Information Books

This book gives you all the goodies about Windows Server 2003, perfect view of what this new version has within, plus a lot more! This book was simple to read and understand, finished it in one weekend, and most of all, it's a great reference unlike some 2,000 Page Bibles...

It is clear, concise, and very well written. I get tired of reading tech books that are hundreds upon hundreds of pages long because they fill them with so much useless information and "fluff". That is not the case with this book. If you just want the plain and simple facts and useful information then this is the book you need.

This is an excellent book for those of us who have extensive experience with previous Windows releases, and need information dealing with just what's new and improved in Windows Server 2003. This book is well-written, well-organized, easy to read, and gives you everything you need, and nothing you don't.

I highly recommend this book to all experienced Windows Server administrators who need just the new info and just the facts, from authors who actually know what they're talking about.

Page 78: windows clients DO NOT require a GC server to find a domain controller.
Page 130: stub zones are NOT secondary zones with glue records. They contain read-only SOA, NS and "glue" A records and nothing else.

Returned my Mastering Windows Server 2003 (Minasi) book today and bought this one. MUCH better. Short, sweet, and to the point. Now I'm getting a handle on what I should care about in Windows 2003. This is great - I hope they keep up with this series. It's a time saver and I'm betting it will help with my MCSE upgrade exmas too.

The book weighs a ton and there's lots packed in it. Have not attempted to use the CD-ROM. Index helped me find specific answers to specific issues, since I don't know the program at all and had to hit the ground running. Have not been able to find answers to more esoteric matters, but the book has been invaluable for my quick-fix situations. Legal-specific and more useful on a daily basis than the "Dummies" book my boss bought. Thank you, Payne Consulting Group!!!

Any law firm that uses MS Word has been influenced by the work of Payne Consulting. Payne Consulting was in a conference that went into a committee that worked closely with MS to influence Word and to make it compatible to what law firms got used to with Word Perfect. Interestingly, Word finally has a feature that offers you the opportunity to recover documents if you had not saved it the day before.....wow.....why didn't they do that for corporations.

Well, if you are a Word Perfect user in a law firm today, you will want to open up new vistas by learning MS Word for Law Firms. I recruit in Legal, and this tool is useful to improving your skills and making a transition to a larger law firm possible.

real world advive for anyone interested in applications of word in a business setting

I found the book easy to follow with a lot of useful information in the form of tips and cautions. I purchased the book to prepare for the Word 2002 MOUS exam (and passed). I cannot recommend it highly enough.

As a forced convert from Word Perfect, I was looking for a resource that would allow me to do two things: (1) learn Microsoft Word; and (2) integrate it into my practice.

Ms. Payne's book helped me with the first task and made Word a much easier program for me to utilize.

I was somewhat disappointed, however, in the second aspect. I would like to automate my litigation documents to a greater extent, but I couldn't fully realize this goal. At the end of the day, I'd like to turn out better, more polished legal documents, but, I think there are some limitations in either my own understanding or the software that prevent me from being as effective as I'd like. At more than 700 pages, Ms. Payne's book certainly contains a good deal of information and suggestions as to how Word can be used in a law firm environment, but I found it to be most helpful as a Microsoft Word resource.

"Must-Win Battles" appeals to me as a book that gives readers (most typically managers) the tools to lead their teams through a journey that can save their very own jobs in the long run. With a style not too distant from Lencioni's, where the authors show a fictional case in action, the book presents the path in a journey to help teams win those battles they cannot afford to loose, what they call Must-Win Battles (MWB). While offering tactics to deal with the expected bumps along the road, the book remains very strategic all the way through, focused on the strategic goals of aligning steering teams around the same agenda and eventually getting the entire organization to buy it in and embrace it.

The book wraps up with lessons from won and lost MWB journeys and a real-life case from the Unilever Ice Cream Frozen Foods business group to illustrate the entire process in action. While the fictional case presented belongs to the executive team leading the entire European organization of a company, the learnings in it could easily be extrapolated to smaller settings: a production facility, a university, etc. Highly recommendable like all Wharton School Publishing books I've had a chance of reading.

