Virtual Reality Books

Joey Hill is a brilliant, inspiring writer who spends her time in the BDSM realm, and makes for a wonderful introduction to the philosophy and aesthetic of that realm...even if she's a bit intense for the beginner.

What's clear from reading this story (and an number of her other stories) is there is a bloke in particular she has a fixation with...a bloke it would be interesting to meet in real life. A bloke one gets a glimpse of a particular manifestation of in this work. He's reflected in other of her works but the manifestations are slightly different and no less enjoyable.

I have yet to read a story of hers in which the leading man and leading lady are not in some way broken, and this story is no exception. Our leading man has been royally screwed over by his ex-wife (and so-called friends) and has retreated to dealing with the opposite sex in the virtual crucible of Internet chatrooms. The leading lady is rediscovering herself after the death of her husband and has decided to grab the brass ring in her pursuit of the leading man.

I didn't fall in love with the leading man, as he lacked the intensity of personality which appeals to me, but I couldn't help but cheer Nicole on as she took a brazing torch to his icy exterior and managed to free her prize.

Money well spent. Wasn't disappointed at all.

This is only the second Joey W. Hill novel that I have read and I was not disappointed. After Natural Law, I went looking for more Hill books. I was a little skeptical about Virtual Reality but when I started reading, I had to read cover to cover! Hill knows how to capture the inner struggles of men. Hey, I like a big, tough man as much as the next girl; but Hill portrays the way a woman touches a man emotionally, under all of his usual strength and suggested passiveness, past the "I just wanna have sex" attitude, and straight to their need to connect beyond sex. So far, the two books I have read by Joey W. Hill have given me goosebumps and I on my way to get another one now!

I love this author, and have resolved to read everything that she has written. This story, like all of her others, involves a BDSM lifestyle, but like all her stories, it is the characters and their problems that are at the root of the story.

In this story, a troubled engineer and a shy, missish- woman, both overcome their inhibitions to find happiness as a couple. They meet online. The engineer is a sexual dominant but also someone with a troubled past, a past that doesn't allow him to trust very well. The 'shy kitten', the woman that he meets online is someone who he helps, at first, gain confidence in herself as a woman. He makes her change her hair, and wear more feminine clothes, all things that make her feel more confident and aware of hereself as a woman. She finally gathers the courage to seek him out and confront him in person. She takes the risk to explore what it takes to make their relationship real.

Like others of this author's works, this is a very moving story about two troubled people who help each other find fulfillment. I"m not sure why I ddin't give it 5 stars. Probably because I wasn't compelled to read it over again just after putting it down, as I have been with some of her other books. IT is very well done, though

Joey Hill has an incredible gift for telling the heartwrenching story of dmaged souls who find redemption through their love. For Mark and Nicole this means making an unrestricted commitment to each other., Nicole finds this much easier, although she is the shy partner in the relationship. Mark has lost his ability to trust. At all. To read how Nicole convinces himself of what they can have together, how he tests her, pushes her, until he realizes what a gift she is to him, is a wonderful journey. As with the Ice Queen/Mirror of My Soul combination, I dare the reader to finish this story with dry eyes. Do not miss this novel. It's a Must Buy.

but this is not her best book. I liked it, but wasn't passionate about it. It was something about the hero being so bruised in his former relationship and lacking affection/warmth in this one. He was dominant sexually but not open emotionally and so while he felt like a real person - I think there are probably a lot of male doms out there like him - I didn't warm to him. I guess part of you always wants to fall in love with the hero. I didn't here, so it's only 3 stars, but Joey Hill is an excellent writer and her misses are better than many people's hits.

Lots of good information, examples and GUI theory and all oriented around Delphi 3. Very effective explanations of and reasons for various ways of presenting data and user controls.

The title is a bit misleading because it covers more than just user interface issues. It is clearly written and covers a reasonable amount of ground not found in other books aimed at either more or less experienced Delphi programmers. I like this book and I'm glad I bought it. I can recommend browsing it to see if it can help you too.

I guess the most refreshing thing about this book is that it isn't loaded with fluff. It covers a wide range of design topics that are enforced with working examples that you can put to use immediately. The entire book is on the CD in Adobe Acrobat format, making searches a breeze.

This is a good Delphi book. It doesn't repeat the Delphi documentation. It really adds code that is worth having and talks about issues related to user interface design. However the book needs to address more issues of the user interface design, so this is not a complete book on interface design. But the author did a good job to start the Delphi beginner programmer like me. I really recommend this book if you are a beginner or intermidate Delphi programmer.

The book not only covers issues related to user interface design, but most of it discusses many common programming problems and tasks. The UI sections cover different types of controls and how they can be used to help the user. The remainder, about 2/3 of the book, however is a discussion of some very common problems eg. ensuring only one instance of a program, adding things to the taskbar, talking to the registry, internationalisation, error trapping etc. While the solutions and problems are not "rocket science" they are not the sort of things which can be found in the manuals or the help files. It may not be an "essential" book, but it would be one which you could add to your collection and feel that you have not wasted your money.

While the monoculture of South Korea is much different to Western cultures, they are at the epicenter of the convergence of the Internet, Telecommunications and Broadcast TV. Not everything that works within the South Korean culture will necessarily translate but publishers around the world ignore the rapid developments in this country at their peril. To get a some excellent insights into the digital culture of South Korea read Digital Korea and use it to carefully and intelligently to apply appropriate developments around digital convergence in S. Korea to your media properties.

Anyone who has been to Korea recently can attest to the digital integration of the society. For everybody else - this book is a must-read, you can get a sense of how the information society and digital information are so intertwined in Korea. Tomi and Jim do a good job of bringing out the unique perspectives through case studies and stats.

This books contains some interesting facts on the level of technology penetration in South Korea and on the ways technology is used in everyday life. The premise is that South Koreans use technology in a way that is several years ahead of other countries and that technological devices are much more integrated into daily life. The facts are presented one after the other and many ideas are repeated, with no analysis.

The English grammar, sentence structure, and editing are atrocious, so it is an annoying read. It does not contain technical details about how these digital devices are integrated. This book may be a helpful resource if you are trying to get a feel for S. Korean culture. However, without analysis or narrative structure, it left me feeling I had more knowledge but not much more understanding than before I read it.

This book misses the opportunity to answer "so what" about S. Koreans' relationship with technology and what it does (and doesn't) mean for the digital future in other countries.

As the insanely long title would imply, Digital Korea basically showcases the Korean status of digital everything. Though covering a remarkably wide range of topics ranging from robots to e-government, most focus revolves around the various incarnations of mobile and Internet. It soon becomes clear - painfully clear - that on most fronts, the term "information society" is nothing but a word for example in Finland. In Korea it's a reality today; or, well, yesterday since books on such quickly developing topics tend to be old information by the time they're out of the press.

The book is bubbling with various statistics, both generally about the digital state of the world and specifically about Korea. Some are very interesting in the way they highlight the vast difference between the developmental stages of Korea versus other countries - like the fact that 98.5% of the handsets in Korea were mobile Internet-enabled already in 2005. Some other statistics are borderline obscure but insightful in other ways; for example the fact that according to BDDO, 60% of cellphone users globally take their phone to bed with them - physically to bed, not just on the nightstand!

In addition to the statistics bits, there are lots of other gems in terms of services covered, use cases and anecdotes of life in Korea. The most dominant online services like Cyworld are given quite a bit of coverage and each chapter winds up with a case study. Some of the gems of information to take home are not technological either, like the cellphone code of conduct from KTF.

As insightful, fascinating and good reading as Digital Korea is - and it is all that - there are some problems with the book ranging from minor to major. As a minor annoyance I would count the very poor-print-quality, mixed-style graphs and charts as well as the statistics that are interspersed all over the book (though to be honest, spreading them out is a good thing also). To the medium range go things like too much repetition; same services and comments can be (re-)mentioned in half a dozen places.

To the more severe side, I would personally include one blemish in particular; the fact that the authors take what I think can be a fatal assumption: that the present state and the future of Korea is our future as well. They state:

"We are convinced that these changes will happen in all industrialized countries [...] To understand our digital future, understand Digital Korea."

I find this assumption quite simplistic. Despite the numerous advanced technological developments and their consequences (which, it should be pointed out, are not all uniformly good), it's almost crazy to think that the world of Digital Korea will be copied as such to other nations. One only needs to look at a number of past or current technologies and services to understand that they are being utilized very differently in different countries.

