Software Books

I am only a third of the way through the book and it has been very informative and easy to understand. I have never been able to grasp Crystal until I started reading this book. If you want to save yourself $1000 for training, buy this book.

I've only been working with Crystal for a few weeks but am already putting together some pretty decent reports. I could not have done it without this book. After such a short amount of time my copy is somewhat dog-eared and filled with yellow post it notes for quick reference to the things I need. It is open at my desk whenever I work with Crystal.

If you are a Crystal novice this book provides an excellent foundation for Crystal Reports. If you are an intermediate/advanced user there is plenty here for you as well. I especially like the financial twist the report provides since most of my reports are payroll, general ledger and accounts payable/receivable related.

The discussion forum associated with the book is also an excellent resource. I was "stuck" on a couple issues and was helped by both the author and other users on the forum.

Bischof's book is a complete, well-researched reference that quickly arms a novice Crystal Reports user with the techniques necessary to create sound, well-formatted financial (and other) reports. The appendix on Balance Statements and Income Statemens is a fabulous jump-start for those who must get up to speed quickly! If Crystal Reports is your platform for information delivery, this book belongs in your library.

The very clearly written style, REAL WORLD EXAMPLES!!!, and great technical content make this book a must have for Crystal Reports Development.

5 Stars

This is my first crystal report book and i can say this is the best crystal report book ever i found. Every chapters has a lot of Tutorials and Tips.

Not only is this a first-rate book on data analysis, it's also an absolute treasure trove of useful SQL. This book belongs within arm's reach of every data analyst, business intelligence professional, reportsmith, and, most happliy in my case, those involved in data quality. If I were pressed to find one thing missing, it would be coverage of MS Query, which is embedded within Excel and allows one to connect it directly to a database and execute queries against it, thus obviating the need to cut and paste. To his credit, the author does mention this capability in chapter two, but deems it outside of the scope of the book and therefore goes no further. Perhaps he and/or his editor might consider covering it in an appendix of a future edition, which I fully expect there to be several of--this book is a generous 600+ pages of hard-earned knowledge, and deserves every one of its five-star ratings.

"Data Analysis Using SQL and Excel" is an valuable resource for business intelligence and data mining practitioners in all industries. Having said that, I would like to offer some solid practical advice to potential readers that might not be fluent in statistics or data mining.

First, the reader should have a solid understanding of SQL. If the extent of your SQL interaction comes through a program on the level of Access, then you can still benefit from this book, but you will have to apply yourself more than others. Keep in mind, that proprietary releases of SQL might cause problems in directly translating the author's examples.

Second, if your statistics knowledge is a little rusty, have a secondary resource on-hand. Sometimes the definitions or explanations of the statistical concepts may not be as intuitive for some readers as they are for others.

With those caveats in mind, the reader need only to keep his or her patience and work through the concepts of the first 4-5 chapters. These chapters tend toward simple exposition of the concepts. For those with little patience, it may seem as if it is just a laundry list of concepts with little effort to tie those concepts into practical uses. Thinking like this is a great way to miss the enormous benefits of the book!

For me, the "Ah Ha!" moment came in Chapter 6 and 7. The concepts I had worked on in the previous chapters suddenly came together with customer tenure onward, when the techniques use will call to mind everything learned in the previous chapters.

In short, spend plenty of time in the first few chapters - the extra effort to master those concepts will only enhance the benefits of later chapters.

Lastly, there are a few odd differences between the text and the files downloadable from the web site. Whenever I hit a snag based on the text, opening the accompanying Excel files and seeing the formulas, queries or table/graph structures resolved all issues for me.

This is a text that will always have a place on my shelves.

If you work, like me, on data warehousing, data mining, analytical CRM or similar projects, this book will save you a lot of time, and provide you with a lot of inspiration.
Statistical concepts are clearly explained, and examples with very smart SQL queries and Excel sheets are shown.
For instance, no other book will explain you so clearly Survival Analysis, and how to practically implement it (I mean, with working code!).
As a previous reviewer wrote, why should you believe me? I'm one of the authors of another Wiley book, "MDX Solutions", and I earn my living by consulting with DaisyLabs, a Business Intelligence company.
Keep Gordon's book on SQL, and my book on MDX, on your desk, and no data analysis project will scare you anymore!

