Desktop Publishing Books

Even while flipping through it for the first time, I found at least a dozen things that I didn't know about AutoCAD, and I've been using AutoCAD for 10 years now! I can't decide what I like most about this book. Not only do you get commands listed alphabetically, but it includes tips, keyboard/mouse functions, a detailed section on system and dimension variables, and highlighting new options in R14 (including the new Bonus Tools) all of which is in a neat, well organized format. A book like this usually comes in the size of a phone book with a price tag close to $85, but this book is a convenient size for much-much less. If you only buy one AutoCAD [R14] book this year, get this one!

Clear, concise, and authoratative reference for AutoCAD R14. A must for all users of AutoCAD (including R12 and R13 users).

While a co-worker was spending hundreds of dollars to
learn AutoCad at the local collage, I learned as much at
the same pace at home with this fine book. It should be sub-titled as a tutorial. The book begins assuming you know nothing about AutoCad,
and carefully explains in a straight-forward method all you need to know. Everything is done in sequence so each excercise teaches
new commands to be used in following drawings. It is a great primer
for new users learning 2-D basics, and I have shared it with experienced users at work as a reference manual for 2-D
and 3-D drawings. The book comes with a disk with programs
to help you learn which was a real time-saver for me. I would recommend this book to all beginning and professional
AutoCad users. I have other titles from The New Riders Publishing Company, and they have all been a very good investment.

Inside AutoCad 12 For DOS ISBN 1562050559
While a co-worker was spending hundreds of dollars to
learn AutoCad at the local collage, I learned as much at
the same pace at home with this fine book. It should be sub-titled as a tutorial. The book begins assuming you know nothing about AutoCad,
and carefully explains in a straight-forward method all you need to know. Everything is done in sequence so each excercise teaches
new commands to be used in following drawings. It is a great primer
for new users learning 2-D basics, and I have shared it with experienced users at work as a reference manual for 2-D
and 3-D drawings. The book comes with a disk with programs
to help you learn which was a real time-saver for me. I would recommend this book to all beginning and professional
AutoCad users. I have other titles from The New Riders Publishing Company, and they have all been a very good investment.

I must say I was pleasantly surprised with this book. I actually learned a ton more than expected which is unusual for a book not meant to teach all 3 programs. It is certainly at an intermediate level as stated which is also a refreshing surprise.

The Fireworks section is quite extensive since all the examples rightfully are designed in or a major part of them are designed in Fireworks where they are then cut up, interactivity added (except for the Flash examples) and then exported.

The FreeHand section deals with primarily the tools that differ from Fireworks and things like perspecive, contour blends and bleneding. The blending feature allows you to do a shape tween type of effect and then use it in Fireworks for animation. Then there is extensive tips and tricks for preparing FreeHand files for use in Flash.

The Flash section is great fun and extremely useful. The entire section deals with ActionScripting projects, the author doesn't try to teach you Flash but useful ways to use it in conjunction to the other two programs. The projects such as the puzzle teaches more than it may appear on the surface. Sure, you may not need a puzzle, but it was a great way to demonstrate how to load movies that replace prior ones versus loading movies to a new level. This is just one example. There is also a jukebox that has four pieces of music (included) that uses a trick to load very quickly. A product display that rotates a full 360 degrees, a banner ad that allows you to print a brochure from within Flash and a banner ad that uses the color feature of Flash. There are more projects in this section.

Even though Dreamweaver isn't in the title of this book, it wasn't left out of the mix. There is an Appendix which takes an entire Fireworks design and places the images in DW and adds the behaviors, CSS Style Sheets in DW. There is also a section on adding FW pop-up menus in DW.

There are some great contributors that added value to this book as well. What I liked is they added VALUE not just their names. For instance, Hillman Curtis did a nice introductory piece on, "Motion is the Message" imparting some of his wisdom to us. There is also an entire interface given to us from Eyeland Studio that we can use and modify (with instructions on how)and banner ads from Figleaf Software.