While we may all have 100Mbps ubiquitous Internet connectivity at some point in the future, what we use it for will still retain a lot of variety - and as soon as there are deviations in the technologies and, more importantly, the way we use them, understanding one environment does not ensure understanding another. Does it help to see what is done elsewhere? Certainly, no doubt about it. But are all industrialized countries hardwired to repeat the process as it has unfolded in Korea? I think not.

Having said all this, I did find Digital Korea highly interesting and insightful reading. It certainly brings up a number of issues that need to be thought of over here, too. It also brings in some fresh ideas; what's more, many solutions can - and should be - copied or adapted from Korea ASAP. By setting aside the not-invented-here-syndromes and using some technology and services from a place where they're already mainstream, mature and widely used, we could easily get closer to the Korean level of digitalization on a number of fronts. All in all, Digital Korea is certainly worth your while if you want to understand some of the possibilities of the digital world.

Again I'm reminded of the slogan "The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed".

If you want to know what services and trends are likely to be adopted by western mobile users in the next 5 years and why then read this book. From Government policy to digital youth to professional gamers, all aspects of the digital revolution are covered and dissected. It's not just a book of detailed stats and case studies but a guide to the how & why of convergence across all aspects of services and industry in South Korea and why it's working. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in shaping digital futures and trends in the mobile and media sectors.

I'm writing a dissertation on postmodern literature and thus had the pleasure of considering this book as research. The truth of the matter is, that in the dull, dry world of books on narrative theory, this one was FUN! This is exactly the point- video games and Star Trek have EVERYTHING to do with the way narrative works today, (which Murray compares with the way it worked in Shakespeare's time,) and will work once the average American can no longer remember a time when video games had no graphics.

It's fun AND it shows how things are changing and how quickly.

Great book that gives an thorough account of the structures that are given by the format of the digital media. You not only learn to analyse how digital storytelling works but also how it could and should migrate from the status quo to elevate itself onto the next literary level. To anybody who is interested in digital storytelling I recommend this book with all my heart.

This book came highly recommended to me. With all the hype surrounding its apparent genius I expected to be blown away. Sadly though, this book comes across as someone who has just played a video game for the first time (MYST) and decided that the kids might be on to something. Murray proclaims that one day in the distant future, they'll make a 'holodeck' and we'll finally have true immersion. In the mean time, we can gloss over all the interactive components that make such an experience compelling in the first place. The future of gaming/narratology/ludology whatever-you-want-to-call-it is already here. You don't need a "VR Suit" or some imaginary technology to have a truly immersive experience. Her woefully uninformed look at the games of her day are completely inexcusable:

"...interactors will be lured into worlds where they float, tumble, and arc through thrillingly coloured spaces, fly through imaginary clouds and swim lazily across welcoming mountain ponds. The nightmare landscape of the fighting maze, in which we feel imperiled may give way to enchanting worlds of increasingly refined visual dealight that are populated by evocative fairy-tale creatures."

At the time of this book's publishing (1997) games such as Jumping Flash, Mario 64, and Tomb Raider had already taken the world by storm. By reducing contemporary gaming to mindless, juvenile violence (while championing those themes in 'War & Peace', 'Hamlet' and 'Star Trek') Murray shows a complete lack of interest and imagination.

The heavy hand of narrative is not the only way to tell a story. We don't need a "cyberdramatist" the likes of a Dickens or a Shakespeare to show us the way. She could have explored the work of Miyamoto, Wright or Kojima and the stories that arise out those gaming experiences. Instead she focuses on the Miller Brothers because they offered up the most conventional form of storytelling. Eight years on, their impact is almost forgotten. Above all, people want to act - not in the theatrical sense, but in the name of imaginative 'play'. Maybe someday she'll prove us all wrong and the "Dr. Quinn Holodeck" will sweep us up in the rapturous joy of existing in a town populated by:

"...blacksmiths, barbers, general store owners, saloon keepers, scouts, and, of course, female doctors and who could be given their own homesteads or boardinghouse rooms in particular physical locations within the fictional world."

Sounds like fun.