Having seen a multitude of books offering either statistical analysis techniques or suggestions around data mining tools, it is refreshing to see someone approach the subject using simple, readily available tools and a practical, business oriented approach to the topic. The apparently mundane subject of customer retention coupled with buying patterns and market basket analysis is laid out in an effective and sequential manner. The SQL examples take some getting used to but, once understood, offer a series of easily implemented and highly effective methods to illustrate the concepts shown in the book. As a reference guide and an illustration that one needs to know the questions to be asked of the data before investing in the latest drag and drop business intelligence tools, this book is unparalleled. The author has not stinted on providing a wealth of examples and explanation. If this tome is a reflection of how Mr Linoff and his team approach their real world consulting activities, they must be a formidable team indeed.

For anyone who has wrestled with a means to understand their customer buying patterns and product affinity patterns in their historical sales data, this book cannot be beaten

Wow - if you need a book that: 1. describes basic data analysis and statistical concepts in an easy to understand but thorough way. 2. uses real world business examples that you run into every day. 3. gives you the recipes of how to implement them in your business with real world computer tools like SQL and Excel. 4. and is written by a proven authority in the field (4 books and two decades of consulting). Then this is your book.

But why should you believe me? Just a little on my background. I wrote two books on databases and data analysis for McGraw-Hill: "Building Data Mining Applications for CRM" and "Data Warehousing, Data Mining and OLAP" and have led teams that have built data mining engines for super computers that later became Oracle's data mining engine, as well as implementing sophisticated data mining applictions (CART) in SQL and integrated between a relational and OALP database. Though I don't get to do a lot of 'data mining' in my current business I would definitely find this book very useful if I did.

Anyway, I thought this book was tremendously thorough in providing common sense explanations on everything from the Null Hypothesis to the Monty Hall Paradox (very cool). Buy this book if you want a single reference that will allow you to quickly solve real world business problems in a rational and doable way.

Phil.

This is another great DB2 book. I really like the blend of XML developer, database designer, DBA, and architecture chapters, which helps plug any holes in readers' perspectives. I just wish I had written a book like this myself. Instead I'll stick with yours.

Terry

This book is a must have for anyone working with DB2 databases on the linux, unix, or windows platforms. Chapter 5 Developer Workbench helped me to get up and running with the workbench and implement several stored procedures I needed for a project. Chapter 9 The Optimizer, Chapter 11 Monitoring, and Chapter 12 Performance provide great detail and insight into the monitoring and tuning of the database that helped me to build processes to monitor the performance of my databases. Phil's experience and dedication to DB2 makes this book a winner.

Mr. Gunning has done it again!
Having studied under Phil Gunning and knowing the dept of his expertise this book brought to life real world experiences in a classroom like setting. As a DBA I found the Chapter#8 on "Tuning Buffer Pools" and Chapter #9 "The Optimizer" to be of great help to me personally. This book is a great reference material for any DBA faced with the challenge of daily performance. I was excited to read Mr. Gunning's explanation of the `Utilities" incorporated in DB2 V9. I would recommend this book for any DBA or DBM who needs an in-depth understanding of developing and monitoring DB2 V9.
DeWayne Stansell DBA

This is a great book for developers because covers pureXML and other features and great to for DBAs the chapter on monitoring is a must have when you are in trouble with your database

Just keep in mind that this book is focues on the LUW(Linux, Unix and Windows) version of DB2, I say this because a friend of mine bought for using with z/OS by mistake.

I bought this book because I needed to get up to speed real fast on using the new XML data type and Developer Workbench, and Chapter 2, 3, 4, and 5 contained everything I needed to get started. I also liked the Chapter on the Optimizer and Monitoring and Performance. A good reference.

While the focus of this work is somewhat narrower than the title suggests, it does an excellent job of covering the debugging of C/C++ programs with a non-exclusive emphasis of the Linux and Unix environments. It contains a wealth of practical advice, ranging from basic methodology and debug-friendly code style to detailed usage examples of a plethora of dedicated software tools.

