Software Books

The book explains how digital cameras work, what the differences are between various technologies and gives you ideas about what to look for in purchasing a digital camera. There are chapters explaining the various camera options and their proper use and comparing them to 35 mm tools. There's information on composition and lighting and other standard photographic concepts, but the author also looks into batteries and battery life, photo manipulation software (Paint Shop Pro is the program used in the descriptions), incorporating photos into Power Point and scanning photos. The book would be perfect for someone who had a little bit of experience using a scanner or digital camera and uses Paint Shop Pro. For others, there is still a good deal of solid information within.

Being new to computers, graphics programs and digital photography I have had to rely on instruction manuals which have more often than not been inadequate. When I ordered my camera I also ordered a book specific to the camera because I had read that the instruction manual and CD were inadequate or impractical. When I purchased PSP I bought an additional instruction book. All seem to assume prior camera or graphics knowledge. When I started to read Digital Photography Answers! I knew I had found what I needed. It's like having a knowledgeable and patient friend here. The book is extremely well laid out and indexed and seems to assume that the reader is intelligent but new to the genre, and includes basic information in addition to more detailed info. If you're new to digital photography and struggling with your graphics program (or even if you're not), this book is wonderful.

I've had a 35mm camera for years and got a digital camera recently. I love this book -- I've read others but this one had all the info I was looking for. It talked about compositional skills, plus how to take and edit digital pictures. The fact that I've framed a picture from my camera on the wall I pretty much owe to this book.

As a weekend shutterbug, I find the world of digital photography fairly daunting. In fact, I'm not real adept with ordinary photography, either. That's why Dave Johnson's book was such a pleasant surprise: it not only taught me everything I need to know about digital photography, but also gave me great insight into basic photographic method. I'm hard-pressed to imagine a more complete or well-written book on the subject.

The real power of Director is in Lingo, Director's programming language. I have more than 10 books covering Macromedia Director; most are designed for the beginner and intermediate level user. Warren's book is by far the best introduction to programming in Director.

I am an instructor at a small college in Colorado and find Mr. Ockrassa's text a pleasant resource for my students and myself. I have been working with Director for 5 years and have learned a great deal from his book. He has great examples of how to write effective and efficient code. This is the best example of a technical text I have ever worked with. We can only hope that he writes an intermediate and advanced text as well.

I am an instructor at a small college in Colorado and find Mr. Ockrassa's text a pleasant resource for my students and myself. I have been working with Director for 5 years and have learned a great deal from this book. This is the only text I have come across as a student or as an instructor that really teaches the fundamentals of programming in a way that can be easily followed and understood. Mr. Ockrassa did an excellent job with his examples and his explanations. I recommend this book to anybody that is new to Director and anybody who has been at it for a while. We can only hope he does an intermediate and advanced text as well.

I'm just getting into the world of Director, and this book has been my guide. It is written in an entertaining manner, (thankfully not overly cute,) and is making my learning experience an enjoyable one so far. Each lesson is laid out in an easy to read manner and features quick quizzes through out the text, designed to make sure that the important concepts are driven home. I recommend it for other readers looking to begin their Director education!

The DOM these days is available in a multitude of programming languages and environments. Not so many people have the knowledge to properly handle the topic, moving back and forward across different languages and implementations, Joe Marini is definitely one of the few. As a matter of fact this is the first book ever available on the subject, and long awaited one! Joe covers much more than just DOM programming for browsers and the books contains a few gems like coverage of Xerces, Dreamweaver's API, generic DOM algorithms and a dedicated chapter on the future of DOM. A must have for anyone doing sophisticated client-side programming for web browsers, this book will be also very useful to anyone dealing with the DOM in any other environment

I have a great deal of interest in the document object model, as it is the basis of HTML and XML documents. Anyone interested in working with HTML, XML, DHTML in an advanced way should read this book and learn from it. This isn't a book for people with a passing interest in slapping together Web pages in Front Page, but it will give you a solid knowledge of the advanced topics of DOM manipulation using JavaScript.

The book starts with some solid theory and explanation of the DOM API, but quickly moves to some practical examples, such as some useful debugging tools, and some HTML interface components (popup menus, in-place list editing) which will get you off on the right foot thinking about how you can implement your own interface elements. That's really the strongest aspect of the book -- getting you to think in new ways.

I read through this book in detail, and I must say that I learned a lot about the DOM that I had previously glossed over. The DOM spec is much more powerful and interesting than what most folks assume. This book gives you insights on building real-world applications using the DOM, as well as helping to deal with cross-browser issues. As I said, it's a great resource for both web developers and web-based application developers.

