Electronics Books


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Electronics Books sorted by Average customer review: high to low .

Electronics
Final Fantasy Origins Official Strategy Guide
Published in Paperback by BRADY GAMES (2003-04-09)
Authors: Casey Loe and Laura M. Parkinson
List price: $14.99
New price: $39.74
Used price: $18.98

Average review score:

its good but...
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-03-19
its good but i didnt beat the game, so i thus didnt use the whole stragey guide so i dont know since i didnt dive into it that much

helpful guid
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2005-10-17
It was nice to have some over view maps of the caves and castles. It help prevent the access use of potions and death of party members at early levels.

Most helpful book ever!
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2004-11-23
This is the most helpful book ever. It has maps, stats for characters and bosses and the eastiest way to beat them. The book tells you what is in each chest if they're guarded and by what. And it has what monster you'll find in certain areas and there stats. It show all the wepons armor and items and their ablities. This book is great. I used it after i beat both and i was amazed at some of the things i missed or did wrong. Personnally though i'd rather spend more time on the game and find the stuff without help it just more fun that way. But when it comesd to strategy guides this is a the top!

OH MY GOD, THIS BOOK IS MAD USEFUL!
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2004-01-28
Wow, this book's got everything! Bestiary, secret items, boss strategies, everything. If you seriously are having trouble, get this guide. You won't be sorry, you'll be like " Wow this thing DOES have EVERYTHING!"

Very helpful!
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2003-08-09
I was VERY impressed with this guide when I bought it the other day and I have to say that it's helped me cover alot of material. I had already beaten FF1, but FF2 was probably the hardest for me to complete alone and I'm sure that this is the same for everone else who's played it as it is said to be the HARDEST one in the FF franchise! Without it, I probably wouldn't have gotten as far as I thought. The guide covers both games and includes info on magic, dungeons, Boss strategies etc. and just about anything else you'd expect to know from a Final Fantasy game. And well, thanks to an excellent walkthrough through FF2, I finally beat both games with just about everything covered. (except for 'Normal' mode in FF1)

OVERALL: I give it a 10/10! Excellent coverage for both games and a nice way to get through the hardest dungeons in case you get lost. I HIGHLY recommend this book if you are having trouble getting through either game because it will REALLY REALLY help! Never have I seen strategy this good in a long time! BRADYGAMES is the BEST co. to offer these, so I say BUY TODAY!!! You won't regret it! ^_^

Electronics
Fundamentals of Electric Circuits with CD-ROM
Published in Hardcover by McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math (2003-01-31)
Authors: Charles Alexander and Matthew Sadiku
List price: $112.50
New price: $56.50
Used price: $18.59

Average review score:

Good book, with some minor problems
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-06-28
Overall this is a really great book with lots of examples and good problems, however my complaint is that some of the problems haven't been covered in the examples and so they are too difficult to solve. For instance, in the chapter on node voltages, none of the examples covers floating voltage sources that have other components like resistors in series with them, yet a number of the problems involve such floating voltage sources. I had to refer to the Schaum's Outline of Basic Circuit Analysis (another very good book, btw) to find an example problem for that.
If you're looking for books on electric circuits, however, I would definitely recommend this one along with the Schaum's Outline book I mentioned above.

Great
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2006-01-20
This is a decent start for novice engineers. Unlike other texts on the same subject it has very effective methodology of teaching the very basic concepts of electric circuits. A bulk of solved examples is there to help you understand techniques of circuit analysis. It really soothed me when I was suffering from "circuit phobia". This text is highly recommended by me for beginners.

very satisfied
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2005-08-10
I am very satisfied with Alexander's book. Compared with any other book in this field, the others actually don't really stand a chance. Why? Because you can actually teach from this book EFFECTIVELY. The pedagogy works here, whereas many other authors have unfortunately failed. The communication works; and the chemistry works too. I think we engineers really need to realize this important issue. And always try to improve.

