Reference Software Books

This third edition is still the go-to source for classical history. Many have elucidated its good qualities, but the Third Edition is marred by some dishonest articles. In years to come the few biased articles in this book will seem as bad a the biases in some 19th century articles look to us now. Here are a few examples:
1. Slavery article. It states that only Greeks, Romans and European colonialists in the Americas separated slaves from their native cultures and identities. Middle Easterners for many centuries carried on a large scale trade of slaves from sub-Saharan Africa and northern Europe, both groups whose cultures and religions had nothing to do with Middle Eastern ones (and both those groups were extensively stereotyped in Middle Eastern written sources.)
2. Phoenician colonialism is said to be better than Greek colonialism because the Phoenician colonies were just farming and trading colonies. For one, little is known of Phoenician colonies, and two the Greek colonies (unlike the Roman ones) were primarily farming and trading colonies.
3. Greek rule over the old Persian Empire. (Seleucid Empire) The claim that the Greeks had no influence, despite all the Greek texts, sculptures and architecture from the era of Greek rule. Not everyone was Hellenized, but to claim that nobody was makes me question the sanity of the author. In other sources I've even seem claims that cities with Greek-style buildings (like Petra in Jordan) aren't Greek influenced because the architecture displays slight differences from classical Greek architecture.

These claims are due to the emphasis on "Orientalism" developed by Edward Said. "Orientalism" has resulted in the correction of many long standing biases, but some in their enthusiasm want to take the theory to the point of history being their own fantasy of what happened. Even Edward Said thought that the younger theorists were becoming too ideological, something people should keep in mind when they invoke his name to support some of the outlandish theories out there.

The new third edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary is intended to be the standard one-volume reference work on classical studies. I have only had my copy for a few days, but even so I can tell that the editors have more than fulfilled their plan.

The second edition of the OCD was superb, but the new edition is hugely expanded, with 800 (!) excellent new articles on topics such as "homosexuality" and "literary theory and classical studies". This is a welcome move away from the earlier editions' focus on people and places, and provides more encylopedic coverage of concepts and themes, as well as just biography, geography and history. The editors have increased the scope of the book beyond the Greek and Latin worlds, with more articles on (for example) Jewish subjects. And the book is still pungently and refreshingly written; if an author happens to be a lazy, sloppy, inaccurate plagiariser of other people's work, the OCD is not afraid to say so.

Many of the older articles have been rewritten, but the editors have been careful not to tinker with perfection. For example, H. T. Wade-Gery's classic 1949 article on Thucydides has remained intact, but the editorial team have appended a detailed postscript which covers the recent research on the subject.

The text has been entirely reset in a discreetly modern and rather handsome font. The book is phenomenally complete. I've been trying to catch it out by looking up obscure Hellenistic grammarians, but so far there has been an entry on everyone I have been able to think of. I don't think that you can get a better encyclopedia of the classical world unless you're prepared to shell out several hundred dollars on the multi-volume Pauly-Wissowa (and become fluent in German so that you can read it). The OCD is a treasure house of scholarship and already one of my all-time favourite books.

I hope that when, in a few decades' time, it becomes necessary to publish a fourth edition, I won't be so old that I can't lift it. It's already heavy enough to stun a burglar.

My husband has taken an interest in the Peloponnesian War and the Punic Wars. He says that this book provides essential insights dealing with those and other ancient periods of time. Evidently keeping track of events, people, politics, battles, and philosophies is quite involved. (Some things never change.)

As far as plentiful quality information on the classical world, this book is number one. Any subject you could possibly think of regarding Greek and Roman history, this book has information followed by a bibliography for further research. This book is great for the serious student of history as well as the average history buff.

"The Oxford Classical Dictionary" is the Standard of the profession - the Gold Standard. This is the reference book you will see on the desks of professional classical scholars. The articles are easy to search for, the explanations are accessible even for the non-pro,& the physical lay-out & size are manageable. There is no other comparable volume for other languages, literatures, & cultures.

The first ever of the "Oxford Companion" & "Guide" series (now covering a growing number of fields)in 1937 was the "Companion to Classical Literature" of Sir Paul Harvey. That set the tone & the bar for all others to follow.I still have my very small volume of the 1st edition(how the books have grown in size over the years!)& use it every week. Although I also possess the 2nd edition OCD, I consult this latest, 3rd edition on a daily basis.