Unilever's 19-page MWB journey described by Kees van der Graaf is a fantastic read. It not only illustrates the stages and steps aligned with the authors' belief of leadership principles, I find it most valuable is Kees van der Graaf sharing with us with his personal lessons learned from the processes such as "trust my gut more than ever before" and "We have great values; they come from the heart". This reminds me of another book titled "Head, Heart & Guts" by Dotlich/Cario & Rhinesmith. Indeed Kess van der Graaf brings these to life.

MWB stands for "Must Win Battles," which is the title and a common acronym throughout this this book. Authors Peter Killing, Thomas Malnight and Tracey Keys use "battle" to refer to competitors and "must-win" to mean these battles must be won. There are a lot of circumstances applicable to the concept of 'battle.' Examples and case studies cover management style, team work, planning, shortlisting, and executing, are noted. One example is Unilever in Africa, Nestle China, and a two-year case study of the CFF business groups from the words of an executive.

Three sections and nine chapters.

Section I: Preparing the Journey

Section II: Engaging the Team

Section III: Making it Happen

The different types of managers listed are the commander, diplomat, thinker, and motivator, who are defined and described. This is followed by the role of Emotional Intelligence in the workplace. EI is just as, and oft-times more vital than IQ. There are questions regarding this that the reader can answer for themselves so they can apply this concept to their own situations in life and in the work place. This book helps the manager and employees as individuals and allows them to reflect on others and themselves.

Different dynamics of MWB, which often may include change. While strategically planning and implementing Must-Win Battles there are Resisters, Bystanders, and Supporters. A time-line is almost always necessary and matrices and diagrams are presented, when planning and executing.

A good reality check is in chapter 4, which lists "Typical Company-Related Myths." Those who've worked in medium or large organizations can identity with the company values and slogans. But they're usually only slogans, because they aren't practiced. :)

At the end of the book there are:

A) The MWB Journey and Road map
B) The Denison Survey: Questions
C) Using the External Assistance

This is helpful for all people who manage and work in organizations of all types and sizes.

In any organization, at any time, there are probably three to five key battles that must be won to achieve important goals, write authors Killing and Malnight. As you read this, you are probably thinking of the battles that are ongoing right now, the ones you need to win to get to your own goals. The first step, then is identifying what the key battles actually are and eliminating the sideshows that distract from the real issues. The authors advise that these battles are NOT internal, instead they are:

Market-focused
Something that makes a difference
Creates excitement
Are specific and tangible
Are winnable (!)

The example provided is one of Unilever, a large multinational company, working to gain market in Africa. But despite Unilever as an example, the strategy to pick your fight and win it is equally applicable to small business--if not more so.

One point I really admire is that the authors recommend that emotion be considered along with reason in how to win those battles. In other words, instead of steamrolling over emotion, which is a statement of condition, like the weather, the authors recommend dealing with it and generating excitement by directing emotion. There is also good advice on "not shooting the messenger" or how to take bad news. As one top CEO remarked to the press on how he achieved success "First, you have to deal with reality."

Excellent book and a must-read for business managers of any organization.

Q: What must be managed effectively to improve an organization's performance?

A: "First, [managers must] identify and win the right battles....But to win the battles, many organizations need to create a more effective top team and build an organization that [is] .less silo-based and capable of focusing all of its energies and capabilities on the chosen battles."

Q: What is a "must-win battle" (MWB)?

A: "MWBs are the three to five key battles that your organization absolutely must win to achieve its key objectives."

Q: What are the characteristics of a well-chosen MWB?

A: It must "make a real difference, be market focused, create excitement, be specific and tangible [and measurable], and be winnable."

Q: What is an "MWB journey"?

A: It is simultaneously both an emotional and intellectual process which must be completed by everyone involved in order to transform their organization. Ultimate success will depend upon a "shared understanding of the challenges and options facing the organization, an agreed list of three to five MWBs, a committed [and competent] team for each MWB, a high-level action plan for each MWB, new [better] ways of working together, individual commitments, and an initiation assessment of the starting conditions for engaging the organization."

