Desktop Books

I found this book very helpful in learning to use all of Painter's features effectively. It was easy to read & has lots of good photos. My only wish is that it had more accurate instructions on using the CD.

My favorite section was on the Painter pallets. It shows example pictures for each "brush" & it's variants. Sample photos also showed the various options available in the gradient box. These made it far easier to know what tool to use.

Other sections of the book covered masking, image hose use, painting & composite techniques, special effects, working with type, enhancing & outputting images, animation & web application, and using Painter with other programs.

The CD contains some good movies on making blobs, creating an image hose from a floater, building and editing floaters maps and making mosaic or patterned type. It also includes tutorials on making movies & working with color.

This book is very useful, in that the ideas and follow-through presented will get you well into capable use of the software. The organization, quality and content are top-notch.
Job Well Done!

Wayne D
Arizona-where art is everywhere!

It's an incredible book! A must-have for all Painter users. The book contains step by step instructions to create amazing effects seen on fully colored pictures.

Painting With Pixels serves not only as an excellent resource for computer graphic design but, provides a practical and user friendly layout as well. The book helps the reader create stunning imagery in a variety of contemporary styles by following very simple straight forward steps. Glen Wilkins utilizes today's most cutting edge technology in the industry including, illustrator, corel draw and photoshop to name a few.
If you find yourself addicted to the manipulation of visual imagery, Painting With Pixels is a great source for new ideas and techniques as well as hours of fun!
Graphic Artist- Kensington, MD

I picked Glen's book at the public library and simply loved it. It is a great book that showcases different techniques. I also liked the fact it does not restrict itself to the high end software, but also shows examples using Dabbler (the best value for the money). It is a good book both as a first time reading and a reference book. :-)

I am a high school graphic arts teacher, and am always looking for resources to help bring the most accurate and up-to-date information to my students. This book was an incredible find!! It contains very basic yet crucial foundational information regarding the creation of digital artwork. It features a chapter on building a studio, which includes everything you need to know about your computer and peripherals. It also includes several chapters of ideas on everything from preparing scanned images to understanding computer color theory to creating interesting effects in your images to explaining all the different file formats available. This book is a gem - I would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a user-friendly resource that explains the process of creating digital images in terms that just about anyone can understand.

Ever read digital photography texts written by corporate sposored gurus who are not really photographers, but are in reality salesmen trying to sell you some kind of software, tutorial package, or traveling seminar? Well this isn't one of those kind of books.

What The Photographers Guide does do is layout a logical and human path for moving from traditional photographic practice into the realm we now inhabit digitally. He carefully points out the innate similarities but also the value of new innovations. Bill Kennedy is smart enough and honest enough not to attempt to sell you products and software, but rather to actually assist photographers in adapting what they already know to the rapid changes that we all face with digital capture,scanning, image correction, file archiving, and output decisions. He also guides the student in establishing good work habbits at the very beginning, when it counts the most.

To me it is an excellent text for any student starting out with learning about what photography is now, how to control it, and to help anticipate how it may develop in the near future. The fact that Kennedy is a college photo instructor himself, gives a clear clue to why he wrote it. It is a perfect textbook for any photo progam - wish there was something like this when I started making that transition...


John Dean

This book offers easy to understand instructions on creating and using a digital darkroom. It provides the information photographers need to work successfully and efficiently in a digital darkroom.

It is especially relevant to traditional "wet" darkroom photographers in that it provides methods for creating work prints and then finished prints. Kennedy calls these workflows. He describes a fast and easy method for creating a work print as the "hard proof" workflow. This technique is designed to replicate the wet darkroom photographers work print and is an idea not really described by anyone else. He also describes workflows for making final prints, black and white prints and soft proofs. He completes his book with the use of third-party products (for example ink, paper and printer software) in the digital darkroom.

Beyond these workflow techniques he does a great job of describing and decyphering the technology associated with digital devices such as digital cameras, printers and scanners.

This should be considered a complete workshop in a book.

This book is an excellent reference and a must read for photographers caught in limbo between "wet" and "digital". Whereas many books on the market are filled with tricks and techniques for using Photoshop, Mr. Kennedy takes the reader much further into the nuts and bolts of work flows, and the proper configuration of photoshop. The author demystifies the printing process for both the novice and the pro by presenting clear and concise explanations for understanding profiles for color and grey scale printing.

Lets face it, when we deal with learning about Photoshop and all the different color palettes it offers, filters, effects, etc., one can only profit from color pictures; the entire book has color photos. This makes this book an excellent buy over other Photoshop tutorial books that show their photos in black/white.
RF

I thought I knew it all till now!

I've been a Photoshop user for many many years. I would go so far as to call myself a guru of sorts. I've read plenty of tutorials and bought more than my fair share of books and manuals. So when it came time to review "Photoshop CS A to Z" I figured I would have a great tool for quick referencing menus and filters and such. Boy was I surprised to actually learn some stuff too!