Good material
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2005-07-23
This one book ist the best Engineer book for me since my undergraduate years. The great difference between this one and others are the very illustrativ problems. Charles Alexander is somewhat well known as an engineering educator - I could very feel this from the book's layout.

very useful
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2005-07-16
This is probably the most useful engineering textbook I have on my shelf. Not only is it very easy to understand, but as a reference, I like it even better! The math is lucid, yet never overwhelming, and in addition, the problems are quite interesting. I highly recommend this book, rather than Nilsson's. (I think one of the Authors of this book has written/edited an EE handbook as well, which I am less familiar with. Maybe I'd check that one out too)

Electronics
The Fundamentals of Network Security
Published in Hardcover by Artech House Publishers (2001-02-15)
Author: John E. Canavan
List price: $97.00
New price: $9.95
Used price: $7.42

Average review score:

A great book for the right audience level
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2004-02-11
While this is not a book for a graduate level computer science course, it is an excellent text for a general management audience or perhaps an undergraduate information systems curriculum. Canavan covers the right areas at the right depth in a very real and practical sense. Because of its practical nature, it may be a bit outdated in 3 more years, but since its release in 2001 it has been "on the money."

I do wish the price was lower, or that it was offered in paperback.

Network Security explained--
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2001-02-02
This Network security book is non-technical, yet it is detail enough to make you comprehend the material easily. Among other things, the book discusses in detail firewalls, intrusion detection, and the importance of policies. By pointing all the key points, you get what you must know to tie them all. It is an excellent book for someone who aspires to be a network security manager.

Network Security explained--
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2001-02-02
This Network security book is non-technical, yet it is detail enough to make you comprehend the material easily. Among other things, the book discusses in detail firewalls, intrusion detection, and the importance of policies. By pointing all the key points, you get what you must know to tie them all. It is an excellent book for someone who aspires to be a network security manager.

Good but could be better
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2001-07-26
I am not an expert in all aspect of security, thus I find the book very informative. Security is a chain of process covering all inter-connected equipment and applications. The book not just descibed (briefly) network security, but also includes systems and applications. The title of the book could be misleading as it reads 'Network Security', it could have just been 'IT Security'. There are some misleading information in certain vendor specific systems, which I am familiar, causing me to doubt the accuracy of the other vendor specific information, which I am not familiar. The author could have kept all information as neutral and avoid treading on thin ice. I do not think a second edition will be published unless the book is re-written.

Fundamentals of Network Security
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2001-03-02
The book is well written and the concepts it covers are both current and relative. It covers the concepts of basic computer and network security and basic terminology to disaster recovery plans. One of the major concepts I found very interesting was the idea of how much is enough security. He reduces it to relatively easy terms; make the computer or network secure enough for any would be hacker to be discouraged and go somewhere else less protected. His explanation of symmetric (private key) and asymmetric (public key) encryption and digital certificates was especially helpful in helping me understand those concepts. The explanation regarding the different types of firewalls was also very informative. Toward the end of the book, the author covers a subject frequently left out of any discussion of network security - security policies and procedures. He stresses the importance of these for any administrator to be able to identify possible security leaks.

This is an excellent book for any potential reader who is looking for a text which gives an overall viewpoint of computer and network security without getting bogged down in the details of any one facet of security.

Electronics
Game Engine Toolset Development
Published in Paperback by Course Technology PTR (2006-03-06)
Author: Graham Wihlidal
List price: $49.99
New price: $22.50
Used price: $20.25

Average review score:

Interesting little compendium
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-04-06
I admit that at first I was thinking this book would focus more on the game engine part of the toolset development in its title. I knew it wasn't REALLY about developing a game engine but even so, make sure you understand what you're getting.

That said, I really liked this book. I'm halfway through it already (it's a very quick read given how discrete each chapter is and the clear and easy to read print and examples).

I've read a number of game development books and you rarely get everything done right. This book gets close. The author describes the particular problem the chapter seeks to solve (e.g. encryption, batch processing, etc.) and goes through the steps of solving it.

The book is similar to those programming gems types of books that aren't organized in some linear fashion but are discrete chapters on specific topics that can be picked and chosen as you see fit.

The author does a very good job of putting the examples together and many of the chapters have been useful to me (I plan on implementing a number of the tools/frameworks he mentions).

If you're working on a game engine, I really suggest trying this book out. This assumes you're not already an expert game programmer who already built a lot of these sorts of tools before.

If you're looking for something that will help you build a full-fledged game engine, look for another book...then come back to this and get it to help you flesh out your toolset.

An excellent Microsoft.NET 2.0 introduction relating to gaming
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-05-18
I just received my copy of Game Engine Toolset Development and I have been unable to put the book down. The author gives a good introduction to .NET 2.0 and relates it to toolset development for games. The chapters are easy to read and follow and he gives good advice on how to build good tools. He could have looked at other toolsets to make the book more complete, but I see this book as a way to introduce students to game programming who have a basic programming background (Java, C++, C, Alice 2.0, etc.).