The easy-to-read text allows beginners to get started by introducing the use of a classical source-level debugger such as GDB. It then proceeds to cover a wide variety of techniques, some of them often unfamiliar to even experienced developers (e.g., the use of LD_DEBUG). Among the most useful parts of the book is the discussion of a number of open-source and commercial debugging tools based on practical examples, including memory and performance optimization and the debugging of multi-threaded parallel programs. Both the specific use of the tool (such as command line options) as well as the interpretation of its output are well explained. These descriptions considerably lower the barrier-of-entry for using the sometimes very powerful multi-function tools (e.g. valgrind) and give the reader a good base for diving into the tool-specific documentation.

In summary, the book should be quite helpful for most C/C++ developers. I definitely will recommend it to my students who are working on such projects.

This book is unique in many respects. First, there is no other book I know of that covers the topic of program debugging even though I found myself educating countless engineers on how to properly and methodically debug programs. Up to now, this knowledge is passed down "in the field" from experienced software writers to their younger colleagues. Second, it is quite comprehensive and covers a pleasantly broad set of topics ranging from the type of bugs and their origin to memory debugging, parallel program debugging, runtime monitoring, link-time related bugs or even profiling. Third, the book can be enjoyed cover to cover with gems (astute way to use debugging tools) that will surprise every software programmers save, perhaps, the most seasoned veteran. Students will find the book equally pleasant as it remains truly accessible and should be read by every person who intends to major in software engineering. Debuggers are wonderful tools, yet extremely rich. It can take years to discover/develop debugging methods. The book will help all newcomers to zero in on the critical tools and methods. The material is made extremely relevant with a substantial amount of efforts devoted to the discussion of specific concrete tools (e.g., gdb, valgrind, gprof, quantify, dmalloc, etc..). The focus is unmistakably on UNIX related tools (albeit with a clear effort to show the equivalent tools in a Microsoft setting).

As a brief summary, the book start in chapters 1 through 3 by discussing the nature and source of bugs, which classes of bugs exist (from benign to mid and severe) and finally how to get started with the simplest form of debugging: tracing and inspecting. Chapters 4 through 6 focus on memory related issues, i.e., they focus on memory leaks, memory corruption, memory protocol violations (e.g., double delete) as well as memory performance profiling and improvements. Chapter 7 briefly touches on debugging parallel code (a truly difficult task). Chapter 8 and 9 focus on problem related to the build/link/run process and environment. The last three chapters cover more advanced topics for sophisticated instrumentation/observation techniques (e.g., conditional breakpoints, watch points, signaling, dealing with statics, dump analysis and runtime changes to the state).

Naturally, it is quite difficult to cover every single aspects and tools related to the debugging process so some tools are not covered in the book. The sole omission that is noteworthy is the DTrace tools (created at SUN and available on both Solaris and Apple Mac OS X) which offers an amazing array of instrumentation tools. This does not however diminish the value of the text that I will highly recommend to my own students. A second edition will surely address this omission.

All in all, this is an excellent text that will please many developers who will most certainly find themselves referring back to it again and again. Highly recommended.

A solid text on debugging and profiling for C/C++ programming. It identifies the available tools, both open source and proprietary, explains good debugging methodologies, and provides brief but informative examples. It covers a lot of ground so the level of detail is limited, but it is the best overall compendium of this information that I have seen.

Are you a marketing executive in the software tools industry? Then this is the book for you. If you have written your last line of C-code more than a decade ago, such as myself, you will find that the world has evolved quite a lot from "printf" debugging.

If your customer is no longer calling the hotline, but starts to elevate the issue to you, it is time for you to understand, what is going on behind the scenes in your engineering organization. What are the secret ingridients of their debugging soup to cure the problem?

The book offers a very comprehensive review of all relevant techniques. It shows the basics as well as advanced techniques and can serve as a good reference for the challenges and solutions of software tools debugging. The authors do a good job of balancing the book for readability for novices and as well offering practical examples which drill a little deeper.

I highly recommend the book for anybody managing complex software tools. Know what your engineering team is talking about - more power to you!

This book provides an excellent treatment of debugging techniques in C/C++ and is must-read for all serious software engineers. It contains practical advice and introduces a wide variety of debugging methods, ranging from the simple to the sophisticated. The book will prove valuable to the novice and the expert programmer alike. The illustrations and examples will be particularly useful to the new programmer for whom debugging is often ignored to their detriment later on. The expert will find the many specialized debugging tools and techniques interesting and useful. This is the rare book that will appeal to both audiences.