This book rightfully deserves 5 stars. Is it revolutionary in the sense of "unleashing" DOM? No. If you love reading HTML documentation you can get pretty much the same scope at the W3C site (which the author himself acknowledges). It is more of a wake-up call for web developers.

The ideas presented in the book are very elegant which makes them very valuable. The author explains subtle and obvious differences in the DOM support as implemented by different browser vendors. It has been of great help in my work since I read this book.

Part III alone ("Practical Uses of the DOM") is worth the time and money for its real-life applications of DOM!

I have three Office 2000 books. If I had to recommend a good one for learning the basics to beginners-this is the one. It covers the fundementals of Word, Excel, Power Point (slide presentations) Outlook (E-mail, appointments, calenders), the basics of Publisher (publications-newsletters, brochures), and Front Page (Web pages). Even if you are not real familiar with the Office software-this is a good place to start. The book is illustrated with clear, color pictures which are accompied by step-by step instructions. I find that it was a lot easier to read as compared to the technically-oriented books. (I am not a technical person). Along the margins of the book-there are tips, warnings and shortcuts which are very helpful. For all the non-techies like me-this is a good start.

I am new to the Office 2000 suite of products, and this Easy book helped me get an overall grasp of Office 2000. It covers more topical information in a visual format than any other book out there.

I have three Office 2000 books. If I had to recommend a good one for learning the basics to beginners-this is the one. It covers the fundementals of Word, Excel, Power Point (slide presentations) Outlook (E-mail, appointments, calenders), the basics of Publisher (publications-newsletters, brochures), and Front Page (Web pages). Even if you are not real familiar with the Office software-this is a good place to start. The book is illustrated with clear, color pictures which are accompied by step-by step instructions. I find that it was a lot easier to read as compared to the technically-oriented books. (I am not a technical person). Along the margins of the book-there are tips, warnings and shortcuts which are very helpful. For all the non-techies like me-this is a good start.

I really enjoyed this book - it took just 3 or 4 hours to read, and that included experimenting with all the features that the book introduced. This book tells everything one needs to know to write a basic web page.

It's an excellent book about software science metric.

This book have great value in the field of metric of software science.The theory reffered in this book play an important role.

It's an excellent book about software science metric.

This book have great value in the field of metric of software science.The theory reffered in this book play an important role.

Many 'engineering' matlab books don't live up their titles. They are simply written as general introductions to matlab with a few useless thoughts about engineering thrown in.

In my opinion, a good matlab engineering book focuses less on general tips that you could get anywhere, and more on practical problem solving techniques and methodologies that provide insight into a paticular engineering problem and its solution.

This books succeeds in that respect. Though it gives space to the more general issues of using matlab, it gives ample room to specific engineering problems. I found its information and examples very useful. The topics are focused on mechanical engineering fields, such as vibration and control; however, the math used for such topics are used across engineering and science disciplines. Thus, any scientist or engineer will find this book useful.

The book is written so that engineers at many levels can benefit from it. For example, as a former graduate student, I found the treatments of vibration response analysis insightful. However, an undergraduate or otherwise inexperienced user would benefit from this book as well, because there is alot of general discussion of how to effectively and efficiently use matlab and write m-files.

All in all, I found this book excellent for both its treatment of high level engineering analysis issues and its more general matlab tips and discussion.

This is one of the best books out there. I not only used it in my vibrations class back as an undergraduate (and I had vibrations with Magrab too!), I have continued to find new ways to use it in the work world today. Dr. Magrab and the others have written a very useful book that definitely relates engineering to this program.

Excellent! ... Applied Engineering using computers, it doesn't get any better than this. Examples, programs, applications .. this is where this book beats the competition. Matlab is a powerful program, and this book shows why. It has been written for beginners and experienced users alike. Introduction to matrices, then goes into functions, and 2D/3D plotting ... then the fun begins with Engineering Applications in fields such as Machine Design, Vibrations, Control Systems, Dynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer and even Statistics and Optimization! Numerous programs and examples serve as practice for the reader. I am currently using the text to write programs for calculating the vibration of thin beams in my Grad Vibrations class. I only wish I could have gotten my hands on a book such as this when I took many of my undergrad courses. By the way, this book refers to MATLAB 5.3 (Release 11). Congratulations to the authors on such a thorough guide.

This one is really for engineers, it goes over the basics first, subsequently it goes into more details. It has handy examples of mechanics, dynamics...etc. if you are a mechanical or an electrical engineer, and you are a matlab user, this book would mean a lot to you.