Criticism aside, I did enjoy the chapter "Eliza's Daughters". Murray's look at procedural characters and believable agents proved informative and intriguing. If only the rest of the book were as objective and plausible then I might actually believe the hype surrounding, "Hamlet on the Holodeck".

janet murray's book is a seminal work for anyone interested in what story-entertainment is going to look like in cyberspace.

imagine if you were alive in 1889 when the movie camera was invented. it was not immediately obvious that this new invention would play a role in the world of story. There wasn't until the teens of the 20th century that dw griffith developed a language of story on film... and not until the early teens until the movie theatre with pop corn came upon the scene.

we are at a similar place with the new technologies of digitalness, cbyberspace, interactivity, ..... as humans were with the movie technology over 100 years ago.

janet murray's book gives us the thinking of the best minds at the MIT Media lab as to what might be going on here.

a great book...

Some may find this terse, warmly witty, and tidy treatise about "whither literature in the world of CyberSpace" as just too esoteric to read. Stop. This is not a book grieving over the lost art of words and writing that nurtures the lives of all readers. This wise book is a guide to the possibilites that elude pessimists wary of the ultimate effects of the computer on this century. Relax, discover the possibilites about which you've never dreamed, and let Murray tell you some stories in the mode of the future. For writers, for teachers....but also for the committed readers. Enjoy!

The author is living in a dream world if he thinks this book will sell enough copies to pay the rent. The story wandered in and out of reality and dreams. You couldn't tell which was real and which was a dream. The main character lacked any common sense. The ending fell flat and the last page didn't haven any connection to the story. What a waste of time and space.

I thought this was a very interesting and readable book by sci-fi writer Jamil Nasir. I could hardly put it down! Very intellectually stimulating and thought provoking ideas! Highly recommended.

I'm very demanding regarding what I read for entertainment. I can't stomach Steven King, John Grisham, and all the other schlocky hacks who may know how to plot but cannot write an interesting sentence. Jamil Nasir is not your run of the mill genre writer; he writes beautifully and constructs plots that make you keep reading. There is also much to chew on intellectually in his books. It's like eating a great tasting, healthy meal. Tower of Dreams and Houses of Time are two of the most entertaining books I've read in years.

Attorney David Grant has spent much of his adult life chasing women, but as he turns middle aged he finds chasing skirts becoming tedious and wonders if that's all there is in life while recently thinking of his paragon of the perfect female. He signs with the Trans-Humanist Institute where he hopes Dr. Thotmoses can guide him to fantasize about the perfect woman in a dream state as he has given up ever finding his ideal in real flesh.

However, Grant is shocked when he falls in love for the first time with Thotmoses' daughter Kat. He pursues her in a variety of dream realms as he learns to control his fantasies. Thotmoses persuades him to defend him and his family to God. As he begins to believe he has lost his mind, Grant questions with his womanizing history whether he is worthy to present a defense when God is the judge, jury and executioner.

This is a fascinating New Age look at God through the mind of a person who feels inadequate due to his cavalier treatment of women. David can live his life as the supreme being of his dreams or the reality of a failed maniac in an aging body wondering what if. Although too much time is spent on his doubting Thomas belief that surpasses in length Wayne and Garth making them seem worthy of Alice Cooper, THE HOUSES OF TIME is an interesting look at what is God in the information age.

Harriet Klausner

I have been faithfully waiting for another of Mr. Nasir's imaginative books for years! He is one of the few authors that satisfy my need for more stories as fine as P. K. Dick's were. This book satisfies 100%! It is the story of a lawyer, David Grant, who has lucid dreams, and what happens when he goes to a researcher (Dr. Tutmose - love the name). As David learns to control his dreaming, he discovers that the world, universe is more complicated than he imagined, and the true nature of his dreams is revealed to him. I don't want to spoil this wonderful book by saying too much more, other than 1) buy this book if you love wonderful writing, well constructed plot, and a satisfying end, and 2) Mr. Nasir, please work harder and publish more frequently!!

I wish I found this book earlier when I was still a freshman. The contents are well-explained, and easy to understand. I put aside our school's textbook, and used this one instead - helped me a lot!

As a nursing student, this book is used quite heavily by the faculty. The book's infinite charts, tables, and figures are enough to drive you nuts. There are very few good photos. Our nursing teachers were regularly having to use other books to show us photographs of whatever we were studying. Also, after reading the material, I always felt like I didn't really know the material. If I really wanted to know the material well, I had to go study it in an Anatomy & Physiology book.

