Tools Books

"Integrating Literacy And Technology: Effective Practice For Grades K-6" is the collaborative project of literacy education researchers and consultants Susan Watts Taffe (a former special education teacher and reading diagnostician) and Carolyn B. Gwinn (who is currently an elementary curriculum specialist for one of the largest school districts in Minnesota). Specifically organized and designed for maximum accessible for elementary school classroom teachers for whom in-service training time is a premium, "Integrating Literacy And Technology" will enable an teacher in grades K to 6 through a step-by-step instructional process involving ongoing cycles of planning, teaching, and assessment in a technology-rich environment that includes the utilization of the internet, reading and writing software, and more to teach core literacy skills to their students, as well as help those children to develop new reading and communication competencies for the digital age. Enhanced with a wealth of specific tools and tips to support professional development, and also available in a hardcover format, "Integrating Literacy And Technology" is a welcome and invaluable addition to any teacher in-service training curriculum in the field of literacy education.

I am a professional color consultant and am always looking to refine my skills. This book was much more informative than other books I've read. It tends to be written for the professional as opposed to the average homeowner, though I still recommend it for anyone looking to understand color.

Since the collecting of antique knives (defined as those no longer in production and made before 1970) has developed in the last thirty some years, there have been many reference items published from the pioneer work of Robert L. Mays and others who reprinted original manufacturer's sales catalogs to those who have made detailed check lists of one or more long defunct products. One of the major criteria for collecting is that there must be enough surviving specimens to make a market. Thus, exceeding rare in numerical terms private brand and hardware wholesaler brands are not as highly desirable as the products of quality makers such as Remington, Winchester, and Case, who have made millions. Since knives were mostly bought to be used, not collected, the survival rate of these is high enough but not too high, especially in desirable condition. This book covers the field for the beginner but is still useful for those who collect other than the big three mentioned and want to know how to get started. It covers the history of manufacturers and the various brands they made. There are useful chapters on grading, on how to behave at knife shows, and how to spot fakes. The several editions of the work have stood the test of time. Specialists will need others. The listings herein are enough to get one started on a fascination hobby.

This book cleared up a lot of mystery for me. I had been a Macintosh user of the Internet for 2 years or more, but did not know the basic operation of networked computers. Neither did I know how the connections can be made with a modem and a Windows/Intel based computer. This book cleared up both those problems for me. It is large, nearly 1200 pages, but does not need to be read from cover to cover. The author does recommend the reader review Chapter 3 as a basis for proceeding on, but the book can be used over and over as a desk reference. A CD-ROM is included with software for both the Windows and Macintosh platforms

This is an excellent book to compliment a website generating course. The ten chapters deal with research, finance, downloading updates, multimedia, structure of the internet, and more. The book is inexpensive and usually bundled with the Front Page 10 hour book.

The manual is published in cooperation with the Counselors Academy of the Public Relations Society of America. It is available through the PRSA Web site: [...]

I thought this was a wonderful book. There are a fair number of good public relations books on the market. And there are a few tomes about investor relations. But I am not aware of any that layout all that is included in this book about an investor relations executive (IRE) at a public company: his job description, goals, responsibilities, and minefields that he or she has to face. I found it interesting that the author chose to default to "she" when he referred to IREs. Women are traditionally thought of as filling public relations roles. But it is my understanding that investor relations (a highly specialized and technical subset of public relations) is usually worked by men.

I also found it kind of odd that the author called IREs investment relations OFFICERS. By calling them "officers" that seemed to me that the author was trying to catapult them up into the highest echelon of a public company's corporate team. I'm not sure that is the case in reality. While it is true that an IRE does hobnob with the CEO, the CFO, the public relations guru, and the company's Board of Directors (BOD), I'm not aware that the IREs enjoy similar status as these other executives and directors generally do.

As a discovery expert who has worked on a number of high profile securities fraud class action lawsuits I have seen firsthand how the organization charts for some very large public companies fit an IRE into the executive and director mix. And I have had to review the correspondence, SEC filings, SEC filing drafts, and other investor relations papers that a number of IREs have been responsible for creating, producing, and filing. I think typically the IRE is a subordinate of the CFO, but has dotted line responsibility to the CEO, BOD, and the public relations executive if one exists. And a PR executive more than likely will exist.

Overall regarding this book I must say it is a gem. It is very well written and outlined. And it logically flows from chapter 1 all the way to chapter 23. And it is packed with content. However, there were a few instances that if changed I would have liked the book better. Chapters 8 and 9 seemed to be related. I would have liked the book better if those chapters were merged and then the topic of SEC filings that they cover were expanded into three separate chapters. And Chapter 17 just did not fit for me. I'm not sure it should have been included. And if included, I think it should have been written from a different perspective - that of the IRE. There was a typo at page 89 regarding the Yahoo! Finance URL.

Chapter 11 on "Guidance" was great. And I liked Chapter 22 a lot, too. If I were writing the book I would have made chapters 18 to 23 part of an Appendix. They seemed to be add-on material for me when reading this book. 5 stars!

