Applications Books

This book is certainly useful for any students attempting a project on ASP.NET coz it provides many examples. It's very handy when I used it for my teaching too.

I'm experienced in HTML, SQL, VBScript, VBA, etc. but I've never really had to create something with a 'real' user interface. I've done lots of quick and dirty data fixes when something bad would happen with payroll or billing or whatever. I put up a personal webpage with pics of my friends and family, yada, yada, yada.... Anyways this book helped me take all that disparate knowledge and apply it to a real user interface. The book has lots of examples and Web Matrix is a good place for a beginner to start, Visual Studio is overwhelming.

The hardest part of all is deploying your website. The author explains how to host your own website which I was not even going to try to attempt but it is helpful to understand the process. He gives a brief overview of deploying to a remote server which is all anyone could ever do, each hosting service is different. Choose your service carefully, ask friends, co-workers, people who have already done it. Not all hosting services are equal. Turns out the service I was using that claimed to support asp.net only sort of did. Lot's of sweat and tears to finally get them to tell me that. Soooo get this book, do the examples and then for practice use aspSpider.net to deploy your site. It's free for people like me who just need the practice. They have a forum that was very helpful to me.

I rarely give reviews to books (much less five-star reviews), namely because I am not easily impressed. THIS book is one of those rare gems - especially in the computer industry - that appears to have been well-written and proof-read.

I have actually walked through this book, followed the instructions, and produced the desired result. I have learned a great deal in doing so, and I don't feel like the author assumed too little (or too much) was in my noggin to start with.

I also found the book to be quite informative during periods when I was without-computer (such as train commutes or potty breaks).

THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE for Mike Pope. May his tribe (and future book projects) increase!

I just have this book for 4 days ago and now I already completed the first 4 chapters. The books is well written and easy to be understand with a good example. The person who plan to read this book shoud have some knowledge relate to HTML and Visual basic (6.0 or .Net is preffered). All of the sample project and example in this books is prepare in VB.NET. If you are working with C#.Net and plan to build a dynamic website, don't buy this book. Finally, I recommend this book who plan to build a dynamic website from the first step.

A must have for everybody starting to learn how to build dynamic web pages. Well written chapters with easy to follow step by step instructions create a great book!
If you have no experience in building web pages this is the place you should start.

I purchased this book to help me on my job. It was in good condition and served its purpose.

A very good description of the MSF processes. Concise and essential; before reading this book I even didn't know of the existence of Microsoft Solutions Framework: at the end of the book I have confidence with the processes and the models.
The only thing that could be emproved is the description of Principles and Mindsets, that I found a little bit abstract.
Anyhow I strongly reccomand this book for all MSF neofites.

I got the book as a gift from a friend and found it helpful for my cross-country project. Although I have not done reading this book while writing this review, I found the approach in the book is very practical and would like to share my feedback. Team communication has always been a challenge to my US-Japan-China projects. Not only does everyone have different time-zone, experience, or priority/urgency, but some of us also cover multiple projects at the same time. The book shows an approach and I adopted to evaluate my solution delivery environment. After communicated the assessment and objectives to my team members what to expect and take pre-planning actions for cost control, quality assurance, scheduling, and risk control! Amazingly, the meeting was naturally turned into issue solving and team collaboration discussions. Most of us left for a clearer understanding of what we want to achieve in mind. It was something I was not expecting. It is a good tool to keep in mind!

This book explores version 4 of Microsoft's Solutions Framework, the high-level guidelines Microsoft follows for their software development lifecycle. MSF, and hence this book, is rather abstract. Therefore, it won't tell you step by step what you should do. But hopefully you are aware that there is no such thing as perfect SDLC process- each situation demands finding the best solution for the specific context involved.

This book has some great points - from the foundational principles such as "foster open communications" and "partner with customers" to the way project "phases" are renamed "tracks" to emphasize their overlap. And therein lies the strength of this book - it forces the reader to consider just about everything that should be considered from inception through delivery of a software project.

In terms of drawbacks, the biggest one is that the book focuses virtually exclusively on huge teams in huge projects. The paragraph or two talking about combining advocacies is entirely insufficient. Even when one person handles most of a project, all the aspects need to be considered and covered. One drawback the book avoided was focusing on Microsoft and/or Microsoft technologies. Aside from a couple of minor plugs for specific product, this book is technology and product agnostic.

Overall, this book is well-written and useful.

This is a mandatory reference to anyone who wants to use MSF in projects. In this book, Mike presents all the essential concepts and how to apply them.