Perhaps the name 'Dictionary' is misleading to the layperson. This book is not in fact a dictionary of the Greek & Latin languages, but written in English. This is an encyclopedia -- "6,000 articles cover everything from the daily life of the ancient Greeks and Romans, to their geography, religion, and their historical figures....w/ comprehensive references to sources and recent scholarly publications." (OUP Catalog)
It's almost impossible to describe what a monument of scholarship this book is, yet it bears that weight lightly. And this book is so much fun too as one jumps around the articles. This is a reference work that you can read for hours. Information on all aspects of Gr.& R. life, literaure, history, anything in the realm of classical civilizations -- you could live in this book, believe me!

Next to a big English dictionary & other foreign language dictionaries, the OCD is the next on the short list of Serious Reference Books One Should Have.
I suppose this review is, perforce, for that interested layperson who wishes to be better-informed ;classical scholars,either pro or semi-pro, already know,love,& use this book.

This book is definitely a must have for all CVS users. Highly recommended.

The author made a deadly mistake. He said "cvs update -j branch" will not work for multiple times merge and use "cvs update -j change_tag_2 -j change_tag_1" instead. But the right answer is that "cvs update -j branch" will remember the last time stop point and start there. No repeat over problem at all. And "cvs update -j change_tag_2 -j change_tag_1" command will undo all chnge made between that two version.
This is not trival error, is'it?

The book looks to be well written with lots of details, but I feel the first few introductory pages are insufficiently detailed which prevented me from setting things up. Specifically:

* The examples don't say whether your supposed to be in or above the working directory for various cvs commands. The reader is supposed to assume that current directory for this example is the same place as the current directory at the end of the previous example, but nothing says that. (it's obvious once you know).

* The overview chapter only talks about importing a whole directory tree. It's not clear how to add a directory or a file to an already imported directory tree. Actually, it's explained 20 pages later, but I didn't find that for a while.

* I made a mistake and imported a working dir subdirectory as a top level directory in the central cvs repository. There's no quick overview commands for removing setup mistakes. (Actually, that's shown about 30 pages after the overview). The book doesn't say that importing a subdirectory if you're in the subdirectory, makes it a top level directory in the CVS repository.

I'm sure once I understand what's going on, it'll be obvious. But to do my basic directory setup, and cleanup from a mistake, I had to wade through all sorts of "once it's working" text to find what I wanted.

Also, in the Removing Directories section, he keeps referring to directories without saying whether he's referring to directories in the user tree or under the CVS repository tree.

I've used cvs for a couple of years, but have never really needed tagging or branching until I became a developer on the www.mycibavision.com project. Then, we needed it. Tagging and branching were difficult to grasp for me. This book was critical in helping me to understand what tagging and branching were and how to do use those features.
Aside from that, the main reason I like this book so much is that _everything_ has example code to go with it. Even better is that the output from every command is displayed as well. I found myself executing the commands and then comparing the output. I would highly recommend this book.

I cannot over-emphasize how useful this book was to me while setting up my cvs repository on Linux. All the examples were germane and were correct, and the gotcha-s were highlighted. I go back to this book all the time. I cannot make any comment regarding the worthiness of this book for folks trying to install cvs on NT, as I blithely skipped over any NT commentary, but as far as Linux/UNIX installation, the book was vital. I fully agree with the high rating this book has enjoyed.

I got this when I graduated from high school, and still have it on my shelf. What a fantastically useful book this is.

Halley's Bible Handbook is an excellant book to read with the Bible. It helps to understand the Bible more. Especially the Old Testiment.

This is a must have for ALL who would study the word of GOD

I bought this handbook trough Amazon about two years ago. Ever since, it's on my desk (together with my "Old Scofield" and some other Dutch books) and i use it a lot when preparing Bible studies, articles for my online bible course and an occasional sermon.

The information in this book is sometimes really stunning, i've read about things i've never heard about before! I've been checking lots of it on the internet (always check and double check!), found new and additional information on subjects and in at least 95% of the cases the archeological information in this book is still very up to date and accurate. I've recommanded it to many people in the past two years.

