Software Books

This book was extremely useful in helping me clean up many old family photos, some more than one hundred years old. The instructions were clear and I was able to do a good job (with practice) of restoration without fear of doing further damage to the originals. Thank you Laurie Ann Ulrich!

I am reasonably new to the world of digital photography and restoration of old photos, and have been searching for "the" book that will guide me as to the best way to approach certain situations in restoring my old photos. I found exactly what I was looking for in this book. This book is not about Photoshop Elements generally, but specifically addresses the restoration and retouching of photographs. It is the perfect resource that I have been searching for.

I have been retouching photos for awhile now and recently bought this book just to check it out. I found myself not being able to put it down. From beginning to end Laurie has done an oustanding job presenting each step in simple easy to understand steps. I dont think anybody will be dissappointed buying this book.

I usually search the web and ask friends for help when I have to learn software, but the cover of this book made me want to check it out, and I'm glad I did. This is a great book!!! Laurie Ulrich really knows about retouching and restoring photos and you can tell she really cares about her readers and has a feel for the kind of stuff people want to do with their family photos, old pictures, and so on. The book is fun to read and is written in a very easy friendly and readable style. She doesn't talk down to you and she doesn't make a lot of jokes (like in a Dummies or Idiots book) to make her point. The author respects her readers and what they want to accomplish and I recommend this book to anyone who wants to really learn Photoshop Elements and start making use of all those photos you have lying around or the really damaged ones you thought would never be useable again. GET THIS BOOK!

This is my third book by Laurie Ulrich on Photoshop and Elements, and it's great. I got the Elements Bible, and had her Complete Reference on Photoshop, and they're both great. This author is GREAT at explaining things, and gives really realistic examples that make sense. I wrote to her with a restoration question after I got the Bible, and she not only answered the question, but she retouched the photo I sent her and told me how she did it. That made me want this book so Icould do what she did without help, and it's been a great investment. GET THIS BOOK!

I found this book very useful. With other material in the field the author did a great job.
If you planned to roll out a PKI just take a moment and take a deep breath before doing that and consider all the do's and don't's. Ask yourself the question if PKI is really the only solution for your problem. This book helps you get that perspective. Good style of writing, clear and consistent. Certainly worth buying. Don't assume this is a deep technical drill down on PKI and you're okay!

Rob Faber, CISSP, MCSE, Infrastructure Architect
The Netherlands

Overall I found this book to cover the key concepts of PKI and its practical use fairly well. The case studies help me relate to how things are actually being done. My issue with other books is that they are too theoretical. Also the book gives me a strong case for expanding my PKI deployment as I can cite other successes (worldwide).

Good stuff on PKI: technical and business angles. Compliance was the main reason I took at look at this book, since HIPAA affects us day to day. I did appreciate the introduction to the technology (with technical depth). One thing I did really like it was that (to large degree) the book was vendor neutral. Some of the books through the RSA label have some spin. Definitely worth adding this book to the security collection.

This book covers a good chunk of digital security strategies with a focus on digital certificates (PKI). The first part of the book covers the PKI basics including technical and business topics. The next part of the book goes over the compliance laws (in relevant vertical areas) and how PKI (and compatible technologies) help resolve them. The last part of the book goes over resources and specific products/companies.

What I really liked about this book is it focus on how solve real problems such as compliance issues. Plus the case studies and specific vendor references make this is a good book to use for actual implementations.

Finally, this is a recent book on PKI and I have not seen too much on this topic as of late. The international coverage in the book also does well to keep the material relevant and current.

I would say this book would be ideal for security consultants as well as decision makers doing anything related to digital certificates and/or ecommerce in general.

The author seems to have "bought" into Public Key Infrastructure completely. Many chapters have a simliar formula:

1. Explain background on the compliance issue or standard

2. Then explain why PKI is so great and solves a majority of the problems with the particular issue being discussed.

This leaves a bit to be desired in some cases as the compliance-heavy discussions really move past PKI and into extremely detailed market compliance issues. This book will be useful for individuals looking for information having to do with Financial, e-Government, and Health Care compliance issues but not necessarily with PKI implementations for Enterprise organizations.

I have been working with PHP for several years now yet the first part of this book had me pulling my hair out (whats left of it). Setting up the environment is tricky and it probably would of helped me if I had a stronger background in OO programming. With that said, this is a good book and I would recommend it to any intermediate level PHP developer.

This book is easily the most useful and well-written PHP book I've ever read. It runs you through the complete development of a web application using PHP5, Zend Framework, Smarty, Ajax (via Prototype and Scriptaculous). It also includes a useful section on Deployment and Maintenance, which includes error handling/logging/reporting, database backup and restoration, and application deployment (dev, staging, production).

The book has a heavy focus on the Zend Framework, and does a better job of explaining (and using) the intricacies of it then any other book or online resources I've come across.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking to use PHP5 with the Zend Framework.

I won't repeat what the others have said about how great this book is other than to say I agree with them. In addition, as what follows will prove, I am relatively new to PHP. What follows below is answers to two hurdles that I had troubles with 'getting going' - the first having to do with php configuration, and the second concerning Smarty. I simply hope, if you are new like me, the following will save you some head scratching.

First - php settings... While the author does go to extraordinary length to try to spell things out for the reader, one gotcha centers around your 'include_path' settings. The author failed to mention that his default include_path includes a '../include' entry. Without that, any attempt to run the application will report an error with the Zend Loader. A work-around is to simply use ini_set to add '../include' to the index.php file.

Second - Smarty. Installation of Smarty for this project is demonstrated for a unix environment. Being ignorant of that environment, I missed the fact that the author was copying 'Smarty/libs/smarty.class.php' and the rest to 'Smarty/smarty.class.php', etc... In that I already had Smarty installed in php5/include/Smarty/libs, I missed the elimination of the libs folder. So, if you are going to buy this book AND already have Smarty installed, you can do what I did... Go to line 11 in Templater.php to change the require_once to point to where your installation is. In my case, 'Smarty/libs/smarty.class.php'.

The only quip I have with this book is the title "Practical Web 2.0 Applications with PHP" it should be called "Practical Zend Framework Applications using PHP"

There is not one example in the book that doesn't use the Zend Framework. That being said the Zend Framework is a great framework - but far the best web framework I've seen. I'm PhD student in Computer Science at UCLA whose dissertation research involves the web. I've used a lot of web applications and frameworks. Symfony, Drupal, Joomla, Ruby on Rails, etc.

Most of these applications and frameworks just suck - that is, it is more work using them than not using them and many severely limit what one can ultimately do.

I like Ruby on Rails but I love the Zend Framework. There are two big differences between the Zend Framework and Ruby on Rails: 1) they both promote MVC style programming but Ror forces you to use it everywhere and the Zend Framework allows you to mix MVC with simply using their framework as a library wherever you want. For example, I am building a social network but want to mix that with a related wiki. I can use MVC for all the social network code and use and existing MediaWiki (which is not MVC based) all I need to do is rewrite some of the mediaWiki code to hand over user authentication to my controllers.

2) it's Php based ... there is much, much more existing Php code to cannibalize for applications than Ruby code

The book itself basically takes you through setting up user profiles, a blog, an image gallery, prototype (javascript) and Google maps using the Zend Framework. The code is very professional and complex at times so a beginning user may have to read a chapter 2-3 times to fully understand it. Still the only way to really learn to write "professional" code is to see it and understand why it was written as it was.

There are some issues I have with the book. In places where something could reasonably be done in multiple ways the book only shows one without any explanation why that way was chosen. For example, in the installing Zend chapter the book tells you to edit the httpd.conf file to set your paths. Most people who use a commercial hosting company don't have access to edit httpd.conf or restart the server. There are ways to reset the path within the Zend bootstrap (which I did) but if I didn't know how to do that I would not have been able to get the examples to work without setting up a server locally on my machine.

