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.

Excellent insight into the capacity planning process and how it relates to distributed computing. This book works best when coupled with the "Guerrilla Capacity Planning" and "Analyzing Computer System Performance with Perl::PDQ" books by Dr. Gunther. He explores queuing theory in-depth and explains how you relate this to real-world capacity planning.

His writing style is easy to understand - not only does he give you the theoretical background, he shows the practical application and the results. He also includes code examples for the "PDQ" analyzer which is a software program he wrote which leverages his "Universal Law of Scalability." For more information, check out his web site at www.perfdynamics.com.

I highly recommend this book if you are a capacity or performance analyst and are interested in real-world application rather than just another boring queuing theory textbook.

Very readable and highly useful book. One major hit. It is ironic that the author complains about the symbols in other books. For queueing he invents his own, instead of sticking with standard practices. This is very fustrating to readers that have other books on queueing and need to compare.

The author provides good practical coverage of queuing concepts and then goes on to show how to use queuing models.

I found it interesting that he gives an example of typical computer time periods scaled up to human proportions. If a computer clock speed in nanoseconds were analagous to seconds then a main memory access of 100 cpu cycles would be like some minutes and a disk access would be like some months.

His coverage of queuing concepts is very accessible with a minimum of math.

Scalability is frequently discussed concept that often is not very well quantified. He has the most original approach to quantifying scalability that I have seen.

A queuing modeling package called PDQ is also provided with the book. The source code in C is provided for the PDQ package.
There are some PDQ examples within the book. This is a real bargain because certainly the PDQ software is worth much more than the cost of the book.

If you have and interest in capacity planning and performance analysis (especially if you work in this area) this is a must have book.

If understanding and managing computer systems performance is in your job description and you can only buy two books, this is one of the two (the other is Raj Jain's, "The Art of Computer Systems Performance..."). Neil Gunther's book is not just another tome on queueing theory. Immediately useful methods and formulas are presented in the context of real problems. The two chapters on instability in systems and scaling of multiprocessor systems alone make the book worth its price. Readers need to know that there is some math in the book (there is just no escaping it) and that some of the cited vendor products are becoming dated. The Web site associated with the book contains many items of current interest, an errata sheet correcting minor errors in the book, and downloadable programs related to performance evaluation.

Although this book's full value will be realized if you understand the C programming language (he uses source code it illustrate points throughout the book and provides a C library for performance analysis on the accompanying disk), anyone with good math skills will gain much from this outstanding book.

The core approach is Performance By Design, which is aligned to product development. His approach, if used properly, will ensure that performance goals are established in the design phase, and are met as a system or software evolves through the development life cycle.

Highlights of the book are:
(1) Through introduction to the foundation of performance: queuing, parallelism and multiprocessor systems.
(2) Coverage of contemporary issues, such as client/server and web system performance,
(3) Unexpected forays into performance characteristics and considerations that I've encountered in no other book. For example, Part 3 of this book addresses subtle issues such as transient analysis, scaling behavior and similar topics. Here the author integrates theoretical physics into performance analysis - while this may seem odd, it only reinforces that much can be added to the performance analysis body of knowledge by drawing from sources outside of computer science. His qualifications for this material includes a Ph.D in theoretical physics, and his ability to clearly explain concepts that are foreign to the average computer scientist or performance practitioner is excellent.

I like the conversation style that the author employs, the way he starts with the basics and builds upon them and the thoroughness in which all aspects of performance are discussed. More importantly, although advanced math concepts are introduced the way they are presented can be understood by anyone with high school or college freshman knowledge of probability and calculus.

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 - by 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!

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 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.

It is the story of a great race told by a sailor. Any person who knows about ocean racing cannot but enjoy this book. My only observation is about the edition, I would love to have some more pictures (better if in color)

An entire sailing subculture exists whose entire purpose is to see how far and how fast they can push a sailboat and her crew. This book chronicles the ultimate push, called The Race. The object of this race is to be the fastest boat to sail around the world without stopping.

Zimmerman first tells us the fascinating history of fast sailboats and their owner's constant quest for greater speed and longer distances. At first the quest was for commercial reasons. Eventually it became sport. The boats described in this book are its ultimate manifistation.

This is a wonderful book about tough determined people racing extreme boats in extreme seas. A blast from start to finish.

