Software Books

Before I lost this, I was constantly using this as a point of reference for the time line of things and to make sure I wasn't mispelling certain things.. getting other things right, what was where, what all kinds of Star ship classes there wear, etc... this was all for a fan fiction novel that I was, am.. writing. Good thing I put some of those things I was always looking at.. on paper.. so I didn't have to lug the book around everywhere I went.

Granted it's lacking the last few seasons of Voyager and the whole of Enterprise, but I thank Okura for even making "an" edition of these, though it would be nice for a new one.

This is a great book, with one rather glaring error. Under the SETI entry, there is a picture of Pioneer's plaque. On the plaque, the Pioneer appears to be launched from the second planet from the sun. As we all know, the probe was launched from the third planet, Earth.

If you consider yourself a Trekkie or just someone who is truely intersted in Star Trek this Encyclopedia is a must buy period.It has insight to every facet of the Series.From the Original to Voyager you'll know details to everything.You'll won't be able to just glance through it once.I consider myself a huge Trekkie and like to think I know alot about the Shows,but I'll find myself amazed when I discover details about a certain charecter of Episodes I've forgotten or never knew exsisted.Especially interesting is the Timeline parts of the book,The breakdowns of Ship commisions and Designs,information about Actors,Cuisine,backstories of Charecters.You name it and they have everything about it...well almost everything.

You have to realize this fact before buying this Encyclopedia is that it was made in 1999.It's been 9 Years.Alot of History has happened in Star Trek since then and if you don't realize this now,you'll be disapointed to discover that to information about Deep Space Nine's last Season,the last 2 Seasons of Voyager,The whole of Enterprise and Star Trek Nemesis.All of this information is non-exsistant.And just imagine the frustration of people who actually owned this book through the years and reread it wishing it had all this wealth of new information.I honestly can't comprehend why Pocket Books would not release the Book with all of this missing information availible.Or make a CD-Rom of it.

This might sound like I'm ragging on the Book,but that would be impossible to do.Wiether or not this info is in this paticular Book doesn't really matter,because it extensively covers in scrutinizing detail of all the Series up to Deep Space Nine Last Season,Voyager's last 2 Seasons,the whole of Enterprise and Star Trek Nemesis.And believe me you'll be more than satisfied with that alone.

So,most definately buy this now and enjoy it and you will.But just realize it's outdated and once you do that then you can truely enjoy this Encyclopedia the way the Publisher intended you enjoy it:with wonderment and fun.

I bought this book in 2003, and it covered most of the bases then, but only the movies through 1998 ("Insurrection" IIRC; "Nemesis" is not covered.), and the 5th season of Voyager. It just covered the last season of DS9. And of course it has none of the "Enterprise" series.

There have also been events such as the Paramount auction of all the series and movie paraphernalia since then, and that could be a chapter all by itself.

I came on Amazon today expecting to see a new and updated version for sale, and was disappointed that the old edition is still all that's available.

Michael and Denise Okuda know everything there is to know about ST, and are the perfect people to update this. If I were shopping today for the first time I would say wait for the new edition, but buy a used paperback 1999 just to see what it's all about.

Keeping my fingers crossed that someone sees the demand for an updated version!

Nothing on the end of Voyager's Delta Quadrant wanderings? Nothing on Enterprise's backstory additions and newly-created anachronisms? Both this book and the related Star Trek Chronology need serious revamping. I appreciate the Okuda's insider Trekker style, but this reeks of willful blindness!

Thick Oracle book which is intended for developers who might need to understand the Oracle internals and administration parts besides writing SQL. It's useful for them working in other database also as the general database concept is simlar. Developers can now have more DBA knowledges after reading before on-going performing some DBA task.

Gr8 stuff for all the Oracle ppl.

A true masterpiece, and a great way to learn Oracle concepts. No more to say.

I have been an Oracle DBA for about six years and this book is still the one I turn to when looking for deeper insight into tough Oracle problems. The author recently published a new book on 9i and 10g and that one is also quite excellent. When it comes to analysis and clear writing style, no one can beat Tom Kyte for excellence. Highly recommended.

I bought this book on cheap clearance after the original publisher went out of business -- the best $12 I ever invested. Remembering even 10% of this book makes you better than 90% of Oracle developers, modelers and architects. Mr. Kyte's real world experience and reliance on solid examples instead of folklore makes this light-years ahead of any other Oracle book; it's the only Oracle book I re-read regularly. If you can afford only one Oracle book, this is it. And you may not need any other.

Great book on managing people and their space in a technical environment. A must for technical managers.

Nice reminder on what should we do during project.
We all know these things, but often we forget on them.