I purchased this book for my wife when I got her a digital camera for Christmas. It was well worth the money. The book explains photography as well as post processing which is a critical part of digital photography today.

I know Matt Bamberg's writing and love his blog (digitalartphotographyfordummies.com). If you're new to photography and confused by all the terms, Matt takes you through the basics (although he says the book assumes you know the principles of photography, he patiently explains the technical stuff). If you're a seasoned pro, skip the refresher course and just enjoy the fabulous photos--which, by the way, everyone will appreciate.

I'm the outgoing vice president of NLAPW Palm Springs--we were honored to be among Matt's first speaking engagements--and have seen our members create beautiful digital art photography. Thanks to Matt's book, I now know how it was done! Artists seeking to sell and exhibit their work will find great career guidance. For other shutterbugs, the book will eliminate some of those photos that you cringe at later (I know I have a few!)

The image manipulation tips in Photoshop are extremely valuable. This is a terrific book, even if you've only toyed with the idea of doing digital photography. Matt's vivid, lively prose makes this a pleasurable read.

This is a great book for anyone using digital photography -- whether
you are just starting out or have some experience. There is something
for everyone! I found it to be a great source of information when it comes
to Photoshop. Of all my Photoshop books, I find I reach for this one the
most. It is permanently planted by my computer for quick reference when
I need it. It has GREAT editing tips and is easy to read and comprehend.

Matt Bamberg's book Digital Art Photography for Dummies is an excellent resource for both the beginner and the advanced student of Digital Photography. I have read the book and of especial interest to me were the numerous overt and subtle suggestions about technique and execution. Suggestions which I have used to great effect to dramatically improve my own compositions and to better concentrate and focus my shots.

In addition I really benefited from the suggestions regarding how to process and enhance your work, post shooting. One of the more important foci of the book regards how to transform your work from more simple photographic imagery into more complex renditions which can be considered artistic. Matt explains these techniques for image modification easily and logically and it was not difficult with the right equipment and software for me to begin experimenting with altering my works to produce far more spectacular work. Work which others have expressed interest in. I have even become my church photographer and have recently had other people ask me to undertake photographic assignments on their behalf. In addition I have started the process of taking previous shots and altering them for inclusion into my written works, as graphic enhancements to my writings.

However the book also contains a myriad of techniques which are useful and helpful for the amateur and for the individual who uses photography as a part of their other work. I am often involved in investigations and through some experimentation and adaptation I have used techniques suggested and explained by Matt in order to clarify, focus, and render my investigative photographs far sharper, clearer, and more relevant for my clients. So the book has indirectly benefited me professionally as well.

I have enjoyed Matt's book, have visited his blog and site, and found him to be an accessible and helpful author. Additionally he obviously knows his subject matter and is therefore professionally well-qualified. He seems very experienced and yet eagerly experimental, two traits I like in any individual who is trying to teach me something new.

I have Matt's book and consider it a valuable addition to my personal library on the subjects of both art and photography.

I recommend the book.

Jack.

If you are a digital photographer that is starting out or trying to get into the "art" side, then this book is for you. This book is well written, easy to understand, and full of excellent images and great walk throughs. I can tell that Matt is very comfortable with this topic and is an expert in his field. It touches on many easy ways for new shutterbugs to expand their knowledge without taking the fun out of photography. His Adobe Photoshop knowledge is also very useful when post processing scans of film, slides, or negatives as well as existing digital images.
Matt, thanks for your time and energy in writing this book. I will recommend it to both family and friends.

I was kind of surprised when I found a used copy of this book. Maybe the material was over the head of the person who bought it.

In any case, as photography instructor and a professional photographer, I found this a very useful reference. Just how good is this? Well, you'll have "to pry it loose from my fingers....good."

Mr.Ames is very knowledgeable yet doesn't come across as know it all. I found many very usable ideas for demonstrating concepts to my students.

His willingness to include the starting files as a download is a testament to his sharing nature. Far too many photographers are so insecure to do this. Thanks Mr. Ames.