The built-in vfp report writer, is with no question a powerful tool, but when it comes to end-user report customization, MS Excel is still the report writing tool of choice. This is a great book for those starting to get acquainted with office automation specially for those who wanted to make use MS Excel as the report writer via VFP. The accompanying ebook makes it a lot better...

After 28+ years in this business I have finally stumbled upon an author who knows how to write technical books. This one should be a "how to write" example for other alleged authors.

The book, is clear, concise, and well designed. No assumptions are made; yet it is structured in a manner that one can easily skip over items of familiarity. It is an ideal book in that it spans the needs of users at all levels of expertise and is loaded with real "meat and potatoes" practicality and minimal blue sky theory. No matter what your level of expertise (or the lack of it), you can be creating quality applications within the first hour!

My hat is off to these writers and editors!

This may be one of the best 'how-to' development books on the planet.

Generating complex Office output from any development language (be it VFP, VB, etc.) can be a daunting task. The first time you try it on your own, invariably you hit a wall and think to yourself, 'how do I do this, how do I get around that, etc.'

Tamar and Della do an incredible job of covering the details. I recently finished a project where I had to generate some of the most complicated formats in MS Word that I've ever seen. (Anyone who is 'new' to Fox should also check out Tamar's "Hacker's Guide to VFP", another strong title).

99% of the time, if I did a search through the PDF version of the book, I came across a meaningful code sample that helped me out...or at least pointed me in the right direction. This book could have sold for three times the price and I'd still feel the same way about it.

Even 5 stars doesn't do this book the proper justice. It has an almost endless supply of tips and techniques. The examples cover so much of Office Automation that the book is a 'de facto' reference manual as well. I've been in the business since 1988, and average about 8-10 book purchases a year. Along with Allen Holub's compiler books and Ken Henderson's 'Guru Guide to SQL Server', I'd rate this as one of the best technical 'how-to' books I've ever seen.

I wish someone would write a good .NET applications book along the lines of this book. The difference between a valuable reference book like this one, and a good % of the junk that's been published on .NET, can only be measured in conceptual light years.

Prior to this book, I had been dreading my foray into automation. Literally, within minutes of opening the book, I was automating Excel. And within a couple of hours, I had already built my first automation component for an application. These guys make it so easy!

Every book and article I have ever read by Granor and Martin has been superb, and this book is no exception.

A good book for combine two powerfuls application like vfp and office

Microsoft Project is an unmatched tool for managing all aspects of a project, and the power of its integration with other MS tools is awesome. But its potential is very complex and not for the faint of heart. Before you start blithely loading your milestones and allocating your resources, you really need to understand the concepts of defining your project and conceptualizing the plan. The software won't teach you that and it's the easiest thing in the world to wind up with a Gantt chart that looks like the head of Medusa in no time flat.

That's where this manual makes its mark. Yes, it's a good primer on the software; yes, it's a good reference manual as long as you can guess the term for what you want to do. "Unhide columns," for example: that's what I wanted to do this week, and two minutes with the index and a page reference got the job done for me. (Hint: it doesn't behave exactly like Excel.)

Since I tend to shun manuals, I had not picked up this book until now. I took a moment to flip, and was impressed, and wound up starting at the beginning and going all the way through, reading here and there, checking the book's organization and the points it made about project management. What a great resource! It's an introductory project management course that will get the user started on the right foot.

Despite its name, Microsoft Project 2007: The Missing Manual is much more than a manual. I recommend it for anyone who wants to brush up on the key points of project management, and especially for anyone using the software for the first time (or the first time in a while, which is my situation). It can't guarantee that your project will be a success, but it will greatly increase your understanding of what's going right and wrong. This book is going to make you look good!

Linda Bulger, 2008

I used to have the Bible book for Microsoft Project as my reference for making the most out of this software for managing projects, until The Missing Manual came out. This title in now-popular Missing Manual series takes you through the basics and not-so-basics for Project Standard and Project Professional, allowing you to understand the when and the why behind its features and helping you better build and refine your project plans, track progress of your projects and succeed as a project manager.

Any who own Microsoft's Project 2007 needs Bonnie Bafore's MICROSOFT OFFICE PROJECT 2007: THE MISSING MANUAL guide, which should really be in the box alongside the program. It offers easy step-by-step instructions that cover both Project Standard and Project Professional, explaining how and why to use some features - an approach which goes far beyond the usual `how to' guide. From using Project in a variety of business applications and incorporating other programs such as Word and Outlook to practically guaranteeing project success, MICROSOFT PROJECT 2007: THE MISSING MANUAL should be on the shelves not only of any serious computer reference library, but any business library and any individual who owns Project 2007 and wants to get the most out of it.

