in general including advice on finding a topic, conferencing with students, and guidelines for revision. Additionally, there is a CD in the back of the book with handouts (from brainstorming to revision - fantastic!) and overheads to print and use in the classroom. As a teacher, this is an invaluable time-saver for me. I spend less time creating handouts from scratch (or using corny, mass market handouts) and more time with my students to guide and encourage them in the writing process itself.

I was impressed by Reed's breadth of knowledge with this subject-matter. Her experience speaks for itself; however, just flipping through the table of contents gives you a preview of what you're in for: "Cht. 1: From Assignments to Admissions," "Cht: 2: Types of Personal Narrative Questions," "Cht. 4: Banging out the First Draft," "Cht. 6: The Antidone for Telling: Description, Details, and Imagery" and "Cht. 7: Revision: Draft after Draft after Draft." Reed also includes a chapter solely for teachers on "Writing the College Recommendation." Other teacher bonuses include advice on small group versus individual conferencing, techniques to help students tune in to voice, and student samples from first to final draft. Reed makes the $20 you spend for this book go far.

This book is an easy to understand, modern, invaluable resource for a very important unit. A unit students will appreciate. Accessible and actually interesting to read (!), this book far exceeded my expectations. I cannot rave enough about it. The teacher who wants her students to succeed in high school, college and beyond-and who wants to make teaching narrative writing easier on herself-will buy this book.

Reviewed by Mary Jo Wyse

Teaching Powerful Personal Narratives: Strategies For College Applications And High School Classrooms is a guide especially for teachers, who need to instruct their students in the art of captivating the reader's attention with essays, especially in a college application, but the advice herein will prove equally useful to high school seniors themselves. Individual chapters cogently address the different types of personal narrative questions one is likely to encounter, brainstorming ideas, how to tune in to one's "voice", guidelines for revising drafts, sample selections of college essays, caveats against too much coaching, and more. A sensible compendium of practical advice, written by an experienced writing consultant and enhanced with a CD-ROM of useful handouts and transparencies.

Mary Jane Reed's vast teaching and consulting experience and her personal commitment not only to assist students get into college but also become better writers is evident throughout her book. This is an ideal tool for high school teachers and guidance counselors and a highly effective guide for parents, students and anyone who wants to improve his writing style and ability to communicate through a personal narrative. By identifying questions that a student may encounter on a college application and discussing who will read the student's essays, the book begins with clear guidance on how to become comfortable with the writing process. Next, Reed introduces a unique and extremely effective writing process including instruction on choosing a topic that will engage the reader and hints on "grabbing" and "plopping" the reader into the action at the start of the narrative. She then demonstrates how to write and polish a personal narrative by using techniques like carefully crafting transitions, accomplishing an effective voice to convey rhythm, and relaxing grammar to create a contemporary tone. Reed also introduces techniques designed to "show" readers rather than tell them about a subject, "activate" a draft, and revise a narrative until it becomes a polished, finished product. This book will exceed the reader's expectations through handouts and transparencies (in the text and on an attached CD), checklists, exercises and numerous examples at each stage of the writing process. Also, Reed frequently turns to teachers and guidance counselors to show them how to coach a student without actually making revisions for him, use one-on-one conferences through a three-stage process and write strong, convincing letters of recommendation. The reader can adopt the entire process from developing a topic to polishing a near-finished narrative or use parts of the process like adding details to "show" the reader or shortening a narrative to meet word or page requirements. Overall, high school teachers and guidance counselors, parents and students and anyone who wants to improve his narrative writing style will benefit from this clearly written, well organized, easy to understand guide.

Admired and respected by student writers, their parents and her colleagues for her inspirational work with the writing process, Reed has revealed techniques honed in the classroom to
guarantee improvement in students' personal narrative writing.
Numerous pages are devoted specifically to improving writing for college admissions. Reed effectively tackles typical application questions and provides clearly explained and easily implementable strategies for each stage of the writing process, discussing essential elements of composition like angle, voice, description, details, and imagery. Student samples are included to illustrate the techniques set forth. These strategies and techniques are not limited, however, to essays for college admissions; they are applicable to all personal narrative writing carried out by high school and adult writers. The final chapter includes essential suggestions for
writing letters of recommendation. The compact disc that accompanies the book contains all handouts and transparencies.
In this concise volume, Reed shares a systematic approach to personal narrative writing that will greatly benefit secondary English teachers, guidance counselors, and all other adults interested in helping students or in improving their own personal narrative writing techniques.