Good book.. but it's not what you think it is
Helpful Votes: 18 out of 19 total.
Review Date: 2006-03-31
I bought this book thinking it would help me write a new tool for, say, building 3d models, or some other general tool. When it arrived I got excited just by the shear size of it, it's huge!

However, I started flipping through it browsing each and every chapter (didn't read them all in detail of course, but quite a few) and it doesn't teach you how to make a NEW tool for your game, it teaches you how to make an EXISTING tool better. While that knowledge is extremely valuable (and the reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 3), it's not what the description of the book stated: "Readers are not required to have any experience developing game engine tools." If you have no experience developing a tool, you're going to have a little trouble getting started. If you know enough math and have good enough coding skills to get a game engine going, you'll be able to write a tool for your game, but you don't need this book to do it.

Now, with that said, this book IS quite good and worth your money so long as you don't expect to read this book and then write a tool, you're going to need more info. Get the book anyway and use it as a guide, it's usefull in that aspect.

This book is so good at making a tool better, most of it's "gems" can and should be applied to ANY application, game tool or not. Also, it covers some good highlevel (or lowlevel, depending on how you view it) .Net functionality such as interfacing with COM and code documentation, as well as few other excellent techniques. These "gems" are quite valuable on their own.

So, in conclusion, if you know nothing about writing a tool, or you don't know C#, hold off on buying this book (make sure to put it in your wish list however). If you have a tool but find it's difficult to work with, or you want to broaden it's appeal, or just simply make it better, get this book, you won't regret it.

Recipe book for tool developers
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2007-03-11
This is an excellent book, which covers a lot of important aspects of game/engine tool development, but it is more like a recipe book, as each chapter subject is almost stands on its own - just like game programming gems series. My favorite is how to integrate native code into a managed application. The book is well written (one of the best I've read recently), and the only thing i missed is a few chapters on how-to integrate into an existing pipeline - like importer/exporter for a common 3d package at least. A better title for this book would be "(game)tool programming gems"

If the industry pros chiming in weren't enough...
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2006-05-29
Then, as a hobbyist, I'll just let you know that this book not only teaches, but flat you gives you some great modular code that you can work into many different types of tools.

There's also some great design principles covered that have improved my workflow, even though i'm currently working solo.

Electronics
Going Wireless
Published in Kindle Edition by HarperCollins e-books (2002-04-16)
Author: Jaclyn Easton
List price: $19.95
New price: $9.99

Average review score:

M-Commerce, L-Commerce, things communicating with things
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-03-08
Mobile commerce offers the hope of faster access to information for the consumer. M-Commerce builds on both internet and wireless communication devices. Internet servers push small applications to WiFi devices and these applications, in turn, make information requests through WiFi portals back to the server. The WiFi interface improves speed to acquire information for the consumer increasing the likelihood of a purchase; the WiFi interface can submit billing information for payment processing with one tap to confirm credit card usage for bill payment; a confirmation code is displayed on the WiFi device and used to validate pickup of the merchandise; and speed is the motivating factor like the fast food chain in time performance. If by the middle of the decade, "the only way to reach your customers is via the internet, you'll be limiting your customer base". M-commerce brings the store to the consumer wirelessly and it assists the consumer in price comparison. The consumer can talk directly to the WiFi device reducing time to navigate menu selection. Sophisticated voice recognition software will eliminate the need to display all available choices. Instead, the software will use context and subject matter as it relates to voice interpretation too determine choice.

Location commerce is the result of the law. All cell phones or devices capable of making a call must be capable for an external call center too pinpoint a caller within a few feet. Position based commerce will become the primary source of new business referrals. As the consumer moves from one zone to another information is served up to the WiFi interface from local based directories. The user will enter in what they want and a list of services based on proximity will be offered through their PDA. National chains will be able to offer localized pricing of their products and services. The localized directories will be able to determine availability and make referrals to other stores within a certain mile radius, if the product is unavailable. The idea is that the quicker you get your customer the merchandise, the more you will sell.

A decentralized Transportation Wifi network potentially offers a massive opportunity. Suppose, each car was installed with a WiFi device that could communicate with car around it, accessing: speed, breaking, turning, and sudden stops. Potentially, the Wifi device could stop all accidents involving abrupt slow downs in traffic. Additionally, the auto wifi device could communicate with Wifi portal along the road querying for restaurant prices and availability, sleeping arrangements and prices, and music downloads. Billboards being replaced by high speed Wifi portals and massive internet servers bring services too consumers on the road.

