Software Books

For quantification of models, queuing theory is one of the oldest variants, used for simple first feelings with the processes. This book provides the theory of random arrive processes, probability and all kind of queues. The reader is introduced in single queues like m/m/1 and learns how to calculate and forecast the most important statistics as a start. Later on more complex queue systems are explained in detail all with graphs, simple formulas to calculate and enough text to understand the formulas and steps of the writer. At the moment the theory of the single queues cannot solve the problem, the writer uses some PASCAL procedures. At that moment it looks more like a black box to me, but I am sure the writer knows what he is doing!

A superb guide that manages a realistic introduction without terrible challenges to higher mathematics anxiety. My biggest complaint is one of omission -- it deals with networking at the data link level, and doesn't get into more modern networking.

This is a very good book on queuing theory and applications. I have read or looked at dozens of similar books, but find this to be one of the best. ...

There is also a UK/European edition of this book, which is, at the time of writing, in stock with McGraw-Hill Europe.

The UK edition of Practical Queueing Analysis is available, and can be ordered from McGraw-Hill in the US (609-426-5793). The only difference between the USA and UK editions is a diskette that was shrink-wrapped with the US edition. Contact Mike Tanner if you need the diskette.

This is by far the best book available on DNS. It is very informative and yet the reading style is entertaining (not fluffy though). Overall, it is a joy to read. The author is able to communicate effectively to both the expert and the novice. Look no further than here for a great DNS reference book. Way to go Ron Aitchison!

After reading several of the chapter sections at the authors website, I needed a bit more understanding about how to install and configure Bind 9 onto our Windows box. I wanted to use Bind on old hardware running NT4. I fired off an email to the author and got several pointers that fixed the problems I was having. I realized the pointers he had given me were all covered in his book. After purchasing the book, I not only found out lots of stuff about what all the parameters are but also discovered how to manage bind over the LAN in a secure way. This book is a must have for anyone that wants to use Bind 9 for the first time. It has helped me several times already.

The Domain Name System is a critical component of any large network or any computer connected to the Internet. While a home user would not need to setup a DNS server, business networks of any significant size would benefit from an internal server, DNS caching router or other components. This book takes the reader through a very good explanation of DNS and BIND, how it works, how to set it up, how to test it, and how to troubleshoot it. There are many books on DNS and BIND but most either assume a certain level of prior knowledge, provide theory without implementation information, or provide implementation information without any theory so you have no idea how to troubleshoot a problematic implementation. Author Ron Aitchison does an excellent job of discussing both theory and implementation in this book so you end up with a thorough education. He even covers the implementation of a secure DNS server. This book actually takes the reader from a level of complete novice through advanced DNS administrator and does an excellent job of it. Pro DNS and BIND is highly recommended and one of the better books on the subject available.

Ron Aitchison's Pro DNS and BIND packs a whopping 550 pages of material which is easy to read for the novice or ongoing DNS administrator, and which is very well written (I greatly enjoyed the author's style). After a short introduction in which I learnt some interesting facts about the provisioning of the root servers, the author implements a first zone describing the necessary concepts such as resource records, queries and zone transfers very clearly, followed by the different types of DNS setups (master, slave, caching, forwarding and stealth servers); these are covered in depth in chapter 7. Chapter five covers IPv6 and its relevance to BIND. Throughout the book, references to other DNS server implementations are given, but the primary focus is of course BIND 9.3.0.

Aitchison leads the reader through detailed installation of BIND on Linux, FreeBSD and even Windows (ISC has an installer for Windows in its portfolio), after which common DNS tasks are discussed (how to delegate a subdomain, how to define SPF records, etc. read it on-line here) as well as a chapter on tools.

The third part of the book is dedicated to securing DNS configurations with topics ranging from simple administrative issues (chroot jails) through securing DNS updates and zone transfers with TSIG and DNSSEC.bis which is covered very extensively in chapter 11.

