Desktop Books

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.

This book gives an excellent overview of the problems and solutions to level-of-detail rendering. Few books in the computer graphics field are this well written.

A few things to note:

- Though there's plenty of material on simplification of polygonal meshes, there doesn't seem to be much on volume (tetrahedral) simplification. My impression is that volume simplification is kind of hairy, though, and might require its own textbook.

- If you wish to do your own level of detail rendering, you may end up reading the papers referred to in the book. Most of those papers are available online (try google).

- The terrain chapter is great, and even deals with real-world issues (geospatial file formats, terrain data on the web, what a geoid is, etc) in addition to an overview of different approaches to terrain simplification.

If you're doing level-of-detail stuff, it is basically your duty to buy this book. I only wish I'd bought it eariler.

This is clearly one of the most outstanding Level-of-Detail-for-3D-Graphics-algorithm-survey books currently in print. However I find Luebke, et al.'s choice of a subtitle puzzling. Clearly it should be "Level of Detail for 3D Graphics: Theory and Application", rather than "Level of Detail for 3D Graphics: Application and Theory". If Luebke, et. al. wanted to emphasize the applied nature of their work, it would've been more appropriate to title it "Level of Detail for 3D Graphics: Application, then Theory, and finally some more Application".

Frankly this oversight ruined the whole experience for me.

This book is the best book, well really the only book I have every seen for learning lingo. It also acts as a great reference tool. The appendix are unbelievably valuable.

This book is a must for those who want to know what is Lingo in Director. It covered most of the functions and has all of the examples recorded on the CD. There are some real world example on the CD too, that allowed me to sneak into the CD and find out the tricks they used. This book was written in step-by-step and straight to the point fashion, and as a computer idiot like me, I was able to learn Lingo within few days. Its a must for those who want to learn and for those who want to polish their Lingo skill.

I purchased this product expecting a lengthy book. But I was surprised to find out that it was just a photocopied manual with a standard CD. I was disappointed at first when I realized that I paid more than $75.00 for a 100 page manual. But that soon faded when I put the manual to use and found it much easier to use than any Flash book out there. Unlike most Flash books which explain all the aspects and features of the program, the manual just gets straight to work. The manual doesn't go into detail about most of the tools you're going to be using, not necessarily being a bad thing. Instead it tells you what to do with it which is a better way to learn than to just read about it and memorize it. The manual gives you the basics on how to create many flash documents and leaves the rest to your imagination. The manual comes with a CD in which most of the lessons revolve around. It comes with many flash documents which you must put into your computer so you can use many of the lessons provided in the manual. Works for both Mac and PC. The manual doesn't go into advanced detail on the lessons it provides, just the basics, but that's all you'll need to start learning flash right away.

Wow, Noble's training booklets on Amazon! But then again, I'm not that surprised. I took their DreamWeaver class at their training facility in NYC in person, and loved it. They may not want to hear this, but the best thing about this workbook, is that it's so detailed, you don't really even need to attend their classes to follow them... sorry Noble, but it's true. Don't get me wrong, the instructor was great. And it's nice knowing someone is right there to help if you ever get stuck. I just never got stuck. My highest recommendations.

I am giving this book a five star review because it has some interesting content, and the author gives the material an original spin. The chapters on Flash 3D, XML, and Swift-Generator were very helpful and dare I say, sometimes insightful. In contrast, I wasn't that excited about the chapters on PHP and MySQL, but by the end, they proved interesting. My biggest problem with the book is its overall lack of organization, and personally, many of the chapters would have been helped by more examples. Bottom line - this is not a cover-to-cover read, but if you want interesting content on some of Flash 5's more advanced features, I would pick it up.

I vacillate between 4 and 5 stars...but it's truly a great book. The technical descriptions of various tools of Flash 5 are quite good. Mr. Woods handled the more complex ActionScripts very well, in ways that I could relate to what he was attempting to do...which was show the incredible versatility of the ActionScripts and explain ways I could utilize the programming. I learned (finally, still with some difficulty) to use the Bezier pen, thanks to Mr. Woods' enthusiastic endorsement, and was able to grasp many of the aspects of Flash that had been somewhat weak for me before. I have read many books on Flash 5 and cartooning, and definitely would recommend this book for a good underpinning of the basics as well as assistance with expert Flash development. Keep up the great work, Mr. Woods.

This book is the definitive source for Pagemaker 6.5. If you are serious about desktop publishing with Pagemaker 6.5, this book will teach you everything you will ever need to know about the greatest program of it's kind. Tips and tricks, and easy to use methods. Teaches you how to publish web pages through the program, and how to optimize the documents you create. Well worth the price....which by the way is much cheaper than any retail bookstore you can physically walk into. Trust me, I know.

I think Pagemaker 6.5 Bible is one of the best books out in bookstores to learn pagemaker. Very informative and easy to understand. The interface is reader friendly and you will never be bored. This teaches you everything about Pagemaker 6.5 that you need to know and more. It explains how we should create a page in certain times and why. This book is great for beginners who have no clue about the interface of the program. People who have used pagemaker before should get classroom in a book, since it is a fast way to learn all the new things in Pagemaker 6.5.

Ashley Friedlein guide is a must-read for anybody managing a website or looking to start one up. It is a detailed exposition which explores concepts such as Change Management in a lucid and informative manner. Highly recommended.

This is the second book I've read by Mr. Friedlein that shows his extensive experience and ability to clearly impart realistic advice (his other book is "Web Project Management: Delivering Successful Commercial Web Sites", ISBN 1558606785).

What sets this book apart from others is the way he focuses on two critical aspects of web site maintenance, (1) change management, and (2) content management. Whereas there are a number of books that address content management, this is the first I've read that goes into detail about change management. Many books mix the two, and fail to emphasize the criticality of change management on site reliability and availability. These two parts of the book alone warrant reading it.

There are two additional parts of the book that provide unique insights into critical success factors of web site management and evolution, which are customer relationship management, and site measurement. Whereas the first two parts deal with behind-the-scenes maintenance, these deal with business aspects, which do need to continuously evolve if a commercial site is to provide revenue in a highly competitive environment.

The part on customer relationship management starts with a primer on CRM to assure that readers understand a much-hyped topic. It then goes into how to achieve success factors by addressing understanding your users, personalization, community building, and customer service.

Site measurement, the final part of the book, is also detailed and filled with advice. Topics include: an overview titled, "Promises and Challenges of Web Site Measurement" and chapters on evolution of E-intelligence, measurement approaches and techniques, and reporting and analysis. This part of the book wraps up with chapters on how to improve a web site and tackling a web site measurement project.

Like his first book (cited above and which I highly recommend), this one is essential reading for anyone working with commercial web sites. The author, in my opinion, is one of the most savvy experts who has unique insights in all aspects of web site project and management. This book is yet another achievement and contribution to the body of knowledge by Mr. Friedlein.

Professor Karim Manji has put together years of experience in treating children with HIV infection in Tanzania into an extremely helpful book. The text is outstanding as are multiple color photographs. This is a unique textbook in the field.

This is an excellent book by a Professor of Pediatrics with extensive experience in managing pediatric HIV in Tanzania. The clarity of language and print with colored pictures from the author's personal archives, makes this a highly readable textbook for medical and nursing students as well as academic tutors and healthworkers who are interested in the subject, already working or hoping to study or work in the Sub-saharan African situation. The titles covered are extensive, from basics to systemic manifestations and latest relevant classifications. Management issues including use of antiretroviral drugs in a tropical setting are dealt with in a very clear, practical and appropriate manner. Considering the very cheap price, its a bargain and should encourage those interested in the subject.