Though a book of the 90's I have just used this book as a text in my course on virtual architecture in our computer graphics program. It worked superbly. The text stimulated long fruitful discussions (some for three unbroken hours) and put students in the state of mind to produce 3D based sites of significant meaning. Students took to heart Anders cautionary assessments on designing cyberspace and produced work that leapt well ahead of the work they were producing prior to the discussions. Anders chooses all of the best sources for his analysis of the similarities and contrasts between actual space and cyberspace, especially his use of Jean Piaget's interactional psychology as a base.

This is an extremely thorough introduction to cyberspaces and has many beautiful illustrations. This is an intellectually sophisticated book for non-computer scientists. It begins with a rigorous intellectual picture and then continues to survey existing cyberspaces with many insights along the way, that will please even techno-nerds.

The book fills in many details in the history of building cyberspaces.

Next year in cyberspace!

The accelerating growth of personal computing over the past two decades and the unprecedented rise of the Internet in the 1990s has led to a countless number of books. Many deal with particular aspects of this revolution - linear historical accounts, analysis of emergent psycho-social phenomena, how-to manuals on the latest program or technology, etc.. Very few however, manage to capture a broad overview and comprehensive analysis of this explosion. Fewer still have documented the wide array of less common technologies and research efforts that have accompanied and in many cases, presaged, the more familiar aspects of today's cyberspace.

It's not surprising then, that a uniquely comprehensive view should come from a member of the original generalist profession - architecture. In "ENVISIONING CYBERSPACE: Designing 3D Electronic Spaces," architect and media theorist, Peter Anders has succeeded in delivering one of the best and rarest overviews of the beginnings of the Information Age.

Integrity demands that I disclose that some of my own work is featured in this book, but what I discovered to my great surprise and delight, is that it's also filled with many incredible technologies and ideas that I was unaware of. Such is the difficulty in being aware of everything that's going on in our rapidly evolving era.

Anyone interested or involved in the design and development of information technologies would do well to read this book. The future is not limited to just a simple extrapolation of what's most commonly known today. The real Information Age is a vast, barely explored region of possibility around us and ahead. We're lucky to have Peter Anders serving as both Lewis and Clark.

Something that makes Peter Anders' _Envisioning Cyberspace_ especially interesting is that it's the work of an architect and designer, for whom the issues of designing workable, user-centered cyberenvironments are comprehensible. He's gathered and comments upon a wide-ranging collection of work that he finds interesting, efforts that approach and address the big issues if not always fully realizing them. It often reminds me of the 1991 anthology _Cyberspace: First Steps_ edited by Michael Benedikt (another architect), or some of the hot early-'90s books on Virtual Reality, in that it's full of enthusiasm and enjoyment at the elegance of possible solutions. In this hard-nosed commercially-driven era that's a breath of fresh air; the real kind, not the virtual.

Forget about class factories and such...
The real issue in COM is type libraries and proxy/stubs and how these are created using IDL. Also of great importance is designing COM interfaces so that they may be utilized by VB and C++. This is a one stop reference for all that good information.
If you program COM, buy this book. It will pay for itself in minutes.

This is a great book that teaches you how to design and develop COM interfaces that work for C++ and VB clients and also explains the intricacies of the Interface Definition Language.

Even if you use COM at a higher level - ATL wizards, VB wizards and dont really write your own IDL file, you need to read this book to get an understanding of how you can do write even better COM clients and servers.

One thing i wish it also had is information about accessing these COM classes from VBScript.

This book goes into more detail about IDL than most people care about. However if you start wondering why your interface is not being properly marshalled, knowing your IDL will save you from scratching your head in biwilderment.

If you dont want any surprises from COM marshalling this is the book to get. Even in the .NET world, this book will be useful. All the COM components out there today are not just going to go away.

COM programmers have waited a long time for a definitive book on IDL, and Mr. Gudgin has written it. A superb summary of the language that is central to real-world COM programming, and a one-stop resource for developers struggling with IDL. Chock full of juicy details, with coverage of topics ranging from the structure of IDL files to method aliasing and asynchronous COM. If you're a COM programmer, this book will pay for itself many times over.

Kent Tong Ka Iok's book contains far more code than commentary, and I'm learning, really learning, some of these skills now in a way that never came through in all of the dozen or so books on agile techniques that I've read before.

Oh, I'd occasionally like a little more commentary than he delivers, and I'd sure like a good editor to work it over and clean up the prose, but the examples are first-rate, non-toy examples, and the chapter exercises are making me think in whole new ways about writing my own code. I'd love to see lots more examples and exercises in some of the chapters, especially the code smells chapter (where he only covers a few of the smells from Martin Fowler's list in Refactoring). I've also found a few errata that I haven't been able to report because of problems on Kent's site (www.agileskills.org) - but I've emailed him about that.