Chapters 12 and 13 provide extensive commented references on BIND configuration and Zone files. There is of course plenty of on-line reference information on these two topics (including the author's very good DNS for Rocket Scientists) but I like to have reference information on hardcopy (in the event my DNS servers fail, and I can't reach the on-line documentation :-) )

In part 5 the author shortly covers programming with the BIND API and the resolver libraries, and he follows that with an interesting chapter on DNS Messages and Records, good to have if you want to sniff your way through DNS traffic.

The publisher's web site carries a sample chapter as well as the source code to the book which is also available in TAR format on the author's web site together with complementary information and pointers to further resources.

My only complaint about this otherwise excellent book is that on two or three occasions I read a paragraph that I thought I'd just read before; some duplication must have taken place (or I was tired). For the next edition, I'd like to read a chapter on interoperability between BIND and Microsoft Windows DNS servers, specifically regarding DNSSEC.

This book is an absolute must have for anybody who needs to understand DNS in the first place (irrespective of the implementation he or she plans to use), and it is a must have for a systems administrator who is either intending to deploy or has already deployed BIND 9.3. I wish I'd read this book before the first mentioned above.

while the reference from Paul Albitz/Cricket Liu is sometimes hard to read and long winded, this text from Mr. Aitchinson covers everything and yet stays very clear and simple. I could configure and start a caching only DNS server in less than 30 minutes (well, after omitting the first few introductory chapters ;-). If you want to look up sth., there is also a big reference section. There is also an errata-page at:
http://www.netwidget.net/books/apress/dns/notes.html

I also found this book *much* more useful as the first, because of the fact that it is much more up-to-date!
I can recommend this book to everyone, who
*) wants to install/configure/start/maintain a DNS server
*) wants to get informed about the Domain Name System in general

Up to now, this book is really an insiders' tip!!

"Pro JavaScript Design Pattens"is a useful read regardless of whether you have a JavaScript or server side language background. An advanced topic that appeals to such varied audiences is tough to do, but the authors succeed admirably. In fact, I can't do such a job, so read the chapter that applies...

For JavaScript developers:
The book covers how to write good clean object oriented code in JavaScript. It introduces concepts that are not present in JavaScript along with how to simulate them. The sections on when to use a given pattern are well written.

For server side language developers:
The book covers how to implement in JavaScript the design patterns we are accustomed to. Before getting to this, there are several chapters on JavaScript idioms which are very useful. There were also a couple patterns that a server side developer might not have encountered because the server side is not so memory constrained.

For everyone:
The book also covers tradeoffs of using the patterns. I appreciated where they mention the slight performance hit and how to check/profile if it is a problem for you. All patterns were described clearly and succinctly. There were some real examples as well. At times, it is a bit code heavy - one example had 1.5 pages of implementation details that had nothing to do with the topic at end. Overall, I think the book was great. If you have a significant amount of JavaScript code, the concepts in this book are critical.

This book provides one of the more thorough treatments of some of the more advanced javascript idioms/concepts - it's not aimed at the beginner - and it does have some typos (for e.g defining functions as obj.fun() { } vs obj.fun = function() {...} - and while i haven't completed reading it (it is a design patterns book after all) - I have been quite impressed with it's initial chapters (encapsulation, inheritance, singletons etc.)
And as you would expect, this book does make it easier to follow library code written using the class-based OO pattern (such as extjs).

This book is a "JavaScript for Programmers" book. It's very detailed and advanced. I wouldn't classify it as a "JavaScript for Web Weenies" or a "JavaScript for Stupid UI Tricks" book at all. If you don't know OOP concepts in another language already, this book really might be too much for you and could frustrate you. This book is good if you are a server-side programmer and you want to know how to push JavaScript about as far as it can go (at this point). If you are a web programmer/designer with a light understanding of OOP concepts and you want to "go deep", this book could be ok, but I would try to learn OOP from another language first because this book would read better with that background knowledge. Also, I am recommending that you already know OOP from another language because you can really shoot yourself in the foot with JavaScript because it's *so* flexible and the authors prove this well! I think it's probably a good idea to know when you're going off in the weeds and JavaScript really doesn't provide many boundaries where other languages have stricter controls on what you can do.