It's a shame it takes so long to write a good book these days and by the time it hits the shelves, Adobe which is in the business of selling software has released Lightroom 2.0 and Photoshop CS4.

Regardless I highly recommend this book to anyone serious to digital photography.

http://peterphun.com/blog

This is another book I have in my arsenal to support my photography and Photoshop interests. It is not meant to be a comprehensive reference of each tools' (Photoshop, Lightroom, and Bridge) functionality, so don't expect this. There are already a large number of other books that cover these topics. Rather if you need suggestions on digital workflow and a more indepth understanding of underlying concepts, you'll find this book very useful, and more so, if you are using all three tools (Photoshop, Lightroom, and Bridge) that the author employs.

The first chapter of this book starts out slow, as it discusses the author's photographic adventure in Africa. Just skip over it and keep reading if this chapter is not of interest to you. The author then delves into details about the process he uses, including step-by-step instructions. He covers indepth information on practical topics like tethering, lighting, metadata, digital negative naming, backups, archiving, etc. These were perhaps the most interesting topics to me, and topics that I have seen little, if any, coverage from in other books.

He continues on with the standard Lightroom topics, such as color correction, exposure, web output, printing contact sheets, etc. Again, the author provides detailed explanations, step-by-step instructions, and he lends his expert advice throughout. Finally, he covers some limited Photoshop techniques, such as layer masking, black and white, beauty techniques, interior lighting, etc., but very little mention of printing using Photoshop CS3. I would use this book only as a secondary reference to any Lightroom or Photoshop CS3 book.

The last page of his book covers the tool versions, which are as follows:

* Photoshop v7 to CS3
* Bridge and Bridge CS3 (including Camera Raw v1 to v4)
* Lightroom v1 to v1.1

Summary:

I found the author's writing style easy and enjoyable to read. The graphics and layout of the book suit the content well. The book is very strong in the digital photo workflow process - these are the best chapters of the book.

On the negative side, Chapter 1 (Out of Africa) was rather distracting to me. I would have preferred to see more of an introduction to the workflow outlined in the rest of the book. Chapter 5 (Musing on Clouds) also was distracting and I'm not sure what the purpose of the chapter is (maybe it's because I'm not into cloud formations).

Finally, the Photoshop CS3 section seems to have chapters focusing on a random set of enhancements, and depending on your own interests, you may or may not find these chapters to be interesting. I understand that the book is a compilation of articles placed into one book, which would explain the disjointed flow of the book.

My Thoughts:

Ease of Use: Easy to read

Audience: All levels of digital photographers. Some experience with Photoshop, Lightroom and Bridge is preferred.

Cost: Reasonable

This book is unique. First of all, Kevin Ames is a REAL photographer. He does it all and does it extremely well. But it is clear from the diversity of topics in this book and the care he uses to explain every step in detail, that Kevin has respect for technology and how it can be applied to make your photography better and your experience doing photography more enjoyable.

The first thing that stands out about this book is that it has STYLE. Style would seem out of place in a book that is a collection of somewhat unrelated subjects (since it was derived from over five years of monthly columns in Photoshop User magazine), but each chapter has depth and realism. Kevin lets us in on his real world experiences. He is not holding back. He makes a complete story out of each chapter and the photos are from his real experiences. It is something anyone can relate to. The photos mean something. They are real. In most books on photography, and especially Photoshop, the photos used in examples are just that -- they are taken out of context -- like stock. Kevin's models have names because they are real people.

But wait, there's more. Kevin is genuinely concerned that the digital revolution puts photography as an art form and documentary medium at risk. He spends significant space in the book on managing and archiving digital negatives. He has an entire chapter devoted to metadata and one that discusses in detail the naming of digital negatives. The chapter on his bulletproof archive workflow alone is worth the price of the book. He has clearly given the topic of how to manage and preserve digital negatives a lot of thought and presents methods that are scalable, extensible, and evolutionary to accommodate changes in storage media, operating systems, and technology in general. His suggestion of using a number for each shoot or project is simple but brilliant. He further suggests going back through your old shoots and organizing them into project numbers. The beauty of it is they don't have to be in chronological order -- the metadata will take care of finding the photo you are looking for. Just do it. He points out that if one converts one shoot a day or every few days, your entire digital collection can be archived in bulletproof form in less than a year. Kevin suggests it is easy to keep track of the content in each project number with a spread sheet or a blank check book ledger -- something you can keep in your camera bag. Furthermore, he goes into more depth than I have seen anywhere on the compatibility of Lightroom and Bridge and the reciprocity that exists between them and Photoshop CS3.

