Conferences Books

It's just the book I am looking for

I've used this little book with great success to help plan hikes for children along the Appalachian Trail. According to the back cover, "It consistently ranks No. 1 among the publications long-distance hikers take with them." I have no doubt this is so. Its is a small book filled with easily accessed information condensed from the 11 official Trail guidebooks.

This book is essentially a long chart listing what a hiker will encounter along the Appalachian Trail with mileage listed to one-tenth mile exactness. For example, in a matter of minutes, you can determine, that the distance along the trail from Pennsylvania route 309 to Hawk Mountain Road is 11.5 miles. If you wish to plan a hike on the Trail in, say, New Jersey, you simply find the NJ border (marked as 97.8 miles from NY/CT border and 63.1 miles from the PA/NJ border) and read down until you find a section that meets your needs. The locations of springs, shelters, privies, roads and other landmarks are listed in the order you will encounter them. For the hikers who need re-supply information, restaurants, stores and post offices (with zip code to send yourself supplies) are included.

Gleaning the same information from a normal guidebook will take much longer. Also, a normal guide book may be geared to day hikes while the reader of this book will be concerned more with multi-day hikes requiring springs and spots that the Trail crosses a road. This guide will help you consider starting/ending points other than that picked by the authors of the day-hike guide books.

On a recent (October 18, 2003) hike, I noticed a group of teenaged boys and a frustrated-looking adult. They had been unable to find the Eckville shelter. Their guide had indicated it was .2 miles along the trail southbound from Hawk Mountain Road. This guide indicated it was .2 miles EAST, rather than associating a specific mileage. The terse but accurate information in the Data Book helped us to find the shelter (its along Hawk Mountain Road east bound, downhill, from the trail).

If you need detailed descriptions of the Trail, you should consider the "Exploring the Appalachian Trail" series from Stackpole books, such as the one covering Maryland, PA, NJ, and NY by Scherer and Hopey. But even with that excellent guidebook, I found I referred back to the Data Book frequently and carried a photocopied page of the Data Book with me while hiking.

Note that this book will not describe the difficulty of a specific section of the trail. For that you will need other sources of information as well. On the other hand, if you frequently hike sections of the Appalachian Trail and will purchase more than one book on the topic, you will find this to be well worth its inexpensive cost.

Appalachian Trail Guide to Central Virginia is a good general guide which consist of a 4 X 6 inches packable book and three maps in a waterproof bag. The maps are double-sided and give adequate detail of the covered areas. The book starts out with general information which I found fairly basic. Most of this info was of little value to me, but a green hiker might find it useful.The actual meat of the trail descriptions is very good, giving mile by mile directions as to what to expect and where to turn. An interesting feature of this book is the small horizon sketches which show different mountain peaks and valley with their names. I don't think I have every seen this done before, but I can't wait to see if it will actual help me locate and identify the surrounding landscape. This is a series of books so the complete collection (11 books)would weigh down a thru hiker. For the weekend ender or week long hiker, this book and maps should be worth it's weight in his pack.

What an enlightening perspective on the magnificent joys of trekking in the north woods of the great state of Georgia. I read it nightly to cleanse my soul in preparation for a pleasant night's sleep. My family and I exalt the book and its detailed maps adorn our living room walls. Our most heartfelt appreciation to the man who composed this mighty work.

This packet will be very useful on our journey on the AT. The maps are waterproof and very detailed with shelters, mileage, and altitude. The book itself contains everything we needed to know about each section of the trail and allowed us to choose which sections we deemed most inviting.

When I was about [...], I received this book as a gift from my mother. It was, I believe, my first exposure to backpacking the Appalachian Trail. I'm in my twenties now, and I've been hooked on the idea ever since.

Mary Sands, aka Mama Boots, began hiking and backpacking the Appalachian Trail in the early 1970s. Over the next sixteen years, accompanied by groups of Girl Scouts and adults, she eventually hiked the entire 2000+ miles of the AT.

_Appalachian Trail (In Bits and Pieces)_ chronicles her journeys. Sands' descriptions of the incredible scenery, the difficulties and pleasures of hiking up and down mountains (in all varieties of weather), and her trials and joys as a leader of younger hikers are detailed with wit, elegance, and compassion. The text is accompanied by illustrations drawn by her fellow hikers.

The first two parts of this 3-part book are a collection of monographs and essays on software quality management and certification and testing topics. The third part is devoted to software quality and testing tools.

Since I am more interested in processes and techniques I focused more on the first two parts, which were truly state-of-the-art with respect to subject matter and approach.

Among Part I's highlights were the essays on knowledge and quality management, and cost benefit models for quality assurance. Other essays (paradigms of software quality management and software development, and process-oriented software quality management) were well written and filled with original thinking, but this ground has been covered by so many authors that my interest waned.

Part II, Certification and Testing, had an excellent essay on testing web and e-business applications that I particularly liked. If you are in the embedded or safety-critical development and QA environment, the essay on certifying and testing these systems is definitely worthwhile.

This 288 page book is copiously illustrated with 99 figures and 14 tables. If you are looking for a book on software testing this is not it. It is best suited for advanced SQA practitioners and academics. If you are among that group it is a worthwhile read and will give you fresh ideas and keep you up-to-date in your professional reading. For the audience I cited it is a five star book and highly recommended.

As a 3 term legislator I can say that Loftus explains, in a very readable way, the art of politics. His description of a caucus, going door to door, appointing committees, is absolutely accurate. His stories of dealing with abortion, the NRA, etc, are exactly as they happen on a daily basis. This book is a must for anyone who wants to be involved with, and understand, politics.

Dear sirs , regarding chapter 3 titled " Application of numerical analysis techniques " and the equation which govern the capacitance between cylinderical electrode spaced from an infinite plate which is equal to 1/c=4.139 k[....]/L , kindly let me know the value K : is it equal to the dielectric constant OR K = 1/dielectric constant ? Your answer,clarification and confirmation is highly appreciated . Many thanks and best regards. Ashraf Ahmed

This book is complete, detailed, structured & full of good information that is easy to follow. It is the best book that I have bought on the subject of maintenance management to date, and is now one of the few constant companion books that travel with me. I would recommend Asset Maintenance Management to anyone in any field of maintenance management. At least one of the articles has a definite electrical diagnostic slant for our electrical bretheren.

My only criticisms would be that the spell checker wasn't functioning particularly efficiently at the time of editing, and I've noted that at least two of the graphics have been partially cut off at the base. Finally, this book is based entirely around fixed processing plant, and as yet have no seen no applications of the information to mobile plant.

In closing, maintenance principles, philosophies, strategies & tactics are roundly universal and this book is a "must-buy" for anyone of any maintenance persuasion seeking to continue down the road of Continuous Improvement.