I've always hated "How to" manuals written by people who know the application, but not the work. This book shows how to use MS Project from the perspective of a Project Manager.

It's alway been ironic when I've used other resources that the person who wrote the book explains all the buttons, but not when/why they are really used. "The Missing Manual" is the perfect marriage of function and purpose.

This manual is extremely helpful for both the novice and the veteran user. The introductory section on project management is one of the best I have seen, and worth the price of the book by itself. Entertaining yet concise style. Book is well organized and information is easily found.
Highly recommended.

Derivatives are not simple things. It almost seems that complexity was a design goal when they were being set up. In order to determine their real value either today or in the future you almost have to model them on a computer.

This book covers dozens of different types of derivatives, including the common ones and some of the new even more esoteric ones. It talks about the structure of the derivative, and then presents models of them. The models are presented in the most common modelling 'languages' in use today. There is a lot of code involved, but there is not a CD included with the book. Instead, an access code providing a one time download for the code. Note, a one time download. Be sure and save the code quickly and on several media. This procedure allows the models to be updated as needed without regard to the time it takes for the book to move from being written to being published, but if you have a disk crash....

The biggest things this book provides are: first, you get to see what an expert in the field has done, and second, you get the code to run his models on your system, and of course you can modify them if you find some other aspect suits your needs better.

This is a new book, first printed in December 2006, so it is current with the derivatives being marketing at that time.

I highlight two points:

1. The inclusion of Matlab and Excel code in almost all topics of the book.
2. All the content is new and more advanced, there is no recovered topics of his previous book.

This book offers prebuilt, modifiable code that you can use for energy, power, weather and many other derivatives applications. The download process is fast and easy. For those who use Matlab, C++, or Excel, there is no competition. A great book with unique content and code.

This book was my ultimate go-to resource on several financial engineering projects (on the buy side). It covers many different derivatives and provides example MatLab and C++ code that is easy to modify and extend.

The instructions for setup and downloading the code could be more clear, perhaps on a CD.

Great book. But the code downloading process is a bit weird. Don't know why they just attach a CD.

The book is very helpful for graduate students who are first learning LaTeX for publishing their dissertations or for submitting articles for publication. It is especially helpful for users of LaTeX that are using pre-made style guides. This book is not for the advanced LaTeX user who is trying to create their own style guides or document class files, all though the book does have a little on the topic. The book also includes a chapter on using LaTeX for making power-point type presentations, which is helpful in math and statistics where presentations have to include equations. Power-point does not handle equations well. The statistics department at my university recommends the book to all our graduate students for writing their dissertation. I have also contacted the author of the book for additional assistance and found him to be very willing to help with LaTeX problems outside the realm of the book. He helped our department create a document class file for publishing dissertations, a more complicated procedure in LaTeX than the typical LaTeX user will have to encounter. This book is a good introduction into the world of LaTeX.

The book 'more math into Latex' is a good tool which helps somebody without experience in Latex to start using it as soon as possible and reach an adequate level for simple enough articles very fast. I would not be able to judge this book for difficult Latex applications.

I am a LaTeX programmer and instructor. This weekend, I finally had time to read Part I of this book, Short Course, and paged through the other parts.

What a pleasure! Grätzer has an amazing talent to say exactly what is important, without putting in extras that will distract a reader.

You'd think that by this time I'd know enough LaTeX to, at least, get through the Short Course without learning anything new; but instead I ran into trick after trick that I didn't know. I use Beamer but I didn't know FoilTeX, the presentation package used in the Short Course. It's a great idea to let tell users very early on how to make a presentation from their papers, and then leave Beamer for full treatment later.

I very much like Appendix A, holding the reader's hand as LaTeX is installed. Then the three "productivity tools" are introduced, explaining how to use these tools on both platforms, and leaving the rest of the user interface for later, leisurely exploration, making it really quick for users to start using LaTeX.

Very early in the introduction, Grätzer talks about "the three layers" (TeX, LaTeX, and the AMS packages) and, from the beginning, use all three seamlessly. This is a radical new idea. It will substantially reduce the learning curve -- my students will appreciate it. The wonderful foreword by Rainer Schöpf (one of the two lead programmers of AMS-LaTeX) makes the role of the AMS packages clear in the historical development of modern LaTeX.

I really like the way you got to "Lines too wide" so early in the Short Course, explaining to the user the cause of the problem and solutions. Why do most books postpone this?