Personally i believe that every student of the Bible should own a copy of this book. Even if some of the information seems to be outdated or is outdated, Halley puts you on the right track. It's a pitty books llike this are not available in our language..

This is one we each should have. The depth and breadth of the information is awesome. Admittedly, everyone won't agree with all the thelogical/doctrinal assertions of the book. That said, it is well written, and does not use hidden meanings or disguise it's positions. The archeology and history are excellent and the instructions on conducting church are indispensible. You won't be disappointed with this book.

If your trying to do anything complicated with Latex and need a reference to this is the book you need.

This is perhaps the definitive reference book on LaTex. It's totally comprehensive. For that, it's perfect and you need one if you're going to do some serious LaTex work.

It's not so good as an instructional manual or for someone like me who wants to learn LaTex. Not enough examples and "show me" illustrations on how to achieve, for example, common typsetting and formatting layouts. Wish it had more examples of how to do the top 25 most common layout tasks.

This is a compilation of many concisely written topics. I have not enjoyed the writing much, and have found examples more clearly written on many web sites.

An up-to-date reference for experienced LaTeX users. This book does NOT contain an introduction to LaTeX. Rather, it assumes that the reader has a working LaTeX system and has written some documents before. The value of the book lies in its breadth of coverage. There is a solution for just about any LaTeX problem I can think of. Mostly, the solutions consist of a recommendation for some third-party LaTeX package (style file) and a short review of its use. But the book also covers some quite esoteric issues in-depth. For example, it contains the only introduction to BiBTeX style file programming that I'm aware of.

An indispensable resource for serious LaTeX writing for those with high standards for their typesetting.

If you are going to buy one book on latex this is the one. It covers all the basics of document typesetting with latex. I actually own the first edition of the book but of course, you should always get the latest one. In the book there are sections to cover the following topics:

- Setting-up single or multi-column layouts
- Typesetting basic headings and text
- Creating tables using either the "tabular" or the "array" packages
- How to have tables span multiple pages
- Working with floating figures
- How to typeset beautiful math formulas
- Handling accented characters
- Basic pictures and graphics import
- Installing new fonts
- Creating indexes
- Adding tables of contents and tables of figures
- Adding good looking bibliographies with Bibtex

Lots of material is covered. Though there is overlap I also think that the book by Leslie Lamport is a good complement to this book. Leslies book is shorter, more to the point and perhaps a better introduction to latex than this one. But on the down side it covers less material. This is why I consider this book to be the one to get if you get only one.

This is my third favorite dictionary - behind the 20 volume OED and the Shorter OED. There are several things I like about this dictionary - first, it is a convenient size, not too unwieldy to carry from room to room. Second, the innovative way of defining the words (using core meanings and distinctions of these meanings) makes the dictionary very readable and accessible. The layout is clean and organized, with occasional drawings or photos.

The emphasis of this dictionary appears to be contemporary usage. There is a brief origin listing after many words, which is useful; however, the historical quotations that are descriptive of the OED or shorter OED are mostly absent.

I love the layout of this dictionary! For its price, it can't be beat in my opinion. No - no colored pictures, but this is a dictionary, not an encyclopedia -- you use it to look for words. There is a bonus "reference" section at the end which has several uniquely American things like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and various other goodies.
While this dictionary excels in ever aspect I am concerned with over the American Heritage Dictionary, it has a minor problem in that several of the pages throughout the book have an almost imperceptable bleed of print (almost like they closed the book before the print was dry or something) from one page to the page opposite. Affects about .5% of the pages and is barely noticeable -- but I checked the library's copy and they have the same problem. Barely noticeable, but still a minor nuisance. I installed the CD on my computer. It is fun to punch in a word every once in a while and see what the definition is, but I still will use the book more often simply because my computer is not always on -- and of course with Scrabble at the kitchen table, nothing beats having the authoritative tome at your elbow -- ready for a challenge from your ignorant opponent!

I would never have believed I could get this excited about a dictionary! I bought this last year for my fifth grade son when he and I both became dissatisfied with the Merriam-Webster School Dictionary. The M-W was our first attempt at upgrading from his picture dictionary but my son, an average student, struggled with the lack of usage examples. I found that the M-W system of listing the most archaic meanings first was also a hindrance, sometimes maddening. What a joy when the New Oxford American arrived. My son instantly warmed to their profuse usage examples and I was impressed with the more intuitive presentation of words which have multiple meanings. Finally, I found that the font type is very easy on the eyes.

