Online Books

A friend at work gave me this book. It's a great little intro to excel basics and gives you a taste of the more advanced functions as well. This is a great overview for anyone interested in exploring the basic functions of excel. I used what I learned to build some nifty spreadsheets for my department. Before I started with this book I had very limited experience with Excel and this got me proficient with the basic range of excel functions and more. Even used my knowledge in a job interview test and I got the job!

I had tried reading through the entire list of Excel tutorials at the local library. All of them were disappointing to me, as they spent so much time extolling the glories of Excel that they never stopped to tell you what Excel was actually good for! And then they jumped right into complicated snippets of examples that were unrelated to anything in the real world, or even each other. These snippets were again designed to show off the glories of Excel, not to do anything practical, like build an actual real-life spreadsheet.

As a programmer by profession, I always liked to "roll my own" solutions, using Visual Basic, MS Access, C++, whatever was at hand. And I've done some pretty fancy applications, including using MS Chart for graphing purposes. But those were mostly custom applications that Excel couldn't handle.

I must say, however, now that I've read this book and have actually discovered what Excel is good for, it can certainly handle much more than I had supposed! I will be using Excel from now on for various financial applications instead of relying on my programming skills with VB and Access.

The book begins with a basic spread sheet, which carries you all the way through to the final chapter, much like an accounting project in junior college might. And that was a welcome relief from those other tutorials. No dis-jointed jumping around from one unrelated example to the next exists here (as a reference guide might use). You follow the basic spreadsheet from chapter one all the way through to the final chapter, which builds in complexity, complete with pivot tables, and your understanding of Excel is added to as you go.

If you want to learn the basics of Excel, or just understand what this program is good for (as I wanted to know) this is the book for you. You can easily master the material in two weeks, or less, especially if you already have a basic understanding of computer programming.

All in all, an excellent primer.

Very simple and helpful for beginners and those with more PC knowledge. Covers many, many subjects in easy-to-use, easy-to-read format.

This book is another success for Cox and Dudley. If you have Word 6 then you won't need this, but if you are learning Word 7 then this is the way to go. Simple and easy exercises to follow. Useful tips and shortcuts to performing tasks. Easy reading and it does not take a month to digest. As a I am a computer instructor this is one of the best sellers

Very concise and easy to read review of physiology. I found the clinical vignettes and correlations especially helpful. Extremely useful as a resource for first year medical classes or as a reference for board review.

The hybrid format of this text was very helpful. It provides more information than texts with simple outline formats without overloading like a comprehensive textbook. For me it is the ideal format for a review text. The many diagrams are clear and helpful, great for visual learners. The depth of information is just right for studying for USMLE step 1 and includes "notes" that tie the physiology in with relevant anatomy, pathology and pharmacology. There are even relevant "clinical notes" that I found useful on the wards.

I used this for a fine arts class. It is a very nice book and has lot's of pictures too look at while the prof drones on and on.

book was needed for friend's class at college.
she is quite pleased with it.

Book Review

Rules of Thumb for Business Writers By Diana Roberts Wienbroer, Elaine Hughes, Jay Silverman; McGraw-Hill, Two Penn Plaza, 212.904.5951, NY 10121; www.books.mcgraw-hill.com; ISBN 0-07-145575-7; May 2005; 223 pages

Reviewed by G.A. "Andy" Marken, Marken Communications Inc., andy@markencom.com



We may be slightly over enthusiastic about Rules of Thumb but this could be as enduring as Cutup & Center's Effective Public Relations book that is now in its unbelievable eighth edition.

But unlike Cutup & Center, the three authors cut a much wider swath across one of the most widely covered used and abused business tools...clear, concise and effective business writing. Perhaps it is too much to hope for but the ready availability and ease of use of email has only accelerated the use and acceptance of poorly constructed sentences, stilted and acronym laden correspondence, embarrassing grammatical errors and a toleration of poor spelling and punctuation.

Rules of Thumb isn't a textbook that should be read for classwork and then put in your professional library to gather dust. This is a workbook. One that you should read a couple of times and put into practice. It should be a part of your mentoring and staff training program to help ensure that PR people properly use a vital tool in their daily practice...writing. The discipline and guidelines the authors provide will also spill over into your verbal communications activities.

The book will probably never become a standard for use in business classes or a basic requirement in MBA programs and that's a pity because there is a decreasing number of assistants whose job it is to clean up and improve business correspondence for managers and executives.

Most of us today have our own computer(s), a low-cost printer sitting on the credenza and Internet access. As a result it is too easy for us to write our own letters, our own business proposals, our own management reports, our own editorial and management emails and even prepare our own PowerPoint presentations. All without the use of standard software tools like spell and grammar checkers.