This book shows that when used by an experienced person, JavaScript is no joke. Seriously.

A bit hard to read unless you have the detailed knowledge of JavaScript and design patterns. Lack of figures to represent how things work and the idea behind all these.

Other than that, this is one of the GREATEST books about JavaScript you can find in the market, especially for those who want to know more about the JavaScript and design pattern.

Design patterns, and particularly their application in dynamic languages can be a controversial topic, and every now and again another round of blog posts bubbles up appalled at the way a new group of programmers have become infatuated with design patterns. Applied without care design patterns can quickly lead to over-engineered code that seems designed as much to draw on as many of the established patterns as possible as to solve the intended problem. But if applied with care, and with consideration of how a pattern applies in the context of your chosen language they can be a helpful way to draw on the wisdom of the coders that came before you, and make your code easier to understand to those who may inherit it.

Written by Dustin Diaz (of Google) and Ross Harmes (of Yahoo), Pro Javascript Design Patterns builds on experience of building complex, high profile javascript applications. That experience shows as each pattern is introduced with solid examples and sample code and then refined to provide looser-coupling, more flexibility and/or better performance.

Early on in the book I was concerned that some of the solutions could become too heavy and the early introduction of interfaces hinted at something akin to the early approaches to pattern usage in PHP, which often looked more like an attempt to turn PHP into Java than a way to use PHP's own features better. As the book goes on the usefulness of those interfaces, particularly for large development teams, becomes clear and most of those concerns are allayed, especially as the authors offer pros and cons for the use of each pattern and are clearly focussed on how these patterns can help produce more robust solutions.

Most of the patterns will have a fairly immediate impact for developers new to them, and even for those who have used them in other contexts it is helpful to see how they have been applied in JavaScript. Most modern JavaScript libraries rely on several of these patterns to abstract out handling of different browser quirks or adding new event types, and even if you rely heavily on one or more of the major libraries this guide may well help you understand their internals better.

I've sometimes been skeptical of books claiming to be targeted at an advanced target. Labels like "pro" are often handed out far too easily. But in this case it seems deserved. While the book does a good job of quickly introducing approaches to object-oriented programming in JavaScript, that's based on an assumption of a solid knowledge of the language and of OO development in at least one language. If you're a newcomer to JavaScript or just looking for a way to add a few fancy features to your web pages this isn't be book for you. But if you have some serious JavaScript development experience and are needing a way to tighten up your code to make it more modular and more maintainable, this book is well worth your time.

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book for review by the publisher.

I have read several books on this topic, but this book was very structured wich made it easy to follow. It gave a very clear explaination on both base- and advanced OOP programming concepts. Many things I'v not read anywhere else and many times I yelled 'AHA!' and 'WOW!'. Yes, it was great fun to work trough all the 'Fun with...' examples.
I really can recommend this book, however NOT if you are a beginner!
I also learned that I'm a Generic Type, because I drink a lot Of T. :)

This book covers what programmers need to know. The pillars of OOP are presented and clear examples are shown.

I refer to this book often because it gets to the "meat" of things rather quickly and is not for beginners.

My only criticism is that this book's examples are 90% console applications. Nobody uses this in the real world. But I understand the focus is on the code, but I still like the Deitel approach better. Use Windows applications NOT console, take the time to get the screen shots. (Just my opinion).

Don't get me wrong, I can easily translate over what he is trying to convey, but still I see great authors such as Francesco Balena showing most examples with the console window. I don't like this trend. But hey that's me.

Very good book though..

This is best VB.NET I ever had. This book explains OO concept very clearly with easy to understand examples. I am still in middle of the book. So eager to finish till end. Waiting to read more books from this writer. Thanks for Excellant Work.

This book covers just about everything: The .NET platform; VB language fundamentals; OOP; Assemblies and classes. In each chapter the author gives a simplified example and then progresses thru to a complete module. He explains each step in detail and give many of the most-likely errors.