I was surprised at how relevant this book still is more than 20 years after its initial publication. Depressingly, it seems the authors' suggestions have not been followed by many employers. I recently changed jobs and am in a cubicle for the first time. I have been struggling to think in my cubicle, and this book confirms my suspicion that it is my work space and not my brain that is causing the problem. Even when I am not being interrupted, I am always slightly on edge wondering when I will be interrupted. The down side of the book is that the solutions and suggestions for improvements are quite difficult to implement. I just finished the book tonight - I wonder if I will do anything differently tomorrow because of this book. Probably not - maybe the fun part of the book is grumbling about our common work situations.

Quick enjoyable read. Some interesting commentary on team dynamics and the social problems teams encounter. I wish more solutions/suggestions were offered.

I expected the book to contain practical advice. The book covered many undesirable situations and business settings. There were no recommendations made on how to improve a bad situation. The book merely reported on the bad environment. If you are in an unpleasant work environment and want to know there may be others worse off then you, you may like this book.

This is a terrific book, as good as I've seen for the intermediate user. I'm not a professional but in my opinion, once you've learned the basics, selecting and masking are skills essential for improving your photographs, or whatever type of art you do with Photoshop. This book is a treasure trove of information I've never seen in other books or in tutorials from the web. And I even learned how to use the pen tool, something I've only been frustrated with before.

The author uses a unique combination of tutorials (along with sample files from her website) and descriptions of Photoshop features that will help you easily master every technique.

However, I'll warn you. The pages from my copy were falling out when I first received it from Amazon. If I had been willing to ship it back and wait another couple of weeks, I'm sure they would have replaced it. But it was a frustration. I've managed to keep the book intact with a generous application of glue to the pages, but the binding was unacceptable and I doubt my copy was the only one in that condition.

Ms. Eismann hits all the areas necessary for one to become proficient in masking and compositing. She is recommended by all the current photoshop gurus for a very good reason. This book is an excellent primer and also delves into advanced techniques. It's a great resource book and I've got post-it flags everywhere. You can't go wrong with this book.

Debbie Schmidt
dsh Solutions
http://www.dshsolutions.com

The most comprehensive book on selecting, masking and layers. It was easy to read and follow. Adobe Photoshop CS3Photoshop Masking & Compositing (VOICES)

The cost of any book by Katrin Eismann is returned to the reader in value many, many times over. This book is everything the photoshop user needs to know about the sometimes daunting, but now made easy by Katrin, masking and compositing images. Now you can make those tough cut-outs of thin strands of hair against tough backgrounds that you used to run away from before.

Katrin is one of the best and this book continues that tradition!

It's a great book. It gives you a very wide knowlege of how to make masks,selections and compositions.It's easy written and you can download all pictures of the book from the internet.So you can try it yourself wright away.Katrin is a very inspiring person and she makes you very enthousiastic by telling her way of seeing things and the many ways you can make these things happen with photoshop.You really can't wait to start.I thought I knew photoshop but I learn so much more by reading this book and doing it at the same time.

This book is filled with everything you ever wanted to know about excel. Great reference with fun tips like games and making your excel talk!

Not really for true beginners, but an excellent reference book for those times when one thinks to themself, "How do I do that ___ again?"

I think the book was very good at giving examples on doing things that you might run into while making use of excel. In between the examples, you'll find a tip on a shortcut key or other, "I didn't know that" type information. The two weaknesses that I would give it are:
1) No example CD so I could follow along with the book (this was painful because I had to take time to create similar examples)
2) I wish it would go over all the shortcut keys. Perhaps I missed this but I have found these to be useful and wish the material had been better organized so that you could find them all in one place rather than sporadically buried in an example that had no indication it was teaching you a new shortcut.
Alas, there is much more positive than negative and I would definitely recommend the book to someone wanting to enhance their excel skills and learn a lot of tips they might have never learned otherwise.

This book is very well done. It's straight-forward, covers a wide amount of topics, and is practical in how it uses examples to demonstrate available functions. The only thing the book could have fleshed out more is macros.

Great amazon seller. I really like this book. It was shipped promptly. Highly recommended.

Read this book if you have experienced the grief from losing a loved one physically as in my case or you are broken from a life circumstance. This book along with the word of God will uplift you and see you through those difficult days when again your tears seem to be the only medicine for your heart. I love that each day starts off with a scripture. I usually will read the scripture then look it up in my bible and do a small study on the scripture. I will then read the devotion for that day. This book and Oswald Chambers devotional book is what I read daily. I recommend it for anyone who has walked down the road of losing a child, parent or sibling. It also makes a great gift for someone facing cancer or for the single mom who is struggling to makes ends meet and feels hopeless. Whoever you are and wherever you are you will be blessed by the golden pages and by the sweet quiet whisper of Gods spirit revealed in the writing of this book.