I have looked at other Med/Surg books and prefer them, any of them, to this one.

This book is more suited for the experienced nurse rather than the nursing student.

Many nursing books are horrible to read and comprehend - NOT this series of nursing books! Easy to understand charts, lists, description boxes, etc. spells terminology and info for newbies easily and appropriately.

By far the BEST nursing series I have ever seen!

As a first year nursing student I thought this book was informative. I also thought this book tried too hard to present the info. in a concise manner. There were charts everywhere! I found the "helpful" charts to be distracting and drew attention away from the important information. I disliked having to look for the case study answers on line. It was difficult to login to their website and annoying to have to do so. Good Luck to future students who have to use this book!

I am also a first year nursing student and the first fundamentals book we used was so useless and hard to read I hated doing my homework. However, this book is so easy to understand and use, especially with the study guide which is also wonderful. I would not trade using any other book for this one. Trust me, you'll really understand what is being talked about.

MICHAEL D. TYSON

REALITY VS UNREALITY

"Technology has provided a means to get information from anywhere in the free world instantaneously at the touch of a button, the question needs to be asked can we live with this" Mike Tyson

The Authors of the Unreality Industry have focussed their finger pointing on the effects of AMERICAN TELEVISION and why they believe it has ruin the lives of the American people. I do not believe that the "Tele" or any method of delivery is the root of the problem nor we I ever believe that to much information or for that matter information overload is in itself a bad thing. The problem as I see it is that people need to have the capability, education wise to be able to filter out the horse s**t and tune in to what is real. If we tend to believe everything we hear on the radio and everything we see on the Tele then we deserve to be mislead. People have either become extremely gullible or extremely stupid to not have a clue that this was coming. Prime Time television is big business it exist because we let it, but we don't haft to let it control are lives. I agree completely with the author's suggestions that we must uncommercialize television news, advertising and all programs that depict the game shows aroma. This will not be as easy as it sounds, if people are not getting shot and there's no blood, and no sex then who's gonna watch, lets not forget about those Neilson rating's and how important they are. I am convinced that education or in this case lack of is why people would rather watch COP'S than 60 minutes. People will watch programs that stimulate them and they will respond to people that they can relate to, how else can you explain the SNOOP DOGGIE DOG phenomena. For those who have not figured it out yet Modern life is nothing more than a rat race and nobody wins. The so-called information age has brought with it the tools to rule the world the problem with that is that it also provides us with a method to destroy it. How l! ong will it take before people get enough of UNREALITY can we the Industry capital of the world afford to consume much more, I bet not.

Mitroff and Bennis' _The Unreality Industry_ is about the nature of unreality and how the manufacturing of unreality is taking over America. Needless to state, TV is the primary medium of unreality, with the disconnected, a-historical context which it presents its news and entertainment material. The authors take care to outline the dichotomy between reality and unreality. Reality is very difficult to understand, is stressful to deal with, and only increases in its complexity. Unreality is simple, mindless, and creates the illusion (computer games, movies) of some kind of control over one's surroundings. Our embrace of unreality as a means of escape from the harshness and confounding nature of reality is deeply rooted in US culture: bigger is better, the infallibility of science and technology, the veneration of "progress". One aspect of unreality is that it employs "boundary warping" to catch the audience's attention. "Boundary warping" entails the near complete destruction of rational thought processes and categorization, the lack of any organization and coherence. The MTV music video is where "boundary warping" will find its most unadulterated manifestation--brightness, quick movement, lack of central focus, erotic images, disconnected and apocalyptic themes. It is often difficult to differentiate between male and female for instance and some androgyny or hybrid concoction is the norm (sounds like Gnostic Gnostalgia to me, but the book doesn't take the analysis that far). Another phenomenon that figures in unreality the commercialized, systematized and industrialized manufacture of celebrities. They have a mass-market appeal for various audiences, such as movie stars, sports figures, political parties, etc. The entertainment industry uses archetypes to sell its products as well. Archetypes, the primal images and ideas that unite humanity embodied in fairy tales, religions and myths, are constantly being re-hashed into different combinations to create stereotypical programming for the masses. The US is increasingly becoming a "leaderless" society, with true leadership replaced by managerial and bureaucratic ability. A chapter is devoted to the "Metaphysics of Sappiness" i.e., the dummying-down of society and discourse between people. With the advent of the electronic age, when people get together in large groups, it is usually for the purpose of entertaining each other rather than for intellectual conversation. In all, the authors seem to support the idea that the masses are not able to tolerate sustained inquiry, however, they warn against the trap of becoming too pessimistic. Obviously, this subject matter is going to arouse some controversy, and the authors pre-empt the criticism. They explicitly state in their introduction that their study in _The Unreality Industry_ would be one of a moral argument rather than one of dispassionate objectivity. Perhaps it can be said that Mitroff (a Ph.D. in engineering) and Bennis (a Ph.D. in economics from MIT) are two eggheads distasteful of the lack of more cultured programming (they like _Masterpiece Theatre_ for example). But in all, this book was written in 1989--the end of the Eighties. What did come out of the Eighties? Reaganomics, yuppies, video games, Madonna, Gorbechev, crack, hair-bands? _The Unreality Industry_ is late-Eighties burnout, pure and simple, and as we just wrapped up the Nineties a couple years ago, the idea that unreality is in total control is more relevant than ever.

