Software Books

A good book for high level description of the structure of Sybase System 11. When concerning details, there are many places the explanations are confusing. Pretty often two or more contradiction view of points appear in the same page. Considering the lack of good Sybase books, I would like to give this one a favorable recommendation, but don't expect too much.

This books gives an insight into sybase internals and how to get the best out of your server. The material on locking included in this book is one of the best I have seen so far.

I've got more than 30% improvement in my Server , After reading & use the concept which is describe in this book

Of all the Sybase books that I own (10+) this is the one I look at the most. It is theoretical and practical. Only bad thing I can say about the book is the printing and binding. It is almost 4" thick and wouldn't stay open flat on a bet. The paper is unusually thick and the diagrams look like something from the pre-TeX days that your kid put together with a screen print and Paint. Content is superb. It covers topics in depth that are not covered at all in equally priced books. Only two others come close: the Unleashed book (day to day how to) and the Sugiyama & Roy book (heavy on the theory, light on the real world)

I wish I had this book 2 years earlier while I was writing my Master's Dissertation; It gives not only the theory of the techniques behind data mining, word analysis/ search,tag clouds,clustering and recommendation engines, but gives good examples based on the best open source frameworks.

The author also added sections on JBoss Rules / Drools CEP (Complex Event Processing) in repsonse to reviewer feedback.

Disclaimer: I was given a review copy by the publisher, but without any preconditions (i.e. I am free to criticise)

I was recently asked by the publisher to review Collective Intelligence in Action. The author is Satnam Alag, a Bay area engineer with a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Alag is VP of NextBio, a specialized search engine.

The first chapter is free and so is the source code used in the book.

The book is for Java developers who want to implement "Collective Intelligence" applications in Java. It tells us about extracting and applying data from blogs, wikis and social network applications. I am not one to praise, but this book succeeds brilliantly. If you are a Java engineer and work with Web technologies, you must get this book. It covers topics such as computing similarity measures using vector models, Naive Bayes Classifiers, inverse document frequency (idf), Machine Learning (using the Weka API), building a crawler with regular expressions, collaborative filtering (with links to open source tools), and so on.

Even if you do not work with Java, if you care for high-end Web applications, this book is for you. It reminds me of Lyon's Java¿ Digital Signal Processing book. It offers the gist of what academia knows, but focuses on what people (engineers and researchers) do in practise.

The book is not meant for academia however. There are references, but no theorem.

Disclaimer. I did not get paid to review this book, and I do not stand to gain anything if you buy the book. I have no relationship with the publisher or the author.

Further reading. A competing book is Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications by Toby Segaran. It uses Python instead of Java.

I was not surprised to see "Hello, Sopan. We have recommendations for you" line at the top
when I logged into the Amazon.com site. Yes, this kind of functionality is very easy to
implement into your application after reading Satnam's Collective Intelligence in Action

Have you ever wonder how Netflix is able to recommend movies, what are the latest trends
in the making search more intelligent or how you can intelligently gather new content and
present it to your application?

In this book, Santnam does an excellent job providing the answers to all these questions
The book covers the wide breadth of the topics with amazing focus and detail-architecture
for adding intelligence, tagging and tag clouds, content aggregation through focused web
crawling and from the blogospare, leveraging machine learning techniques such as clustering
and predictive modeling, intelligent search and building recommendation engine.

I particularly liked the approach to explain the mathematical concepts with simple examples,
followed by implementing it in simple Java and then leveraging open-source software.

This book can be very useful if you are interested in integrating different Open Source Softwares
to deliver Enterprise Class Application.

I also liked the authors style of providing summary at the end of each chapter.
He also provides huge set of very useful resources for reading further on the topics
covered into the chapters.



You must pickup this book if you are

[1]. serious (developer/manager/architect type of Eng) on adding search or
intelligent/smartness into your Application
[2]. person involved in developing (programmer, tester, manager) Social
Networking Application.
[3]. involved in managing "Knowledge Management Infrastructure" of any size organization

This Book will provide you a great foundation for developing Enterprise Class
Features.