It's been a while since there's been a new book published on usability testing. It isn't a topic that gets dated, so the books that have been out there a while are still great ones. But it's good to have a new one too. This one by Carol Barnum is a thorough, practical, highly usable book on Usability Testing. Carol starts the book with chapters on user centered design. These chapters are pretty good, but the real value, I think is the detailed chapters on how to plan, carry out, analyze and report on usability tests that are really excellent.

Besides a lot of detail on usability testing protocol (well written and highly readable) there are lots of examples of facilitator scripts, recruiting and screener forms, Think Aloud instructions, etc.

I wish the book itself were of a higher quality. The binding, paper, and printing seem low budget, yet the price is not low! No matter, buy it anyway. Whether you are new to usability testing or an experienced tester, it's a useful book.

As a Usability professional, I have the opportunity and obligation to keep current on the literature surrounding usability research. Usability Testing and Research not only meets those criteria, but also gives readers the opportunity to delve into and understand the usability testing process.

Carol Barnum's book is at first a typical academic textbook that explains not only the principles of usability, but also the argument for usability and user-centered design. However, it is the presence of appendices at the end of most chapters that will help readers perform usability testing.

The appendices are detailed copies of documents and protocols used in previous usability tests. The aforementioned principles and arguments would stand on their own merits, but the added appendices give context to the principles and arguments, thus giving the reader the opportunity to see the principles and prototypes in action.

From my standpoint as a professional in the field, valid usability testing starts with careful, in-depth preparation. Usability Testing and Research handholds readers through this process, starting with objectives and ending with participant recruitment. This is a very important aspect of testing, as poor planning always equals poor results.

Barnum devotes several pages of the book to a very overlooked aspect of usability testing: reporting the results. Besides the detailed attention given to writing the results in a formal report or a quick report (or roadrunner as the book explains), the book also explains how to present and prepare for an oral report. No matter how valid the test may be, without an accurate, to-the-point report that gives the audience what it needs, the test results and associated costs are wasted. Barnum even discusses visual aids and the importance of the highlight tape. This, of course, is paramount to the report's success, since seeing is believing.

The book even contains a chapter devoted solely to Web usability that details common Web problems as well as insight into the Web's goal-driven users. Although research on the Web is constantly changing due to the experience level of the user base and innovative technology, the Web chapter offers an easy to understand benchmark for all usability professionals who evaluate the Web.

All in all, Usability Testing and Research covers everything that an individual new to the field needs to know. It also contains practical advice and how-to that even seasoned usability professionals need to review from time to time.

Ken Kellogg
Manager - Usability Research

It's been a long time since we've had a new textbook on usability testing. Dumas and Redish came out in 1993, Rubin in 1994 and although I still use both of them constantly, I've been looking out for a solid textbook that has more awareness of the web in it. Carol Barnum's new book meets that need.

The book opens with chapters on `What is Usability and What is Usability Testing', `Other Methods for Getting Feedback About Product Usability', `User and Task Analysis', and `Iterative Testing for User-Centred Design'. I can see that Carol wants to set user testing in context, but I was concerned that if you're really new to usability testing then you might be put off by Chapter 2 `Other methods', as it is a very densely written chapter that describes many techniques very briefly.

The meat of the book starts at Chapter 5 with `Planning for Usability Testing' and continues through `Preparing for Usability Testing', `Conducting the Usability Test', and `Analysing and Reporting Results'. The book then changes course slightly with a chapter on 'Web Usability', giving some design principles as well as details of applying the methods to the web.

Our Open University students love the plentiful examples in our course on User Interface Design and Evaluation. Carol Barnum's book should also appeal because of its extensive use of examples. She gives lots of detail from a student team's test of Hotmail (Microsoft's web-based e-mail service) so you can see the process as they tackled it. I found it a little frustrating that there weren't any screen shots of Hotmail as it stood at the time of the test. As well as the Hotmail example she uses excerpts from a test of a University web site, and has lots of anecdotes and smaller examples as well, many of them aimed at testing documentation - a neglected area. Perhaps the amount of space taken up the examples means that there is less meat in the core of the book, but if I were a beginner I'd find it very reassuring. Conversely, though, experienced practitioners might find Chapter 5 onwards a bit basic.