All in all, I don't think you'll be disapointed in this book. I walked away with much more than I expected. This review took much longer to do than anticipated because the book is almost 500 pages (480) and is packed. Not only did I learn the strong points of each program but how to work more efficiently as well.

I already had Fireworks, and then I bought the Flash and Freehand bundle. I am used to Illustrator, and this book really helped me tie all the programs together. The projects are easy to do, but challenging enough to keep up your interest. They also build up your skill level so you increase your capabilities as you work in the programs.

The book is divided into three sections - one for each of the programs - and projects from one program are used in the other programs. There's just enough difference between the program interfaces to confuse you, but Ms. Evans has done an excellent job in clarifying them.

I especially enjoyed the rotating fishing lure exersize in the Flash section. I've wanted to do that effect for a long time, and her explanation got me through quickly and easily.

All in all, the book really will help you if you are putting up a website and haven't done a lot of graphic work before. The integration of these three programs is important, and the author did an excellent job in teaching. I recommend it heartily!

I keep this book close to me at work and usually stick it in my laptop case when I leave for home. It is my bible for metadata. The first time I read it, I carefully underlined passages with a fine light pencil. Now I've tossed book decorum to the winds and use highligher pens! To mention just one general topic, Elaine Svenonius grapples with all of the key issues that trained librarians face when cataloguing digital materials. She also covers controlled vocabularies from several perspectives, and understands the challenges/difficulties of applying standard "book" classifications to rich media collections. That it took me a long time to get through this book has nothing to do with her style -- Elaine Svenonius writes clearly, often beautifully -- but rather with the amount of information and the mind-expanding concepts, which I still mull over as I wrestle at work with asset management.

I think that a lot of people who work in information technology tend to think that the problems that we have with things like web-based search and retrieval are unique to Internet search engines and catalogue databases. I know that I've been working in the field while lacking an adequate sense of the historical basis of information organization.

Svenonius breaks information organization down into ideology (purposes and principles), the formalization of the processes involved in information organization, knowledge based on research, and key problems that need to be solved. It's information that's very useful for anybody who is involved with organization of information-- even for people like me who work more on the technical than conceptual side of content management systems.

The Visual Quick Starte Guides are just about the fastest way to get started on using a software package around. As stated from the title, this is a highly illustrated book that uses tons of screen shots to get you started using a software package.

In this case the package is iPhoto and it's written by a master writer. Because of the large number of illustrations in the book, it is very fast to go through. (My only problem is when I click on something wrong, my screens don't look like his, and then have to backtrack and find my error.) The easy visual approach works well for me.

If you're a beginner to iPhoto, this book will help you get it up and doing what you want in a very short time. The next step is to do more, say up to the intermediate level, and all that takes is that you go further into the book.

The other surprising thing about this book is the way it's organized. Most tutorial books are just that. You follow the tutorial through and then go do things. These books are then useless as a reference book. This one is different. Each task, almost each page, is organized with a headline of what you're going to do on that page. Then the index has an entry that points to the right page. For instance if you're going through the book there's a chapter on Sharing Photos. There's a page on Printing Greeting Cards. Learning about sharing photos will send you through the page on Printing Greeting Cards. But if you forget that, going to the index will give you an entry on Printing Greeting Cards that will send you to that page which is complete enough to enable you to get the greeting cards without having to go through the whole chapter.

His approach works for me.

Before picking this book up, I'd all but given up on iPhoto. I found it a bit too simple and way to encumbering of my system. But this book really changed my perspective. Well, this book and the fact that I needed a better way to organize my pictures on my Mac than simply having massive folders of pictures.

The book is very accessible and although I thought I was familiar with the program, it opened a lot of new doors and taught me a lot I didn't know. It also provided resources for other programs that work well with iPhoto and how to connect iPhoto to Photoshop (or any digital image editor) so I can do more advanced editing outside of iPhoto.

I think most important for me was learning that I didn't need to have my photos all in one library - that I could use a separate program like the iPhoto Library Manager to make separate, context specific, libraries. This was amazing, as the more photos in a library, the more encumbering it can be on your system.