This is a great book for anyone going thru a difficult time. I received my book after the death of my son. Took me four years to actually pick it up and I am so glad that I did. It gives me hope for each new day. I just purchased four more to give to friends that I know are struggling. I hope that it can help them as much as it has helped me.

This is one of the most hopeful devotional books I have ever found. If you are having difficulties or going through trials, this devotional will help light your way using God's word and uplifting thoughts, poems, and other writings. This book enriches my relationship with God and helps me trust and rely on Him more. Well worth the money.

I heard about this on GMA. Robin had said that her mother had one and had almost worn it out. I love this journal. It has Bible quotes and messages from individuals along with a place on the side to write your own notes. The one I purchased is leather and the quality is unspoken. I loved it so much I bought one for my Sunday School teacher. I imagine my will be worn and fraziled someday. I would recommend this journal to anyone.

Don't buy this and dont read it. If you put small amounts of poison in your food, over time it will kill you. This book has lies, scripture out of context and a God who is like an abusive father who beats children to teach them. This has to be the worst "Christian" labeled book I have encountered in 25 years. Heres a quote that shocked me from Sept 30 / page 369. "Our Almighty God is like a parent who delights in leading the tender children in His care to the very edge of a precipice and then shoving them off the cliff into nothing but air."
My Almighty God is not like that at all, and neither is my Jesus. There are many such statements and quotes throughout this work to render it with the label of "poisoned bread". It will destroy your faith or seriously distort it over time and bring ruin to your relationship with God. It even makes reference to Jesus being our Elder Brother! I was LDS at one time and that is a big lie. We are Gods creations and handiwork, Jesus was God the creator incarnate. We do not have his nature, and we are adopted. I am considering burning this to keep warm on a winter night instead of giving it to someone and spreading spiritual sickness. Best advise I can give is read the Bible. Try the Gospels, Psalms, Proverbs,or Pauls letters. Why settle for trash when you can have treasure. Test all things...Don't be decieved...If any of you lacks wisdom, ask God.

This is thought provoking and great for stimulating thought about the way you want to present information at your next meeting.....great read, great ideas and will be using it as a reference book!

In the foreword, Guy Kawasaki said "So open your wallet. And buy it. Then open your mind. And read it. Then open your heart. And do it". I think you should do that with this book, and maybe before that check the presentation of the author at google:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ2vtQCESpk

just to have a taste of the book.

Within half a day after receiving this book I included some of the principles it describes into my presentation. The results are truly remarkable, my thoughts come across much more powerful. Also people smiled after my presentation saying where did you learn to present like this, fun, entertaining and meaningful !

For years I've been urging my clients (I'm an Executive Speech Coach) to visually simplify the message... and now I have the perfect book to backup my request - Presentation Zen! Garr Reynolds is a master at presentation design - his ability to distill the message and reduce the visual slide noise is invaluable. A must read for every speaker who wants to learn to create a visually impactful presentation.

I am a scientist, and I have given hundreds of presentations. I was hoping that this book would be applicable, but it is not. Somehow, the "professional stock photos" suggested cannot convey scientific data. There were no substantive suggestions or guidelines in this book.

Perhaps if you are a motivational speaker "I live in a van by the river" this would be useful.

If you are required to give presentations that convey data (experimental results, financial data) skip this book.

Sorry I wasted my money,
Teresa

Useful and entertaining stats books are hard to come by but this one has hit the mark! Comprehensive and clear explanations of statistical theory are provided as well as of SPSS output. Love the examples and icons. Who would have thought a stats text could make me laugh out loud?!

dr. field has done an excellent job of making stats understandable and spss user friendly. as a social psychology grad student, i enjoy the ease of use found with the index. if i forget the differences in rotation methods for factor analysis, i can quickly find clear explanations in the book. i suggest to all grad students and advanced undergrads using spss to get a copy of this text!

When I study my MBA classes, this book helps me a lot. The book provides essential review of all Statistic knowledge in the beginning of each chaper, and then lead readers use SPSS step by step.
Especially the practical examples and funny illustration, I will say the book is the only one interesting and powerful Statistic book I can find. I highly recommand it for readers work for Marketing, Medical , Engineering , Finance, and MBA classes. The book can lead you to resolve many "real" problems.