Academics and practitioners who like to follow up interesting ideas will be glad to know that there is extensive referencing. The appendices placed in context with the chapters broke the flow for me somewhat when I was reading the book at a sitting, but I think they would be more convenient placed where they are when using the book to actually plan and conduct a test. Each chapter closes with questions/topics for discussion and exercises which looked helpful to me if you were planning to use this as a textbook, or if you are a new practitioner who is using the book as a guide through your first usability tests.

Carol Barnum's style is clear and easy to read as you would expect from a Professor in Technical Communication. She often uses comments from Chauncey Wilson, a very experienced practitioner to give some practical tips and insights, but I sometimes found myself wishing that she had put more a more personal touch, more of her own practical experience, explicitly into the book. Apart from a couple of anecdotes, the word `I' hardly appears until we get some of her own opinions on web usability at the end of Chapter 9. We can guess at one of her concerns because she includes an interesting appendix on `Making it work as a team', which I though was a good, concise introduction.

I would recommend this book as an introductory text for undergraduates because of the extensive examples, fairly reasonable price and referencing. I think it would also be good for practitioners - for people who are getting started with user testing - to help them through their first test. I think that I'll find myself recommending that readers should start with Chapter 5, and then come back to Chapters 1 to 4 later.

(This review was written for 'Interfaces', the magazine of the British HCI Group)

Most of the existing books about usability testing are ten years old. While these books have a lot to offer a current student of user-centred design and usability testing, some students find them too out-of-date to be taken seriously. This book addresses that issue. The audience for the book is clearly for those who are new to usability and usability testing. However, experienced professionals will find a fair amount of information that is useful to them as well.

The first four chapters form an introduction to user-centred design: definitions, testing models, other methods for gathering usability data, user analysis, task analysis, and prototyping. The remaining chapters discuss the process of usability testing itself: planning the test, preparing for the test, and conducting the test. One interesting chapter discusses a topic that is usually overlooked in the other usability literature: analysing the data and writing the report. This chapter also discusses the Common Industry Format for reporting usability results. The inclusion of this discussion increases the usefulness of this book for usability professionals.

Dr Barnum devotes a chapter to the sometimes nebulous topic of usability testing for the web. Although there are other books that discuss this topic alone, the inclusion of this material in this book is excellent. Students who are new to usability testing will find this book more useful than a book devoted solely to web usability testing. After completing this, a student can then go on to read web-specific books such as Nielsen's recent "Designing Web Usability".

Students and others learning about the field will find the extensive examples used throughout the book to be extremely helpful. Together, these examples provide sufficient material for a student to model their complete usability test, from planning to reporting the results. Additional examples are available on a website maintained by the publisher. These examples are less useful for current practicioners, but do not detract from the overall text for this audience.

For those who are interested in this field, this book an excellent introduction. It is well-written, and the examples provide a cookbook for students to emulate. Experienced professionals will probably not find this book to be as useful as a new student, although it is a very useful refresher.

Disclaimer: I am a past student of Dr Barnum's, and the work that my student team produced for her class is used in this book. I am now a human factors engineer for a large corporation. I keep this book on my shelf in my office, and often lend it out to our interns who are learning about this field.

I am the Usability SIG Manager for the Washington, DC chapter of the STC (Society for Technical Communication). I wrote this review which was published in the October 2002 edition of the Usability Interface, the quarterly newsletter of the Usability SIG of the STC.

Donýt be fooled by the somewhat unmemorable cover of Usability Testing and Research. Carol Barnum combines research findings with practitioner experience to produce probably the most comprehensive but concise resources on usability testing now available.

This book is part of the Allyn & Bacon series in technical communication. Designed in part to fulfill the needs of students in a graduate-level class in usability, it is also a great resource for usability practitioners as a tool to update and upgrade their skills. The structure of this book should suit both neophytes and the experienced. Each chapter and its subsections are well structured with a logical progression from one section to the next. The table of contents is well organized and very readable so that a knowledgeable individual can scan to find those sections that are of most immediate interest. The index is likely to be a great reference tool as it was created by a professional usability tester, someone who should know what a reader is likely to need.