Granted, this is an unorthodox way by which to begin a review but I really could not think of a better one. (No doubt someone else has.) The authors of this volume share what they have learned about why some organizational transformation initiatives succeed while most others fail. What they propose is a three-phase process (a "journey") which begins with a rigorous and thorough assessment of the current situation, followed by an engagement of the Team and then of teams for the MWBs, and then an engagement of the given organization which involves embedding the Team agenda and aligning the organization while maintaining momentum of the MWB initiatives.

I especially appreciate the authors' provision of all manner of reader-friendly devices throughout their lively narrative. For example, check lists of key points, graphics (maps and figures) which illustrate step-by-step segments of the "journey," and - whenever appropriate - caveats and disclaimers which correctly remind the reader that no course of action (including the one which the authors recommend) "fits all."

In the final chapter, they share eight "Lessons" learned from their research: five from successful MWB "journeys" and three from those which failed. In Appendix A, readers are provided with a comprehensive "MWB Journey Roadmap" and then in Appendix B, the authors provide "The Denison Survey: Questions" (copyright © by Daniel R. Rosen), a culture survey which is discussed on pages 47-48.

Presumably the authors agree with me that it would be a fool's errand for anyone to read and re-read their book, then rush - or even stroll -- to implement everything in it. It would also be a fool's errand to cherry pick diverse (albeit sound) ideas from a variety of different sources and then attempt to consolidate them in a single plan of "attack." Rather, I urge each reader to read Must-Win Battles with great care and then, preferably in discussion with others, co-determine what would be most appropriate to the given organization. Killing, Malknight, and Keys can be very helpful to that process of aanalysis and, especially, to identifying the highest priorities and most important objectives. My guess is that, by following that procedure, the "must-win battles" will reveal themselves.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Jason Jennings' THINK BIG, Act Small, Michael Hammer's The Agenda and Robert Mittelstaedt's Will Your Next Mistake Be Fatal?

Most current and objective risk assessments indicate that the risk environment faced by the U.S. during the Cold War has drastically changed. The risk of conventional war with peer nation states has been greatly reduced while the risk of asymmetrical war by non-state actors has greatly increased. Further because of the dynamics of the globalization, regional instability, failed states, pandemics, poverty, and immigration all have become serious risks to U.S. National Security. This new risk environment clearly needs a new carefully crafted National Security Strategy based among other things on timely and accurate strategic intelligence.

Which brings us to this altogether remarkable book by Robert David Steele. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the many recent efforts at reform the U.S. Intelligence System remains culturally moribund. Steele offers a rather detailed plan to rebuild this system into an open, flexible, and relevant source of knowledge about the threats and risks faced by the U.S. in the 21st Century. It is necessary not just to read this book, but to think carefully about what Steele is proposing. For example, this reviewer had to really contemplate such strange concepts as a "Global Knowledge Foundation" and "University of the Republic", before fully understanding how such institutions are vitally important to the sort of Intelligence System that Steele is advocating.

Now Steele has written a number of books that offer innovative, if radical, ideas about reforming intelligence, but this is the only one of his books that provides sufficient details to understand how he really would like to transform the U.S. Intelligence System into a system capable of dealing with both military and non-military threats and risks to U.S. security. The opportunities and risks of the phenomenon called "Globalization" are fluid and often elusive. It will take an intelligence system such as the one Steele is advocating to provide the knowledge needed to formulate an effective National security Strategy to deal with both the opportunities and risks.

This book is not an easy read. Readers need to be pro-active in critically thinking about what Steele presents. This effort will be rewarded with new and original insights on the state of U.S. security. More to the point Steele will provide the reader with a clear and unique understanding of the often arcane world of intelligence.

For over a decade, Steele has been trying to draw attention to the fact that intelligence needs in the post-Cold-War era require different strategy, organization and tactics. This book is a useful summary of his views.

One point of emphasis is "open source" intelligence--the information that is available from sources outside of the secret intelligence community. Steele argues that the institutional secretiveness of the FBI and CIA is a hindrance rather than a help.

Another point of emphasis is language translation. A further point of emphasis is the fact that threats no longer exclusively take the form of powerful nation-states. I wish that the book focused more specifically on Islamic terrorism, since the other potential threats seem more remote at the moment.