Also the bootstrap is left in the index.php file when Zend recommends using the index.php to call the bootstrap.php file from a non-public web directory.

The Zend Framework is only a few months old and this is by far the best web framework out there. There is only one other (decent) book on the framework. This book is about the Zend Framework and only marginally about "Web 2.0" (you use Google maps). The book that should have been titled "Practical Zend Framework Applications using PHP" will teach you how to use the best web framework out there. If the next book shows one how to really use web services, ajax and present web services using the Zend Framework then it can be called "Web 2.0" not this one.

After thoroughly going through every chapter in this book (somtimes several times to understand exactly how everything was linking together) I have an incredibly improved understanding on how you might go about building a more complex web application, and an advanced understanding of the MVC pattern.

Every section is extremely well laid out, and the code is explained in detail (in most cases.) The only times where an explanation is lacking are when an approach has been previously explained in the book. Use that memory!

I think if you really dig into and understand this code, you may find yourself well ahead of a lot of your peers.

I even had a problem with one piece of code, and the author was kind enough to reply to my e-mail and help me troubleshoot the problem. (It was my fault.)

Highly suggest this book!

Any project one can undertake is not necessarily going to be like all the others. "The Principles of Project Management: Run Projects on Time and To Budget Using This Simple Step-by-Step Guide" is an informed and informative handbook for managers in charge of making their projects the best they can be with proper planning, strategy, and beginnings. With advice on warning signals to help people stay on the right track, "The Principles of Project Management: Run Projects on Time and To Budget Using This Simple Step-by-Step Guide" is a top pick for community library business collections and any would be project leader.

This is a short book, but it's packed with useful information about project management. It neatly avoids getting bogged down with PM jargon, instead cutting to the core concepts. It's not designed to get you through a project management qualification (though it might help!), but will certainly help you to become more efficient at managing projects, which at the end of the day is what *really* matters. Aimed at people who want to get projects done, even if they're not officially 'project managers' within their organisation.

The book is broken into five sections - what project management is (and just as importantly, what it isn't), getting started with projects (covering the who, what, where, why and when of project initiation), getting the project done (tools, best practice, project control), the essentials of good project communication, and finally following through - closing off the project.

Rounded off with appendices covering essential project tools, templates, and links to useful software apps, this is a great book for people starting out in project management. And whilst not strictly aimed at experienced project managers, I'm sure that everyone will find something useful to take away.

Great stuff.

Do you find yourself responsible for executing projects and need some guidance on how to get the job done? If you do, then this book is for you! Author Meri Williams, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that shows you how to get projects completed and delivered on time.

Williams, begins by explaining why Project Management is a difficult thing to do effectively. Then, the author explains why leading teams, managing schedules and implementing ideas, takes a lot of focus and hard work. Next, she gives advice on work styles and issue tracking. The author also discusses why stand-up meetings are very difficult to prepare for. She continues by showing you why closing on handling is a total disconnect. Finally, the author discusses how to measure operational success, ongoing support and maintenance.

This most excellent book aims to lay out defined steps to get projects done right and on time. But, more importantly, the author designed this book for people who are working on larger projects by themselves.

I don't usually work as a project manager, but I've been in enough projects to recognize most of the pitfalls described in this book.

The book provides a good, common sense approach to project management. Some of it may be overkill for smaller projects, and some of it may not quite cut it for really huge projects, but for anything inbetween it's a worthwhile resource.

I enjoyed Meri's relaxed style of writing (although she uses more exclamation point than one usually expects from a fully sane person :)). The way she shares her personal experience makes her advice all the more credible.

After reading the book, I felt like taking over a project I'm involved with at work, just to put it back on track again.