Rules of Thumb is an educational, reminder and reference tool that seems to have been written just to help people avoid embarrassing grammar, punctuation, style and spelling mistakes. "Facts" will probably get in the way of every public relations practitioner and his or her boss picking up, reading and using the book - "I know how to speak and write good so I don't need a fundamental book on business writing!"

But the brutally honest fact is that we all need to work at writing more effective letters, emails, proposals, newsletters, resumes, articles and yes even news releases. The authors also give a wide range of work-saving shortcuts you can put to work immediately on using Word, PowerPoint and even writing for websites and blogs.

The authors have compiled an excellent set of bulleted lists of easy-to-read and remember guidelines. They have painstakingly developed hundreds of practical guidelines that make it easy for you to clearly understand the concepts they present.

Now in its second edition, the authors provide a large volume of insightful information and guidelines to help you improve the quality of your written work as well as how to write your correspondence more quickly and with better results. As if all of this isn't enough, the authors have also done a lot of research for you and included a valuable resource directory to enable you to more quickly and effectively find the information you want and need on the web.

Nothing in Rules of Thumb will make you suddenly say "Viola!!!" It won't be an epiphany to open the floodgate of your creative writing. But it will be a book you'll want to read a few times and revisit as a refresher course again and again.

If nothing else think of it as a working guide to help you find a bigger, better and higher paying job somewhere else...or get the promotion you've been angling for.

That should motivate you to take a serious look at Rules of Thumb....

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Rules for Bus. Writers is an excellent quick reference to keep handy at your desk. Plenty of material for beginners as well as advanced writers. I liked the quick tips and good resources. I'd rate it "concise and helpful plus very easy to use" - it's a short and to the point guide. You don't have to wade through long passages of chitchat and padding to get the help you need. Highly recommend it!

The best book for the money, and I have read them all! Clearly explains MP3 and other aspects of digital music. Great CD, too.

I have read several books on MP3, and this is definitely the best for beginners. It explains all aspects of finding, playing, and creating MP3 files. While it is easy, it contains enough technical information for advanced users, as well.

The included CD is worth the price of the book, and is the best suite of MP3 programs and utilities I have seen!

Hey! This book is the BEST! Sandra's sites deserve to be documented and this book really shows the best of them, including two of mine. Buy this book! It's the best! Sandra is the BEST!!! :) I love ya Sandy!

This internet guide is really wonderful. Not only does it list the names of the websites and their URLs, but it also provides some wickedly funny descriptions of some of the sites. It's humorous without being unkind, informative without being boring -- in a nutshell, it's fantastic. A must-own for any Sandra Bullock fan.

As the webowner of "Borderline Personality Disorder Sanctuary" & "Bipolar Disorder Sanctuary," I was absolutely delighted to find this book! This book is so needed and will lead many people suffering from many different disorders to finding help. I highly recommend this book to everyone.

I worked in a health library for years, & this was our most valued & dog-eared reference book. For those lay-people who feel like despairing over the lack of information available on their particular condition (rare or not), this book will provide them with references to support groups, ways to form their own support group, & suggestions for dealing with life-altering conditions.

I bought the 2004 edition of this book and it has paid for itself with the valuable information and numerous tips it gives. If you want to know how to sell on ebay, this is the book for you!

I got this book hoping for some insights into selling on e-bay, it delivered. Jim Heid and Toby Malina have put together a great book that covers every question I could think of and identified several gotcha's that I hadn't considered. It is fully informative and extraordinarily complete and a must buy book for anyone looking to sell, or buy, on eBay. It is well written, stunningly informative, and a fun read.

I am not a librarian, but I found this book to be an excellent survey of tecnologies with relevance to anyone with a need to more effectively utilize the internet.

I have spent the last year fairly bewildered by Web 2.0; what it means and how it's used. This tiny book cleared the fog considerably, and the examples of how the various technologies and web features are exploited in the library world are probably more informative and stimulating than if they'd been directed at my specific problems.

If I had a criticism, it would only be "book versus web", as the web is a river and a book is an island. Printing it 'fixes' it in time, and the highly dynamic web will outrun the content of this book in a few years, maybe sooner. Meantime, its succint, direct and practical nature recommend it as a map out of the bewildering tangle of what's out there. Now is the time to buy it.

SOCIAL SOFTWARE IN LIBRARIES: BUILDING COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION AND COMMUNITY ONLINE is for any college-level collection catering to library science students as well as practicing librarians: it surveys social software, which lets libraries interact online with the communities they serve. Chapters provide librarians with the information needed to implement blogs, RSS, wikis and other types of social networking systems, even down to podcasting and IM. Tips include how to assess, implement and use such software successfully, offering real-world scenarios and examples all along the way. An outstanding, practical reference.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch