Systems Books

This is one of many books that I own by Mark Minasi. Every book of his is well written and easy to comprehend. I've gotten several atta boys from my various individuals within my company due to his books. If I need an answer to an issue, I CAN FIND IT in one of his books.

Bottom line, I highly recommend Mark's books for IT Professionals and novices alike. If ya don't know it.... You will!!

This is a "So far" rating. "So Far" I've read the W2K Professional Book and about 1/4 through W2K Server. Like ctboone said "These books are MASSIVE". If I recall the introduction says that these books are NOT intended for study for MCSE exams, however some people used these as a tool for MCSE, and "so far" I strongly agree. I wanted to get some spoon-fed type info, since my NT4.0 background is very limited. And that's what this is, I think. I find myself almost in a "conversation" with the text, like Mark Minasi and the other authors are standing there talking to me. There have been helpful comparisons of W2K topics to every-day life scenarios. There are many print screens of install/config processes. I think the books are ideal for getting familiar with W2K and or using as a "how to" resource. Sometimes while reading I find I get a little lost when the books says "click on Start, then programs, then click on accessories, then click on ...and so on". That type of info would be more valuable if I were actually doing it at the PC. Which is why I wish the info in these books were setup with a self-study system with actual training demo's on CD. I plan to purchase Alan R. Carter’s Windows 2000 MCSE Study Guide System to maybe get more of a "classroom approach" in pursuit of my MCSE/all around knowledge quest and use these books (Minasi's) to explain what other self-study books may not cover or explain very well. And "So Far", Minasi's Resource Kit may be matched but definitely NOT beat for this. No Certs, 1/2 A+ , Master's in "Wanna Be". ...

I am somewhere in the middle of my prep for 70-240 and eating up this Resource Kit as if it were choice chocholates instead of four volumes. When I learned that a sixteen-pound package had been shipped via UPS, I ought to have had a clue. These four books are MASSIVE. And better yet - Minsai writes coherently. Very coherently. He is the first person I have come across who could explain unattended installs, answer files, etc. in something that approximates the English language. Minsai not only does an excellent job of explaining the Windows 2000 o/s, he very clearly dileneates the changes and the reasons Microsoft has for making the changes from earler versions of Windows NT and Windows 9.x. The Server volume alone is over 1500 pages. The print is small. It is slow-going to read - not because Minsai is difficult to understand (quite the opposite) but because he packs so much information into every page. Microsoft should hire this guy to write all of their technical documentation. Even when Examcram comes out with a quick cram review for 70-240 (or the four sequenced tests if you are new to Windows enterprise networking, EVERYONE who wants to be certified ought to purchase this 4-volume set and read it and read it and read it again. A cleaner, clearer more exhaustively complete compilation on Windows 2000 (complete with a review of the differences between NT 3.5x, Windows 9.x and Windows 2000)will never be written. In fact, amongst technical volumes, a more coherent more exhaustive series will probably never be written. At last, a technical writer who can and has proofread his work and who has complete and total mastery of the subject matter! If you want to learn Windows 2000 enterprise, buy these four books. Buy these four books if you buy absolutely nothing else. Yeah - they may represent an absolutely monumental amount of work just to read and digest. But believe you me, they are worth their weight (16 pounds) in gold. Probably platinum. CThomasBoone, CNE, MCSE, MCP+I, ctboone1@hotmail.com

Mark does it again. This guy made me cancel my windows 2000 training classes. I have read his articles in Windows 2000/NT magazine for a few years now.

This set takes you inside the innerworkings of windows 2000. Mark shows you how to get things done in win2k, but also gives you a peak at how the simple tasks are performed.

This kit is best read by those familiar with windows 2000 and is perfect if you want to become an expert.

This Resource Kit is the Resource Kit of resource kits. Don't bother with the Microsoft kit. Mark has a way with disseminating information to humans in a way that most authors can't. The four volumes are packed with tips, hints and solutions for anyone who administers a Windows 2000 network. It's an excellent reference kit as well. Highly recommended! Thanks Mark for your humorous, witty way of teaching!

This book does an excellent job explaining tcp/ip, not just for the test but for real life use and reference also. It is well written in that there is little fluff - just the important stuff explained in a very articulate manner. There are a lot of helpful diagrams and follow along Windows NT configuration screens. It has a great explanation of ip addressing and subnetting (though I only had one easy exam question on that). All the other important topics were well explained - utilities, netbios and host name resolution, hosts and lmhosts, wins, dns, dhcp, snmp, routing, tcp/ip printing, routing, and one of the best explainations I have ever read on the browser service in a routed network. Even though the tcp/ip exam is retiring soon I suggest this book to all involved in learning networking with NT, plus I understand that Microsoft considers tcp/ip so important that they are actually merging it into the curriculum for MCSE NT 2000 - therefore it is really not being retired as an outdated subject and will be important to those seeking that certification. One minor complaint is that it barely mentioned RAS. I had two questions on the exam about RAS relating to routing and pptp. I would suggest reading a bit more in depth on RAS and VPN before the exam. The review questions at the end of each chapter are pretty good at challenging you on important contnet of the chapter. However as always I recommend a second book to study for any exam. I supplemented this book with Exam Cram for TCP/IP which was also excellent and had a whole lot of practice questions along with 20 plus scenario questions very similar to what you would see on the actual exam. It is also best to learn this topic on a practice network at home if possible. There is no substitute to actually configuring a dhcp, dns, or wins server yourself. The material you need to learn is all here, but it is important not to just understand it but to know it. A typical exam question would be along the lines of - you are on a subnetted network with routers and you can ping a workstation on a remote network using its' ip address but you can't see it in network neighborhood or maybe you can't connect to it using its' host name via ftp - why? There were quite a few questions on the exam about what utlity to use for a particular task - ping, nbtstat, netstat, tracert, arp, rsh, lpq, lpr, lpd, etc. Great book and I really enjoyed reading it and oh yeah I passed the test!

The ATEC course was just not enough and other books I bought didn't seem to do the trick. Then I found this little gem. Clear, concise, to the point with some humor to keep it from being too dry and not goofy like some other books. With this, Exam Cram, Sybex's Exam notes, and Trancenders, I passed the first time with a score of 900/1000. Should be required reading in Microsofts training programs!

Pros: Concise, well written, organization. Cons: No answers available for the Study Break sidebars, answers only to review questions. This book left me looking elsewhere for more practice problems (with answers) for subnetting. I gave the author feedback on this, hoping answers would appear online.

I took the test last week after using this book only and got a 966/1000! This book is great and covers all of the material for tcp/ip perfectly. I am experienced with tcp/ip and I learned alot form this book I didnt know and I would say that this book is a must for all people eho want to learn it.

The aouthors writing style is pure genius. Every concept that the author talks about is explain clearly and concisely. Many of the other books I read on the subject left me with questions such as with subnetting. THIS book cleared up everything. The "study breaks" are probably the best part of the book. I am only half way done with this book, which I started tonight, and I have purchased the book on Proxy Serer 2.0 which is just as good if not better! This book is extremely easy to read and is actually fun to study with!

I bought this deck nearly 15 years ago. I have since purchased several other decks, but this one is, by far, still my favorite. The images and messages are light and powerful. They are clearly filled with love. I went in search of Morgan's Tarot in order to add them to my website. They are perfect for encouraging good self-esteem, which is especially beneficial to the content of my site. It is unfortunate that the cards are no longer available, but I will not give up the search.

The "noise" referred to in my earlier review was about lines of text in the book like, "This is an opinion sponsored by entity X-1513." That line doesn't seem to relate at all to the rest of the card's description. Or the du wacky du description? I read my own descriptions into those cards... DWD makes no sense to me at all. I usually take it to mean that I'm not looking around at what is really going on, that I'm navel-gazing.

Morgan's Tarot is truly an inspirational deck. It is the only deck that I know of that communicates to people who have not spent hours memorizing and meditating on typical major and minor arcana symbols.

I have had a person tell me that I did not truly perform a reading for him using the cards because I actually made him look at the cards and interpret for himself (laugh). I only provided insight where he couldn't see an answer for himself immediately.

I highly recommend you to find a copy of this deck if you need some help laughing at yourself (this deck has multiple laughter cards). Be warned though, if you know the answer of your query in your heart, do not be surprised if you find yourself being harshly chastised for asking the question.