I highly recommend it.

This is a great book! It is a hands-on guidebook for implementing collective intelligence concepts. It is the first Java-based book to emphasize the underlying algorithms and technical implementation of scalable data mining techniques, such as, trend analyzing, relationship discovering, and predictive modeling. It provides a pragmatic approach to personalization by combining content-based analysis with collaborative approaches.

The concepts and code examples in the book have been practically used in a life science search engine named NextBio, which proves to be a great success. I strongly recommend this book.

Bert Monroy is the Babe Ruth of Photoshop. He co-wrote the first book on Photoshop, and has created brushes included in photoshop. In my opinion there is nobody better then Mr. Monroy for creating art in Photoshop, his photo-realistic paintings will leave you speechless.

Enough about the man himself,(I can rant and rave about Bert all day). Lets get to the book.

This book is not for an absolute beginner, it's more geared toward the intermediate/advanced user.

The book showcases different paintings of Bert's and then goes into some detail of how he created certain parts of it, with short tutorials of the techniques used. He does not hold your hand and walk you through each and every step, but gives you enough info to hopefully figure it out, with some prior knowledge of the tools.

Throughout the book he uses both Photoshop & Illustrator. You will need both programs to effectively reproduce every project.

I absolutely love this book. Just to see Bert's work is very inspiring.

Since this book is OOP, a used copy is very expensive. I got mine at the library, but there's a digital PDF version available from the publishers site.

If you like Bert's work, this is a great book on revealing his techniques. A must read book.

Happy reading!

Book Name: Commercial Photoshop with Bert Monroy
Author: Bert Monroy
Publisher: New Riders
Reviewer: Bruce Frank
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Wow! If you've never seen or read any of Bert Monroy's stuff you're missing out on the real power of Photoshop. Bert is a master at Photoshop and a true digital artist. Though his book is titled "Commercial Photoshop" this book is much more than that. Bert also shows you how he incorporates Illustrator and three-D programs to create his final works of art.

You'll pick up some really cool Photoshop tricks while thumbing through the book but more than that you learn valuable techniques for real work. There are several chapters on how to make composites. This can and has saved clients and me hundreds of dollars. Every time you use an image you've purchased in the past that's money in the bank and Bert shows you how.

He also teaches techniques in tweaking images after a photo shoot. Though we try to make each shot perfect, that's nearly impossible. He gives several practical situations that can and will happen after you get your images back from the photographer. A few of these examples are items in the background blending or overpowering the proposed "hero" in the shot. Another example is cloning an image to make it closer to the other images in the shot. You'll also learn how to tweak entire images color or focus on adjusting color in one area or the image.

I loved the chapters on merging Illustrator and Photoshop. Again it's a real job that Bert had for a real client and you not only learn from the steps he uses in Photoshop, you learn from Bert's experience with the client. One thing I use on a weekly basis is using alpha channels to create complex masks.

I own two Bert Monroy books and I'm constantly going back to both of them for reference. They are well worth the money you spend on them. I only regret I don't have a 6th star to give the book. "Commercial Photoshop" is definitely 5 out of 5 stars.

Bert Monroy is, undoubtedly, one of the most amazing Photoshop artists IÕve ever seen. He can produce images that look like photos, even though no photo was used.

All of the examples in the book are from actual projects. This is a BIG book. The pages are about 10 X 10 and full of color photos of each step in the various projects he shows. The large size is more suitable for sowing the step-by-step examples, but I found it slightly unwieldy.

He is very complete in his explanations, so that even someone with only modest Photoshop skills should be able to follow along easily.

He shows several photo quality images he created from scratch for a magazine. He says he creates realities in Photoshop. I was in awe of the shiny chrome-plated shower handle in a bathroom scene, the reflection in a water puddle on a path he created next to grass and bushes he created, the glow of the light bulb he made and the textures he created for a stucco wall and marble floor.

Monroy also show several projects in which he composited many images together for amazing results. It gave me some inspiration to do some projects on my own. He explains it very well. There is even an explanation of how an alpha channel works.

And there are examples of re-touching and correcting images in order for them to be used in advertisements and magazines. His attention to detail is phenomenal. (Perhaps it is due to his 20 years experience as an art director with a New York City Ad Agency.)

Bert Monroy is a commerical illustrator with 30+ years of experience in the business and co-authored the very first book on Photoshop. Needless to say, the technical content of this book is unquestionable and quite educational. While many of the techniques in the book can be applied in other areas, a prospective buyer should be aware that the book is completely targeted toward illustration work. One of the techniques that Bert is famous for is creating photo-realistic images by painting them entirely in Photoshop with very few stock photography elements. Whether this is good or bad depends on what you're looking for, but don't buy the book thinking it's going to teach you how to retouch your family photos. One of Bert's many other books would be better suited for the later.

This book is a must have. It uses the dragon book (Compilers: principles, techniques and tools by Aho et.al) as a model but goes a great deal further in its use of examples when explaining the theory. Whenever I had a little trouble understanding the dragon book or wished that more examples were used I turned to Holub's book. The book is extremely well organized. If you want the theory its all there and if you want to just look at code its all there too: thousands of lines of it! After explaining everything you actually get to see how lex and yacc are built (from the ground up) and finally a C compiler. BUY IT NOW!!

This book is more accessible than the Dragon book (Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools) but is less complete. This book presents complete source code for parser generators tools and a C compiler. Even if this book is getting a little bit old and it targets a DOS platform, it should not stop you from acquiring this goldmine of very useful information for anyone interested in compilers for a very reasonable price.

Only a few words. Using this book, I designed a few compilers for testing languages, using Portuguese words and commands. It is yet on the development age, but, without this book it would not be abler at all.

I have had this book for 8 years. It clearly describes compiler theories and examples. It is very useful when I develop very fast parser. (The code generated by lex isn't fast enough.) I am not in the compiler writing business. This book is perfect for me.

I have read the book and it is very easy to follow and very accurate. I have actually had the opportunity to work with one of the authors, Todd Halpin. It is good to know that this book was written by someone who has actually done the stuff. Todd is very smart and he knows his stuff. I would recommend this book to anyone.

*****

Primetime

My stock advice for those preparing for certification is to "get the Exam Cram". If you are planning to take the new A+ tests, however, and you have even the slightest bit of experience, then this book is far superior for a variety of reasons:

1. Better Organization. The Exam Cram is laid out in a conceptual order ideal for beginners - you start at the motherboard and gradually work outside the computer, you start at DOS and progressively upgrade to Windows 2000. But that's what the thousand page study guides are for - these books are supposed to help you CRAM for the EXAM. The Exam Notes are instead patterned directly after CompTIA's objectives, making it far easier to locate information on your weak areas when studying for the tests.

2. Appropriate Detail. The Exam Cram provides a scant 20 pages on networking (though it makes up 10-15% of each exam) and less on laser printers (typically, an uncomfortable area of study), but reprints almost all of the Windows 3.1 information from the first edition despite the new test objectives! In contrast, these Exam Notes contain an excellent introduction to basic networking concepts, a fully illustrated review of the EP process, and far less "historical data".

3. Overall Quality. The latest version of the Exam Cram still contains an almost useless motherboard diagram, disjointed discussions of barely related technologies (see Chapter 7), and some truly unforgivable factual errors (see page 401). This book provides stark contrast with actual photos of things you should be able to visually identify, better focus on current test objectives, high accuracy, and IT EVEN COSTS LESS!

Coriolis produces useful study guides, but Sybex got them this time. Mr. Jones and Mr. Landes have a fine test prep product on audio cassette, but this is, in my opinion at least, the best in print.