I would be very interested to see a comparison review of the New Oxford Dictionary of English (NODE) and the New Oxford American Dictionary (NOAD). I'm having a hard time deciding which dictionary to buy. I live in the USA, though I grew up relying on Oxford dictionaries with British spellings, so this doesn't bother me. The most important things for me are (1) quality of definitions, (2) number of head words, and (3) number of example sentences. One of the words I use to assess a dictionary is how it defines the word "grok"; if the definition is clear and easy to understand, a reference to Robert Heinlein's book "Stranger in a Strange Land" along with 1st print year is included, and sample usage is given, then that dictionary is pretty darn good in my book. :-)

So, given this, which dictionary would you recommend? Right now I'm leaning towards NODE simply because it has more pages (2176 vs. 2064), but obviously I need an opinion from somebody who can get their hands on both dictionaries. Please contact me directly at tom [underscore] xyz [at] yahoo [dot] com. Thanks in advance!

My friends call me a "dictionary freak" and indeed I am one. I love dictionaries and everything about them:). I hope to become a professional lexicographer some day. I find NOAD one of the greatest English dictionaries (with New Oxford Dictionary of English being the ultimate single-volume dictionary). I bought the 2001 version in Poland in 2004 only to find 2005 edition in local bookstores a year later. Still, I am glad I have the first edition (by the way, some nice human being put all the added words in NOAD 2ed. on her webstite so I got all the new words added to the later edition - it's over 80 pages A-4 format). Anyway, I like dictionaries that do not claim to have the largest number of words added. If you want new words use Google as your guide. If you want slang words, get the newest slang dictionary. If you want specialist term, go to a specialist dictionary. That is of course not always possible and a general-puropse dictionary are to serve as a "bible" of everything. This is a misconception. There will never be a dictionary which will have all the words we look for at a particular moment.
Dictionaries like NOAD and ODE are great in that they present the language as it should be and do not urge language users to violate all the possible rules and speak "in a cool way" just because it's the 20th century.

And thank God for headwords in black color!!!!!!
I personally hate the "blue" revolution in dictionaries.

For me, as a foreigner, the pronunciation in NOAD is rather odd. I have learnt English with IPA (International Pronunciation Alphabet) and it sometimes takes a while before I figure out the pronunciation. But for that, I have a different dictionary (that is Pronunciation Dictionary by Wells from Longman).
Everybody looks for a dictionary that will satisfy their needs -be them intellectual, esthetical etc. So in the end, it is a truly subjective choice, (which does not mean some dictionaries are objectively very bad in many respects).
With the era of technology in full development, it might seem that printed dictionaries will soon become obsolete. I hope it will never happen!!!!
I enjoy reading all dictionary reviews in Amazon.com. I find out important details, but most importantly I realize that there are lots of people who DO care about using their language correctly.
Finally, should I ever end up on a desert island, NOAD would be THE book I'd take. The beauty of any (good) dictionary of any language is that you can always read it in a different way depending on the situation.
I'm waiting for a few new editions of some dictioanries but, in the end, I will stick to the ones I already possess. "Older" does not mean worse or less comprehensive. But, again -it is a matter of opinion.

This book was a waste. If the author cut out the nonsense and got to the point, it'd be about 50 pages. I bought the book based on the reviews here....and WHY???? Listen, if you can operate Microsoft Word, you don't need this book. $30 worth of kindling for the fire is about all this is coughed up to be. I mean come on, do we really even need to know that you were lovers with one of your marketing contacts??? The entire book is written with foolishness and low class language. I expected much more professionalism from a so-called professional.

$30 Writing School is a great book for those who are interested in writing professionally, but who would first like to peek behind the curtain to see all that is involved. Mr. Dean covers a diverse set of topics, from the mechanics of grammar and outlines, to working with publishing companies, to the self-promotion of one's work. Sprinkled among the chapters are small bits of practical advice, such as picking the best pen color for editing, and finding ways to preserve your work in case of fire, flood, or laptop failure. This book was both informative and entertaining, and the time passed quickly while I was reading it.