Dr. Barnum, a usability consultant and professor to graduate usability students, draws upon nearly every prominent usability authority to build a comprehensive bible of usability testing. The authorýs academic background is evident in the careful footnoting of every page and the detailed listing of scores of references at the end of each chapter. If there is an issue the reader wishes to further explore, the source is cited for ready access. The findings from top usability professionals are distilled to their essence and woven into comprehensive work on usability. The reader gains the primary benefit of hundreds of books, papers, and articles without having to filter though this sea of information. There is little if anything of importance that is left out of this 448-page book of concentrated wisdom and knowledge.

The reader, whether a student or an experienced practitioner, gets the benefit of both analytic research and its practical application. Many examples of actual real-world, usability test plans, data, analysis, or summary reports are reprinted. These examples are great models for the practice of usability. This book has not just general how you might do something but also how it was actually done ý not just theory but actual practice.

Anyone interested in the usability of hardware, software, computer games, Web sites ý any product that has a user interface ý will find a great wealth of information. The first chapter starts off defining usability and explaining usability testing models and theory. It also provides a methodology for cost justification and the basis to proselytiz for usability.

In Chapter 2, the author should be commended for taking a holistic view of usability and discussing how heuristics, surveys, and focus groups play a role in the design of a usable product. Chapters 3 through 7 explain user and task analysis as a precursor to designing, planning, preparing, and conducting the test. Chapter 8 details not just the analyses of the collected data but also different methods of reporting the findings to obtain the best result. The final chapter builds on everything before and discusses those issues specific to Web usability. Nearly every chapter has an appendix with real-world examples specific to that chapter. The end-of-the-book appendix discusses how to make usability testers work as a well-functioning team.

Some books are chock full of scholarly research and empirical data and great for academia. This book has a solid base in research but was written for the real-world practitioners of usability. Itýs this steady focus on practical real-world application that most impresses me about this book.

Still not convinced this book is for you? Check out the companion Web site, ..... Download material from the bookýs appendices and sidebars. Peruse the many usability tools and link to other usability resources on the Web.

Usability Testing and Research is not only of great value as a resource of practical information to usability professionals but also as a tool to explain the benefits of usability design and testing to skeptical management. Carol Barnum should be congratulated for a great job in bringing together in one book such a complete, well-organized compilation of usability theory and practicality.

Received book in record time. It was in new condition as promised. Great Seller and would order from him again.

This is the third in a series of books the author has written. While some of the concepts in e-commmerce are outdated due to the dotcom crash, the architectures, data management and functional aspects are still useful for e-business and e-commerce. The author discusses many of the challenges in managing databases on the web and shows the need for this technology for web data management.

This is an excellent book on e-commerce and databases. However it is somewhat outdated as the book was presumably written during the dotcom boom. Nevertheless many of the ideas are still very useful. I would suggest that the author updates this book to reflect the recent developments.

The book covers a great deal and provdes a broad overview of web data management and e-commerce. It starts with a lot of background material on database systems, the web, data mining, etc. and then focuses on web data management technologies in Part II. Finally it describes how the technologies may be used for e-commerce. I like the writing style of the author, rather casual and takes a building block approach. He sort of tells a story about supporting technologies, web technologies and e-commerce. My one concern is that the book was written during the dotcom boom years. While the technologies are all still valid and useful, although they have advanced quite a lot today, the idea that the web and e-commerce will take over is long gone. At one time we may have thought that we will be doing all of our shopping even buying groceries on the web. But this has still not happened in large scale. Therefore, it may be time to take another look at the ideas and perhaps get another edition out reflecting what is real today. But then one never knows what the future will be. Maybe once the technologies mature and our approach to the web evolves, the dotcom ideas may take off again.