Great introduction. The authors write beautifully about their background and the tributes are wonderfull.

The text maps directly to the CompTIA Domains and that is great. The content is a bit "light on". I found some areas were glossed over.
The hardware was better than the OS, much better!

I passed the HW exam but did NOT make the new ADAPTIVE 222 OS exam! I did use other material for my study. None of the material was adequate for the new OS exam.

Perhaps an "Adaptive Edition" would be a required book? The book proberbly only deserves 3 stars for content but gets 4 for the presentation and organisation. Even if I had passed I would rate it as I have.

Of the three books I used this was the easiest to use!

If you are looking for a review text that looks at each and every Comptia A+ objective for both tests, buy this book. No fluff or extras, just every single objective reviewed and briefly explained. Well written and to the point, it also reviews terminology, concepts, and step-by-step procedures vital to passing the newest and toughest A+ exams. What I was most thrilled about is the good coverage given to the Operating Systems portion. This is the absolute toughest test of the two and the information reviewed here is essential to pass the test.

I absolutely enjoyed reading the book. This is a book that covers some very advanced topics in a way that it seems so easy to comprehend. I liked the way author uses examples and explains not only the technology but the use of the development tools as well. This is just one the best technical books that I have ever read.

After trying numerous .Net books I found that this one was extremely helpful in getting to know the most important parts of the .Net framework. The book covers a lot of ground, since anything can be a 'component'. The discussion is split into front end, middle tier and back end components. So the scope is big. This book assumes you know .Net, and have played with VS.Net, so don't expect an introductory level text. I think the author does a great job of picking out the most important parts of the .Net framework and demonstrating their practical use in short but useful examples.

I have been disappointed at numerous books that spend ages covering the same ground like introduction to .Net and using windows or web controls, leaving meatier issues untouched. In contrast, Faison treads quickly, and clearly, through major topics in .Net such as (not in order): using windows & web controls, user windows & web controls, Crystal reports, database access & data grids, session management in ASP, security, web services, and so on. Many other areas of the framework are covered in passing; for example a handy section on using the web browser control in .Net.

The discussion of UML in the beginning is a bit fast, particularly the terse presentation of numerous design patterns, but the author's use of UML sequence diagrams through the book is excellent.

My main criticism is that the author tries a bit hard at humor with the quotes before each chapter. Otherwise, it's a great book.

Highly recommended for serious software developers.
One of the best books I have read.
Part one is almost biblical to software development process.
This is not just for .NET, the same principles are applicable to Java or Windows developments.
I have good understanding on VC++6.0, but facing VS.NET I feel daunted.
My experiences with the Windows system, MFC class lib and VisualStudio are not much useful.
This book helps a lot. .NET is very rich and deep, so you should not expect
realizing .NET with a signle book. Yet this book is a must on your reading list.

This is a comprehensive book on component-based development (with C#). It's ~1000 pages thick and packed with code and developer information that is well referenced. A bit short on component "packaging" frameworks. This book also complements well Groove development(GDK with .NET)...

The "Search Inside this Book" feature was not available when this review was posted. This book contains the following (excellent) articles:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. COMPONENT DEFINITON.
1. Definition of Software Component and its Elements.
George T. Heineman, William T. Councill.
2. The Component Industry Metaphor.
Hedley Apperly.
3. Component Models and Component Services: Concepts and Principles.
Rainer Weinreich, Johannes Sametinger.
4. An Example Specification for Implementing a Temperature Regulator Software Component.
Janet Flynt, Jason Mauldin.

II. THE CASE FOR COMPONENTS.
5. The Business Case for Software Components.
John Williams.
6. COTS Myths and Other Lessons Learned in Component-Based Software Development.
Will Tracz.
7. Roles for Component-Based Development.
Paul Allen.
8. Common High Risk Mistakes in Component-Based Software Engineering.
Wojtek Kozaczynski.
9. CBSE Success Factors: Integrating Architecture, Process, and Organization.
Martin L. Griss.