Yet another point of emphasis is database integration. Writing this review in the aftermath of the DC sniper investigation, this seems to be an important point. Before the suspects drove to Maryland, they were involved in a murder in Alabama at which one of them left a fingerprint. Had the Alabama police been able to access a national database, they would have been able to identify the murderer and perhaps apprehend him. Instead, the fingerprint was matched only after a dozen more murders and after the suspects themselves told police to connect the dots to Alabama.

Lack of database integration kills.

As a book, it's rather ugly. The pages are obviously printed out by an inkjet printer or something (you can actually see some jaggies in the font), and the index is created by MSWord indexing menu, which has multiple entries of the same item, and the way he indexes whole phrases makes it very hard to look up.

It's contents are extremely repetitive. You'll see the same ideas and examples expressed over and over and over and over again, in almost exact same wording. With proper editing, this book would have become 1/3 the volume that it is. The ideas are interesting, although some part, like his suggenstion that the US government should engage in industrial spying, seems questionable. Also, when he uses the word "Open Source", it's not the open source that the people in the software community is used to, so be careful. But it's a book worth skimming through.

This is a very difficult review for me to write. I want all those in positions where they can have some effect on American Intelligence gathering and analysis to read this book, but the book's organization and construction will ensure that won't happen. Hence the four star rating.

The book (the Oct 2001 edition) looks to be the author's collection of lecture notes or lecture passouts organized in one or two hour presentations. They are full of one-liners and short paragraphs making sweeping statements, and I wanted space below them to write my comments and questions. Perhaps they are indeed lecture passouts that formerly contained those spaces in which listeners could jot notes on the author's detail comments and examples supporting those statements. Without such support, there is simply far too much to be taken on faith for the author's ideas to be accepted or implemented.

A simple example should suffice to make this point: Steele says on page 6: "Today there is insufficient emphasis on defining and meeting the intelligence needs of overt civilian agencies, law enforcement activities, and contingency military forces." OK, what would be sufficient? What are we doing wrong today (examples would be nice), and what agencies are doing such? What emphasis do we currently have, and how can that be morphed into something meeting the author's definition (unstated) of necessary and sufficient emphasis? What are we spending today on activities that must be de-emphasized or eliminated, and how much will it cost to achieve the proper necessary and sufficient emphasis? Without this level of detail, the author's statement is simply a platitude that will be roundly ignored by those agencies and personnel who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

This defect remains throughout the book. Although the author's statements have much merit and his recommendations for organizational structures and missions to achieve necessary and sufficient intelligence for US policy makers and general security are generally well considered and excellent starting points for implementating the necessary changes, the missing detail allows opponents to dismiss his points out of hand as being simplistic, unsupported by evidence, and dangerous.

Nor is the public ready for this book, even after 9-11 and seven years having passed since publication. There has been no political movement towards addressing any of Steele's charges or implementating any of his ideas discernible by the general public or myself -- quite the contrary, the intelligence agencies have become increasingly ossified, bureaucratic and bureaupathic. CIA employees now arrange their work schedules around their children's activities, and providing day care to the CIA's time-serving employees is more important than providing intelligence to the President of the United States. Steele cannot be an effective change agent until he gets his message (this book) out to the public, but it must be in a form that the public can comprehend -- which is not this book.

I agree with the author that turf wars are the primary activity of all intelligence agencies in the US (my words, he just inferred this), and they must be limited as much as possible. It seems impossible that the US possessed better intelligence on enemy and potential enemy activity before the computerization of information data bases than at present, but that is my conclusion. An example of how turf wars destroy is that the world's best data base management system, the multivalued system created by Dick Pick in the US in 1968, is not being used in US federal agencies but has experiences acceptance in Russia. Meanwhile we are saddled with cumbersome systems like Microsoft's SQL Server, IBM's DB2, Oracle and others. The "free" marketplace doesn't always allow the best product to filter through the weeds -- powerful organizations protect their turf at the expense of the general welfare. Other examples would include the Christie suspension system for Soviet tanks and Deming's ideas seized by Japanese industry.