Need I say more? It's been over a year now and i couldn't be happier. Ditch McDonald's, the Army, the Marines, your parents, the world. Go live on Tonga, write, nude, on your laptop and never come back! You can do it!

'Nuff said.

Michael Dean's books are an awesome information base to get your creativity kick-started. This one is no exception. His is a no-nonsense approach and these $30 books are worth MUCH more than the titles imply. Very fun to read, too!

Michael W. Dean's "$30 Writing School" covers everything you need to know technically about being a writer -- from explaining how to write well, recommending what software and hardware to use, even explaining how to organize chapters of a book...and everything in between.

That information alone makes it a handy reference book for any writer. But the BEST part of this book is how inspiring it is. Dean's personal stories and philosophy of creating art make you want to start writing NOW, and free you from some of the misconceptions about writing that can lead to "writer's block".

The book also includes chapters about working with publishers and editors, doing book signings, and even includes a CDrom full of extras.

The thing that makes you know this is the real deal is that Michael Dean is "living the dream" (as he says in Chapter One): writing novels and non-fiction books, doing book signings and interviews, making music, films, podcasts, etc. Who better to teach you how to get your book finished than someone who is actually doing what he recommends (and clearly having a lot of fun doing so)?

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to write ANYTHING.(I personally have found Dean's tips useful not only for writing books but also magazine articles, essays, self help articles, short stories, etc.) While this book answers tons of technical questions, it is really more about having the mindset of a writer, the mindset of an artist who has a love of the written word and wants to share his or her ideas with the entire planet.

Forget all those other books on writing that waste your time with stuff you don't need to know and useless advice. Get "$30 Writing School" and get started writing today.

I'm very happy, i have got "java in a nutshell" too and I was very satisfied of my purchase, the book is simple and written very well, a "must" for a Java programmer.

Jim Farley and William Crawford's Java Enterprise In A Nutshell: A Practical Guide packs in tutorials on a number of enterprise Java tools, offering new material covering Xdoclet and Java 5.0 Annotations, JavaServer Faces, and the Hibernate API. Also included are open source testing and build tools, tips on writing SOAP-based web services, J2EE security issues and operations, and much more. Serious Java developers will want this as an essential desk reference.

Warning to all buyers, the 3rd edition of this book does not include the J2EE library reference. While I realize this information is available online, having a printed form of library references is the primary reason I buy the "in a nutshell" series. Included in this book is a very general overview of various enterprise technologies, which unlike the very useful language reference include in other "in a nutshell" books, seems too broad and shallow to be useful. Any developer serious about working in JSP, for example, would be better served buying a book on JSP. Admittedly I just received this book so I can provide a cursory commentary on the usefulness of the material, but the lack of library details alone would have made me not purchase it if I was browsing in a store.

Do you have all of the tools you need to build enterprise-class applications? If you don't, then this book is for you! Authors Jim Farley, William Crawford, Prakash Malani, Justin Gehtland and John G Norman, have done an outstanding job of writing the third edition of a book that provides a pragmatic introduction to the latest release of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE).

Farley, Crawford, Malani, Gehtland and Norman, begin by presenting the general model that J2EE supports for assembling components and resources into full services or applications and how they are deployed to their runtime environments. Then, the authors demonstrate the basic techniques that are used to write servlets using the Sevlet API, including some common web development tasks such as cookie manipulation and session tracking. Next, they look at JSP from a Java programmer's perspective as opposed to that of a web site designer. The authors then provide a whirlwind introduction to programming with JavaServer Faces. They continue by providing a basic introduction to Enterprise JavaBeans. Then, the authors take a quick look at Sun's Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) Version 1.2, which provides a standardized approach to processing XML files in Java. Next, they focus on the JDBC 3.0 API, which includes a modest yet variable set of new features. The authors then provide an overview of transport and application security as well as defining the important concepts of authentication and authorization. They continue by focusing on developing, deploying, and using web services in your enterprise applications. They also examine the Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI) API--Java's native scheme for creating and using remote objects. Then, the authors look at an overview of the CORBA architecture and how it allows you to create, export, access, and manage remote objects. Finally, they give a brief overview of transaction terminology, including ACID properties and transaction isolation levels as well as the concepts of local and distributed transactions.