I've had this deck for 20 years and I love it. Nothing to memorize, no esoteric secrets. Even tho it's a cartoon, it gives accurate great readings. The imagery and captions are in modern, new age vernacular with a 70's flavor. Everyone smiles when I pull it out. Easy to read and I hardly ever refer to the book, even tho I numbered the cards to match the entries. People don't find it intimidating and find themselves adding to their own reading. Get this deck if you don't take life too seriously and want to have fun with reading. If you want to mystify people you don't want this one.

Morgan's deck is my favorite ... with 'real life' images. When I first began looking at various Tarots, Morgan's deck was the one that felt "lightest" and "cleanest" to me, and so it was where I started. I've now been doing my professional readings "card free" as it were, for years ... as Morgan's cards lent themselves to the opening of my intuitive, to the degree I could relate the information faster than I could turn the cards. As to the "noise" referred to, Morgan had a Very tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, and didn't really believe the deck needed a book, but that each user could develop their own interpretation for the symbols. (in fact, when Morgan himself was publishing the deck, there was no book.) So, when U.S. Games stepped up to be the publisher, and required a book, as part of the package, Morgan's sense of humor stepped up to meet them. Just enjoy or toss out the humor, and use the underlying thoughts as your guide.

The cards, originally, weren't meant as a tarot or even as anything for anyone other than Morgan. When he described their origin to me, he said he was working as a dishwasher at a small place in the Santa Cruz mountains and studying his own personal development. He got some cards (I assume index cards) and started writing down the key ideas he'd been thinking about, just as sort of reminders for himself. There are even around a half-dozen cards in the deck that he attributed to the cook at the same place.
Morgan just carried the cards around to be reminders of his focus in terms of consciousness. (being a spiritual being seemed to make sense, easily, to him, but the "living a human" life was much harder to integrate and make sense of ...)
He described his confusion as other people started looking at his cards and getting something from them ... and started insisting that he should publish them as a tarot. (I'm sure those others pictured that as a simple path to a "well beyond dish washer" income for him ... when I met him, he was washing dishes, again, for a place that would trade food and lodging and some pay ...)

He found the artist ... and thus the black-and-white line drawings came into being ... and, from somewhere, scraped up the money to actually print decks ... and set about selling them himself. Eventually they gained enough "grass roots" popularity to be in Metaphysical (and other) bookshops all over the place, to the extent U.S. Games found him and picked up the rights.

You have to put this all in the perspective of the times, this was during the first waves of popularity of "awareness and consciousness" in the western world ... Timothy Leary and Ram Dass (under his other name) were exploring LSD at Harvard ... and many other folks were doing their own explorations along similar paths ... so, when I met Morgan, over a beer, I told him, first, that I'd been reading with his cards for years and loved them. Then I confessed, (somewhat embarrassed) that based on the mythology around, I'd been describing the author, him, as ... ' a drug-crazed hippy out of Santa Cruz...' ... he paused a long time, looking at me, and finally replied..."Boulder Creek, actually, but nobody knows where that is ... I guess Santa Cruz is close enough..."

Morgan passed over some years back ... and I have to confess, my first thought when I heard about it was, "Wow ... he made it ... he finally finished what ever lesson was SO hard for him to learn ... and made it out..." Being a spiritual being was pretty close for him to touch, it seemed ... but being a spiritual being living a human lifetime ... seemed to be a mystery to him for the whole time.

Scout Bartlett
Scout@LifeInsights.Net

This book is a great companion for the MotherPeace cards. The cards themselves come with a small booklet that doesn't offer much information, but this book really has a lot of information, and is very well laid out.
I would recommend it highly!

If you order or have the Motherpeace tarot deck, you must have this book to go along with them. It describes what each card means and it's layed out in a way to easily access the card definition you are seeking. It gives one a lot to think about while reading your cards. You will also learn a lot about women's herstory.

it is a most have book.with easy to read for beginners.you will not regret purchase

I've used this book and matching Tarot deck for 7 years or so. (I go through phases where I consult it regularly and then periods when I don't use it at all.)

The book is easy to understand, explains in detail a lot of symbolism you might not know, and also offers a quick "if you get this card in a reading" section if you just want to zoom into your current reading. It importantly also encourages users to use the book for general understanding of symbols in the cards, and the larger context of the cards, and to trust in one's own intuition for readings.

One thing I really liked about the book is how the 22 Major Arcana cards tell a story of the history of the world--one that has not yet been completed. It is all a big cycle, with many little currents running through.

This is a tarot focused on the goddess, a panorama of earth-based and matrifocal cultures. But I am a man and have never felt astranged or put off by this focus... quite to the contrary it has been helpful.

I've been using the Motherpeace Tarot cards with the original version of this book for almost twenty years. The cards have a wonderful matriarchal/woman/goddess focus, and the book uses gender-nuetral language, so the cards can be used easily by both men and women. I continue to gain new insight and inspiration from this deck even after all these years! The detailed symbolism in the artwork is incredible, and the book is well organized to either read about the card in detail or get a quick summary. I don't usually use the cards in the suggested layout because it can take a long time to go through each position. I usually spend a little time centering myself and form a question or situation clearly in my mind, then shuffle and cut the cards and lay out one to three cards (one for just the situation, or three for past-present-future interpretations). I then spend some time looking at the cards to see what jumps out at me, then read about them in the book. Sometimes I'll keep a card from a reading out on my nightstand for a few days to continue contemplation of the image, or to remind me of an affirmation or message that came to me from the card. I don't necessarily use the cards for "telling the future", but rather as a tool to help me clarify and focus my intuition and thinking. Every now and then, for really key situations, I'll use the layout described in the book. It's very comprehensive and can be useful to help think about things in many different ways (atmosphere, hopes, fears, obstacles, conscious and unconscious impressions, etc.). I also use the Motherpeace Tarot Playbook by Vicki Noble and Jonathan Tenney, which goes into more detail on how to interpret cards that are leaning in one direction or the other, or are reversed (upside down). The Playbook also has more information about the recommended layout, and about using the cards with astrology and the chakras. I would recommend that anyone who plans to use these cards frequently get both of these books to use together. I've used other tarot decks, but have always come back to my Motherpeace cards!

This book does a good job of doing exactly what the title says it would do. I bought this because at work our company has always lived in a Wintel World. But we acquired another company that was Linux centric and it was clear that us Windows people needed a crash course of Linux. I needed some quick exposure to Linux and a way to cut my learning curve by being able to understand how to transfer tasks in Windows over to Linux. This book shortened my learning curve because as good as the net is about giving information to us for free. Sometimes I just like curling up with a good book.

Firstly i live in a caribbean country ..there are no linux user groups ...any info yu get from linux if you find one, user you most likely have to pay for ..I successfully installed linux already but i had no clue what was going on after that ..i have reached chapter 3 in this book and if there were no more pages i already got my monies worth.This book is truly built with the linux dummy in mind ..thanks mr easttom

I hated Linux until i read this book. I haven't turned on my Windows box all month. Very clearly written and easy to read.

It is a book, explaining Linux in a simple,
clear manner. Best for a reader with some
Windows skills.

It was my old dream to learn Linux. I had heard that it
is a stable, free operation system. Having little
understanding about Linux before, I read the book,
installed Linux and now feel comfortable with it.

I found this particular book to be remarkably easy to follow, accurate, informative, and generally a great help. I am not a computer professional by trade, and my only experience has been with Windows. But like many people I have been quite frustrated with Windows and wished to try Linux. With this book I was able to install Linux and to use it to do all the things I had previously done with Windows.

This is an excellent book that thoroughly covers the intended material. Great for spine. Get it!

I regard this as the best single text in radiology, and it's one of two that I use on a daily basis. I only bought it because someone stole my last one.

The writing is superb. The index is very useful and the pictures tell me nearly everything I need to know - starting with basic anatomy.

Not the most in depth source for MSK radiology but a great overview of important topics and their MRI findings.

Why can't all radiology books be written like this. I just wish that authors in other fields of radiology can write books like this. This book tells you what you need to know and not how much the author can write about a subject. It's good for anybody from resident to practicing radiologist. If you read MSK MRI, you have to get this book.