Ian Mitroff and Warren Bennis are two academics heavily involved in the technological revolution. Their purpose in writing this book is to examine how technology, in what they call the "systems age," has created an all-consuming cocoon of unreality in our daily lives. They are not bashing technology, but examining how a lack of ethics has allowed technology to threaten the very nature of our system of government and of our lives. There are plenty of books available on media studies: Todd Gitlin, Jerry Mander, Neil Postman, and others; what makes this book different, at least in the eyes of the authors, is that it studies the underlying causes of the effects of television and mass media. This underlying effect is the creation of unreality, or a system that is so all consuming that it blocks out the real world.

The problem with an omnipresent unreality is that the real reality has not gone away. One of the reasons we create an unreality is that the real world is far too complex to understand. In the modern world, the interdependence of every aspect of global life has led to a complexity that is simply astonishing to behold. Not one human being on the face of the Earth can make heads or tails of events anymore. The result is fear on the part of humans, which leads to the creation of an alternate, unreal world where answers are easy and presented in a somewhat non-threatening way (I'm not sure this is right; the media loves to start panics). This alternate world has become so pervasive that it has become an actual industry, generating celebrities and images that people can relate to.

How celebrity is created and marketed is probably the best part of the book. The authors use charts and graphs to show how this process has become a huge industry employing thousands and thousands of people. The book also shows how the masses react to this celebrity, which in extreme cases, leads to the likes of Jonestown and Mark David Chapman. Celebrityhood is revealed to be a process of engineering; people are "remade" to fit personalities and molds demanded by the public (or is it really demanded by the public? Perhaps the demand is created.).

Other sections show how media uses archetypes from the human psyche to create shows, how heroes are generated in a society that lacks, or at least ignores, real heroes, and boundary warping, or how reality and unreality is actually defined.

This is a good book, although it is somewhat dated. Even the 1993 update makes this book pre-Internet, a new technology that would no doubt interest the authors. One of the charts uses characters from "Dynasty" as examples, and the reliance on Sigmund Freud shows that the authors are not aware that most psychologists view Freud as a quack. I think this is a necessary read, at least for those who are interested in media studies and the like. It does tend to get a little esoteric at times, which is not surprising as the two authors are engineers who are probably not used to writing directly to the masses. Recommended.

I was literally blown away by this remarkable book and its well-argued and carefully documented thesis regarding the ways in which contemporary Americans are victimized and manipulated into a kind of strange, conjured, and artificial perspective of the world around them through the rise and active ministrations of the "unreality industry". Here is an eye-opening expose on the specific ways in which we are being influenced, entertained, and carefully manipulated even as we strive to learn more about the world around us. Reading this remarkable book helped me to better understand the ways in which the rise of the electronic media to a position of prominence (if not complete domination) of the promulgation, interpretation, and dissemination of information has profoundly changed the way we have come to view, interpret and understand the world around us.