'The Principles of Project Management' is one of those books that does nearly everything right in my eyes. A small footprint (204 pages = don't say more than you need to), fantastic design, and good writing and content. It's no secret that sitepoint is one of my favorite technical publishers out in the field today and nearly every one of their books gets 5 stars from this reviewer.

This book is no different.

Project Management is a difficult thing to do and do effectively. Managing schedules, leading teams, getting ideas to fruition all takes a lot of hard work and focus. To be a good project manager you have to wear all sort of different hats and it's a daunting task. Like salespeople, if you are a great project manager you can have a lot of success and a lot of times it's the kind of skills that can't be taught, but are ingrained inside you.

But you can make those skills stronger no matter what level project manager you are.

From Gantt charts to tables to delegation, estimates, and becoming an amateur psychologist working with your team, this book is one of the best inros to becoming an effective project manager. You will learn all the necessary skills to be successful and have fun while learning.

If you are an experienced PM you owe it to yourself to read this quick book and if you are newbie this should be required reading. Great content and ideas + a great design make for an outstanding effort and book!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I have a litte doubt and try to solve my problems talking with the writer email showed in the book, but I never received a anwser...

This is an excellent book for those with an interest in creating Multimedia Applications for J2Me Mobile devices.

I would say that the book is split into three sections:

Section 1 (chapters 1 to 3): This section gives detailed information about the architecture of the MMAPI and how it fits within the J2Me platform. There is also has a good "getting started" guide to be found here.

Section 2 (chapters 4 to 8): Deal with how one uses the Player object in all its forms from playing simple tones, to playing back captured and streamed video.

This section was the most useful to me. It provides excellent
background information about each of the subject areas. An example of this is that it gives a full history of the MIDI standard, and an overview of the protocol itself, before it starts talking about how you write the code to play a midi file in J2Me.

Section 3: (the last chapter) is a case study, providing yet more code examples, and a companion blog site.

The only criticism that I have, is that the book, could have delved into the realms of streaming media a little deeper. The company that I work for, weComm is actively involved in the mobile TV space and I was pivotal in the creation of our application for streaming TV, and therefore I was hoping that this topic would be covered in more detail. That aside, I was very impressed, the subject matter was covered very thoroughly, and I felt guided through the MMAPI as I was reading it.

When I got this book I jumped straight to Chapter 9 viz. "Case Study: Device Blogging". This chapter nicely explains how to write a blogging Midlet for a phone device which includes writing a Blog post, capturing/uploading images to a blog, and capturing/posting audio to a blog. The author explains the MMAPI concepts using the MVC paradigm along with complete source code for client and server side processing of application and interaction logic.

The rest of the book goes deep into the MMAPI architecture and concepts with the help of source code of working applications. The functional Multimedia player example in the 3rd chapter explains the role of various components of MMAPI architecture. A dedicated chapter on Media player lifecycle and events is very helpful in understanding the basic concepts of event handling. The book also covers some of the fundamental concepts behind controlling pitch, tempo, audio mixing with the help of examples.

Chapter 7 is dedicated to the MIDI specification which is very comprehensive and well explained within the context of JavaME framework. Writing a book like this requires a thorough knowledge of both JavaME and the various subtleties of tone, pitch, sequencing, octaves, frequency, audio conversion and their treatment on the device and at the network level. In my opinion the author has done a great job.

All in all this book is a great resource if you are planning to develop the next Mobile video sharing, photo sharing application or your next multi-media player for a Mobile phone.

Pro Java ME MMAPI: Mobile Media API for Java Micro Edition has amazed me. The book is unique as it covers and desmyifies one of the most fragmented and confuse Optional Packages for JME.

I've read more than a dozen books about JME but this is the first book that has really cleared some doubts I had regarding Mobile Media in JME.

I strongly recommend this book if you are developing Multimedia Applications using JME.

Vikram Goyal has done an outstanding job by clarifying and detailing every aspect of MMAPI, discussing the way it has been specified, emphasizing the differences that may occur from one implementation to another and also providing clear, detailed and error free examples that illustrate the aspects being discussed.

