Tools Books

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

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

This is a helpful book for personal and work growth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paul T. Kidd

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

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

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

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

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

Congratulations for Ted Goranson for this excellent work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is a very helpful book to have at your side when composting and is simple enough for us that are just beginning to compost. I am a very science-y, down-to-the-nity-gritty-biology kind of guy so some of of it seems too simplified. That's why I didn't give the fifth star. But, all in all, it really is a good book and I like the spiral bound style that allows it to stay open while you are actually in the process of composting. I am now in search of a more detailed book about vermiculture (worm-poop ranching!)

I was teaching a class at the local library on Composting and the Librarian brought me this book to display. I was thrilled to see a book that was easy to read and understand for the novice composter. I find alot of people don't get this concept, how easy it is and the great benefits to the enviorment. This book has great pictures and is a quick review even for the old Masters. I display it at all my classes regardless of the subject and refer to it often. It's a MUST HAVE in my library.
Barbara Kiernan, Marysville, Ca.

This is the perfect book for the beginning composter. With plenty of pictures and easy step by step instructions this book teems with information. Purchased with "The Rodale Book of Composting: Easy Methods for Every Gardener" you have all you need for a great preliminary knowledge base on the subject. I highly recommend this book for those who are interested in getting started fast!

As simple as it gets! How to create compost, How to build a compost bin (or which to buy), What IS compost and how do you create successful piles. Great for someone on a budget. Step-by-steps are great and the content is easy to understand. I built one of the bins in the book in a few hours. Highly recommend this for those starting out.

Very nice layout, easy to follow instructions. Love the binding. Looking forward to the projects.I would recommend this book to anyone interested in stained glass.

This book is fantastic! I love the step by step pictures and the detailed instructions. I have purchased other stained glass making books but this is by far the best one. I look forward to making some of his projects because he makes it look so easy.

Excellent book which includes techniques, tools and tips to improve the stained glass beginners abilities. It also has very good pictures by Alan Wycheck.

An excellent book, with advice on simple yet effective means of accomplishing various routing objectives, while also covering advanced techniques.

I was installing a hardwood floor and needed to route a groove into some pieces. This book gave me all of theinformation I need to select and buy a router and table. It also gave me all of the information that I needed to setup the table to route the groove. Well worth the price of the book to me.

Despite what the book review states, this is not a book about building your own router table and I have yet to find any plans. If you are looking for plans, you will need to buy either "Woodworking with the Router" or "Router Magic" which are also by Hylton. As the author states, "Using a router table is what this book is about".

It is an excellent book especially if you are not familiar with the router table. There are also ideas and techniques for the person who is familiar with the router table. Hylton is a great suthor and I would recommend any of his router books.

Excellent book. This is what a person who is going to get serious in router table working needs. Woodworking is my hobby. I build many things around the house, from dormers to desks, and cabinets. I bought a Porter Cable 3-1/2 HP router, a Bench Dog table, and a Bench Dog Lifter. I wish I had seen this book before I bought the table. Well, I bought it all at once. I would have made my own table. The book is very well written and the author (Bill) is extremely knowledgeable about his subject. He offers many options for building your own table based on your specific needs. The illustrations are great. It covers many different areas, such as making dovetails, different types of bits, how to make jigs and fixtures, etc. There are no adds about any particular brand, which is great. He focuses of process. This is a great book, built with high quality paper as well. I highly recommend it.

great book, great chalenges to make this boxes. Great gifts to be made by myself.

This is a great project book for the person that wants to build simple boxes that look great and does not require a lot of experience.

The book layout consists of a color photo of the completed project, a pattern that you can photocopy and glue onto the wood and detailed photos of how to build them. The book does not show how to build every box because once you see how to build a certain type, the other are just variations on it. The tools needed are a scroll saw (bandsaw will not work),power sanding tools (belt or disk and small drum), clamps, and a drill(drill press is better).

I have been involved in woodworking for some 50+ years and recently started to look for another avenue to explore. I purchased a scroll saw and needed some plans and hopefully some hints on how to proceed. This book has provided me with a wonderful source of creative box making projects starting with simple boxes and moving along to more advanced. The choices and skill levels are rewarding to the woodworker as well as to the person receiving the finished project. Great plans that produce great results. The author has taken considerable space in this book to guide the beginner in wood choice, scroll saw and blade choices as well as finishing techniques. Hints and suggestions are seen throughout the book. I am very glad to have found this book and from it, I am now making some wonderful gifts and enjoying every minute with my scroll saw and hand tools.

I made my first box in record time - not hard at all, but don't try to shortcut on prep of the wood. (and look out for hardwoods that burn from scrollsaws running too fast.) Very cool! A good confidence builder for scrolling; I particularly like how they guide you on making all-wood hinges for the boxes.

In today's society, one mired by mass marketing geared toward instant gratification, microwave dinners, the commercial promise of the good life and the drive through divorce Mr. Douglas has worked diligently to lay down a road map to avoid the pitfalls of the all to common broken home. In what could be referred to as the "me first" era the author explains the incredibly destructive effects such thinking can have not only on our personal relationships but those of our children and our children's children. Mr. Douglas espouses upon his belief that popular culture, the media, and even our politicians are to blame for the shortcoming of our commitment as a nation to the sanctity of the family unit. In the classic sense, we have all become a product of our environment one in which jealousy, adultery, divorce, and gross miss use of power have become all to common place. (Perhaps so much so that they have become almost the accepted or expected norm). An interesting read that I think anyone can learn from.

A tremendous read for every person! The author really brings out cutting edge points on the divorce conundrum. This book needs to make it's way into every home in the country. This is a must read for every politition on Capital Hill as it spells out not only the damages caused by divorce on a personal level but the damages caused by divorce on a social scale as well.

A totally cathartic experience for me. I realized my marriage was,unfortunatly, not unique-not the only one to go through these devastating ills. The author lays out clearly the things that chip away and erode a marriage. Truth is no couple imagines their marriage will be temporary. The issues this seemingly "regular guy" talks about are the exact things that led to end of my marriage. I wish my first husband would have read this before he decided to cheat, before I couldn't forgive and before my kids had to start their life in a broken home. I recommend this book to all married people and those considering marriage. It is a frightening reminder of how easily we can crush something so precious, and just how far reaching the effects are. A great wake up call to America and a must read for any man you love and want to be happy.

This is a must read for any man who is getting married, having an affair, unhappy at home, fantasizing about other women, raising children,or using drugs or alchohol. It is a must read for clergy, marriage counselors, or any person giving counsel to men, women or couples on marriage. The author comes accross as giving a lot of advice, however the advice is powerful, hard hitting and will cause you to think about being a better person. Rick Douglas hits the nail on the head about our elected leaders in this country and what needs to be done to begin a cure to this epidemic of broken homes and families. I suggest that any women feeling a victim of husband or ex-husband behavior needs to read this. It is easy to read with no hidden meanings or agenda.