I don't want to pull punches here, which is why I've mentioned several negatives about the book. But those are nothing compared to the book's qualities. This is one of those great, really valuable books, like Fowler's Refactoring and Freeman & Freeman's Head First Design Patterns. You can find out how great without spending a penny: download the chapters from Kent's site (but note that they won't print, and you can't copy the text, which is why I eagerly came to Amazon and bought the hard copy, which I'm avidly annotating as I work through the examples and exercises). Get this book!

Kent is really doing a good job on writing this book that focus on OO problems and solutions by using examples without using too much boring theory words.

The idea of pointing out "code smell" in source code described in this book really helps programmers know when they should do something OO to keep code fit.

I highly recommended people should read this book first before reading any OO design pattern books. Once you understand the OO basic and concept, later you will figure out "Oh, that example in this book is using strategy pattern!, oh that code is using visitor pattern!" I am sure after you read this book, you will believe how amazing that this book can help you and me!

Kent, a programming genius in Macao, has been actively promoting XP for serveral years. This is a good book coming from the course material of the XP course in CPTTM. I was ever a newbie of XP, however, with this book, I merge my mind with a newer, more powerful, more effective devopment methodology.

Automate Testing and Test Driven is the kernel of XP. Readers are able to learn a more effective way of how to write tests, especially acceptance tests.

Not only does Kent introduce new skills of testing, but also introduce important skills of OO programming. Once and Once Only, IOC principle,etc, newbies of OO can learn essential skills from this book under Kent's simple explaination.

Kent is my teacher of OO. Without him, I was still struggling at the dark age of the Procedure Oriented programming.

If you are a newbie of OO or stranger of XP, don't doubt, read this book immediately. You will soon realize that the sky of OO and XP 's world is Free !

This is a book for software developers interested in gaining the right skills for agile development.

This book has an elegant yet highly effective minimalist style. Rather than long theoretical discussion (of the type I'm sometimes guilty of writing) the book does what it does by example - and there's plenty of example code given.

For example, in chapter 2 - turning comments into code - Kent examines some typical code (I've seen enough like it) littered with comments that are apparently intended to make life easier. Step by step he takes us through removing the comments and expanding variable and method names to show the intent of the code - along the way pointing out useful refactorings to improve the overall code structure and make clearer what's going on. It's a convincing description and easily applied.

Overall the book covers many topics and issues related to agile software development, including: keeping code fit; handling inappropriate references; seperating database, UI and domain logic; unit testing and acceptance testing amongst others.

The thing I really like about this book, and the reason I would recommend it to developers, is that even if you're not doing full on "agile" development, there's still plenty of useful material in it. The lack of hype is also refreshing - the book focuses on examples and shows good solutions. You should get it!

Great examples of real applications. His method of transference is one of ease, if you pay attention! Before finishing it, I was using several tidbits that had been doging me at work...

My boss sent me home early on a Friday with the instructions to take the wife out to dinner on him! Is this book worth it? What do you think?

I recommend this book highly.

The Excel spreadsheet software includes many capabilities most people do not think about when they use Excel for general business purposes. In this useful book, the author presents 16 complete examples from day-to-day electronics. Those examples include a voltage-to-current converter, a mean-time-between-failures (MTBF) calculator, a resistor color-code decoder using voice input, a voltage-regulator circuit calculator, and others. Instead of simply presenting and describing the examples, the author steps readers through the creation of the needed spreadsheets, formulas, graphs, formats, and other portions of the project.

The examples are not static. In the MTBF example, you will have an opportunity to create "scenarios" that let you try combinations of variables to determine what happens under "what if" conditions. The book comes with a CD-ROM that contains all the examples as well as an eBook version of the book. As you learn by doing, you'll gain experience using Excel so you can better apply it to your own engineering problems.

(Disclosure: I write for several magazines owned by Reed Elsevier, the parent company of the Newnes series of books. I do not work with the book-publishing group, however.)

This is a book you keep around because you forget all the tricks you pick up. I have a copy of the book and have used it a few times. Very handy in those situations where you need to use excel because everyone else is - its good that its for electrical engineers. Its good that it has those things that no one will teach you how to use.

This is book provide practical examples which are useful and helpful to me in my analogue design work, e.g. the variation of anlaogue reference voltages. Besides, this book also covers some digital applications. The book is easy to read and the spreadsheets are available in the enclosed CD ROM and we can use it as a reference, this saves me much time to regenerate the spreadsheet.