In short, the book's content is excellent but so many things must be taken on faith due to its organization and presentation that it almost neutralizes itself. It ends up being a handbook of ideas for the intelligence professional -- precisely the individual who will not implement any (or very few) or the ideas in the book. Steele would have done better to take his own advice and provide intelligence to the general population that "remain(s) desperately ignorant of history and culture (and what is happening in the intelligence community" (page 273).)

Nevertheless, BUY, READ & STUDY THIS BOOK.

By the way, the bibliography alone is worth the price of the book.

And lastly, it will take a powerful US President to force through any of this book's recommendations on the American intelligence community. His support will have to come from an informed populace to overcome the opposition certain to come from current organizations. It may be possible, or it may be too late. If this book does as well in the next four years as it has in the last eight, then it was too late.

Robert Steele is the one man crusade for the importance of open source intel. This and his more recent New Intelligence tell and show why open source intel is the most useful means of understanding the world around us and at the same time maintaining our personal liberties. To him each citizen should be running their own open source collection in in the areas of their personal interest. Read both of these books. Buy both of these books. Then go to the OSS convention in Washington. You'll quickly see how muth the professionals think of him.

Excellent, easy to read book, with lots of stories and pictures. One minor thing that peeves me is occasional grammatical errors.

My version is a little older, but remains an excellent resource. There is loads of information about coverage of all kinds of events, from the uncomfortable tragedies to sports to developing story ideas for photo spreads. I don't know how much information the newer books have on digital imaging, but my version has very little. Not a problem, however, as the principals are the same. Like most other books, this alone will not teach you how to take great photographs. You can only learn that from experience. But this will help answer some of your questions if you are looking to develop a photographic style closer to journalism than fine art.

the book came much sooner than the expected date!! and the book was in the condition expected! i recommend this seller. thanks a lot!

I needed this book for my photojournalism class and it was perfect. Brand new with CD color pictured.

Excellent book! I put off buying it for over a year because I thought it was a bit pricey, but less than a month after reading it one of my photos made the front page of our local newspaper.

The book covers everything you need to know to get started, topics include...

- covering news, features, sports, politics & contemporary issues
- narrative picture stories
- finding features & catching candids
- environmental & interpretive portraits
- creative use of the strobe
- digital shooting & darkroom techniques (Photoshop tutorials included)
- concept photography & illustrations
- newsroom politics
- picture editing
- shooting within the bounds of the law
- controversial pictures & ethical discussions
- expanded history of photojournalism
- freelancing & business practices
- internships and after

If bought new the book also comes with a DVD featuring multiple documentary film shorts which to me is worth $20 alone.

After reviewing several books on Strategic Execution, I was continuously left with the feeling that the authors had ommitted a key ingredient. This book has convinced me that that key ingredient was "Alignment".
This book was published 10 years ago (OK, I am embarrassed that I have only just got around to reading it) but it is as significant today as it was when it was first published. Probably more so considering the rapid state of change that most companies are faced with today.
It is a simple read, and the concepts are easy to follow. What I enjoyed most about the book is that the suggestions are practical and you can take them and implement them immediately within an organization.
I noticed that one of the readers who has reviewed the book said that the book was required reading for his MBA course. 10 years on, I still think it should be required reading for any business executive.

I'm always looking for visual ways of understanding critical elements of strategy. The Power of Alignment offers a very helpful way of thinking about four important ingredients in keeping the main thing, the main thing. Vertical alignment, the relationship between your strategy and the people on your team, "energizes...provides direction, and offers opportunity for involvement." Horizontal alignment refers to the connection between your processes and customers. Taken together the two measures provide some great insight into the development of genuine alignment.

One of the most interesting elements of the book is a 16 question diagnostic tool that is designed to provide a graphic view of your organization's alignment. Very helpful!

Great book! The basic premise is that once a business has a raison d'etre, or a 'main thing', that profits are maximized by the alignment of four key business areas: Strategy, Processes, People, and Customers. Built on this premise are actionalbe ways to build a self-aligning organization. I got the sense of discovering truth while I read this book. Leadership isn't really about power, it is about responsibility. This book shows a manager at any level how to align his area to the overall strategy of the company and to the end products of the company. It shows how processes should be designed and what factors should be used to reward, recognize and evaluate employees. Great food for thought and realistic to implement.