Kevin has two in depth chapters on adjusting raw files: one on Adobe Camera Raw 4 and one on Lightroom's Develop module as well as making color correction and exposure adjustments. Again, the aspect of the instruction in these chapters that makes this book unique is Kevin's style of writing. It is casual, comfortable easy reading, as if a conversation. But more importantly, it is accurate and detailed, almost anticipating every possible question. There are three great chapters on presenting your photos: on the internet, as email presentations, and details on making custom contact prints. The chapter on email presentations is a good example of a little known feature that can benefit everyone. Once again Kevin makes it real when he starts the chapter with: "I don't know about you. I get truly tired of scrolling through email looking at attached JPEGs." Ever had that experience? I have.

This book is chock full of great advice, wonderful experiences, and real world productivity that every aspiring and professional photographer can use. The thing that makes it stand out and above is style: Kevin Ames' style.

Highly recommended.

As a photographer and Photoshop educator I am always on the lookout for books that will not only help me take advantage of the most current digital tools but also pass on the most up to date information to my students. With the advent of an all new Photoshop last year and the addition of Lightroom, I have found many students and fellow photographers confused about how to integrate both programs into their everyday working environment. Kevin Ames has worked as a professional photographer for many years and was an early adopter of digital tools when many were sticking with the comforts of the analog world. His depth of experience is complemented by his excellent teaching and writing skills to bring forth a book that will help professional photographers take the best advantage of what Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom can offer.
"The Digital Photographer's Notebook" contains clear explanations of the many concepts of digital tools, from how digital cameras see and record light, why raw files are the only way to record images, how to organize and keyword your images and how to protect and backup your data so you never have to lose a single image. As one who has experienced the loss of data on one occasion, Kevin's thorough strategy of image backup may be worth the price of this book alone.
As the saying goes "but wait, there's more". Kevin shares his broad experience in capturing digital images both on location and in the studio and how to utilize Adobe Bridge to download your images from CF cards or work tethered directly to your computer. Strategies of color management are covered in detail, as are retouching tools that can be applied to entire folders of images. The Lightroom interface is covered in detail, from metadata, to the develop module, to printing and web galleries.
Once images are organized and processed Kevin takes you into Photoshop with some special tools and techniques to take your images to another level.
This book had its genesis in Kevin's columns from Photoshop User magazine. This expansion has a cohesiveness that belies these origins; the scope of this compilation is very much a book.
While the book indicates it is intended for the professional photographer, I would recommend it to anyone who is serious about his or her digital photography. Professional shooter, serious amateur, fine artist or photography student can all benefit from these sound organization strategies, clear explanations of tools and techniques, all wrapped up in a clear writing style with anecdotal observations that make reading a book on software actually a pleasure.

I found Part 2, which discusses the system and workflow for archiving files, worth the price of the book alone. I have been searching for some time for a better archival system than the chronological one I use. Kevin's detailed description of his system is the best article I have found on archiving files. The importance of what he calls "bulletproof archival workflow" hit home recently when I lost many files from two separate hard disks failures within a two-week period. I was going to use the new system to archive a large project involving old negatives and slides, but will now use his system first to eliminate the holes in my current archives.

I have followed Kevin's column for several years and frequently revisit articles for color management techniques he has shared. In this book I found a couple of techniques and actions that I have already used in my work.

Kevin has done a nice job with this book and has provided tools that should be useful to you.

The book is well layed-out, and descriptions are clear and concise. The first 95 pages or so are relatively basic. I have used a crusty version of Homesite to create a few basic Websites in-the-past, so those first 95 pages didn't teach me anything that I didn't already know. Except perhaps for the design and paper and pencil preparation.

After page 95 (or so), you jump right into Dreamweaver and are instructed as to its' functions. The Webpage you're building is a basic HTML page, and does not use any server-side technology like ASP, or PHP, or CGI/Perl.