This is not novices. The author expects some level of programming experience with VB, C, C++ being the best. It is also best for a Visual Studio 2005 environment, though it is not required. If this is you and you are looking to move to VB.NET, this book is absolutely for you.

If you are looking for a Visual Basic book that covers a lot more than books like Wei-Meng Lee's Visual Basic 2005 Jumpstart than this book should be at the top of your list. As well as the basics this book is very good at explaining advanced concepts like Interfaces, IEnumerable Types, Generics, Asynchronous Delegates, and Multithreaded Applications. The author has an excellent writing style. He stays on track, does an excellent job at expaining complex concepts, and provides a lot of hints about how the topic he is writing about now is related to the big picture. Apress should also be commended for the graphical layout of the book. It is very easy to find information on a particular topic in this book as all of the book is divided into clearly labeled short sections.

I bought this book knowing VB but was new to R/3. Within days I had a working interface to SAP. If you want to use COM objects to connect to R/3 and make remote function calls this is the book. Great examples on using late binding too if you want to put the functionality into a dll without having a control bound to a vb form. Of the many computer books I've read, this is one of the best.

Details with examples. Good for all SAP R/3 tools and application developers. Explains BAPIs, RFCs, bussiness object repository (BOR), SAP DCOM Connector component etc.

"Professional VB SAP R/3 Programming" - demonstrates how to combine existing Visual Basic tools with the new extensibility tools, so that you can develop robust enterprise applications based on SAP R/3 from a non-SAP programming environment. It also explains the fundamentals of SAP, including the new SAP tools and technologies. SAP R/3 business objects and BAPIs are implemented and a guide to the SAP Business Framework is illustrated. The SAP R/3 Automation tools are used to replicate SAP functionality from VB and the DCOM Component Connector is used to generate business object proxies, aswell as programming the core components of the DCOM Component Connector. Browsing the SAP R/3 Business Object Repository is demonstrated and working code samples of both inbound and outbound SAP R/3 operations are included...

An excellent guide for understanding BAPIs and RFCs, complemented with good explained VB programs which are useful for learnig how to develop interfaces whith SAP using VB.

I'm not a VB programmer. I obtained this book to better understand how BAPI's worked and could interface with external applications based on a project team demand to develop better masterdata loaders. The first three chapters alone are goldmines of information that are neatly tied together and explain the concepts and framework used. After reading them I understood why SAP went this route and better understood some of the potential areas where BAPI's could assist our development team. The latter chapters get into more VB oriented issues but are useful regardless of VB experience (or lack thereof). Our VB developers all own this book.

Love Perl but wish it had the ability to work with the .NET framework? Well, this is the book for you! Let me tell you, if you program with Perl, then this book will earn its purchase price again and again. I've always loved the ease of programming in Perl, especially how well it works with sockets and network programming, but these days, you've got to be able to program Graphical User Interfaces. I've never been able to master programming GUI's using Tcl/Tk, but the C# like format of programming Visual Perl made creating Windows Forms a snap. The book gives so many examples of working with the .NET classes in any practical situation. Its got a great format including a discussion of programming with the .NET framework, a strong overview of programming in Perl, and of course the definitive guidelines to programming in PerlNET. It covers creating your own classes, components, forms, database interaction, and working with ASP.NET. It also gives an overview of working with the CPAN modules which is invaluable. The authors are intelligent, well-spoken, and are clearly experts in this particular area. You have GOT to buy this book!

This book was not only extremely valuable to me in understanding how to use Perl in the .Net Environmental, but also contains the best presentation of how to build pure Perl Modules that I have read to date. These concepts really jelled for me after reading and utilizing the examples presented in the book.

With my limited experience in object oriented programming, this book presented the topics in the right order to overcome my lack of OO experience.

I did have a few instances of failing to find specific terms in the index.

This book will continue to be a valuable resource as I continue to refine my Perl skills in creating perl modules and utilizing Perl in the .Net environment.

Love Perl but wish it had the ability to work with the .NET framework? Well, this is the book for you! Let me tell you, if you program with Perl, then this book will earn its purchase price again and again. I've always loved the ease of programming in Perl, especially how well it works with sockets and network programming, but these days, you've got to be able to program Graphical User Interfaces. I've never been able to master programming GUI's using Tcl/Tk, but the C# like format of programming Visual Perl made creating Windows Forms a snap. The book gives so many examples of working with the .NET classes in any practical situation. Its got a great format including a discussion of programming with the .NET framework, a strong overview of programming in Perl, and of course the definitive guidelines to programming in PerlNET. It covers creating your own classes, components, forms, database interaction, and working with ASP.NET. It also gives an overview of working with the CPAN modules which is invaluable. The authors are intelligent, well-spoken, and are clearly experts in this particular area. You have GOT to buy this book!

Can you mix Perl and Dot.NET ??
I didn't think so till now.

I found the mix of Perl and Dot.NET quite strange - that's why I was surprise to see a book on that matter.

I felt very curious to see how can it work together.

Perl has lots of advantages that make it such an enormous success - very easy to write fast and efficient code.
Ask any unix admin / programmer.

The way Perl works with the rich options of Microsoft's new engine is good. I like the combination. It works well, the examples are quite good.

The first part of the book looks similar to every Dot.NET one can find, but the second part is the value for this book - and that's why I liked it.

Good techinal explainations and examples.
It was a good investment for me.

Hi, All!
I am the lead author of this book. Together with Michael Saltzman and Robert J. Oberg we tried to make this book as good as possible.
The book will be useful for you whether you are an experienced Perl programmer that wants to learn .NET technology or you are new to Perl.
The first part represents a tutorial of Perl itself. In the second part we dive into exciting world of programming Perl inside the .NET Environment.

I hope you will enjoy reading and our code samples will be useful and helpful for you.

Happy reading and programming!

The psychiatry 2002, is an excellent quick review of psych. In the clinics it will give you easy to read summaries of all topics in psych and treatments. An ideal book for any med student or resident.

Great reference for the psych clerkship. Written by same 3 authors at UCI who write the psycho-pharmacology book for CCS.

This was great to review quickly right before the shelf exam, and it was a big help. I read through it and then it isn't worth reading again, so it seems overpriced.

This is like the washington manual for Psychiatry. It's about a centimeter thick and small so it;s easy easy to carry around. But don;t be fooled by its size. It has all the info you need to do well in psychiatry rotation.

A good light handbook for quick reference on the run. Point-form and well laid out. Ideal for helping with differential diagnosis. I like the practicality & succintness of the information in it, as I can go to bigger texts if I want details. Bonus is that, if you own the handbook, you can download free a PC version, as well as a Palm, or EPOC (Psion Revo/Mako) versions. Mine is on a Revo and goes around with me when I'm on call.

We use the 2008 QuickBooks Solutions Guide in our software consulting practice. Our firm, Core Performance Consulting, is an Intuit Solution Provider based in Orange County, CA. Since it is such a comprehensive resource on all things related to QuickBooks, we are giving away copies to our Customers as a promotional activity. Thanks Laura for writing such an excellent book !

Peter Cullen

I found this book extremely helpful and most importantly easy to read and understand. I would recommend it for anyone who uses QuickBooks on daily bases or is just an occasional user. The book does a great job at describing common scenarios or problems that one may encounter along with clear solutions and suggestions for corrections.

This book is a great book to keep handy. I supply it with many of my QuickBook classes as a resource for the students. It's easy to follow for the new user but also in depth where it needs to be for the experienced user. The table of contents and index allow you to find what you need quickly whenever you need it.

Sarah Keiser
www.successif.biz

This book is an excellent, comprehensive guide that is well written and easy to understand. It's nn excellent read-through for anyone using QuickBooks daily, as well as a great reference for those who troubleshoot or need help from time-to-time.