The authors carefully describe, articulate and identify those characteristics of the media that cause many of us such vague unease regarding the way the media increasingly seems to focus on provocative, entertaining and diverting news stories which often are of only tangential import to us as citizens or individuals. We're subjected to obligatory overdoses on petty, arcane and distracting stores about Michael Jackson, OJ Simpson, Susan Smith, Bill Clinton's cigar fetishes, and the vagaries of the stock market, while vital and critical issues of importance and relevance to us as individuals or as citizens are systematically ignored. According to Mitroff and Bennis, everything about the way the news programs are organized and presented leads us to increasingly view the news more as a vehicle for entertainment than as a method of informing ourselves to be involved citizens, so we come to expect ever-greater levels of stimulation and excitement by virtue of this stylized approach to what is important enough to report and present over the airwaves. Slowly we come to forget the critical differences between entertainment and information.

For the authors, as for an increasingly alarmed number of academics and social critics, the basic dialectic at hand revolves between objective and discernable "reality", on the on hand, and this artificially-generated, diverting, entertaining, but basically incorrect version of it called "unreality", a dialectic which more and more favors the organized collective forces of the media, who present such entertaining and stylized notions of what is relevant, cogent and important for us to pay attention to is not necessarily as accurate or as objectively disinterested as it may seem to be on the surface. We would do well to remember that the outcome of this struggle to correctly understand the world and how it operates is of desperate importance, and our eagerness to be entertained and diverted from the most egregious and disagreeable aspects of the modern environment must not allowed to become an addiction to fantasy, growing ignorance, and critical stupidity.

While I agree that the media has its share of problems and is advertising driven and needs to be carefully analyzed, the arguments these two authors use are completely blown out of proportion. Everyone knows that you can't believe what you see on TV. As for the advertisements that permeate their way into programs - I don't see why the authors don't realize television wouldn't survive without clever advertising to keep the cash rolling in. As long as you can differentiate between reality and TV, you're fine, and this book will shed no new light on anything for you.

McCracken suggests a somewhat back to basics approach to website design. He offers 4 ideas - proximity, alignment, consistency and contrast. Claiming that by adhering to these, you can develop a very professional website. Even if it is just your personal website.

The ideas are useful and uncontroversial. Consistency across the pages on a website is probably the most common idea shared with other books on this topic. Alignment is also a good thing. Like avoiding centred alignment as much as possible. Left alignment is usually the best and safest choice, for the greatest ease of reading.

There is a chapter on colour which is also well worth reading. Explaining the biophysics of colour, and how to use colour effectively on a webpage.

When I first bought this book, I expected to get more out of it in terms of designing web pages with users in mind. It focused a lot on setting up testing centers with a paper system and getting feedback from users. It was very brief on good web design techniques (doesn't cover navigation enough). The hands on exercises leaves something to be desired. Although there were some good ideas in this book, I found myself "hanging" at the end as if there should have been much more.

I had to design a website for the department in which I work, at short notice and with limited familiarity with internet technology and NO background in graphics or design. "User-Centered Website Development" came to the rescue. McCracken and Wolfe are not interested in flashy gimmicks; they concentrate on designing sites that the site visitors will find easy, pleasant, and efficient to use. Chapter 3, "Know Thy User," helped me figure out what the audience's top priorities were; Chapters 4 and 6, "Organization" and "Site Navigation," helped me organize the pages; Chapters 5, 9, and 10 taught me some basic design principles in a hurry. The best thing about the book, though, is its philosophy--that a well-designed website is for the users, not an ego-trip for the designer. It's clear that they extended that approach in writing their book, to make it as useful as possible for the people who will be using it.

I use this book in the classroom to teach the web usability
component of a combo HCI/web design course. It has many
examples, contains review questions that are reasonable for
students to use, and is very clear and precise. The color
plates are the best I've seen in a book of this type. I
highly recommend this. Because it is so clear and concrete,
undergraduate students can quickly grasp the material. Further,
the authors responded quickly to a question I had. Everything
you need is here, from foundational concepts rooted in
cognitive psychology, to complex social/technology issues
like privacy and globalization. And of course, guidelines
for working with colors, and fonts. The book draws on Gestalt
psychology and Constructivism to discuss layout, placement
and visual hierarchy. If you teach HCI, consider this.

Until it was finally in my hands, I wondered why this book had not received much reviewer attention, given its solid content and authorship. Keys to understanding that at once became obvious:

1) The book is much more expensive than books with similar content.