It too is well layed-out, and step-by-step. I only wished that a deeper discussion of CSS integration was employed.

So, for the beginner, or for someone who likes to paper & pencil prep, I'd have to say that this is a worthwhile buy.

For the more advanced user, I'd have to say that you may be better off with more of a reference-style tome.

All said, I do not regret the purchase.

If you are looking for website building software, you might want to take a look at Dreamweaver 8: Design and Construction. This book educates the reader on the various aspects of Dreamweaver 8. It also shows the reader, step by step, how to build a website using this software. The author also includes all sort so tips, illustrations of what the reader will see as he or she builds their site, and helpful tech talk boxes that explain some of the more technical issues in an easy to understand way. Everything in this manual is suitable for those with little or no knowledge of website design or website design software.

I believe that the best way to choose website software is to understand what that particular program can do and how this may or may not suit your needs and your abilities. It doesn't help to buy software that can do seemingly magical things if you don't have a clue how to actually make it work. This book helps the reader understand the basics of the Dreamweaver 8 program with a taste of some of the more complex things that can be done.

This book takes you from web-site zero through building a basic client-side only web site using Dreamweaver 8.

My only critique is that it seemed like we didn't even get to actually using Dreamweaver 8 until about page 100. Before that was an intro to general web-site concepts and HTML.

Anyway, it's an attractive and informative book that is priced lower than most.

This book is well written and laid out well (for the most part), but the lack of color really, really hurts this Dreamweaver 8 guide. Perhaps I am being a bit of a stickler, but a book in 2006 not only needs to have good content, but it need to also have a great layout as well. Deciding to go with 5 major colors (white, black, grey, blue, dark blue) not only makes the book seem dull and drab, it detracts from the reader the good content within.

For anyone that uses Dreamweaver 8 on a daily basis this is a great reference guide but the layout editor could have done a much better job. If you care about content more than pizzaz, I think you will be happy with this book

**** RECOMMENDED

Are you new to Dreamweaver 8? If you are, then this book is for you! Author Marc Campbell, has done an outstanding job of writing a book for people who are new to creating their own web sites from the ground up and all that it entails.

Campbell, begins by showing you how to devise your plan. Then, the author shows you how to develop a blueprint for your site. Next, he shows you how to add just about anything to the pages of your site. Finally, the author shows you how to take the working prototype that exists on your computer and publish it to the Web for all of the world to see.

This most excellent book serves an introduction to creating web sites using Macromedia Dreamweaver 8. More importantly, the focus throughout this book is that sound design and usability are inextricably linked.

This is an excellent book. It helps the beginners of "Dynamical Systems" to understand this branch of Mathematical Physics using Maple. It is very useful for undergraduate students as well as for teachers.

A great book. Great web pages and short, easy to copy and edit
Maple programs. Lots of material not covered in other books on this topic. Maple is my favorite package. The others are not
as user friendly. I felt I must write again since amazon have been showing excerpts from book. What a geat idea. Chapters in this book that interested me were fractals, multifractals and
optics. Authors web-site is given on back cover of book. Enjoy!

Thought I'd give a more in depth review than the others here.

Most advanced math textbooks contain one or two chapters that turn me off. I must say that every chapter in this book had useful information or very good applications.

The opening chapter is a brief introduction to Maple V (some Maple 8 commands are posted on the books website). Note that Maple 9 is now out and no doubt Maple X will soon follow.

Chapters 1-7 cover planar systems in some detail, vectorfield in DEplot is a real winner here. Chapters 8 and 9 cover 3D and nonautonomous systems - the poincare command in Maple is a real time saver.

Chapters 10-12 cover a lot of research results on limit cycles - the most lucid I have seen in any textbook.

The remaining half of the book concentrates on both real and complex discrete systems. There are the usual cobweb diagrams, bifurcation diagrams and Mandelbrot set. Where this book comes into its own, however, is in Chapters 16-20.

Lasers and nonlinear optics are investigated using complex iterative maps. Fractals and even multifractals are discussed in some detail. The book ends with a chapter dedicated to chaos control.