I better not go on and on. Just wanted to write these few lines about my enjoyment as I read this wonderful material.

I was a graduate student in math and faced the daunting task of typing my thesis. It was bad enough that I was inexperienced in writing math, but I was also a novice in LaTeX.

I tried two well-known books. In one, there is a Part I, Basics. This is for me, I thought. Unfortunately, it is 200 pages long and does not cover such elementary topics as the "cases" structure. For that, I had to go to page 288. The other book had "cases" hidden on page 238, under the title "Matrix like environments". Not very helpful.

What a relief it was when I came across this book. It helped me set up LaTeX on my Dell notebook (why do other books assume that you already have a LaTeX installation?). Then I downloaded the sample files as instructed and read the really easy 60 page Part I (Short Course). I worked through the text and examples in less than a day. Then I started writing my thesis.

In my spare time, I gave the rest of the book a cursory reading. Occasionally, I need to go beyond what is covered in the Short Course. For instance, as an analyst, I need complicated integrals not covered in Part I. (They are easy to find: in Part II, in the chapter on typing math.) And when the time came to give a presentation on my thesis, I went beyond the Short Course's section on presentations to Chapter 14, and I used Beamer!

Everybody was impressed.

Now I am Jim Whitby Ph.D. Thank you George for the help.

If you are a beginner, this is the your book.

What new can I write about a book that is in its fourth edition, and has served the LaTeX community for almost two decades?

There is a new chapter on presentations and an appendix on installing LaTeX on a PC and on a Mac, so you get help from the get go. Also, for the first time, this book merges TeX, LaTeX, and the AMS packages into one, smoothing the learning curve for beginner and advanced user alike.

If you are new to this book, I should start by pointing out that you get two for the price of one. A sixty page Short Course gets you ready to type your first article in an afternoon or two. The plentiful sample files help you get started fast.

The rest of the book presents a detailed survey of LaTeX: how to type text and math, document structure, presentations, customization, and long documents.

Gratzer teaches by example: each new concept is introduced with examples and sample documents, so you learn by doing.

Multiline math formulas is the most difficult topic of LaTeX. This is the only LaTeX book that dedicates 40 pages to this topic, trying to make it accessible with a Visual Guide and a verbal guide of how these multiline structures can be classified and understood.

Gratzer teaches by distilling the most important information you need. For instance, Beamer, the presentation class he presents, has hundreds of commands and its documentation runs to hundreds of pages. The Beamer chapter selects twenty commands, so you should be on your way writing your first presentation in hours not weeks.

This book has served me well when I started, and it is my constant companion, placed next to my computer when I type LaTeX.

Multichannel marketing is an excellent resource to learn about how you can combine on and off line marketing integrating it and providing metrics to evaluate campaigns. This is great for seasoned professionals or for those starting out in their career. Highly recommended read to expand your knowledge.

This book is written with excellent real-life examples and specific information. And it's written in a tone that's easy to digest, with a voice that's marketer-to-marketer. It's good to take a step back and understand how online and offline campaigns affect each other, especially if you don't actively do both for your job. I'm not finished with the book yet, but I've already subscribed to Akin's Blog (www.multichannelmetrics.com) and sent the link to my team!

As the online and the offline worlds collide from a marketing perspective, practitioners need to be fully prepared to leverage the wealth of opportunities this creates. The Multichannel Maketing book is targeted to this exact cause.
As an online marketer myself, I found this book extremely engaging and useful as we delve into combining our online and offline marketing efforts.
Since the only way to prove that our marketing efforts are paying off is measure, measure, measure, the measurement and metrics section of this book gave me a good grounding on what I need to do in terms of metrics.
Overall, it's a great book, especially if you are looking at multiple channels to achieve your marketing goals.

As a consultant, I interact with marketers everyday. Everytime I begin a new engagement, I spend volumes of time creating a common language and understanding around what "multi-channel marketing" means in today's world...certainly not an efficient investment of my time or my client's dollars.

FINALLY, there is a book that meets MY standards on both the theory and practice of multichannel marketing. Akin's book "Multichannel Marketing: Metrics and Methods for On and Offline Success" provides unique insight and understanding to help marketers either begin the process of executing more complete multi-channel marketing efforts, or refine existing programs.

What I found especially compelling about Akin's book was the very natural and organic progression within each chapter. Chapters open with a quick summary of a business challenge/opportunity. His descriptions (often complimented by case studies) are direct and to-the-point...easily consumed by the multi-channel newbie. As he digs deeper into each topic he offers perspective that even the most seasoned CMOs will find actionable nuggets of wisdom in (I LOVED the Chapter 6 on Measuring Lift Between On-line and Offline).