The Race acccurately describes the complex human dynamics, emotional tension, technological achievments, and capricious play of fortune that combined in the world's first non-stop around the world sailboat race. Beginning with a fascinating and sympathetic account of the early pioneers of round the world sailboat racing, Zimmermann then details the technological conundrums and challenges confronting the computer-aided designers of the Race's catamarans and explains the rationale for, and consequences of, the decisions they made. His account of the Race itself is a skillful blend of analysis and story telling that touches on all the factors that shaped the outcome of the contest, technology, tactical decision-making, human dynamics, and most of all, mother nature, in the form of wind and current. Throughout the book, the author provides just the right amount of technical detail and analysis without overwhelming the non sailor (or weatherman). More important, Zimmermann captures, in terms I believe accessible to the non sailing professional, a sense of the excitement, danger, and spiritual satisfaction that draws men to challenge the sea at her most fearsome. Very few of us can circumnavigate the world non stop in a catamaran, but The Race provides the closest substitute for that experience this side of Cape Horn and the roaring forties.

Although I am not a hard core sailor, I picked up this book because I love adventure. I was glad I did because I discovered a world of eccentric and entertaining characters who kept me engaged and amused as I clipped along with this well-written, fast-paced narrative. I loved the concise history of round the world racing and the crazy characters who got it started--like Blondie Hasler who believed sailors should "die like gentelmen" instead of calling for rescue and endangering the lives of the rescuers. The Race itself was run by the world's best sailors, but it was the hi-tech boats, the tactics and the challenge of the Southern Ocean that really hooked me. A great read for anyone who loves the oceans and extreme adventure.

The Race delivers on the promise of an intensely educational and suspenseful read. I learned much more than I expected to about multihull design, sailing history, and the characters involved in circumnavigation adventures, but I was also viscerally "there" during the more stressful parts of the Race itself. Zimmerman provides exceptional context as well as insight into what makes these men and their sailing machines run. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone curious about the quest for speed across the waves.

Excellent book for those wanting to set up colour workflows. In depth explanations based on practicle applications. This is not a step by step guide for those wanting to learn photoshop

Very in-depth explanation of Photoshop CS3. A lot more detailed and advanced than most Photoshop books. This is really a resource or reference book and not a book that you can just sit down and read through like Scoot Kelby's book on CS3 for digital photographers, but it is far more informative and in-depth than Kelby's book.

There's nothing else out there that comes even close to this book as an encyclopedic reference to Photoshop CS3. Losing Bruce Fraser is a terrible blow to all of us who've relied for decades on his ability to make complicated subjects understandable, but David Blatner is keeping up the tradition and it appears that Conrad Chavez is a valuable addition to the lineup.

The chapter on color settings in this book is worth the price of admission all by itself. If you do serious work with CS3 you NEED this book. Sit down and read it all the way through, highlight revealing passages, and make notes on the blank parts of the front pages. When you finish you'll have the whole story at your fingertips. Like most CS3 users I work with a subset of Photoshop most of the time, but when I'm faced with an unusual problem I can dive into this book and come up with the solution in a minute or two. Once you've done your homework on the book you won't want to be without it.

This book is so much more than a list of Photoshop options. It tells you how to do the things that as a photographer you will probably be doing a lot of, not all kinds of theoretical stuff that you will probably never even think about doing. That said, there's too much pre-press and print industry material for my taste. But the photography-relevant material is first-rate.

This book surpassed all my expectations, it was made for serious professionals, and that's what I wanted. Although I'm only an amateur photographer and Photoshop enthusiast, I'm enjoying the book, but because I'm very curious and exactly because I love Photoshop so much I wanted to understand everything about it.

If you are also an enthusiast/amateur but don't care about how this marvelous program works, you better get an easier book with canned "how toos". This book also has step by step guides, but on the top of it they explain every single detail of how everything works.

The authors give very in depth explanations on color theory, color management (I had a hard time on this), color spaces, exactly what is a digital image, etc. Although I found this all fascinating, as I already said I had a hard time trying to understand some concepts about color management, but my guess is that if you are a professional you will understand it better.

They also explain Bridge and Camera Raw. I understand why they included these 2 programs in the book (they work together, although CR is actually a plugin), but I could live without it, mostly because there are more in depth books about CR, like Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS3 (Real World), by Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe (I love this guy, check out his videos on CR at the Luminous Landscape website). If you don't plan on buying a specific book on CR, then the chapter about it is a good introduction.

The most fun part is of course on Photoshop itself, covered in a brilliant, flawless way, with everything you could wish for and more.

The book is massive, more than 700 pages, and is written in a nice, light but serious way. They won't waste your time and patience on endless silly jokes like Scott Kelby. For someone like me, whose mother language isn't English, I could understand everything and the reading flowed smoothly.