This is an excellent book for the following reasons:
-Size of text. This is the perfect size for an introductory text for a resident rotation. Small enough to throw in your backpack.
-Cost. On par with the Requisite series.
-Concise presentation. The text is easily readable for someone who has experience with plain film MSK, and takes time to explain the relevant anatomy when it's important.It goes over the most important topics over each major joint, leaving out the more obscure topics for the larger textbooks.
-Illustrations and images. Illustration are simple black-and-white drawings, which are much more effective than some texts that borrow illustrations, which are often way too busy (poor illustrations of the relevant anatomy). The images range in quality from OK to excellent, but shows normal first and pathology second for comparision. The images are liberally labelled with arrows denoting pathology and normal anatomic structures, which is a mark of an excellent text. I detest texts who present images without pointing out the findings. It's lazy, unhelpful, and sometimes you can't figure out just what the abnormality is! Tree-in-bud? Crazy paving? Pencil-in-cup? Radiology is filled with signs and descriptions, some of which are ridiculously or poorly named. Unfortunately your stuck learning them, and nothing is more infuriating than reading through a topic like arthritis with unmarked images showing subtle findings like "erosions" without clearly illustrated images.

This book is worth the asking price. MSK MRI is a rotation most residents don't receive until their 3rd/4th year, and it's the quickest way to hit the ground running.

First functional then regional anatomy, not a bad idea. Makes u hard to forget, good "real" diagrams.

I really enjoyed the book and it was in great condition when it arrived

I like this text a lot. It has been useful for my neuroanatomy courses in chiropractic school. My background is chemical engineering - not biology - and this text is well written and makes a great companion for both neuro lecture and neuro lab.

The text of this book is quite easy to read, as medical textbooks go, and the figures in this book are excellent and easy to follow. A wonderful feature of this book is the double-page organization of the atlas portion showing brain sections. For each section, the left-hand page is an unmarked full-page photograph of the section, and the right-hand page is the same photograph with labels and borders drawn around the structures. This is much more helpful than the traditional approach that simply has a line pointing to a structure, for this approach shows the size, shape, and limits of the structure as well as its location. The unmarked photographs allow you to test yourself. I highly recommend this book for Neuroanatomy students.

everyone i spoke to says that neuro is one of those classes you have to teach yourself- couldn't have been more true at my school. this book saved me. it clearly presents the topics in as simple a way as possible, and has great summaries.

I bought my first copy of this essential text in 1976, and have never found a better reference source on the principles of grounding and shielding. Few engineers seem to understand the action of screened cables, especially, and chapter 2 gives an excellent introduction

If you take the course then you get the book too. And, since Ott is a good lecturer, you will likely learn a lot more than trying to read the book.

For packaging engineers like myself, this book is not worth the money. You would be better off buying Blackwell's "The Electronic Packaging Handbook" which has an excellent chapter covering all important aspects of EMC. For Electrical Engineers I suspect what you have in your "High Speed Digital Design" (Johnson and Graham) will be more than adequate.

The real issue is simply too much information. I agree with Ott that some understanding of antennas is needed to understand EMC but not nearly the amount covered in this book. I think that Ott's ham radio hobby has caused him to overdo that material in this book.

I highly recommend taking the course but I suspect if you buy the book you won't finish reading it.

There is a specific topic in this book that I have not seem covered in any of the 25+ book that I have on electromagnetic phenomena. The topic is the shield cut-off frequency of a coaxial cable. Common-mode currents at low frequencies (below a few hundred hertz) cause noise problems with coaxial cables, but signals above tens of kilohertz do not. This is vital data which is apparently not explained in many text books. For me, this topic justifies the cost of the text. Having said that, I am annoyed because the book is quite expensive relative to other books of its size and age. The point is that you have to buy it, but it is expensive to do so.

Even an advanced designer will benefit from this book, although you, like me, won't necessarily want to read all of it. It is sufficient to pick and choose areas of particular interest. The less advanced designer would clearly benefit more and the book would therefore represent better value for them. Given a choice between this one and Morrison's Grounding and Shielding Techniques in Instrumentation, pick this one. This one is more technically accurate and useful.

I build EEG sensors, and I started reading this book, expecting something like The Art of Electronics, except more detailed and covering only noise techniques. Instead, I got much, much more. The diagrams made *much* more sense than Horowitz and Hill's AOE, and the explanations were clear and consise. I was able to read it cover to cover in a weekend without getting bored from too much detail, and it had many many real measurements of noise in systems that made the information much more quantitative.

For instance, instead of saying "in order to get the most noise reduction, you need to use a shielded cable only grounded on one end", he says "a shielded cable grounded on one end has 84dB of attenuation to magnetic noise and much more for electric, while if the shield is grounded at both ends the attenuation is more like 36dB".

Those numbers are critical if you're trying to balance signal quality with cost.

One of the best textbooks I've ever purchased.

I greatly appreciate the practicality of this book. If you can't attend one of his seminars, my recommendation is to buy this book, it will help. It's one of those that I plan to keep in the EMC lab and not just on the shelf. -doug

I'm a CNE since Version 3.X. I have took a lot of test reading only the White book and practice. The results: I had to take test twice even three times before passing it. For the NW5 Update, I took the course and read the white book twice, but I also bought this book. The results: Passed the first time!! It's incredible how this books wraps all you need to know in order to pass the test. It is easy to read and give you clues of what to pay special attention. If you are studing for the update test, this is the only book you will have to read (you will need hands-on, as well).

The book is very easy to read and the author has even put in material to make it fun to read. If you want your professional reading to be as dry as a bone, that feature may jolt you. The book is a good general reference for NW 5 and not just for test-takers. However, the prospective test-taker should look at Appendix B. It provides the Novell test objectives and give the reference to the pages in the book where each objective is covered. If you've gone over the official text so many times that you're about blind, this explains the same things (plus more) in a very clear manner.

I originally got my CNE back in 1994 - the 3.11 days. That was the last time Novell came out with a CCR (Continuing Certification Requirement) - the update to 4.11. That was the only test I flunked the first time and squeaked by the second time. Now I'm working in an NT environment and haven't even touched a Novell server in over a year. Needless to say, the latest CCR had me worried. I wanted to keep my CNE, but didn't want to spend thousands of dollars learning a NOS I'd probably never use. I decided to get Clarke Notes only and sink or swim. I'm happy to say I passed the test on the first try after two days reading and studying this book. Thanks, David! Now if we could only talk him in to developing a Windows 2000 curriculum.

Undeniably the best study guide around. I scored a 780 out of a possible 800 with this book, and a great quizzer, and with 12-16 hours of study time. You can't beat the quality of the of the material for the price. As a Master CNE I have taken tons of tests and using Clarke Notes is always the way to go.

This book is by a big margin the best certification study book I have come across. It is to the point, clearly written and more importantly, set out sequentialy to reflect the official Novell Education training materials. I passed my exam with this book plus some eight months experience of NetWare5.

My hat off to David James Clarke for this book, I have no hesitation giving it five stars.

Good book and software to get started. Users should have a basic understanding of computers and PC operating systems if using on older machines. But the software worked great out of the book. I would recommend.

I found the book a good resource for someone trying to make the transition to Linux, and "Damn Small Linux" a good operating system for my old computer. Thanks to the authors and the many hours work they obviously put into the writing.

Jerry

This book consolidates material that you would otherwise have to spend days scouring the web and forums to find. (Not to mention the misinformation that is often floating around out there.) Damn Small Linux is a great operating system with a great development team and community. And this book provides tons of detail on how to use it.

I first started my journey into DSL via another book; Craig Hollabaugh's "Embedded Linux, Hardware, Software, & Interfacing," 2002, ISBN 0-672-32226-9. This book is extremely valuable, if you wish to know how to put together a small single purpose embedded Linux system. However, by the time that I began to read it in 2005 (marriage, moving), it was beginning to show it's age. Most of the links to additional reading, at the end of each chapter, were broken. In addition, most of the projects that I have been associated with, require some form of primitive GUI.

Enter DSL! I fell in love immediately. Here were all of the missing pieces. Until the appearance of this book, the web and patience, were the only way to gain a good grounding in the techniques specific to this distro. The contents of this work are not just a repeat of that found on the net. The materials included are complementary to that information.

Don't just read the 1st half of the book. Read the project material also. There are gems to be gleaned therein.

The only complaint that I have about the book is in the binding, which is quite stiff, and therefore does not easily lend itself to setting next to the keyboard, or project workspace. I took my working copy (I have three) to an office supply store and had it coil bound for ~ $6.00. Problem solved.

Good job guys...

I have been a fan of the DSL distribution for several years, and was pleased hear of the book's release. While there is an abundance of online information for DSL (as well as other Linux distributions), having a "hard copy" reference available is handy. The book is well written, and documents the features of this extremely full-featured minimalist Linux. While the book comes with a CD inside the back cover, I would download the distribution directly and use the very active user forum for the latest information.