Five Stars

Quite simply, this book was one of the best business management and leadership books I have ever read. It was well-written and expertly balanced management and leadership concepts with real-world examples of effectively aligned organizations, such as Federal Express and Southwest Airlines. This book should be read and discussed by leaders and managers at all levels, especially by mid- to senior-level executives.

In brief, alignment deals with the relationships among the people, processes, strategy, and customers of an organization relative to that organization's purpose, or what the authors called "the main thing." Alignment is both a noun, a state of being, and a verb, a set of actions. Vertical alignment connects organizational strategy with the people responsible for transforming that strategy into meaningful work. Horizontal alignment deals with understanding your customers' wants and then creating processes to deliver what your customers want, when and how they want it. Effective leadership nurtures the organizational culture that is built around and upon "the main thing," and it is this culture and leadership combination that drives and sustains self-aligning organizations in turbulent times.

The authors' analogy of landing a plane helped me to visualize the dynamics involved with organizational alignment. To land a plane, a pilot must adjust and react to multiple simultaneous factors and conditions (i.e. air speed, altitude, angle of approach, wind speed and direction, etc.) and then understand how a change in one will affect the others. Likewise, to align an organization, a leader must adjust and react to feedback about his people, processes, strategy, and customers, and then understand how a change in one will affect the others.

The authors clearly and thoroughly explained the alignment factors and conditions throughout the book. They followed their explanations with incisive questions for readers to ask about themselves and their organizations to assess their degree of alignment. Those questions were definitely a highlight of the book for they really helped to stimulate my thinking and should help inspire organizational progress to alignment. Another highlight was the appendices that contained examples of actual tools and products used and created by some of the aligned organizations studied by the authors.

The inside back cover jacket sums up why I give the book my highest recommendation: "Essential reading for all managers and executives, "The Power of Alignment" offers a new way to reestablish focus and sustained energy, and is a dynamic approach for staying balanced and achieving extraordinary levels of performance."

I found this book easy reading, concise, and presented it's basic premise well with specific examples and good suggestions for creation and implementation.

Working as a Director in Managed Care for several pharmaceutical companies, it creates a focus for any organization and a roadmap for the future(physician, health plan, pharmaceutical company) to avoid many of the mistakes and pitfalls that have already been experienced in an attempt to align with the ever changing healthcare landscape.

For those who do account management, it provides a construct and roadmap to use to optimize alignment with internal customers and maximize resources to create value and return with the external customers (....and their customers.) As the authors point, alignment is a continuing process, not a single event in time. Many companies become quickly aligned with the past, and misaligned with the present & future, and can not sustain the competitive edge because they forget this basic premise that the authors reinforce.

The concepts are basic and fundamental, but usually overlooked and forgotten in the day to day business of rapidly growing companies and changing environments.

As described on the cover page, this book is cookbook style so I went through the programs on the CD before reading the chapters. I like this book for two reasons.

First, the book is easy to read. A bunch of equations may not always be helpful to understand a problem. What confuses readers most is how an implementation/program corresponds to those equation(s). This book explains the image processing techniques in a plain language and gives you an hand-on experience with those techniques.

Second, to practice image processing, clicking a button on windows or just calling a built-in function, e.g. process(image), will not be enough. When you go to the directory of programs on the CD, you may find out every details. Each program is relatively independent to each other. You will not be stuck by a function call, which you never know or find. Each program is well commented and can be easily modified and incorporated into your program.

This book is good for those who are new to image processing, because it helps you understand what image processing does. It is also good for an experience practicer, because you can find well-organized stuff to build your own applications. It is a must-have book for your shelf of image processing.

Searching for an easy plug & play solution for simple imaging tasks?
No time for programming & debugging things yourself?
No interest in crawling through literature to figure what & how you should program "the methods that solves all your problems"?

Here's a book that deals with most of the elementary - and most used - approaches in image enhancement and analysis. The CD offers a collection of ready-to-play-with programs, both in C source as in executables.

I appreciated the book set-up: each section describes one single task, describes the problem, gives an example, discusses a solution given in literature, and presents the input / output / options for the C code.
- If you want to know more: get the recommended references.
- If you want to modify the program: why not? (well, perhaps because the code is good enough!)
- If you don't care about the scientific background and/or programming: just plug & play!

I have found this book to be extremely useful as a reference for my class on document image analysis. The book discusses (with software which is a bonus!) a whole bunch of image processing techniques that are very useful.

Students can now find in one place- a reference for techniques such as gabor wavelet analysis, convex hulls, moments, fourier descriptors, thinning, hough transform, and chain coding. This allows me as an instructor of an advanced document recognition course to let the students self-study these image processing techniques while I can focus on the recognition topics.

The authors have done a great job of picking examples from a wide range of applications such as outdoor scenes, fingerprints, and documents. The book is "easy to read" and requires just basics of linear algebra to follow.

I already knew image processing when I bought this book, so I am not sure how it would appear to the novice seeking a textbook on the subject of image processing and analysis, but I imagine it could be somewhat confusing. I always recommend Gonzales and Wood's "Digital Image Processing" for those seeking a clear read on image processing and analysis from the ground up. Where Seul's book comes in is with clear descriptions and working code for many basic - and some not so basic - image processing and image analysis algorithms. The book is also very good at explaining the applications of the various transforms. One of the little things that the author of this book does that authors of other books similar to it don't bother to do is to realize that when you are working in image processing you likely have an image as an input and you want an image as an output. Thus the author has built his code libraries so that they work that way. You are not left with arrays of pixels that you have to figure out how to store and manage. In the end you have a nice functional toolbox of working image processing and analysis subroutines that you can chain together and make just about any type of image transform tool you could think of. I'm mainly interested in image effects, and I know this book has been useful to me. The accompanying CD-ROM contains all of the C source code for the algorithms so that you can port them to another language or tinker with them if you so desire. Highly recommended.

The title of this book corresponds to its content, the tutorial gives an excellent overview of basic key points to those readers who are unfamiliar with the subject (as I was). The book can not be used for rigorous study of even simple things but rather kicks you with essentials that are easy to understand with high-school background. This book, written for non-specialists in "image field", gives them techniques for their practical needs and concentrates exactly on image analysis, not on image processing. If you have no time to go through more complex (and deeper) books, take this one to discover basic principles in short form with no attempt to explain the fundamentals. The authors just put you into the facts, so that is why I would characterize the "Practical Algorithms" book as being "handbook". The good point is that the areas of applicability of these facts are explained, the drawback: you have to go to other books to get more details on image processing roots, e. g., to R. Gonzalez and R. Woods' "Digital Image Processing". I bought both, and use them as good annex to each other. The "Practical Algorithms" has lack of some significant areas, like snake algorithm and image binarization (thresholding) techniques but e.g., the cellular processing is quite well highlighted.
Surprisingly, the CD that comes along with this book gave me almost 80% examples that I was able to recompile instantly, and only several examples have failed, mainly due to image file format issues. The source code is not both elegant and bugless, but it is very transparent and portable and can easily fit, e.g., a 16-bit microcontroller.
Overall, this is good book for fast start. You can get real output and pick up ideas on practical side of image analysis. Just remember, the most book examples came from the medicine world, so they are quite specific and may not be implemented directly in your particular application.

This is a great handbook for starting up a blog (corporate or private for that matter). There is a lot of great info backed into this little book. I would highly recommend getting it for your team if you are starting a blog that requires a lot of support and buy-in. Nice work Byron & Steve.

BTW: If you ever get a chance to hear them speak on the topic, take it.

I have already been blogging, but this book helped me focus my efforts in a way that may help my business. Lots of great insightful info, and common sense explanations in this book. I found it very helpful and easy to read.

I need a blog for the homebuilt aircraft community, particularly those working with composite (fiberglass) technology. I work alone and will require additional help with developing a good active blog. This book has helped me to ask the right questions of the professional IT type who must help me get the blog going.

DL Byron and Steve Broback have really done an excellent job in writing this very thorough primer on blogging for business. The book, actually, is more than a mere primer: its breadth is surprising. They've managed to cover virtually every aspect of business blogging in a mere 180 pages. Quite an accomplishment and one the authors can certainly take pride in.

The approach is linear, beginning with an explanation of what a blog is, determining the focus of your business blog, the varieties of blog, design, tools for blogging, writing the blog, getting noticed, monitoring and managing and ending chapter on syndication and other fine points they refer to as "beyond blogging".

What is impressive is how much solid information the authors manage to convey without overwhelming the reader. The writing style is comfortable and spare. They avoid technical language and do a good job of explaining each point.

Overall this is one of the best books on blogging I've seen. It is practical, not theoretical and the authors left dogma and cant at the door. They are clear that blogs are not miraculous but can certainly help a company advance toward its goals.

Well done and a worthwhile read that will serve as a quick reference after you've read it.

Jerry

Blogging isn't just for the chatty consumer: not with the appearance of PUBLISH & PROSPER: BLOGGING FOR YOUR BUSINESS. Here it turns into a viable approach for furthering business, coming from business owners who offer real-world techniques and ideas to blog to improve business. Learn how to start such a blog and build momentum and interest to promote a brand, products, or customer relations. The authors have extensive background in the blogging world and in business alike and have put their premises to the test, so this offers realistic ideas already applied to solid business pursuits.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

The fact that the book was written by Zig Ziglar was enough for me to buy it, however the fact that it is full of sound, timeless, tested and proven advice on child rearing is why I recommend it. In a world that seems to have gone mad this book is reassuring. It gives you hope that your children can and will thrive if the advice is taken and put into action. As an added bonus, parents get a "check up, from the neck up" to ensure that we're on the right path and doing what it takes to lead by example.

Pick up a copy of the audio series as well! The New Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World

I read this book a few years ago and find it a great parenting guide!
Above all it's written by someone that practices what he preaches and is a great example for the world.

If we want a better world we need stronger families and that starts with better relationships between husbands & wives.

This book has been a tremendous encouragement and help to me as a parent. There are so many books out there on parenting and at times the advice contradicts and confuses. Reading this book has taken me back to the basics. I was reminded of what an awesome responsibility and privilege I have being a parent! I can strongly recommend this book to any parent!

I was given this book when I was carrying my now 20 year old son. 3 kids later, I still consider this book a bible. I give it to any friend that is becoming a parent. My kids are the most awesome kids you will ever meet. They are sweet, positive, caring, hard workers,etc (Man, I sound like a mom!). I really get compliments of a great job done when someone meets my boys.
Buy and read it. Things will click!

After reading this book over the holiday, I decided to give it a try on my new project. I applied the authors categories to business plans I needed to prepare. I have to admit that her approach made an improvement that even impressed my managers. Her questions in the appendix were also extremely useful in helping me think of more needs than I had originally thought were important. Her chapter on the parts of a requirement helped me supply the details that I would have omitted previously. Bottom line, the author makes you think allowing for better definition of product needs.

When trying to understand what information architectures are all about, this is the only book I have come across that answered all of my questions and placed the field in context with modern technologies. Unfortunately, most books on information architectures fall into two categories that miss the mark:

1. There are books written by IA experts before the internet, and the terms and viewpoint used require considerable on-the-fly translations to modern technologies.

2. There are books written by IT experts who couldn't spot an IA if it bit them on the leg. These books are fat with useless lists of IT technologies and acronyms.

Fredinandi's book is worth reading cover-to-cover, and more than once.

This is the first book about Requirements Pattern. You can easily understanding your problems after define all project's requirements. This book also provides a completes framework to categorizes and organizes the different types of requirements, forming a requirements set. It makes our project done on time and within budget. Thanks to Pat for this excellent book.

This book servers as an excellent source for gaining insight into the field of requirements engineering. Developers, Managers, Requirements Engineers and Testers could all benefit from reading this book. In addition to providing important information about requirements engineering in general, the book presents a requirement pattern framework targeted for e-business and web based applications.

This book servers as an excellent source for gaining insight into the field of requirements engineering. Developers, Managers, Requirements Engineers and Testers could all benefit from reading this book. In addition to providing important information about requirements engineering in general, the book presents a requirement pattern framework targeted for e-business and web based applications.