In closing - is there value in Akin's first book? No matter what your currently level of expertise is...this book will make you a better marketer.

In this book, Akin Arikan walks us through the whole process of measuring online and offline activities using Web Analytics. He presents both theoretical advices and live examples of how his theories have been (can be) applied.

As a Web Analyst and an online marketer I look forward to adding the methods presented in the book to my repertoire. The jargon alerts alone are worth the read.

The book is very well written and should be required reading for marketers and analysts on the web. The interaction between online and offline is becoming more and more important, and companies must understand how to integrate all their marketing efforts.

I warmly recommend reading this book.

This book offers a broad overview of nanotech markets. It is structured around major markets where nanotech is likely to have an impact (energy, healthcare, IT). The author's background as a high tech market researcher is evident: while the book is hopeful, it's informed by experience with hype in other industries (disclosure: I was a contractor for the author's telecom market research company in the 1990s). There is ample discussion of different scenarios and their relative probability, and effective summaries at the beginning and end of most sections, which make it very easy to scan at different levels of detail. The book also includes a method for assessing the likely impact of nanotech on the reader's company and industry; for people in the planning sections of large organizations, this section is reason enough to buy the book. The weakness of the book is related to its strength: most of the discussion is necessarily introductory. That said, the book is rich with pointers to other resources, and though the focus is on business, aside on societal, legal, cultural, and other implications included throughout.

At $79 for a 242 page book, don't bother with nanotechnology. Invest in the guys marketing this book.

Having been in the nanotechnology field for six years, I have seen many books on nanotechnology. This is the best one I have seen for business executives and other decision makers that are new to the field and trying to understand where the opportunities are for their organizations. The book is well-structured, and written in an erudite, accessible and engaging style.

Unlike many books on the subject, Gasman provides specific guidance on the applications that are most likely to pay off in the near and medium term, and which are not. While not exhaustive, it provides a good overview of the most fertile opportunities. The summaries of the "takeaways" from each chapter, and the ample reference to further reading are particularly useful for the busy reader. These will help the neophyte to locate the gems as they wade through the huge amount information on nanotech, much of which is quite mediocre. Unlike many authors who provide a superficial and shallow treatment of the subject, Gasman's experience as a high-quality, disciplined and thorough market analyst comes through in this book.

If I have one primary complaint about the book, it is that there are a few important elements of the nanotech field that are missing. For example, his summary of nanotechnology tools does not make any reference to electron microscopes and focused ion beam devices, which are key to imaging and manipulation at the nanoscale. These omissions are more than balanced by the overall quality of the book. I recommend it highly.

As author of the first book on successful investing in nanotechnology, Nanotech Fortunes: Make Yours in the Boom; Winning Strategies, I can say that Nanomarkets.net's Lawrence Gasman has produced an exceptional contribution to the literature of nanotech, Nanotechnology: Applications and Markets. Everyone interested in exactly how nanotech is going to impact products, markets, industries and businesses must study this concise and worthwhile read. Gasman's intuitions, opinions and arguments are not only right on target but they are informed by a lively intelligence and decades of real-life experience and deeply thought analysis. Whether you are in the business or just looking to invest with a real understanding of what you're doing, you are going to love this book and thank the author as well.

Lawrence has decades of experience analyzing the impact of, commercialization processes and "productization" of new technologies, and he is one of the most down-to-earth reporters on the goings on in real world manufacturing and basic industrial demands, as well as the far-out world of nanotechnology.

The book's real value lays in chapters on nanotech's likely and UNLIKELY impacts on industries as diverse as semiconductors, medical, computing, pharmaceuticals, communications, alternative energy, pollution control and advanced materials. From there, Lawrence leads executives (and investors) on an examination of specific industry-related opportunities and then the step-by-step tools on exactly how to conduct a nanotech audit in any particular company. His strategy will help businesses, large and small, identify both commercial opportunities and threats stemming from advances in nanotechnology.

If there is any "weakness" to the book some might argue that it is too short. At only 200 pages perhaps several chapters and discussions could have been expanded and more time could have been spent debunking ideas and processes, current in the nano-community, that have little or no commercial future. That said, Gasman covers all the important topics, markets and applications.

I feel that scientists and engineers can also benefit from Nanotechnology: Applications and Markets simply because it orients any reader to a perspective where solutions to problems and products that are needed or useful become the key areas of interest. Clearly, a fruitful place for engineers to start . . . I think one that more and more scientists will find a beneficial focus.