Without a doubt, I find this to be one of the best and simple books out there covering iPhoto. I highly recommend it!

For those, like myself, who like to hold a book, look in the index and find the topic, then learn it, this is an invaluable resource. In todays day and age where real manuals are almost non existant, it's nice to have a real resource

I've read several Photoshop Elements 3 books and scanned several others and as an introduction I found this the best of the lot. The author has the knack to cover the essentials very clearly. The high quality of the printing and the excellent layout add greatly to the clarity of the presentation. Highly recommended!

I have not used my high school drafting lessons since 1968, when I last attended Maricosta College in California. The computer was not very popular in that field, at the time, and now that it is, working with it is interesting and rewarding.
Auto Cad makes it simple, easy, and quick, to produce drawings from specifications. The T-Square and Drawing Board, are truely things of the past; and the protractor,compass and various other devices used for measureing angles, are very neatly displayed in the configuration of the program itself.
sylvspst@aol.com
01/06/2007

Just Enough AutoCAD 2007 is an excellent purchase. It does just what it's title entails, it give the user just enough information on the use of autocad to give them a fairly decent jumping off point. It is extremely easy to use and read and offers a more inexpensive way of finding out what you need to know/

Today more and more Website designers are taking advantage of creative graphics design to enhance the appearance and functionality of their sites. A number of commercial graphics programs are available to them to create real attention-getting graphics. Kai's Power Tools 3 (KPT) is a leading collection of filters and tools that can be used with many of them to create truly phenomenal graphic image results.

Nick Clarke has produced Kai's Power Tools 3: An Illustrated Guide to offer an extraordinary gallery of cool KPT special effects! This book is a comprehensive and beautifully illustrated tutorial guide to understanding how to use this filter collection. Clarke takes his readers on a grand tour of the description, operation, and use of each filter. Exceptional color photographs of every filter interface control panel and their individual controls are provided to assist Clarke as he demonstrates just how easy KPT is easy to use. His own mastery of the use of KPT is evident throughout the book.

The book is accompanied by a CD loaded with KPT presets, KPT graphics, a graphic image showcase featuring the work of KPT users from around the world, a portfolio of KPT artist work, tutorial resources, software, and links to Websites offering additional information about this amazing collection of graphics filters! The graphics on this CD provides some of the most breathtaking illustrations ever created to bring out the rich details of this product!

As I read through this book it became clear that Clarke enjoys sharing the use of KPT with others. I experienced his enthusiasm as I read every page. This book also left me with the impression that I had just completed a full course on the use of this product. This book will inspire readers to create their own cherished works of art which may one day be featured in a book! Highly recommended!

An excellent choice for unlocking the beautiful world of Kai Having purchased KPT3 and KPT5 for Windows to beef up the capabilities of CorelPhotoPaint8 (also new to me) I found myself floundering to understand the user interface and minimal help documentation. Nick Clarkes book is an absolute god-send - not only does he demonstrate the basics, he knocks you dead with the advanced capabilities and unleashes the "secret" controls within KPT3. So well is this explained that KPT5, though not specifically covered in the book is just as easy to utilise fully.

I am a self taught designer running a new CD and flyer design business and this book is as powerful a tool as the Kai program itself . How about a follow up on KPT5 and an advanced techniques book please Nick - you get my vote?

Excellent book with easy to follow step by step instructions and several hands on exercises. An ideal book for students as well teachers.

Great Book! This book provides excellent easy to follow step by step gudelines and lots of exercises to master the skills required. Perfect book for students as well as teachers.

It is a realy helpful tool.
Recomendo este libro para cualquier pincipiante en el campo de los VFX, los temas tratados son de gran ayuda para poder dominar una de las especialidades de Alias Maya, la cual es "Fluid Effects"! Buena invercion!

This book is fantastic. It's much better than the Maya 5 Unlimited features manual. The DVD alone that accompanies the book is worth it's weight in gold. The video tutorials, led by actual Alias instructors, go over every Unlimited feature other than "Live" on the DVD (this alone has to be worth over $50). This book is definitely worth the price.