III. SOFTWARE ENGINEERING PRACTICES.
10. The Practice of Software Engineering.
George T. Heineman.
11. From Subroutines to Subsystems: Component-Based Software Development.
Paul C. Clements.
12. Status of CBSE in Europe.
Barry McGibbon.
13. CBSE in Japan and Asia.
Mikio Aoyama.

IV. THE DESIGN OF SOFTWARE COMPONENT INFRASTRUCTURES.
14. Software Components and the UML.
Kelli Houston, Davyd Norris.
15. Component Infrastructures: Placing Software Components in Context.
Steve Latchem.
16. Business Components.
James Carey, Brent Carlson.
17. Components and Connectors: Catalysis Techniques for Defining Component Infrastructures.
Alan Cameron Wills.
18. An Open Process for Component-Based Development.
Brian Henderson-Sellers.
19. Designing Models of Modularity and Integration.
Kevin J. Sullivan.

V. FROM SOFTWARE COMPONENT INFRASTRUCTURES TO SOFTWARE SYSTEMS.
20. Software Architecture.
Alexander L. Wolf, Judith A. Stafford.
21. Software Architecture Design Principles.
Len Bass.
22. Product-Line Architectures.
Martin L. Griss.

VI. THE MANAGEMENT OF COMPONENT-BASED SOFTWARE SYSTEMS.
23. Measurement and Metrics for Software Components.
Jeffrey Poulin.
24. The Practical Reuse of Software Components.
Don Reifer.
25. Selecting the Right COTS Software: Why Requirements are Important.
Cornelius Ncube, N.A.M. Maiden.
26. Build vs. Buy: A Rebuttal.
George T. Heineman.
27. Software Component Project Management Processes.
William T. Councill.
28. The Trouble with Testing Software Components.
Elaine Weyuker.
29. Configuration Management and Component Libraries.
Hedley Apperly.
30. The Evolution, Maintenance and Management of Component-Based Systems.
Mark Vigder.

VII. COMPONENT TECHNOLOGIES.
31. Overview of the CORBA Component Model.
Douglas C. Schmidt, Nanbor Wang, Carlos O'Ryan.
32. Transactional COM+: Designing Scalable Applications.
Timothy J. Ewald.
33. The Enterprise JavaBeans Component Model.
David Blevins.
34. Bonobo and Free Software Gnome Components.
Michael Meeks.
35. Choosing Between COM+, EJB, and CCM.
Andy Longshaw.
36. Software Agents as Next Generation Software Components.
Martin L. Griss.

VIII. LEGAL AND REGULATORY.
37. CBSE as a Unique Engineering Discipline.
John Speed, William T. Councill, George T. Heineman.
38. The Future of Software Components: Standards and Certification.
Janet Flynt, Manoj Desai.
39. Commercial Law Applicable to Component-Based Software.
Stephen Chow.
40. The Effects of UCITA on Software Component Development and Marketing.
Stephen Chow.

IX. CONCLUSION.
41. Summary.
William T. Councill, George T. Heineman.
42. Future of CBSE.
William T. Councill, George T. Heineman, Jeff Poulin.
Appendix A. Glossary.
References.
About the Authors.

I hope this helps.

This 818 page collection of 42 papers and articles is a definitive work on component-based software engineering. Regardless of your area(s) of interest, there is probably a chapter that addresses it. More importantly, each chapter is written by a top expert in their subspecialty.

Instead of giving a chapter-by-chapter description, I am going to cover the chapters that I found useful. To begin, Part II, chapters 1 through 3 gave me a quick primer in software components and highlighted the need to think in a different frame when dealing with component-based development. If you are new to CBSW then the 48 pages devoted to the basics are worthwhile reading.