Also, the text is very well-written and I've found only 3 typos. Very impressive! Apress is also doing a wonderful job.

Chapter 1 introduces MMAPI and presents its features and requirements as defined by the JCP - Java Community Process, compares MMAPI and the MIDP 2.0 Media subset, where it fits regarding the JME Software stack and at last it lists the manufactures and market players supporting MMAPI.
Nice introduction!

Chapter 2 explains the MMAPI Architecture, the main high-level interfaces, delivers an introduction to the supported protocols and content types, presents the relevant feature sets and the security issues one must take into consideration. It also details the MIDP 2.0 Media subset so that one can understand what's left out on devices implementing it.

Chapter 3 introduces the reader to MMAPI hands-on programming by explaining two simple MIDlets. It also builds the foundation regarding the overall development process and environment.

Chapter 4 is unique, it details the Media Player lifecycle, its possible states and transitions. It explains each state very thoroughly as well as Player events and how to work with them, even the limitations and issues regarding custom events. I've never read a book covering MMAPI with such a detailed explanation.

Chapter 5 covers all the issues regarding the access of media over networks. It starts with a very clear explanation of Threads in JME as well as the security permissions for media acess over networks. Then it puts it all together in a very clear and easy to follow example.

Chapters 6 and 7 are the best ones in my opinion. Those two chapters do pay the book, definitely.Vikram has been brilliant and desmystified Synthetic Tones and the MIDI protocol. He has remembered me of my of childhood, when I've had musical theory classes as it explains everything music and shows you how that all fits into programming with MMAPI. Those chapters are so complete that they have a lot of tips on how to convert from RTTTL to MMAPI format, the MIDI specification and message format and how to work with MIDI in MMAPI, how to create JTS files and other niceties. Thanks Vikram :)

Chapter 8 explains how to work with Audio and Video, playback, capturing, storing, controlling, mixing, it's everything there. It also describes the details of Media Encodings and Sampled Audio as well as the GUI options for dealing with Video.

Chapter 9 has a very cool Device Blogging application that builds upon all the subjects presented so far and also gives a good example of MVC pattern in JME.

Well, the only criticism I have is regarding the section about Streaming Media and also the Appendix C about the JSR 234 - Advanced Multimedia Supplements. Considering that Vikram has proved he's really a subject matter expert He could have provided better sections about them.

In fact, He has already written an article about Streaming in JME and it's available on his web site (so I forgive him) but AMMS is still to be covered. What about on the second edition of his book? Let's wait and see!

A must have book, absolutely!

This is a well written book. It's not for beginners but then again you don't have be a J2ME (Java ME) guru to understand it. The writing style is technically clear and straight forward without a lot of personal fluff.

Since MMAPI is a subset of Java ME, the scope of the subject is fairly limited but the author covers it well. The only area I might like more explanation is with respect to DataSource and SourceStream. This is covered briefly at the beginning of the book, but it would be nice to know how to implement a custom protocol.

The biggest problem I have had with the MMAPI is it's inconsistent implementation and the author is quick to acknowledge this. One could probably write a whole chapter about the quirks of various mobile devices.

In conclusion, I doubt you will find another book specifically on MMAPI that has the depth that this one does. I highly recommend this book if you are looking to get your feet wet with the MMAPI.

BTW, I really appreciate the time the editors spent to proof read the text as there are very few errors, if any. It's always frustrating to me when I read a book with a lot of code and spelling errors. That's not the case here. Well done!

I have the 2000 version of this book, which I thought was outstanding. Not only does it have excellent content, but it's written as if you were sitting at a table talking to Mr. Davidson directly.

This updated version should be a staple on any database developer or administrator's bookshelf. There is a solid discussion of design, securing the database (new encryption capabilities of 2005) and much more. But these aren't the reasons why you should own this book. It is as much a "how-to" book as it is a "what-to" book. You get real advice, not just screenshots and step-by-step examples. I wish more books were written this way, as technical knowledge without a procedural "framework" is a recipe for disaster.