A good book on new business opportunities
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2002-07-14
The book presents a wide range of business cases as well as scenarios where wireless technology is used or can be used. The author sometimes gets too excited about the potential of the technologies involved but she proves that, at least in some areas, wireless is revolutionizing business, creating business value by providing convenience, mobility, agility and improved data accuracy.

Awesome book! Exciting! Riveting! GET IT!
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 23 total.
Review Date: 2002-06-27
I probably sound like a paid endorser, but the truth is, this book is fantastic. It's written beautifully, contains riveting stories, and is packed with insights, ideas, trends, and more. It's written for anyone in business ready to cash in on the future. Wireless is the next big trend. This book shows you how to surf it to the bank. Get it. Get it right now. -- Joe Vitale, author of way too many books to list here, ...

Great Book
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2002-04-12
I hesitated before buying Going Wireless because I didn't want a book about
how wireless works. Then I stumbled on the Newsweek review, read a couple
excerpts on the Going Wireless website and then bought it. My hunch was
right. This book is a real winner by cutting out the "geek speak" and
instead showing me directly how wireless can benefit my business. I highly
recommend it.

Emerging Technology - New Opportunities
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2004-02-05
Easton takes a very difficult subject and pieces together how wireless will make our lives simpler and faster still. We can get what we want, when we want it. We can make an order from a wireless hand held device and pick it up within minutes.

This book is made to order if you want to see where wireless is going. Easton is well researched and writes to inform.

Electronics
Hot Air Rises and Heat Sinks: Everything You Know About Cooling Electronics Is Wrong
Published in Paperback by American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1998-07)
Author: Tony Kordyban
List price: $43.00
New price: $179.00
Used price: $43.00
Collectible price: $50.00

Average review score:

Hot Air Rises and Heat Sinks: Everything You Know About Cooling Electronics Is Wrong
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2007-09-10
A very good book for practical thermal engineer. I bought this book twice because the first one was lost.

Excellent resource for understanding/relating to a thermal engineers 17+ years of thermal experience
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2007-07-26
I read this book while on vacation. The font was big and has an "easy on the eyes" font type. It covers some of the basics and better yet provides some lessons learned from industry. As a mechanical/thermal engineer of 5+ years experience, this book was intersting/useful to me. It provided some insight into what another thermal engineer's experience in industry is like. Relating to similar work relationship(s)/topics also made this book enjoyable.

Highly recommend.

Great Read, Good Practical Information
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2002-07-22
As a practicing electronics design engineer I found the information in the book very interesting. So often the only way to really grasp engineering is through encountering real world problems and having to figure out what is going on. This "opps" engineering approuch is a slow one. This book takes a wealth of real world thermal engineering problems and presents them in a fun, easy to read format giving you the information so you don't have to make the same mistake. It also gives some history behind various industry standards and myths.

The only addition I would have liked would have been a discussion of horizontally mounted PCB's and how heat transfers from these boards.

A great read.

Refreshing Thermal issues
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2001-07-11
Started reading, simply could not stop. Direct and to the point, this book based on real facts is simply refreshing, a great source of valuable technical information presented in a very easy to understand and "humorous" fashion, that will keep you going and going and going.

I recommend this book to anyone brave enough to attemp thermal qualification of any type of electronic system, and many "real life" lessons are to be learned. A must in your collection of "got to have" titles !!!

What's wrong with me ? I now find thermal flow interesting !
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2003-04-30
Curse Mr. Kordyban - he's get me all interested in thermal flow now. This book is great ! It flows [huh] really well, is relatively humourous (no, really), and gets across some basic lessons in electronics cooling. A must read for all you overclockers who are having to put bigger and bigger heatsinks on everything. I followed a few simple recommendations in this book, (just repositioning a few components and adjusting airflow) and now my computers run much cooler (and more stably). Now I can't walk into a datacenter without looking for the ac units, and checking for fans, drive positioning etc. This is a field that I'm convinced is going to be much more important in the future - this handbook is a great introduction to the field and some real practical things you can use right now. If you are looking for some honking big text book, this isn't for you. But who is ?

Electronics
How and Where to Locate the Merchandise to Sell on eBay: Insider Information You Need to Know from the Experts Who Do It Every Day
Published in Paperback by Atlantic Publishing Company (FL) (2007-04-20)
Author: Dan W. Blacharski
List price: $24.95
New price: $16.19
Used price: $16.93

Average review score:

Very Helpful, even if you've been selling on ebay a while.
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-07-03
I bought several books when I was first starting my ebay store, but this one proved the most helpful. It is just packed with actual websites, actual seller testamonials, actual examples of everything. It covers everything I could have asked for, and then alot more!

Starting an eBay Store?
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2008-06-09
If you are starting an eBay store and don't know what to sell or how to do it, this book is a must. It is well-written and gives you many helpful hints. Your mind will race with possibilities as you read each chapter. With all the sellers on eBay, this gives you realistic information on how to compete in the huge marketplace.

Review
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 7 total.
Review Date: 2008-03-02
I bought this book for my boyfriend who is an avid ebayer. He seemed to like it.

Great book on selling on EBay!
Helpful Votes: 15 out of 16 total.
Review Date: 2008-01-17
Like a lot of others, I've bought a number of items on eBay, and occasionally I've sold something. I noticed that a lot of the sellers were small-timers (like me), but that others seemed to be making a living with their sales. I've wondered how they did it--and where they got their merchandise. This book really clued me in.

It reinforced some of the things that I already knew, and opened my eyes to some possibilities I didn't know about. I've sold stuff from around my house, but I've never considered yard sales, local advertising web sites, or thrift shops (suggested by this book), not to mention obtaining items on a larger scale. I'd also never thought about becoming a "trading assistant" (another suggestion that is fully explained in the book). There is much more information in it that I can really see myself using and an extensive directory that would be of use to anyone.

If you've ever thought of taking your eBay trading up another level (or more), this is a clearly organized, very useful, comprehensive book. It's wonderful!

Ebay Book Extraordinaire
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2008-03-27
This book leaves no stone unturned. If you are truly thinking about having an eBay business, or you already have one that needs spicing up with fresh ideas, you need this book. "How and Where to Locate the Merchandise to Sell on eBay" by Michael P. Lujanac and Dan W. Blacharski is much more than just a few tips on locating merchandise. This book offers creative advice on what kind of merchandise works and when, how to maximize your profits on eBay, and pitfalls and traps to avoid. The ideas for finding merchandise are quite extensive and a directory of contacts is even thrown in. All this information is not just from someone who has done a little research. It is evident that this is insider information from people who have been there. The book is riddled with tips and tricks from eBay Power Sellers and is organized very well. In summary, get this book.

Electronics
How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing
Published in Hardcover by The MIT Press (2001-02-12)
Authors: Matthias Felleisen, Robert Bruce Findler, Matthew Flatt, and Shriram Krishnamurthi
List price: $69.00
New price: $46.74
Used price: $30.00

Average review score:

Above and Beyond
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 7 total.
Review Date: 2008-01-23
This order was handled above and beyond the call of duty. They handled everything, including the problem of USPS losing the package. No questions were asked and the book was reshipped immediately. Thank You for the great service.

A Recipe for Programming
Helpful Votes: 15 out of 15 total.
Review Date: 2006-07-06
This book opened my eyes. I'd finished a Ph.D. in computer science, and had a decent exposure to quite a few programming languages and paradigms, before coming across this book. I was surprised to start working through this introductory book, and find myself learning new things! The book transformed my approach to programming.

From page one, HtDP starts talking about good program design, and gives a methodical approach. Until this, I'd always thought programming books were "here are ten small example programs; go write ten more." That's hardly teaching. But HtDP builds up a straightforward design recipe, to guide programs along. If I get stuck or have a mistake in my program, 90% of the time I realize it's because I strayed from the book's recipe. The approach is language-independent, although some programming environments make it much easier to implement the design recipe; the book provides links to a good (free) Scheme environment, which it uses for its code examples too. (I've come to use that environment day-to-day). My code--in any language--has become much more robust, and when I do have a bug I usually locate it early, thanks to this book.

In addition, HtDP made me think about things I'd taken for granted: How is assignment to a variable fundamentally different than assignment to a structure's field? Even, *why* do I use assignment statements in certain situations, instead of choosing a functional approach? How often do my programs actually need the efficiency of imprecise floating-point arithmetic, vs using bignums which totally liberate me from numerical inaccuracy?