Part II's five chapters on making a business and technical case for components is outstanding and the authors cover every facet. I found Part III, which covers software engineering practices, particularly useful. The value to me was the status of CBSW engineering on a global scale because I am currently providing consulting services to an India-based company that specializes in components. For this reason I also found Part IV's eight chapters on managing component-based software systems especially valuable.

The real eye-opener [for me], however, was in Part VIII, which devotes four interesting chapters on aspects of legal and regulatory issues as they related to software development as a discipline, and component-based software engineering specifically. In particular, chapter 38 on software component standards and certification was enlightening. I was also enlightened by chapter 39's fascinating discussion on commercial law applicable to component-based software, and the effects of the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) on component-based software development and marketing.

This is an excellent book that covers the entire landscape of component-based software engineering and, although is a weighty 818 pages, is not difficult to read through. Each chapter is really a paper or article, so each is standalone. If you are dealing with off-shore development in any way, the book is especially valuable, and if you are doing CBSW in-house, the key differences between this approach and other development approaches are highlighted and will give you sufficient information with which to approach CBSW intelligently and effectively.

Covers the full spectrum of component-based software engineering, from the basics to legal aspects. Contains one of the most authoritative collections of essays and whitepapers on the subject between two covers. I have used this book as a basis for component-based development, and have also used it as the foundation for a SQA initiative because the material also addresses quality. Many of the essays support a software reuse strategy, which is an added bonus. Another use of this outstanding book is as a resource for in-house training in many aspects of software engineering outside of the component-based domain. It's that comprehensive and complete. I recommend using this book with Successful Software Development as the two primary references in mature development organizations.

This book is an excellent collection of articles describing all of the important issues surrounding the construction of component-based software systems. Each chapter describes a different aspect of the question of how to build a system using reusable components. Although each of these chapters is written by a different author or authors, they have been edited so that they read as a continuous whole. It is interesting that the editors were able to get some of the biggest names in the field to write articles on their specialties. A look at the author biographies show that they include industry practitioners, academics, industrial researchers, and independent consultants. Together they have a very impressive amount of experience and varied expertise. Perhaps my only complaint is that because so many different topics are covered, and each article is rather brief, some of the articles just touch the surface of the issues. But they do provide a balanced picture of these issues which then allow you to go out and do further in-depth reading on salient topics using the included list of references.

Gives a lot of practice questions to do. Answers are provided which is an added bonus. The questions are of varying difficulty. Beginners can gain practice by attempting to answer the easier questions first, before going on to tackle the more difficult ones. Those who are more familiar with Microsoft Word can aquire further knowledge in it and brush up their skills by attempting the more advanced questions. Haven't seen many books like this on the market. Definitely worth the buy.

I am generally lazy when it comes to writing reviews but a book like Computer Tutor sure got me there. Bravo! to the author. Indeed a superb bit of work.

Computer Tutor is a very good book. I like it because it has interesting questions. Someone new to MS Word can get to know the application without the boredom. I took the Microsoft Office User Specialist exam a few weeks back. I needed to brush up on 'Tables' and 'Styles' and Computer Tutor helped me tremendously. I also have other books written by the same author and have enjoyed reading them. Her books are very cleverly written. You can really appreciate their content when you start off knowing absolutely nothing about Microsoft Word and end up passing the MOUS exam!

Finally, someone wrote a book for beginners! Someone understood a beginners needs! I am new to Microsoft Word and most of the books available in bookstores say 'for beginners' but certainly do not live upto it. This book truly helps beginners get a thorough understanding of Microsoft Word.You can also use the book as you get more familiar in MS Word, as it has a range of questions addressing all levels of difficulty. You can grow up with Computer Tutor, as it is useful for the beginner and the intermediate. Even the expert can learn a thing or two from it. It is an unusual and charming book.