Do yourself a favor and make the investment. Personally I know that any custom database design course I teach from this point on will include this book as reference for my students.

What can I say? This book gives me exactly what I needed. I'm a self-taught DB guy and this book filled in a lot of holes in knowledge.

This book is very well written and does a good job explaining new functionality and design of SQL 2005 as well as contrasting with SQL 2000 implementation. Definitely a book to add to your library.

I'll keep it short and simple, it's worth the price. It will allow you to make the jump from Application Developer to DBA.

I highly recommend this book to anyone working with SQL Server 2005. The material presented is made more understandable (not to mention entertaining!) by the examples used by the author throughout the book. The new features for SQL Server 2005 that the author covers are very relevant to my job, especially Chapter 7, Securing Access to the Data. The continuity of the material presented is excellent. Each chapter serves as a reference guide to complex topics that the author successfully explains through a combination of expertise, experience and a sense of humor.

This book is is easy to read and does an excellent job of introducing the new features and tools in T-SQL 2005. The book covers all the new features of SQL 2005 very well and I was especially impressed with the section on encryption.

Pro T SQL Programmers Guide is an excellent resource to jump start your SQL Server 2005 development efforts. Michael Coles presents clear, concise examples that will guide the reader from T-SQL fundamentals to the use of the new xml data type,http endpoints, sqlclr programming, encryption and more. A clear read with great practical examples.



I would highly recommend this book as a reference and guide book for t-sql developers, dba's and development professionals

This book is well written with clear examples and excellent coverage of T-SQL. Great to read cover to cover but also very useful as a reference source. I highly recommend it.

I really enjoyed this book. It presents the essential new features of SQL 2005 in a well written easy to read manner. If you are a SQL Developer and want to get up to speed quickly on SQL Server 2005 this is the book for you.

The chapter on encryption is excellent and worth the price of the book by itself.

Short Summary:
Pro T-SQL 2005 Programmer's Guide book examines SQL Server 2005 T-SQL from a developer's perspective. It covers a wide range of developer-specific topics in SQL Server 2005. This book covers many newly introduced topics in depth. This book is written as a practical and useful guide to help database developers who mainly deals with T-SQL. This book is really hit the spot with appropriate .NET code at few places where needed. This book assumes a basic knowledge of SQL but it is really easy for new beginners developers to understand and advanced developers to enjoy further reading.

Detailed Summary:
One thing I really liked about this book is that it can be either read cover to cover, or it can be used as a reference guide for one particular topic. Index of this book is extremely well organized and aids to find the right topic very quickly. Books is structure is many chapters and each chapter justifies the chapters with good details and proper amount of examples.

Each chapter has excellent advice and knowledge and filled with sample code (available online). The book is targeted specifically at SQL Server 2005 and the innovative ways to code T-SQL, new functions and commands. If is very easy to get started with this book and it immerses in comprehensive reading in no time. This book addresses many details and comparisons with T-SQL in very organized way. The examples are in very accurate and useful as well sufficient to targeted topics. This book addresses many of the real world issues with examples, discussions and solutions.

This book start with providing a brief history of T-SQL and the ANSI SQL standards. SQLCMD and SQL Server Management Studio are new tools to explore SQL Server 2005 and are covered in depth in beginning of the book. Chapters which covers Common Table Expressions (CTEs), new datatypes, operators, keywords, functions, and control of flows are really interesting and with necessary explanation. Readers of my blog are very well aware of my interests in Error handling and debugging. Interesting enough for me there is one whole chapter dedicated to that. The regular T-SQL concepts which I write a lot about Stored Procedure, Triggers and Dynamic SQL each have their own chapter. One thing many T-SQL book does not cover in depth is XML, XQuery and XPath which are properly discussed and their importance is explained properly. Last three chapter of the book which covers SQLCLR, .NET Client Programming and HTTP Endpoints requires the Microsoft .NET FrameWork 2.0, as it contains some code which are written in VB and C#.

One thing which I always liked in any database book is, use of sample database AdventureWorks. I strongly believe that all the example should be independent from previous examples and should use default database. If you have not installed default database AdventureWorks, you can get its latest location by searching in my blog SQLAuthority.com. All the script of examples are available to download online. No book is free from the errors and website for this book have errata list, which is surprisingly very small.

I will list few tips from book which interested me. This will give brief idea how good this book is.

"TABLESAMPLE always returns an approximate number of rows because of the way it samples data. The required percentage is the number of data pages SQL Server retreves in full to fulfill your TABLESAMPLE request. The number of rows returned by TABLESAMPLE will often be slightly less, or greater, than the specified amount."

"Anytime you use dynamic SQL, make sure that you take precautions against SQL injection, that is, malicious SQL Code being inserted into your SQL statements. In this instance we're using the QUOTENAME function to quote the column names being dynamically generated to help avoid SQL injection problems."

Following one example really caught my eyes while reading the book. It seems Author accurately described the situation and put his suggestion regarding syntax.
"The ANSI SQL:2003 standard includes a MERGE statement that performs the same function as the upsert type of SP. The prerelease versions of SQL Server 2005 included the MERGE statement. Though it was well-publicized during the prerelease period, the MERGE statement was unceremoniously dropped from the production version. We can only hope that Microsoft brings it back sometime in the near future."
Good news is Microsoft have included the Authors request in future version of SQL Server. SQL Server 2008 CTP 4 has included MERGE Keyword.

Rating: 4 and 1/2 stars

In Summary, A book for every developer who want to take full advantage of the power of T-SQL on SQL Server 2005.

Pinal Dave
Principal Database Administrator
(blog.sqlauthority.com)

This has to be the easiest and most simple way to learn HTML or to plane out enhance your site I love this book so much I'm going to buy The Project Cool Guide to Enhancing Your Web Site so I can enhance the already wonderful website I made by reading this book.

The Project Cool Guide to HTML is the greatest book I have ever seen about creating webpages. I have brought much more expensive books (upwards of $70.00), but they did not come close to giving me the understanding I gained from this title. It is written at an understandable level, and talks about some pretty cool things. It is also the cheapest HTML guide I have EVER seen. Well worth the money.

What an outstanding guide! I was writing HTML links and tables in less than one day. The interactive Web site makes this book invaluable!

This book is absolutely the best html book geared toward the beginner. The authors assume the reader has no knowledge of html and start teaching from the ground up. I was an early user of aol's personal publisher and felt limited by it. I bought project cool and knew enough about html to make very nice looking sites in less than a week. I hear PROJECT COOL GUIDE TO ENHANCING YOUR WEB SITE is on its way. I'll be the first to buy it!

I bought this book for my homeschooled daughter to use as a html textbook. It took a few days (chapters 1 & 2 are background/basics), but once she reached chapter 3 she was hooked and has been spending hours at it each day. I am amazed at what she has learned--all on her own. Most books promise more than they deliver, but this book, with the marvelous web site practice area, delivers more than expected. I would highly recommend it to any beginner.

This book is for the 2008 version of Quickbooks. This book was written by the experts on this program. The book is easy to read and understand. There are hints and tips scattered throughout to help you even more. Many illustrations are also included to help the reader understand each section. The index at the back is extensive and helpful so that you can quickly find what you need. Some accounting knowledge is needed to be able to understand what the program is doing with each account, general ledger, etc. This is a great guide and I feel it is essential to have if you want to use all the features of the program. It was definitely worth the cost of the book.

Reading it I found that I was doing many things wrong in the Quickbooks and later at the tax time I would have do all the entries again. It certainly saved me a lot of time and money and help me keep my reports accurate.

I just received the book and I'm so happy that I bought it. I had taken a course in college on one of the previous versions and they only did part of what QuickBooks can do and that was a service company. I have a retail business and this book tells me what I need to know about setting up everything for a retail store, inventory, invoice, etc. With this book you don't have to be a CPA to use it but if you have one that's great as CPA's can help you stay out of trouble. Very informative and check with your CPA to see if it's deductible as a business expense and this book will show you how to enter it in as such.

This books is great for users with little accounting background just starting out their own business - A Must Read

So far Quickbooks pro 2008 has had an option for everything I've needed to do relating to business accounting. It is easy to make minor form changes, invoice customers, create estimates later turning them into invoices, and tracking payments. It is not so great as a time tracking application which I've ended up going back to my old system then at the end of the month enter in my hours from that. In case you are looking for a product to track time I find Timeless Time & Expense very easy to use for tracking project times. For me it isn't overly difficult nor overly easy to track down all the features I use in Quickbooks. However I purchased Quickbooks 2008 the Missing Manual and highly recommend it to any newbies which makes locating those features much easier and aids in my comfort level knowing I'm referring to an experienced users approaches to the software. Even with it's shortcomings I can recommend Quickbooks. It gets a little easier to use as well as powerful each year, which is something I find is usually contradictory. Also for all you get in the package the price (though I hate to spend money on business accounting software) I must admit is much less than I'd expect from such a full featured product.

This book is excellent. Not only is it fun to read but also very informative. You can read it from front to back and you can use it as a reference manual. What graphics mode for tracks does what? You'll find it! What compression scheme do I need for what purpose? You'll find it! How do I change the movie controller? Why do I have to change it sometimes? Just look it up! Did you ever wanted to know how the people from Apple make movie trailers?

The CD contains an audio tour, many examples, and software (QuickTime 5 Pro, full versions and demo versions of various tools) for Windows and Macintosh computers.

This book was written very well, and is full of useful information. It isn't just for the web! It's a must-have for anyone working with Quicktime. Good book.

I like a lot Mr.Gulie's writing and especially the chapter about SMIL and how it can be used to create QuickTime movies.

The main reason I bought the book was that it had license keys for QuickTime5 Pro for PC and Mac. Those keys costed [price] each at that time if one bought them separately (supposing they had both a Mac and a PC). So it was a good deal apart from the book content itself. An unfortunate thing is that the QT5Pro keys won't work with QT6Pro and that QT6 can't coexist with QT5 on the same machine. So I do still use QuickTime5 (Pro) on my machine...

The book also contains a CD with lots of material which is a must for books about multimedia and rich content (would be a big download for one to get from the publisher's website).

Another thing about such books are that they're usually not printed in color :(, obviously to keep the cost low

This book contains all of the otherwise unwritten techniques for producing QuickTime movies and panoramas for the web, appropriate for both Macintosh and Windows users.

Steve Gulie is in constant contact with producers of QuickTime content (on the mailing list), and is familiar with their day-to-day travails. The book is essentially an embellished FAQ, plus suggestions from Steve's first-hand experience in producing QuickTime for the Web.

The book comes with a QuickTime Pro license for both the Macintosh and Windows, which more than pays for the cost of the book. In addition, the accompanying CD contains demos or fully functional versions of dozens of useful application, for Mac and Windows.

If you're doing any QuickTime production and delivering it on the web, then you need this book.

Steve Gulie does it again. It is rare to read a technical book that makes you laugh out loud, but Steve leavens the clearly-explained information about the intricacies of QuickTime and Web browers with wit and humour.
This second edition includes QT 5 Pro Keys for Windows and Macintosh - separately these alone would cost nearly (...), so the book is a bargain too.

Full disclosure - I am an engineer on the QuickTime team, know the author, and proof-read this book. I know that it is accurate and helpful, and that it will explain techniques that would take you a long time tolearn on your own.