Although the text is available on line, I cherish my hardcopy. This is a book to first learn programming from, and one to revisit every five years.

Excellent Book for Rookies and Veterans
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2006-12-26
I have been professionally developing software for about 5 years. I found this book to be one of the most useful and helpful books to help my coding skills. Even though I have been programming professionally for a few years and have a computer science degree, I learned a lot of new neat concepts from this book. It also helped to me to remind me of all the basic good practices that I have forgotten.

It is also an excellent book for beginners. The books doesn't use a popular programming language like Java to accomplish its goals. Instead, it uses Scheme so the student can focus on the concepts rather than syntax. It also teaches great concepts and breaks the problem down on how to solve various problems. Also it isn't "hardcore" like SICP-- it is very friendly to non-MIT level people.

Everyone should learn to design programs
Helpful Votes: 24 out of 41 total.
Review Date: 2004-06-03
As a programming do-it-yourselfer I've had many conflicting responses to this text -- it's didactic style, its attention to detail, its sometimes patronizing tone, its rigor and broad scope and at the same time its immersion in minutia and quiddities I have never encountered in 'computer books' I had ever perused. Perhaps it's my liberal arts background, or love 'em/hate 'em sensitivity to all those broad stiff-spined textbooks I had carried in back-packs since childhood, combined with a disdain for the authoritative stilted style these educators exude -- despite their patent love of their subject. I felt at once both patronized and condescended to.
From the very start of their journey into a detailed six step-by-step process that show the reader how to analyze problem statements, how to formulate goals, make up examples, outline a solution, and test a solution the authors proclaim their pedagogical ends: "We [...] believe that the study of program design deserves the same central role in general education as mathematics and English. Or, put more succinctly, everyone should learn how to design programs..." This is not a textbook, this is a revolutionary pamphlet calling for educational reform. I had read nothing like this in the tens of 'Dummies' and 'In 24 Hours' books I had exposed myself to. One part priggish, two parts pedagogic. I often found myself asking for whom was it written? First-year college student?, ambitious would-be high-school programmer wanna-be? Math mavens? Surely not a middle-aged bookish clerk who tastes run more to Turgenev and Dostoevsky than Turing and Dijkstra. But then I demanded more than mere anonymous web-lurking from my lowly pc. I remember myself many years ago trying to learn BASIC on a massive time-share computer and telling myself surely there was had to be more magic to computing than this. Well, after reading more texts and having had to unlearn the 'Dummies' and the 'In 24 hours' style of disinformation I had finally found the marrow of a discipline that is as demanding as any I had ever come across and as vexing as any artistic rigor I had ever been inspired by. Come be confused, come be amused, amazed and intellectually abused. Sorely, if I find I have little talent for this excruciatingly logical endevour, I have also found a full-blown appreciation of such daunting computational cheekiness. Much to learn here, and this is only the "core subject of a liberal arts education." What had I been wasting my time on all those years as a professional student?

The joy of learn programming
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 16 total.
Review Date: 2003-11-15
Great book! I liked the way the author approaches how to begin designing programs. I am half-way through the book and I am finding it very entertaining. Yeap! I recommend this book.

Electronics
Learning WCF: A Hands-on Guide
Published in Paperback by O'Reilly Media, Inc. (2007-05-24)
Author: Michele Bustamante
List price: $44.99
New price: $24.97
Used price: $20.98

Average review score:

superlative
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-06-10
I purchased this and Lowy's book on WCF. Of the two, I'd say this is the one that will make WCF real to blue collar developers. More technical books need to be written this way. The author does an outstanding job of describing the pieces and parts of WCF from a functional standpoint before leading the reader through simple step-by-step exercises. These do a solid job of reinforcing the theory. I normally blow off working through sample code in technical works, but with WCF, it really helps to explore some of the nuances to things like serialization, callbacks and security. These are best appreciated by doing hands-on walkthroughs and fortunately, the author has provided very good examples in the companion download.

Lowy's book is good for different reasons, but I feel far more conversant in the WCF area having read and re-read Bustamente's book. Lowy's is a nice companion and it goes deep into stuff that, unless your current project really needs it, you'll brain dump in two weeks. Quote Lowy at swank cocktail parties with the hoi poloi, but use this book when you want to gain a solid understanding of this thing we call WCF.

Bustamente writes clearly and to the point. Git r' done types like me who are interested in exploring the functional without getting lost in the minutiae will appreciate Learning WCF.