Dr. Gautam is a psychiatrist who specializes in treating physicians, the wife of a physician, and a mom - so she knows about physician stress!
This book is an expansion of a speaking program that I have heard her do. She is an excellent speaker and a great writer.
The book is small, and easily readable. You can tuck it in your pocket and read it while on hold if you are a multitasker. It contains great, practical and helpful advice for all of us docs.
Dr. Gautam reminds us first how we get stressed/burned out and then gives us ways to help ourselves get out of it. It helps to be reminded that we can't be or do all for everyone. It also helps to be reminded that even just doing everything that we genuinely want to do can be too much. One thing that I found extra helpful was that stopping something now because I didn't have time for it didn't necessarily mean that I had to stop it forever.
I enjoyed this book and found it extremely helpful. I am buying copies for my office partners for gifts. Shhhh! Don't ruin the surprise!!!

Tony Geraghty is uniquely well-placed to write this history, whose fine and precise balance surpasses the best Fairbairn-Sykes has to offer. No one can ever legitimately accuse Geraghty of favouritism in this fight, since he despises all three sides equally and with a perfect hate.

A British Airbrone Vet born in England of Roman Catholic Irish immigrant parents, Geraghty was personally decorated by American General Norman Schwarzkopf. While reporting from Ulster, he had the distinction of being assaulted twice in one afternoon, first by Paisleyite irresponsibles, then by Rampart-like RUC uniforms. He was also arrested at gunpoint for curfew violations at the Falls, and interrogated at gunpoint by the PIRA. In 1998, the British Ministry of Defence's "Admiral's Gestapo" Inquisitioned him over this very book. There is one other important qualification not presently mentioned. In the late 1970's, Geraghty was nearly murdered by British mercenaries headed towards Angola, after he had taken the trouble to help them find replacements in the UK. One of these mercs had been dishonourably discharged from the Paras for running guns to Loyalist paramilitaries.

Geraghty exposes Eddie Fitzgerald, O'Neill's Fenians, Wolf Tone Loc, Casement, Pearse and Connolly as embittered, vindictive idle RIF'd has-beens, salon-dwelling poseurs, and otherwise pathetic losers-without-a-clue. His linking of pre-1922 history with the current Troubles is the one weakness of the book. Before 1922, Ireland was genuinely occupied by England/Britain, and the majority of the population did suffer bona fide repression at the hands of various English/British organisms and persons. After 1922, however, Ireland was as free as America and Rhodesia, and chose to become a sectarian theocracy in the manner of Iran and Afghanistan. The majority in Ulster elected to retain their British identity, and the Williamite guarantee of freedom of worship, known to Americans as the First Amendment.

This detail, however, pales in comparison to Geraghty's comprehensive and morally unassailable unmasking of the Sinn Fein/PIRA mafia as, in the words of Roman Catholic Priest Father Dennis Faul, "a crazy outfit" that "should be disbanded." He shows how virtually the entirety of Irish Catholic identity is defined as the negation of being "not British." He exposes how violence in Ireland, instead of being a means to justify an end, is rather an end in and of itself, as reflected in 1960's IRA capo Cathal Goulding's whining that Irish Americans would not send him money unless violence was involved. Similarly, he points out how the Republican murder machine operates unencumbered by Good Friday.

Geraghty also goes out of his way to remember the Catholic victims of Nationalist terrorism: Bob Nairac; thirty-seven year old Jean McConville, mother of ten, abducted and "disappeared" because she gave comfort to a wounded British soldier; nineteen year old Marta from the Bogside, tarred and feathered for dating British soldiers; and Angela Gallagher killed by IRA gunfire. These unknown victims are like Canada's massacred Donnelly family. You never hear word one about them from Peter King, Bruce Morrison, Martin Galvin, the Kennedys, William Donohue's "Catholic" League, the denizens of the New York "Irish Echo" and "Irish Voice", and all the other stateside Fenian agitators and marks. In contrast to all these false prophets, Tony Geraghty, by keeping alive the memory of the innocents, acts in the true spirit of Catholicism, the message of love Jesus gave to his disciples and to mankind.

As well, Geraghty graphically illustrates how the Irish War has effectively turned Britain into a police state that allows intrusive government surveillance and other encroachments on freedom which "cannot be uninvented." This situation frighteningly parallels that proposed by too many American Congressmen and Senators after the Oklahoma City Bombing. Geraghty's section on Brian Nelson brings up a question raised by Carsten Stroud in "Deadly Force" and by Roger Charles and J.D. Cash's article on Peter Langan; who is worse, the people under surveillance, or the snitches paid to rat them out?

Forget the drivel by academics, defrocked reporters and other wannabe writers cashing in on the Troubles to pad their retirement accounts. With Jack Holland and Susan Phoenix's "Phoenix Policing the Shadows", Tony Geraghty's "The Irish War" is all you ever need buy and read on this subject.

This book, #25 in Squadron/Signal's "Warships" series, is a companion piece to the author's volume on World War II Japanese heavy cruisers. Like the other volume, it is a compact, comprehensive, well-illustrated overview of its subject.

Patton's book covers various classes on IJN cruisers ranging in size from 5,500 to 10,000 tons. Though they didn't feature the pagoda-like superstructures of their heavyweight sisters, Japanese light cruisers had a distinctive look, being narrower and longer that their U. S. counterparts. Armed with the deadly 'Long Lance' torpedoes, these ships could be dangerous opponents and were in action across the Pacific from day one. On 7 December 1941 Japan had 25 light cruisers in action; by war's end, only three were left.

Patton's book has a comprehensive text that summarizes the design and service life of each class of IJN light cruiser - eight in all - accompanied by dozens of photos of these ships, two pages of color side-views and cover art by the ever-impressive Don Greer.

In short, a nice introduction to the subject, especially valuable for its photo coverage, and easy on the pocketbook.