When you first pick up "A to Z" you'll probably be a little let down. The cover to the book is just horrible looking. It is an ugly green with purple accents and an all around ugliness. The anti-aliasing of the cover lettering is jagged and bad, and just trying to think up something that isn't a slam on the cover art is impossible. The book looks awful. Now open it. ZING!!!!! The layout is great. There isn't a page in the entire book that isn't lit up with pictures and diagrams. You can tell from the first page that this is a great great GREAT reference guide.

The book, as implied by the title, is a reference guide to Photoshop CS. It says CS on the cover, but truly this will actually help users of Photoshop CS even down to Version 7. The book doesn't have chapters, but rather is broken into parts by "letter." So for the 1st chapter, "A", the first thing discussed is "Actions" and goes in depth explaining how actions work, what they do and tips on using them. The tips are awesome, and actually give pointers on how the pro's use actions and point you in the right direction of usage. After "Actions" is "Active Layer" then "Airbrush" and so on. This book touches on every aspect of Photoshop and even delves into resources and elements that are just slightly related to Photoshop (i.e. "Artifacts" in compression or even plugins related to Photoshop)

This guide is for every user of Photoshop. If you need to know what the "Posterization" is? Well, it is on page 126 and "it converts the images into a number of brightness levels between 2 and 255 to produce a graphic effet. 2 is too harsh, 255 too subtle. A good balance is between four and eight." Did you know that there is a "Patch tool"? I didn't and I use Photoshop every single day. In fact - this gem of a tool is buried under the "Healing Brush Tool" and I had never used it, but after I found it - wow, does it make my life a little bit easier. And to my astonishment, the "Patch tool" has been around since version 7 (kicks self in the butt).

This book is amazing. It belongs on every designers coffee table, and another copy right next to their computer. Let's face it, Photoshop isn't an easy little proggie that you can learn in a day. Photoshop is a massive program. It is over loaded to the extreme, and it keeps getting more and more loaded. People who use it everyday don't even know all of
its potential. I'm a testament to that. This book is a great resource for anyone serious about learning Photoshop. It really makes an overwhelming program like Photoshop a little
more usable.

If you liked this book, try the new version Photoshop CS2: A to Z, as well.

John Harbison
Member, D-MAG.org

If you're one of those people who learn things through visuals and pictures, and what Photoshop user isn't? It covers the new stuff in CS (PS v. 8). It's a virtual illustrated encyclopedia. Great page design. Just enough screen shots to make the OS X user happy (and some for Windoz too). Covers it all A to Z just as the cover specifies. I high recommend this.

I found the book to give a great foundation of understanding the basics of object oriented programming in VFP for those users who have traditionally used DOS based FoxPro. Without this foundation, other books on the subject were hard to follow. A must read first book on Visual Fox Pro.

It's a very good walk thru the many paths of VFP. The authors have a throughfully understanding of the mechanics of the program, and takes you from level 0 (as was mine) to the unlimeted ceiling of VFP. The spanish Ed. has an error on page 313. Other than that, the book is perfect, as the author's dog: POOKIE

Pinter's writing style is as fluffy and self-aggrandizing as in FoxTalk. I also found the information contained to be less than useful beyond a cursory level.

A handy reference to the entire digital printing process, from the generation of the digital image, to the variety of printing output options. The author provides many examples and illustrations, along with clear explanations. Sections include: Digital Documents, Printing Processes, Rendering Digital Documents, and Digital Printing Applications. An extensive glossary is included.

I work for Fuji Xerox in Tokyo and found this book invaluable for its explanations of the different printing industries as well as the detailed descriptions of how images are seen by the human eye. This book goes into the details of different terminologies of printing using diagrams and pictures. An invlauable companion to those starting out in the printing industry.

Great replacement for outdated Pocket Pal in the digital age!

The book arrived on time and was in very good condition, the cd included had no scratches. The book is very useful and right on time for for me to get an A!

Beware of buying this book used, without the cd-rom included. You need the cd-rom more than the book itself. Without the cd-rom you will be unable to complete any assignments because the tests and quizzes are in the disc.

I really like this book. It's overview of the PC really helped me, a beginner at computers, understand many terms better. I enjoyed learning with this book and especially the CD. I really liked how the CD actually showed me how to do everything and explained everything so well.

In my view this book contains very interesting and practical topic about CAD/CAM/CAE in various area.

Interesting Contex

Interesting Contex

I've been consulting for over 5 years with Access in all it's iterations except 1.0 and I must say that this is the best book on intermediate topics that I have found. There is no "fluff" like in books from other publishers (especially Queue in my opinion). This book is concise with real world examples for real world issues. When I first opened this book and read a bit I realized this book was written by consultants/developers who have gotten there hands dirty and not "feel good" academics who have never written a line of code for a company. Keep this one handy if you're the Access guru at your firm.

I've created basic database structures and applications for about five years and pledged never to go past writing macros, because I didn't want to be forced to learn VBA. I run a realty and mortgage office and just couldn't spare the time. Now that Outlook and the Office suite is becoming more familiar with my crew and now that we've joined a WAN and some B2B data sharing, the basic stuff just didn't fill the bill. I've bought quite a few books on Access recently (not to mention dozens from the past few years) and have found this one to be one of the best in its presentation and content.