This book contains very comprehensive explanations and descriptions with practical examples which are sometimes not so familiar with me (I'm a physician.). overall, this is an excellent book and I regret not being able to meet such a book in a way more focussing on medical fields. But this has a critical shortcoming in book-binding. you should not read this book so many times to keep the original shape. that's a reason why I gave 4 stars.

I love this book. It covers everything from the most basic t-tests and ANOVAs to factor analysis. It tells you the basics of what the test is meant to do, what sort of data is appropriate for it and it tells you how to actually run and read the test in SPSS.

It isn't the best book for someone who wants a detailed explaination of how to calculate a statistical test by hand and it doesn't give extensive detail on the assummptions required for each test. Nonetheless, it's a great quick reference book, particularly if you've already had a statistics course and you just need a refresher. Graduate students will find it useful.

All the features of WPF are explained here, with samples and visual codes for your reference. I decided to buy this book and other about Blend 2, but most of my doubts I solved with this edition.
Great book from beginners to experts.

Hey, a programming book in full colour!! WPF Unleashed really does introduce the concepts and details of WPF programming in a clear and easy manner, and Adam Nathan is to be commended for his efforts. Anyone wanting to learn (more) about WPF will benefit from this book.

This is a well written, well structured book.

Full color with good examples and covers a good range of details.

What can I say.. I was looking for a book about WPF. I saw many, and many until I found that one. Then I stopped looking for more :)

On first opening this book you are struck by the beautiful full colour pictures and syntax-highlighted code samples. [Though the experience was slightly marred by the tears and damage to the front cover which occurred during shipping, as was also the case with another book in the order.]

I did a quick flip through and thought... "Beautiful presentation, but the content looks a bit over-simplified. Maybe all the reviewers were seduced by the full colour pages."

Then I started working my way through the book. I was blown away. The writing style is simple and to the point. But it doesn't lack depth. There are indications of the little things that are likely to catch you out, as well as discussions of some pretty advanced topics too.

So, Yay! The content of the book was just as good as the way it was presented, if not better. My only criticism is that in some cases there could have been more code examples.

On the other hand this would probably have made the book very bloated and not as useful as a reference book. There's enough information to point you in the right direction, and from there google will get you to all the code samples you need.

So let O'Reilly do the cookbook style books with lots of code snippets. They do that so well. This book takes a novel approach, and it works brilliantly!

This book is the perfect example of a good "Computer" book: It teaches what it needs to teach in a way you understand.
It covers all the important stuf like BSTRs, Smart Pointers, DCOM, TLBs, IDLs and other buzz-like acronyms.
I used it as an only reference for learning COM and I was doing complex COM projects within weeks. Andrew Troelsen is 'the man'!

Best regards,

I NEVER write reviews; however Mr. Troelsen for this effort has earned it. He has written by far one of the best written tech books on C programming I've ever read, and for COM/ATL this book makes writing interfaces for VB both understandable and accessible. Coverage and background is sufficient, and equally important for those who don't do this every day for a living, the depth in setting up projects in Visual Studio is also there so one unfamiliar with technical setup issues involved in setting up an ATL COM project are enabled to create their own. All I can say is well done, please keep up the good work, very much appreciated. Looking forward to your next releases.

Sincerely,
Dr. Mathew G. Pelletier, Research Engineer

Describe low level COM and then ATL internals and interfaces which can let reader easily understand such complex mechanism. Though the book is a little bit old, it can still be served as a good reference.

Apart from the fact that so many customers gave 5 stars to this book, there's another indicator of its value: it looks like nobody wants to resell it after they are done reading it. I, for one, intend to keep it for reference...

I've been programming in C# for a few years, and now I needed to learn COM. This book was the best tech manual I've ever read.

My recommendation is: if you need to learn COM, do not waste your money on any other book until you've read this one.

My current project at work required me to learn COM. I purchased several books to assist in the learning, and I must say that this book is absolutely indispensible, both as an instructional medium and as a reference. I highly recommend this book to anyone needing to learn about COM.

What's inside? It starts with a basic intro to COM, useful (dare I say it) for managers as well as the developer to get the big picture. Then it goes into a discussion of ATL and design patterns. This second section is incredibly important since ATL is for COM as STL is for C++. It finishes off with some of the more advanced areas of study in COM. Only a few advanced topics are not covered (custom marshalling for one), but considering it starts from an assumed ignorance of COM, it does reach a good level of detail.

Who am I? I studied computer science in University. However, I had never previously developped on Windows. I am primarily a C++ programmer, with some experience with Java. Knowledge of C++ (I would say more than just a familiarity) should be a prereq. to reading, but that's about it. It introduces most OO topics you need in the first chapters that most experienced developers can probably skip.