The QuickBooks 2008 Solutions Guide is a MUST for all QuickBooks consultants, bookkeepers and accountants who work with QuickBooks! It is a GREAT resource that provides solutions and guidance on how to fix and correct problems in QuickBooks data files. It includes the most common problems encountered and provides the step-by-step details (along with many screen shots) on how to correct the error. This book will save you time in detecting and correcting errors in QuickBooks data files. Thank you to Laura Madeira for sharing her expertise and writing this book for us!!!

Michelle L. Long, CPA, MBA
Author of: Successful QuickBooks Consulting: The Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Growing a QuickBooks Consulting Business
Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor
Member of Intuit's Certified Trainer Network

It's probably really just 4 stars, but compared to other R books I've seen it's 5 stars. It's comprehensive and relatively easy to follow. It covers a lot of topics. The code is easy to follow. The index could be better, but it's not bad.

It is an excellent book if you want something both to bring you up to speed, and then to serve as a comprehensive reference.

A good approach to collecting R books would be to start with this book, and then if you outgrow it in certain areas, obtain topic-specific R books in such areas modeling, data manipulation, or graphics as supplements.

The "R Book" is an excellent reference companion for both learning how to apply R code and for great explanations about the statistical techniques covered. Statistical coverage is appropriate at the beginning to mid level statistical user. I highly recommend this book.

This book is both ponderous and expensive, so my decision to buy it was predicated on the dual claim that it's 'the first comprehensive reference manual for the R language' and `ideal for novice and accomplished user alike'. As an R beginner and non-statistician (with some long-ago training therein) pressed into scientific data analysis on a regular basis, I wanted a comprehensive reference that covers both the R language and theory behind modern applied statistical methods.This is no small undertaking, but Crawley succeeds reasonably well at the task.

The book contains 27 chapters. The first 5 chapters cover subjects like getting started, essentials of the R language, data input, data frames, and graphics. A lot of the information in these chapters is freely available online at CRAN, or may be queried from within R itself. Still, I find it useful to have this info as part of any desktop reference, and most books on R are similarly equipped. I found nothing lacking here.

Chapters 6-8 cover tables, mathematics, and classical tests. In the mathematics chapter, you'll be introduced to a wealth of math and probability functions, as well as the basics of matrix algebra. If your statistical training centered mainly on the basic normal, student's t, Fisher's F, poisson, and chi-square distributions, get ready for an education. The author's presentation of this material is both in-depth and well articulated.
Chapters 9-20 cover statistical modeling, regression, ANOVA, ANCOVA, GLM, count data, count data in tables, proportion data, binary response variables, GAMs, non-linear models, and mixed effects models.Chapters 21-26 address more advanced topics of tree models, time series analysis, spatial statistics, multivariate statistics, survival analysis and simulation. The author's discussion of statistical models, ANOVA, GLM, and mixed effects models (the four chapters I have dug into thus far) covers theory as well as practical application inside R. Chapters are supplemented with worked examples drawn from various R data libraries. The R code used to generate solutions is presented as well, although I found it difficult to integrate because Crawley is using the R console interactively and snippets of code are spread out over many pages. Yes, you can download a data library, type in the code presented in the book, and get the same output. The difficulty arises in making the transition from textbook example to efficient and statistically valid processing of real- world data. If you're new to object oriented programming, this book will not teach you how to program in R. Only practice and good example can do that. I still struggle with some R programming basics and this book did not help at all.

Oddly, the book ends with a final chapter 'Changing the Look of Graphics'. Seems like this should be part of chapter 5 'Graphics'; it's a mystery why this was broken out as a separate chapter and stuck at the end.

The book contains numerous typos that suggest a lack of proofreading. Also annoying is the author's predilection for cross-referencing, such that one is constantly being advised to 'refer to page ...' for more info. Furthermore, the author profanely suggests Word as a text editor (yikes!). There are excellent text editors freely available for R, but Word isn't one of them. I use TINN-R, but there are other options. Also, options for managing R output are given short shrift. I use Notepad++, a tabbed, free text editor which is similar to TINN-R, but external to R. FYI, Notepad++ will also read SAS output in its native format, so one can easily review, compare, and extract information without invoking an R or SAS session.