2) The eloquent Jared Spool, listed as an author, provided only a short preface.

3) The book was designed as a college textbook. Who loves or hates a textbook enough to bother to review it?

As a classroom aid, the book is superb. Usability principles are presented from foundations to applications clearly and without padding. Unlike many usability texts, statements are backed with ample references. The color illustrations lighten the book sufficiently to soften any textbooky stigma.

Each chapter ended with review questions and exercises. Some of them were very interesting and creative, but if you are not in a classroom with an instructor who has access to the password-protected answers, you are on your own.

So the Web professional attracted to the material and learning on his own will inevitably feel a bit cheated out of the full value of the book.

I was looking for concepts related to digital making, and how these techniques can derive from and be informed by traditional making practices(craft). This book delves into those ideas, though not in an intensely focussed manner. I recommend this for individuals interested in the intellectual/philosophical framing of such concepts, histories, and practices of making(craft).

A very thorough and easy read for beginners to start thinking what lies beyond the computing technology. This book may be similar with Gate's The Road Ahead, but does not intrigue much ecological vision into abstracting the craft.

One fear of digitizing art concerns the loss of craft needed to produce objects in physical media. McCullough may not set this fear to rest, but he does present a persuasive case that craft as we know it remains present in new media. He is able to define tools, tool use and tool systems so as to convince one that the tools of program interfaces are as much tools as their physical kin. The distinction between a tool and a machine and how both are represented in a graphic program's interface is especially intriguing. This book would be of interest to the many sculptors who have adopted digital methods into their work, but it may be of most use for human-computer interaction professionals designing 3D interfaces.

A book which explores many issues around the role of the artist utilising new-media. This re-affirms the fact that in all art forms responsibility is upmost. Great read for artists considering using new technology, especially students.

Gives a useful overview in an easy to read digestible tome hence ideal if HCI is a subcomponent of a course you are taking - as it is for me. Recommended for everybody who is involved in professional software development. It's a small book and less that 200 pages at that so hardly onerous and you really ought to be familiar with this stuff.

I am about to pursue a degree program and human-computer interaction is one of the areas of study.

This book has given me an excellent introduction to the subject area. It was very easy and simple reading which gave me the "ESSENCE" of the subject area. Its layout and style would also prove useful for revision just before examinations. All that would be required of me now is to acquire a book that has case studies to build upon this foundation.

I was never aware that there was such an area of study called Human-Computer Interaction. This book has really highlighted the fact that while we may know about system analysis and design we tend to forget some of the "HUMAN" aspects of the user. We design things with the attitude that "the user has to get with the times".

I would recommend this book for reading even by novices.

This book reads like it was simply transcribed from tape recordings of lectures. I closed my eyes and I almost felt like I was sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a lecture hall in Southpark, England. Really, very little effort was made to smooth out the prose. More importantly, the book offers little in the way of insight into HCI. Perhaps this is because this discipline doesn't really have much to offer; I'll reserve judgment on that until I find a better book.

This book starts out with a fairly interesting discussion about memory, vision, and hearing, but then makes essentially no connection between these early chapters and what follows. Except for the Earth-shaking insights that users can't remember a list of more than seven random things, and some people are color blind, etc. there isn't much actionable information that will help you design a better UI.

I suppose the chapters on user testing were somewhat helpful in understanding what HCI professionals need to do to evaluate user satisfaction, but overall the book left me still searching for a better text. At this point I'd say the best book on UI design I've seen so far is Cooper's "About Face."

While there are lots of HCI books around, many concentrate on the theory and recent areas of academic research.

Faulkner, however, endeavours to gently introduce relevant aspects of practical and theoretical HCI.

The book requires no previous or specialist knowledge. The aim is to make HCI skills a part of the general software engineering skill-set that the technical project teams possess.

HCI can be viewed as a specialist skill, but only when it is part of the generic engineering lifecycles will it make its true impact.

With this in mind Faulkner has put together a book that can key you into cconcepts and how they are realised, in quick and simple format.

Although this is not as detailed as some other books on usability engineering, it is not written for that purpose.

It is suitable not only for computer personnel who wish to add HCI to their own projects but also for managers who need to work with usability engineers, entry-level students and possibly end-users who will be required to participate in the usability engineering cycle.