All and all, along with Nanotech Fortunes, of course, this is one of the few books related to nano, that belongs on everyone's shelf.

The strength of this book lies in its broad scope. Gasman provides an up to date survey of nanotech's prospects in a wide range of applications. From semiconductors, computers, communication to the currently very hot energy field. Other topics include medicine and pharmaceuticals.

For semiconductors, I see the nano prospects as just hype, for the near future. Semiconductor research and fabs are already at or near the so-called nanoscales. Current linewidths of circuits are reaching below 100 nm. Sure, new and very different production methods are being devised, to get around various limits in current technology. Call these nanotech if the trends continue, perhaps. But it's just a change in label.

The very breadth of the book's scope also means that it is unable to enter any given topic to any depth. Of necessity, the book then functions as an alertness indicator, if you will. Then, for a topic germane to your interests, you might follow the references cited for a more indepth exposition.

If you are looking for good introduction.
This book is your best choice.
Very consistent, without any "poetry" (like in last Richter's book).
Mr.Tapadiya's two book about COM+ and .NET must have any Windows developer.

This book isn't as code oriented as Ferguson or Troelsen's text on c#, but seems to deal more with concepts and common trouble points with the language and environment. Much like Tapadiya's last book, it is well thought out and demonstrates a good insight in the subject matter. A good read.

This book is a treasure trove of .Net information. It is underrated and not seen often in bookstores. This book complements Richter's book on .Net Framework programming and is a boon for any C#/.NETer.

A concise, no-nonsense book. All topics are cut to the chase. This book is for C++ and Java pros who want to master C# in the shortest time possible. I also have 3 other C# books. Only this one calms me down and gives me the joy of reading while learning. However, for people who is new to programming, I recommend "Learn to Program with C#" by John Smiley. My 3rd book, "C# in a Nutshell" is a good choice for reference. My 4th one, "Introduction to C# Using .Net" is good too, but the topics covered are not as broad as this one.

For donwloading this book's sample code, it points to www.phptr.com/tapadiya/dotnet/, which no longer works. Instead, go http://www.tapadiya.net/pradeep/ComPlusBook.htm#CodeSamples, a link I finally found after 10 minutes of Google search.

I liked this book. It starts with very basic things about .NET (what .NET is and what it's for, tools, basics of C#, etc.) and takes you to advanced topics. My employer wanted to move our development to .NET platform, and with this book alone, I was able to master .NET enough to get to a pretty advanced level quite fast.

When a new topic is covered, the author provides an introduction to the problem. It often helps to get the right perspective on what you study. It's very far from being a dry reference book. I found it to be written in an easy to understand the language, detailed enough and not too wordy, and to explain things in a practical way. I like Tapadiya's style, in general. I liked his other book (about COM programming) too. I enjoyed reading it.

The book is not for those who are looking for a general programming tutorial. I think it requires some experience in software creation, although maybe not a whole lot.

This book has beautiful graphics and is chock full of the latest
developments in physics. A wonderful addition to the bookshelf of any
science buff. Even if you don't understand all of it you can look at
it in wonder !

John

This book nicely extends Davies' 'New Physics'.

Here we have reviews of the leading physics topics of the last few years that are all well worth reading.

This is a great book on advances in physics that have occurred over the last few years that lies between overly simplistic popular science books and research papers where you become quickly lost in terse language and layers of equations. You do need to have some prior background in physics. Ideally you should have the background of a year of general university level physics and a course in modern physics, or the equivalent of that. Some knowledge of general chemistry would come in handy too. Otherwise, there are enough equations and an assumption of basic physics knowledge on the part of the reader that you'll get lost quickly.

Basically, the book shows you physics in action solving the problems of today using great illusrations and a clear and accessible writing style that holds your interest. The chapters don't build on one another and you can pick and choose what you're interested in. Remember that this is not a textbook, so there are no problem sets. The final strong point of the book is the price. At under forty dollars it's a very reasonable purchase for the casual learner. My favorite sections were part 1 on Matter and the Universe and part 4 on Calculation and Computation. I thought the chapter on superstring theory was particularly well done and clear. I highly recommend this book for getting a good big picture of physics at work.

This book is a great source for the latest developements in physics. I particularly found the info on quantum computers to be facinating.

Very comprehensive coverage of the new world of Physics presenteted by the various leading practicioners in the field today. Difficult reading for anyone with no more than High School Physics.