It gave me some real insight on how I should be considering networking and upsizing. I answered more questions I had after spending 12 hours with the book, than I had spent searching the net or reading the other books for several months. I even read though the code and understood it, and contrary to the warnings the presentation still flowed well. I still know little VBA and am now going back to get a Wrox book on Beginnng Access 2000 VBA.

Concise, very detailed, stuffed full of info and reference. I'm a Wrox fan now.

Professional Access 2000 Programming is a combination of a training book to heighten your programming skills, and a reference work that will give you a complete overview of Access 2000 and it's related programming environment. It's written in the traditional Wrox style that is so easy to read and usable for developers.

One thing I do miss, is the usual Wrox opening statement where it is described whom the book is written for and if any previous programming skills are assumed. It's not until chapter 3 that you find out VB or VBA programming experience is assumed to make use of the chapter. Don't start on this book without any knowledge of VBA, since it is used in most of the coding examples. If you don't know VBA check out the following books: ISBN 0782123244, ISBN 1861001762 and ISBN 0735605920. An understanding of ADO would also improve on the usability of the book.

To make use of the books fullest potential, have a design plan of your database next to it and make notes or check for errors in your design when you go through the chapters. This helped me to improve on the design of my database.

Not essential, but it would have been nice if the sample code used in the book had been made available to the reader. At one place in the book the author even writes that the sample code is available from Wrox' website, but as of today it is not.

This book has given me the skills and confidence to start working on client/server solutions and integrating SQL server. It breaks down the entire complexity surrounding Access 2000 and database development to sizeable blocks and tools that I can piece together according to programming and design goals. A must have for any Access programmer on his way to become a true professional.

Microsoft Windows is by far the most popular operating system, therefore it attracts the most attention from the bad guys that want to run their programs on your machine.

Microsoft has designed its operating systems to be easy to use, easy to customize. At first this was the way to go. Now, however, the bad guys have found that these very features make it easy to attack computer systems running Microsoft code.

While making their software easy to use, Microsoft has also provided a whole range of options and perameters that can be set to allow you the full functionality you need while tightening up a lot of ways the bad guys can get into your system.

This book concentrates on using these Windows features to enhance the security of the operating system. The author has been working in this area for twenty years or so, has published a hundred and fifty or so articles in magazines on security issues. Now he has compiled these previously scattered articles into a single book. It is, as best I can tell, the most complete book on Windows security. Fortunately it is also well written which tends to keep you from going to sleep. Let's face it, computer books are probably just as effective as those sleep aids you see advertised on TV.

Professional Windows Desktop and Server Hardening is by far one of the best security books written for Windows, hands down. The authors grasp on the internal workings of both client and server operating systems come through in his writing. One of the most important aspects of the book is it's an easy read.

Roger ensures that the reader is aware of some of the simpler security techniques before diving into areas that the average IT professional may not have thought of, but hackers and malicious code writers do. In addition to the over 500 pages of valuable information Roger includes web site addresses for further research into a vulnerability, technique or story.

I will definitely be recommending this to my colleagues and hope others will purchase this book. If all IT professionals followed the advice in this book, the networks of the world (and the Internet as a whole) would be a much more secure place.

Greg Pastorelli
MCSE:Security, MCDST, C|EA, Security+, Network+, A+

This book is what it says:
Professional - goes way beyond what Joe Homebody needs, but Joe will enjoy the casual style, the unexpected humor, and the unfailingly complete wealth of security knowledge imparted by Mr. Grimes concise delivery. This is not just a theory book, though the theory is explained, it is a "doing" book, complete with instruction lists and screen shots to guide you through the steps.
Windows Desktop and Server - if you own a Windows-based computer of any kind, this book will help you secure it. It includes not only basic Windows security concepts that would help you with troubleshooting problems on Windows 9X machines at home, but also the latest and most current security techniques to be employed in securing Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows 2003 Server for the most demanding DoD, Private Sector, or Homeland Security environments. The strategies discussed will be just as useful on the new Vista operating system currently under development by Microsoft.
Hardening - Every Windows computer is installed with minimum security so that we idiots won't be accidentally locked out of our own stuff. This book guides us from vulnerability to vulnerability and explains:
- 1. What is the vulnerability?
- 2. What is the theory behind minimizing the vulnerability?
- 3. What steps must be taken to perform the preventive measure?
- 4. How can I automate this preventive measure to secure a domain or even an enterprise-wide network?
On this last point, it is noteworthy that the book guides you through the areas of the Active Directory and particularly through the use of Group Policy Objects (GPO's) that will allow an enterprise administrator the ability to replicate a strong and consistent security policy throughout the enterprise from the top down. There is no area of vulnerability that is not discussed.
Finally, Mr. Grimes's 30-page list of "Where Malware Hides" is the only complete listing of its kind ever published - AND THIS LIST ALONE IS WORTH THE COST OF THE BOOK. The way I look at it, the other 540 pages are a bonus thrown in just for free!