Be advised, this book has created some controversy within the elite, tight-knit R Core Development group. The book was reviewed in the October 2007 issue of R News, available online (thumbs down). Crawley evidently is not part of the R Core Development 'inner sanctum', so the book's rather grandiose claim as 'the first comprehensive R reference manual' has engendered some criticism from that group. Other criticism about R expressions, the author's advice regarding use of certain R functions, and use of specific R packages may be found therein. Read the review then make your own judgment. As it stands, I don't consider this book to be an authoritative reference on either statistics or the R language, but it does offer an inclusive survey of both. If you already own a good statistics text, are familiar with object oriented programming, and only need a reference explaining how to get started programming in R, you'll save money by buying An Introduction to R by Venables and Smith. Amazon's wallet- friendly price: $13.57. Or you may download a free PDF version from the CRAN website.

I'll give the book four stars. It has some flaws (a second edition would be welcome), but overall constitutes a useful addition to the R literature. As for programming, I'm eagerly awaiting Braun and Murdoch's 'A First Course in Statistical Programming in R'. There are enough books on R-based statistical analysis in the vein of Crawley and others; we need a book that teaches programming and the latter should fill the gap nicely.

This is a great book for someone new to R, who also has some background in mathematics and programming. But, it is also helpful for the complete beginner because it shows you, step-by-step, how to load data into the R environment so you can actually get started using R, even if you don't have a nearby R mentor to help you out.

The writing is clear and accessible with examples provided for nearly all of the R software tools discussed. Also useful is that the author not only tells you which tools to use, but he also often says why they are important.

It's a thick book, but if you take the time to work your way through it, you should actually be able to use R to solve real world problems without external guidance from a R veteran. Check it out!

Crawley is the best guide I've run across to help one navigate the strange but powerful R language. This book is thick, not because it's wordy or overly ambitious, but because it goes into adequate detail to cover its material.

Great instructional book. The tone of the book is not preachy but confident. It's great for beginners who are trying to switch from Quark to INDesign.

Real World InDesign CS2 is what the users manual should be. For example, It covers Tables which only appear in the online help for InDesign CS2. The users manual only makes reference to See the Help files. Like the previous Real World InDesign texts it is well written, easy to understand, and covers all of the functions of the software. From creating an initial layout to color management to Printing the final project Real World InDesign CS2 is the text to have. I would recommend Real World InDesign CS2 to both Novices and long-time users of InDesign. It is the one book you will refer to time and again for problem solving.

This book is chock full of good information for new designers needing to know more about the production side of the world. This book is a great reference and enlightened me on aspects I didn't even know I needed to know. I listen to David Blatner's "InDesign Secrets podcasts", and his humor and knowledge carry through in this book.

The cover states that all features of the application are covered, and I can't claim to have discovered a gap. Each author (Kvern and Blatner) offers a deep perspective, and when they differ with one another, they say so. Thus the user gets two keen insights rather than the monolithic pronouncements so common in software books. This empowers the reader: a goal I try to achieve in my software classes. As I try to give my students enough information and methodology to make their own workflow decisions, this book does likewise. That is why I recommend this volume in my classes.
Be warned, however, that this is not a "how-to", or book of exercises. It is a reference. It is a perfect complement to my classes, but not a workbook for use during them. This gives the book usefulness well beyond the learning curve and into daily and even advanced use.

Being an established professional in the graphics field, I am exposed to many publications. Over 85% of published 'how-to' publications are nothing more than a dressed-up copy of the user's manual. This book IS NOT ONE OF THEM!

Being technical oriented, yet creative versatile, I look at books beyond the flashy covers and the chosen layout. This title is one the finest books ever written on InDesign CS2. It challenges the reader with an abundance of information.

Not every operator uses InDesign CS2 the same way. This book addresses the needs of the readers. A Must Buy for the InDesign end user than needs more information than how to setup a document, and an expanded view of the rich features InDesign has to offer.