I found this book extremely useful. The author starts with some excellent background material on web data management and then goes into more details on architectures and models for web databases. Finally, she discusses their applications to e-commerce. At times I thought the book was too detailed (e.g., in data management) and at other times I felt that the book ought to have given more details (e.g. in e-commerce). Nevertheless the book emphasizes on web data management and all aspects of this topic. It was very easy to read and as a newcomer to the field I found it very thought provoking. I thought the author explained the security aspects extremely well, partly because she is an expert in database secruity. At times she dwelt more than it was necessary on security as the focus of the book was not on security. I would have liked to have seen more discussions on how specific organizations carry out e-commerce. Since the field is evolving so rapidly I would love to see a follow-on book giving details and examples on e-commerce and the applications of web data management to e-commerce. On the whole an excellent, easy to read book.

I am an amateur when it comes to using any Web design software as well as software that can be as intimidating as PhotoShop. That's why I think Sherry Hutson's book is so good. She is a teacher, and that shows throughout the book. She is able to break everything down into steps that are clearly understandable. Too many of these guides skip just enough steps that you can't follow. Not this book. It has helped to take me from being an amateur to not being afraid to try different things with Photoshop. The index is very helpful, too. I have a question, go to the Index, and invariably find the topic I'm looking for. You can't go wrong with this book even if you have never used Photoshop at all.

Yaah! Finally a book about Photoshop that even a beginner like me can really make sense of. The Web Wizard's Guide to Photoshop has introduced me to the joy of improving the images that I download from my digital camera. My friends and family are delighted with the much improved, innovative, and high quality, images that I am now able to create using this fun, user friendly, program. The clear and simple explanations in this book have encouraged me to move on to the next step. I am now in the process of designing my own web page. What fun!!! If you're interested in improving the way you work with images and/or in trying your hand at designing a website, this is definitely the book for you. If you try it, you most definitely will like it.

mick rasley, Sculptor,silversmith, September 20, 2004,
Breath of fresh air
Well spent $s. It costs more to get film developed today.This book was what actually cured my of 'film',and put me in the world of digital photography(and comfortably too).Glad this book was recommended to me ,and I will for sure pass on the 411.

Sherry Hutson has produced one of the most informative and consise books on Photoshop that I have ever read. It covers all tehniques of a very complex graphics program in an easy to read (and learn) format.

As a former student in many classes taught by Sherry, I can attest to the value of this book (I now design web sites, myself). A definate value for beginners and a strong resource for the expert.

Sherry Hutson obviously knows exactly what we Photoshop beginners are facing and what language to speak... no arrogance in this `how to' masterpiece. I have books on other programs in my bookshelf, as well as on Photoshop, which are about 800 pages and my eyes just gloss over so I've never even tried. When I started this book, though, I just followed step 1 and kept going because it was easy to understand and stuff miraculously started happening.

Although I'm not a website designer, my work requires me to create and maintain the company website along with my other duties. In small companies, the few wear many hats and it's terrifying to create a website when you don't know what you're doing. My nephew recommended the Web Wizard's Guide to Photoshop and I decided to go for the `keep it simple' approach, using the book's "Do's" and "Don'ts." Now feel like I've published a site as appealing as some of the big corporate ones.

Under "Features" on the back jacket of the book, the list reads, "Assumes no Photoshop experience . . .; Progresses in a natural order . . .; Contains extensive reference material, including a Web-Safe Colors chart, keyboard shortcuts, and annotated tool bars . . .; Provides tutorials in each chapter . . .; Uses full-color screen shots, so what you see in the book is exactly what you'll see on the computer screen." I'm usually pretty skeptical at such claims, but it's all true for once.

Don't be afraid. Just get the book and start in. I bet you will be surprised at how quickly, for example, you catch on to working with and correcting pictures, and the different types of image formats and when to use them. I had tried to figure out layers once before, but now I understand exactly what's happening. I've done the exercise on how to make an animation and it's amazing. The eagle actually flies.

This book is straightforward and very much a "fast start for beginners." I'm giving it five stars.

Thanks for sending the book among others that I ordered along with it in good condition, and sooner than I had expected. Its a simple and straightforward book that orients itself around the MacOSX Web Objects application. Good value for money a worth while buy.