This book is not about SOA although the author does touch on some basic premises governing what it does for the enterprise. Unlike Lowy, there weren't any real groaners about how SOA is going to replace OO and end world poverty. OO maybe got 30% penetration among software developers in formal polls. (As an informal measure, go into any MS shop and check out how many OO diagrams are created by devs in their work and you'll see what I mean. Most MS shops won't even spend money on third party modeling tools.) SOA isn't going to do any better and it addresses a different set of problems than does OO. Bustamente gives developers a solid grounding in appreciating what WCF can do while leaving all the fluff about "paradigm shifts" and what-not for others.

Excellent!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2008-03-01
I am very happy with this book: it's easy to read, the structure is very intuitive and logical, and everything you need to know is covered. If you're just starting with WCF and you're looking for an excellent resource on the subject, look no further.

Learning WCF
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2008-01-28
Great tutorials and help on author's website. Definately a book for someone who needs to start from the beginning!

This should be the first WCF book you get
Helpful Votes: 16 out of 16 total.
Review Date: 2007-11-14
You may want to acquire various other WCF books for depth, but if you're just getting started with WCF, this is the book you want. There isn't another book out there that compares to it. It's cleanly written and nicely balances conceptual material on service orientation with the practicalities of Windows Communication Foundation.

Many other books on WCF take the form of a "brain dump" on WCF features, or get bogged down in conceptual discussion of Service Oriented Architecture. Instead, Ms. Bustamante has a very clear, logical path from simple WCF features to more complex. You won't be overwhelmed early, but you will eventually get to most of the advanced features you'll likely need. Other books, such as Juval Lowy's Programming WCF Services (Programming), can pick up at that point for the really advanced topics.

Many of the chapters contain step-by-step labs, and you can get working end results from the author's web site. They start easy and build nicely through more complex concepts.

The sample code in the book is in C#, but if you happen to be a Visual Basic developer (as I am), you're not left out. Many of the labs and samples are also available in VB on the author's web site.

The book was unfortunately published too early to include definite coverage of the Visual Studio 2008 features for automatically generating some of the code you need to use WCF. Those capabilities are in the Visual Studio 2008 beta now and will be released in the next few months. Some of the labs could have been simplified by using those Visual Studio features. But, on the positive side, working through the labs in more detail will give you a more in-depth understanding of the subject and enable you to use the Visual Studio features more effectively.

Gets you started quickly. Clear and comprehensive.
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2008-02-26
This is a very good book to get started quickly with WCF. Specially useful are the setup instructions and the section on hosting, which can be big gotchas with new technologies like this one. The section on security is a nice touch.

Here is the table of contents in case you are wondering:

Chapter 1. Hello Indigo
Section 1.1. Service Oriented Architecture
Section 1.2. WCF Services
Section 1.3. Fundamental WCF Concepts
Section 1.4. Creating a New Service from Scratch
Section 1.5. Generating a Service and Client Proxy
Section 1.6. Hosting a Service in IIS
Section 1.7. Exposing Multiple Service Endpoints
Section 1.8. Summary
Chapter 2. Contracts
Section 2.1. Messaging Protocols
Section 2.2. Service Description
Section 2.3. WCF Contracts and Serialization
Section 2.4. Service Contracts
Section 2.5. Data Contracts
Section 2.6. Message Contracts
Section 2.7. Approaches to Serialization
Section 2.8. The Message Type
Section 2.9. Summary
Chapter 3. Bindings
Section 3.1. How Bindings Work
Section 3.2. Web Service Bindings
Section 3.3. Connection-Oriented Bindings
Section 3.4. One-Way and Duplex Communication
Section 3.5. Large Message Transfers
Section 3.6. Custom Bindings
Section 3.7. Summary
Chapter 4. Hosting
Section 4.1. Hosting Features
Section 4.2. ServiceHost
Section 4.3. Self-Hosting
Section 4.4. Hosting on the UI Thread
Section 4.5. Hosting in a Windows Service
Section 4.6. Hosting in IIS 6.0
Section 4.7. IIS 7.0 and Windows Activation Service
Section 4.8. Choosing the Right Hosting Environment
Section 4.9. Summary
Chapter 5. Instancing and Concurrency
Section 5.1. OperationContext
Section 5.2. Instancing
Section 5.3. Concurrency
Section 5.4. Instance Throttling
Section 5.5. Load Balancing and Failover
Section 5.6. Summary
Chapter 6. Reliability
Section 6.1. Reliable Sessions
Section 6.2. Transactions
Section 6.3. Queued Calls
Section 6.4. Summary
Chapter 7. Security
Section 7.1. WCF Security Overview
Section 7.2. Securing Intranet Services
Section 7.3. Securing Internet Services
Section 7.4. Working with Certificates
Section 7.5. Building a Claims-Based Security Model
Section 7.6. Exploring Federated Security
Section 7.7. Summary
Chapter 8. Exceptions and Faults
Section 8.1. SOAP Faults
Section 8.2. WCF Exception Handling
Section 8.3. Exceptions and Debugging
Section 8.4. Fault Contracts
Section 8.5. IErrorHandler
Section 8.6. Summary
Appendix A. Setup Instructions
Section A.1. Database Setup
Section A.2. ASP.NET Provider Model Setup
Section A.3. Certificate Setup
Section A.4. IIS Application Directories
Appendix B. ASP.NET Meets CardSpace
Section B.1. Information Cards and CardSpace: A Brief Tour
Section B.2. Identity Metasystem Participants and Browser Flow
Section B.3. Let's Log In with CardSpace!
Section B.4. Processing the Token
Section B.5. Associating Cards with User Accounts
Section B.6. Creating a Dual Purpose Login Page
Section B.7. Conclusion