This most excellent book provides concise, fast paced tutorials on a broad range of enterprise Java tools and APIs. More importantly, this book is both a practical guide and quick reference for Java programmers who are writing enterprise applications.

Java Enterprise in a Nutshell tries to do the impossible - fit Enterprise Java into a nutshell. I don't think it matters how big of a nutshell you have, it would be a truly impossible task. Farley and Crawford, though, do a nice job shoe-horning as much Enterprise Java as they can into an 800+ page book. They go over many topics including all the J2EE standards like EJBs and JSPs to open source tools like JUnit, Cactus, and Hibernate. The book goes into enough detail to get more than just the gist of the subjects, but not so much detail to overwhelm someone looking for information on a particular topic. The book also has relevant code sections for the various topics outlining how that technology might be used. Overall, a compact, clear, well written reference.

i got it within the week!!! no markings, great book to review for the NCLEX. Study guide divides body systems and common diseases and illnesses.

I am really enjoying this book. It has helped me to pass my nursing school tests. The rationales for the practice questions are really easy to understand. It has helped to sort out the information I really need to focus on, versus just reading material. It has given me some direction in studying, and with the new type of tests questions, presented by nursing programs.

I bought this book because it was cheap and I found a good review on it. It is a good book: it goes over a review of systems first, then has questions on each system. I am currently in Nursing School and all our tests are NCLEX-style. I like this book because it also offers rationale for why the answers are what they are. The only qualm I have about it is there are only about 7 questions per section (in the Pediatric section at least) but there are more in the lengthened tests in the back. You can access these easily through the index though.

Wow! I am so impressed with this book. Unlike most NCLEX-RN books I've looked at, each system is in a separate chapter making research so much quicker. This book is a must have for the wanna-be nurses out there.

This book is excellent. It most certainly assisted me in passing the NCLEX with 75 questions in 45 minutes. I am a returning RN and took the nursing boards for the first time in 1977, so I was very apprehensive to have to retake the nursing boards for a second time in order to return to the field of nursing. In addition, I have not actively practiced in many years. The book is very organized and informative. In addition, the explanations for the questions/answers are given which I found to be very helpful. The key to passing is to take as many practice tests as humanly possible in order to start thinking the way the NCLEX thinks. I can guarantee this book along with one of the other ones offered by Amazon will greatly increase your odds in passing the first time you take the test.

This is the book to buy for those who want to take it to the next level. So many great thing about this book. If your a novice and want to step-up your design prowess this is the book for you. One review said - "Pro CSS and HTML Design Patterns is just that, a huge guide to each and every HTML and CSS combination you could possibly think of.." I say - very well said.. It's limit-less... I love it!! Wicked!

I found Pro CSS and HTML Design Patterns by Michael Bowers to be of real help in developing drop down buttons for my web dev client. Mr. Bowers makes many complex css styles easy by providing all the formulas. I recommend it highly.Pro CSS and HTML Design Patterns

This is a great book for a number of reasons. Primarily, it's accessible and a quick reference. The book is succinctly written and very well focused.

Each topic is summarized in a small segment. In minutes you can find things if you're totally new to CSS. Likewise, seasoned web developers can find the tricks and techniques that let you exploit your web page development.

Hi

I have read about half the book and I find it very interesting and very practical. The book gives you patterns and approaches to solve the problems which designers confront daily. The index is also very helpful at the back, which points me straight to the solution of the problem which I am seeking. When compared to other books, this gives more than what every other book is giving, which I have seen. Generally all CSS books give various properties of the html elements, its possible values etc. While this book, has a different approach. This book discusses the affect of changing these element properties based on the context where the element is placed. It has very good discussion of the box model concept and positioning concepts.

Till now, I have loved this book and has become my reference for all my css needs.

Those who understand CSS will find a trove here. One may trudge through other one true holy grail bulletproof designs. They have their place.

Then, leap, at last, into this book. It's been sitting on your bookshelf, perhaps, undeservedly ignored, for a week? You peruse. You find the page for your problem. You read, carefully. A light bulb! "Of course," you may think! Or, "He's telling me, what I SHOULD have known!"

Yes, but, everybody needs SOMEONE to gather these essential prods. Here they are, distilled, a fine essence. Rock solid. No fluff. Problem, stated clearly; solution, stated plainly; sample code, crisp. Just what you need. Terse. Precise.