Let's cut to the chase. Josh Marker's new WebObjects 5 book rocks the house. Trudging through Apple's WebObjects API documentation can turn ones eyes red and bleary, so where do ya start? Well, I say start with Marker's new gem. pple's WebObjects is a best kept secret as it derives from the brilliance of the geniuses at NeXT, and who knows why Steve Jobs doesn't market WebObjects more aggressively? This book helps get a person (particularly the WebObjects newcomer) to get down and jiggy with WebObjects. The world is not always Microsoft and so don't let Apple's genius scare you. Start out with Marker's book and then go from there. You won't get lost and Marker keeps things easy to understand. The only thing missing from this book with slight disappointment is coverage of WebServices which was introduced by Apple in WebObjects version 5.2. Otherwise, rock and roll!

I ordered this book expecting it to be a more advanced WebObjects book than it actually is. Unfortunately, most of the material covered in the first 11 chapters CAN be gleaned from Apple's documentation accompanied by some experimentation (which I've done over the last year or so). For me, those chapters were a rehash of stuff I knew, although I did pick up some good advice and tips from those chapters.

However, for a Java developer (the book doesn't pretend to teach you Java) who is new to WebObjects, those first 11 chapters are a a godsend, filled with well-written text containing a huge amount of practical advice and illustrated with extensive screenshots. Reading this book and doing the exercises will save you literally dozens if not hundreds of hours of "doing it the hard way."

Chapters 12 and 13, on the other hand, are filled with bits and pieces that are NOT easy (or sometimes possible) to get from the official documentation and can only be learned by finding a more experienced developer to mentor you. For me, these two chapters were worth the price, and for a computer programming book, the price is quite reasonable.

A big thumbs up for this book as an introductory WebObjects tome, and here's to hoping that some publisher will contract Mr. Marker to write a follow-up "Advanced WebObjects for Mac OS X" because I'll be first in line to buy that one.

This is the best beginner WebObjects book ever! Examples are clear, concise and easy to follow. It has made me a believer in this technology.

I'd like to agree with the previous reviewers. This book finally made the progression through WebObjects clear and understandable. Its power is apparent and the gotchas are clearly highlighted as you go through the book. Mr. Marker also wrote the excellent Apple document on WebObjects web applications. (Un)fortunately, the Apple document is only about 100 pages, so this book nicely moves on from it. Technical overview by mmalcolm only lends further credibility to this book. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Book is straight forward. Easy to read/follow. I had created HTML pages in the past. It was easy to migrate to WML. The scripting discussion (WMLScript) was very valuable.

The book presents working programs you will actually use:

Interacting with remote scirpts (Perl, ASP)
Validating forms using WMLScript
Dealing with limited RAM
Error detection and handling

Recommend.

Got me started within my first application in minutes. Book covers WML and WMLScript in detail. Includes some Perl scripts that let you interact with a remote server with your phone. Pretty cool. Would like to see some PHP -- maybe next edition.

I just added this book to my collection of WAP/WML titles.

I was pleased with the amount of code this book provides--probably 200+ WORKING programs. I've been able to make all of them work in the phone simulator and on my phone! That's a nice change.

If you are starting out, the intro chapters will get you up and running. If you have been doing this a while, cutting and pasting the book's code will save you time with things like interacting with Perl.

Recommend.

It's a good start, but it does go very slowly. You need to supplement it with WAP Integration immediately afterward if you want to get into any really advanced aspects of WAP. Experienced developers may even want to jump straight to the WAP Integration book.

Decent book, its not going to teach you to write an amazing addon such as Omen or Nurfed, but when looking at an addon's code you will have a good idea of what is happening.

This book actually kept me up at night reading it. It was very informative, without being too bland. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn to program or is an expert programmer and doesn't want to dredge thru mpq's or multiple websites to create an addon; it's not only a good place to start but has everything you need to make your own WoW Addons afterwards.

Wow. Now this is a gem of a programming reference. The bar to writing tech references is really low these days, and as a result there are lots of tech books on the market that are really empty and only end up giving you one or two useful concepts.

This is not one of those books.

I just got my copy today, and my initial impression was how impressed I was by the thoroughness of it. This is a reference that will be of use for people of all skill and experience levels. The opening chapters provide a great introduction to Lua itself, then Lua in the context of WoW, and then hold your hand through creating your first addon, before diving into more complex concepts such as programmatic UI creation and state headers.

I'm the author of a number of high-profile WoW addons, including Omen and Chatter, and I can honestly say that this is a book that I'll actually use - and I don't use many references. Gentle enough for the new programmer, but meaty enough for the experienced. This is one that will be of genuine use to anyone interested in modding WoW, or understanding the WoW mod UI system. This is a genuine, stick-it-on-your-desk, mark-it-up-and-dog-ear-the-pages reference that you'll use for as long as you're developing addons.

Of note, this is actually a reference that may be of use to people embedding Lua in their own software projects. It dissects WoW's implementation of Lua, and how it ties into the user interface, and explains a lot of concepts that may be of use to people looking to use Lua in a non-WoW context. It's certainly not a reference on embedding Lua in your own application, but its explanation of WoW's implementation is a fantastic reference point.

If you have any interest at all in addon development, get this book.

I'm a game designer who's currently just getting into Lua scripting, and of the 7 or so game dev books I've bought recently this book is EASILY the best. It's useful for ANYONE working on WoW Addons, and also a great buy for anyone learning Lua scripting.

Unlike most of the game dev literature I've seen, this book totally avoids wasting paper on descriptive waffle that is obvious to anyone who plays games (and everyone who makes games does, or should).

For beginners - The introduction to scripting in Lua is MUCH easier to digest than any of the Lua-specific tutorials online, or 'Programming in Lua'.

For experienced scripters or mod-makers - There are over 600 pages on reference, so even if you've got nothing to learn technically, it's still a worthy buy.

Full disclosure: I helped author Chapter 14, the chapter on AddOn Studio for World of Wacraft, but did not receive compensation for it.

There's no question in my mind that this is the definitive book, dare I say the Bible on World of Warcraft programming. If you're a developer who is brand new to Lua, you'll find the first couple of chapters that introduce Lua coding structures a breeze to read, but you'll definitely appreciate the attention to detail for Lua's unique Table data structure which is heavily used in addons and can be confusing for Lua newbies.

In addition to learning the fundamentals on Lua, you'll also learn how a Warcraft AddOn works (anatomy of an addon chapter), how FrameXML files work, and you'll also apply that knowledge to build a fully-functional custom unit frames addon from scratch.

The build-from-scratch model is perfect for someone who want to know and understand everything involved in building a real-world addon.

You'll find plenty of coverage on topics that you won't find anywhere else, like how to build custom graphics/textures, a topic that is either altogether ignored or barely represented online. If you're an experienced addon author, you'll also learn quite a bit from the coverage of best practices and advanced topics (state headers, secure frames, etc)

Finally, the API documentation is *huge* and is arguably the most detailed API documentation every built for Warcraft.

Bottom line: If you want to learn how to build a Warcraft AddOn, save yourself time, energy, and frustration, and buy this book.

This book is *required reading* for contributors to AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft.

Dan Fernandez
Project Coordinator
AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft

I would recommened this book to anyone looking to advance their digital sculpting skills further, regardless if youre a beginner, intermediate or expert. This is a very thick and heavy book with some great tips, tons of which I had no idea you could do. The included cd has a bunch of lessons and video clips to help illustrate processes, along with the great pictures in the book.
Finally Zsphere hands were explained and demonstrated easily!

Very useful, and gives you a breakdown of traditional form to digital which is a must. The tutorials are helpful as well. But overall great book if you want to understand form and gesture, he also explains the interface of Zbrush and why the menus are organized the way they are.
Buy this book.

A great book with a wealth of production proven information!

Scott approaches topics from both traditional and digital stand point. The book is packed with info covering just about any topic the aspiring or experienced Zbrush artist could ask for. The additional information included from other professionals really completes a great book.

The trial and error time that this book will save is enormous - highly recommended!

Being new to ZBrush and 3D character modeling, I've been looking for a while for a good resource that would, (1) give me a good jump-start into these worlds, and (2) be advanced enough for me to grow into and keep me interested. Scott Spencer's "ZBrush Character Creation" book is just that...plus more.

The content of the book is excellent; explaining everything from traditional sculpting techniques, anatomy, ZBrush fundamentals, topics of character creation, and on to advanced ZBrush tools. There is so much great info in this book! Additionally, Scott includes a cool DVD which contains the corresponding source files and video demonstrations. I can see why Scott is an expert in the field from the level of detail he demonstrates in the video presentations. One amazing demo in particular is how Scott sculpts a human face -- He starts out by creating a skull from a sphere and then intricately builds up the rest of the face, layer by layer, with the muscles, fat, and skin. This demo is just in chapter 2 so you can imagine what other great content there is in all the other chapters of this book.

Thank you Scott for creating this book!

A truly incredible book, written by a master of both traditional and digital character sculpture. This book contains lessons that go beyond the software drawing on Scott's experience in the industry and artistic and anatomical training. I've studied with Scott personally over the past few years and I've gained a great deal from his teaching. ZBrush Character Creation encapsulates his own style and ability as a teacher and includes many extras submitted by the best Zbrush artists in the world. This book is intended for intermediate users, Scott goes through the basics of the software very quickly so this is not recommended for people who are new to the software. If you know enough to get around the interface and create a simple figure then your ready for Scott's book.

Great introduction to Inventor. I am taking a course at college and using this tutorial as a supplement to that. If you are already familiar with CAD I would recommend just watching the tutorial first, and then going back and rewatching and doing the lessons at your own pace.

I almost decided to stop trying to use Inventor and go back to using AutoCAD. All the books I bought just define the commands, but don't show you how to use them. As a last ditch effort, I decided to buy Accelerated Productivity, and I'm very glad I did.

Accelerated Productivity not only shows you the details of every command, it shows you the most productive way to use them. The course is broken down into short movies that show you step-by-step.

I also bought TEDCF's advanced courses, and would gladly trade all my books for these courses. Thank you TEDCF. I think Autodesk should include your courses with Inventor.

I feel the CD is well-produced and very informative. I watched most of the videos during a cross-country flight and felt ready to go with Inventor 8 after I finished. However, for the cost of a very expensive book, the amount of material covered seems too small for me. To get up to speed quickly, it's great, but you'll need another book for help with the details. (I guess that's why they have more CDs in the series :-)).

I've been using Amazon.com for many years and purchased many books, but I have never written a review before. After trying this out I was compelled to do so.
I've been using Autocad for about 10 yrs., and when Inventor came out and I saw it demoed I was very impressed and got excited. I got a hold of the first book I could get my hands on and started reading. I tried a demo copy of inventor and used the tutorial. I never quite got my head around it. Autodesk says you can be productive with Inventor in one day. Well I must be the dumbest person walking around on this planet because here it is years later and it hasn't happened to me. I'm the only one doing production drawings at my location and I just don't have time to learn it at work. I don't use Inventor at work, but we got Inventor r5 with mechanical 6. Ended up using just the Autocad portion of it because of the learning curve involved for the mechanical side. Never had any formal training, but I did try to learn on my own at the house without success.
Well true to form I ordered Mechanical Design thinking maybe I might learn a little something. This is a video audio CD. When I finally started it up and started watching, I thought "now this is interesting". He breaks it down into 5 to 15 min. chunks and he does something that is very rare in teaching nowadays, he actually explains why and shows why it is better to do it one way over another way. He explains that
downstream by doing it this way makes the model easier to modify. I'm thinking, now this is really good. I discovered that he had produced another tutorial ahead of this one, called Accelerated Productivity. I ordered this one also. When I first started I didn't start up Inventor, I just watched and listened to both the videos. Now I've got Inventor open along with the CD and I'm almost through with Accelerated Productivity. For the first time I think I'm finally getting a handle on this Inventor. If there is anyone at Autodesk that reads this, then take a lesson from Mr. David Melvin at TEDCF, because this is the way that training videos should be made. Mr. Melvin and the people at TEDCF, I want to thank you because I truly appreciate what you have done. The only downside, and it is very minor one is the forward and backward navigation within a lesson. Once you get used to it's not too bad. As they say in the PC magazines "5 stars, highly recommended".

This is course is amazing! I was surprised to find that a video tutorial is actually better than a book because it is at my fingertips on the computer desktop at all times. I've used AutoCAD for the past eight years. I just got a job for a company that uses Autodesk Inventor, so I took it upon myself to purchase this course. Several of the engineers have used Inventor for years, but now they're coming to me with questions. This course has been very helpful for me.

Thank you!