Collaboratively developed and written by Karen Mitchell, Craig Savage, and Jim Erwin, Contractor's Guide To QuickBooks Pro 2002 is a straightforward, easy-to-follow guide for setting up and using the QuickBooks Pro 2002 accounting software to expedite one's construction business. Meant expressly for contractors who may be lacking in familiarity with computer software programs, the individual chapters address the basics of using QuickBooks Pro 2002, setting preference, using it to track workers' comp costs and other expenses, recording receivables and payables, keeping track of one's customer base and much more. A solid, "user friendly", highly recommended "how to" manual and reference, Contractor's Guide To QuickBooks Pro 2002 is enhanced with a CD-ROM offering reconfigured construction company files to save setup time, and Job Cost Wizard, a program that swiftly and easily converts National Estimator estimates into QuickBooks Pro estimates.

I PURCHASED THIS BOOK WHEN ALL ELSE FAILED. FOR THE LIFE OF ME I COULD NOT FIGURE OUT HOW TO USE QUICKBOOKS FOR MY HUSBANDS CONSTRUCTION BUSINESS. QUICKBOOKS FOR THE CONTRACTOR GIVES YOU THE INFORMATION YOU NEED IN THE TERMS THAT YOU UNDERSTAND.I FOUND THAT THE HELP MENU IN QUICKBOOKS WAS BASED ON A MAIL ORDER COMPANY AND DID NOT GET THE QUESTIONS I NEEDED ANSWERED.I RECIEVED THE BOOK, READ IT COVER TO COVER AND USED IT STEP BY STEP FROM ESTIMATING TO TO PAYING JOB MATERIAL BILLS.
IT WAS SO EASY AND THE BEST PART IS THE BOOKKEEPING IS RIGHT!!
FINALLY!!
I HIGHLY REC0MMEND THIS BOOK TO ANY SELF EMPLOYED CARPENTER OR CONTRACTOR WHO IS HAVING TROUBLE WITH QUICKBOOKS.
ALSO IT COMES WITH A DISK THAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO IMPORT ESTIMATES FROM NATIONAL ESTIMATER. THERE IS EVEN A DEMO TO SHOW YOU HOW. GREAT BOOK HANDS DOWN

I am a systems manager, and know nothing about accounting. However I did know that my husband's construction firm was not using QuickBooks Pro properly. Amazon's helpful search engine suggested that I might like Contractor's Guide to Quickbooks Pro 2002. Amazon sure was right. This book quickly and simply explained how to set up a construction company's accounts and helped me turn two years worth of mis-input data into reliable reports. It also helped me develop a 10 page guide for the company's staff to use when entering invoices and payments.

The authors also have telephone support for reason prices although I have not yet needed to use them. They will also convert a Company's Quickbooks accounts into their suggested standard for a pretty reasonable fee.

I would highly recommend this book to small and medium sized construction companies. The book is wonderful, especially for non accounting types.

I consider this book to be the best on the market for contractors who use quickbooks. I recommend this to clients who use Quickbooks and are in the contstruction industry, or any other line of work that uses job costing. It has many illustrations which make it easy for bookkeepers for whom English is a second language.

The attached CD-ROM is a nice addition which can help contractors who are just getting started get their books set up quickly.

I had to buy this book for a class I am taking, and it has proven very helpful and useful.

John Huntington's book is the THE reference tool in our lighting shop for show control. It has everything you need for the different control languages, in clear and concise formats.It is a must on every theatre technician's bookshelf

John Huntington's new book, Control Systems for Live Entertainment, is one of the most useful and informative books available for anyone interested in theatre technology. The book covers such technologies as MIDI, DMX512, MediaLink, MIDI Show Control, and others.

A well dog-eared copy of the first edition has been in my tool kit / computer kit for the last couple of years. I have found it a valuable resource. It has helped me on-site more than once. The second edition is more comprehensive and organized. Kudos to John in publishing a great resource fit for the student and experienced professional.

George Tucker- Show Control Engineer- Scharff Wesiberg NYC