Electronics
QuarkXPress 4 for Macintosh (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Published in Paperback by Peachpit Press (1998-02-13)
Author: Elaine Weinmann
List price: $18.95
New price: $3.50
Used price: $0.01

Average review score:

Perfect go-to for quick answers
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-08-14
I bought this book as a graphic design student upon a teacher's recommendation and it saved my butt on many a homework project when I needed to figure out how to get something done. I've since gone on to become a professional graphic designer and though I'm up to QuarkXPress 6.5 this book is still valid and has still come in handy for looking up the odd hotkey or some odd paragraph formatting.

The book is clean and concise and very logically ordered. The index in the back makes it very easy to find what you're looking for and if you can't think of the name for something you can find it easily by browsing since the book is so well organized.

Each element is plainly described and accompanied by a picture - don't let the greyscale images fool you, they get directly to the point so you can see exactly how to accomplish something.

I've seen a lot of XPress books out there, many 5-times the thickness of this book but all those other books seem to add superfluous text just to fill pages where this book gets to the point. Of all my books for design and design software, this has by far been my most helpful and most used.

Excellent!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2001-03-05
Just what I needed to learn QuarkXPress!

The Quark book for the do-it-yourselfer
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2002-02-15
If you're like me, and you'd rather jump into a manual than sit in a classroom, then this Visual Quick-Start is for you. This is the fourth VQS book I've bought and it doesn't disappoint. Actually, I'm a Quark Xpress power user, but needed to train some non-design trained coworkers on basic Quark usage. The simple step-by-step sections are easily digested and build on each other as you progress. Alternately it serves as a great reference is you just want to learn how to do a single task.

An excellent tutor at my desk-side.
Helpful Votes: 11 out of 11 total.
Review Date: 2002-01-15
I bought this book as a last resort because my Computer Graphics professor told us we would need lots of tutoring in order to pass with good grades. I was totally "Quark illiterate" before taking this course and buying the book. Honestly, this book explains a lot more than a tedious 3 week course in class could. The book has taken me step-by-step through all the process of learning style-sheets and type-boxes. This is all stuff I would have never been able to learn if not for the book itself.

Elaine Weinmann's very well illustrated and easy to read/follow excersises are what any student needs to reach their goal in QuarkXPress. My copy is different in color to the one sold here, but it looks exactly like the one my professor uses.
And, because the book is not really that thick, it can fit in either a backpack or a briefcase. The only main problem I have with the book itself is the paper-back style. It will fray and dog-ear pretty fast, so take good care of this "Bible for Quark".

And...for those whom are not too sure of their Keyboard shortcuts, thank God, they put them in the back of the book.
At least I don't have to search my binder for my photocopies! That little extra is a Godsend. Especially when you are being tested on the shortcuts.

Get the book. Hope my review helped you.

Quark unveiled
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2001-06-08
I'm a graphic design student and bought this book to aid me with the learning process of Quark. I found the book helpful and easy to read. There are parts that need more work, but it explains how to do things step by step. A beginner can use this book to guide him/her through the process of making a layout and using all the tools available in Quark.


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