Overall, the book is concise with pertinent examples and applications. It is not dogged down with math notation, theorems and proofs.

Strogatz, Perko and Allgood are good books to practice more Maple programing techniques.

This book is a very nice introduction to the theory of dynamical
systems. It covers all aspects and even more than usually thaught
in a class on dynamical systems. Especially, I like to see
many examples for various applications. These examples and the
Maple programs make it well suitable for students to learn
on dynamical systems by themself.

This is only book I find with program files that work right away. Graphics in Maple is excelent for chaotic system and algebra very powerful. I like to rotate figures in 3D and use animation. I learn more about optics, it nice to see complex numbers used in applications. Lots of other applications also.

Book is best for students who want to get programs working quickly. There is a website with working programs. You should also look at Maple Application website for many many examples.

I recomend book to everyone.

Kantar is exceptionally readable, with a sense of humor which makes a difficult subject enjoyable. He goes through much material, but quite thoroughly and clearly. It's a book that needs to be studied - not merely read - but a good student will gain enormously from Kantar's work.

I found this to be the best book to improve bridge for an intermediate player. I've read it four times and learned from each chapter each time. Since one plays defense on half the hands, it provides the best time investment to improve one's bridge play. It is also an entertianing read. I have recommended it to the bridge players I mentor.

The book focuses on leads, signals (Attitude, Count, Suit Preference), and how to card (what card to play in 2nd or 3rd spot), rather than general defensive principles.

The content is excellent, well presented (humorous!!), and best of all, has lots of quizzes. None of this skimming a section and figuring you know it, the quiz will let you find out for certain.

2 warnings:

1) make sure your partner is using the same techniques, otherwise you may get worse results. Its not that the ideas in the book are radical, they are mainstream. But if pard doesn't understand your signal, they may do something weird and you will be worse off.

2) The book is a bit technical (5 situations where this is a suit preference signal. If Dummy wins with a Q then signal count, otherwise ... If you can see the X in dummy then pard will know to do this, else that, etc.
You will need to reread it several times, and probably make notes.

VALUABLE STUFF, but ONLY as part of a partnership that understands each other.

Kantar today is more noted as a bridge instructor than a bridge player. But one must remember that he is both and his latest book demonstrated both the instructional and practical sides. It is (as usual) clear, concise and ro the point. I like Kantar's prose, his ease of explanation and the way he sets just the right tone. Of course, he discusses the bid, the opponent and, most important, keeping track of the play while counting the cards (the one thing that separates the professional from the amateur). Good book with tons of examples.

This is a great book on defense, because Kantar covers almost every intermediate situation comprehensively and give you black and white rules for every situation. He doesn't in this book consider varied leading/signalling conventions but just gives one way to play, but that's fine as he explains his method clearly and shows why he recommends everything he does. I'd recommend it to every player.

Excellent book on JMS,
topics in book like easy going ,
dont think just buy and read its worth

This is a very decent book for JMS. It works out well to learn the basics. It goes into good depth on the basics. After the basics your pretty much on your own for getting too advanced.

This book makes the process of learning JMS easy for all skill levels. Dr. Yusuf provides real-world examples in a language that is down to earth. He has assembled its content into sections for someone just learning JMS while providing code samples for the seasoned developer. I found the "how to" diagrams extremely helpful when configuring Enterprise JMS in WebSphere. This is a must have for anyone interested in JMS and how it's applied in an IBM WebSphere environment. This is an excellent book!

I found this book extremely useful. It is practical, well-written and provides the necessary ancillary information required to understand the topics. The author builds up nicely from messaging, to JMS basics, advanced JMS topics, IBM JMS offerings, hands-on scenarios(which bring it all together, especially for people who learn by doing), and deployment. In addition, throughout the book, the author provides implementation considerations, recommendations and best practices, which will be of great value to designers and developers alike.

I've been working with WebSphere for over 5 years (since the beginning) and this was still worth reading. Great book full of examples, step-by-step "labs". This is focused on WebSphere and MQ, but will be very helpful to those who wants to use MQ with any other J2EE server. If you are not MQ and not WebSphere user - this still will be helpful since it has great deal of JMS basics, but you will have to use your vendor's tutorials and examples instead of those in the book. Concepts are still the same.