Machines Books

College-level art libraries strong in British prints will find this title accompanies a major exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Metropolitan Museum, but stands well alone for art libraries across the country. It provides over 100 of these British prints, many published for the first time, and accompanies lovely full-color, often full-page designs with essays on both history and techniques. A fine recommendation for any serious art library.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This book is a fantastic guide for the key things you need to do to create a successful product company. While focussed on hi-tech, I think this is applicable to almost any hi growth business.

I have found the '9 steps' to be invaluable both in helping set our strategy and in our daily processes. This book has helped change our company, and set us on a course to significant new growth. Unlike many business books, this one is full of very relevant 'how to' advise. I made it compulsory reading for my entire management team, and it brought about significant change in our organization.

I recommend this book to anyone who is starting or running a business that wants to achieve rapid growth.

This purports to be a study of the machine gun in the U.S. Army. It isn't at all. It is a study of how organizations adapt to technology, and the difficulties of the U.S. Army in adjusting to the machine gun are repeated endlessly as organizations try to come to grips with new technology. It is a very useful book. The author does not hammer home the conclusions, but each misstep in adopting technology is carefully described. I am sorry to see it unavailable. It deserves a very wide reading and ought be in the library of all concerned with adopting computers in their organizations. John Lederer

The IBM official biography have this to say about Thomas Watson Jr.

" During his leadership, IBM grew from a medium-sized business to one of the dozen largest industrial corporations in the world. When Mr. Watson became CEO in 1956, IBM employed 72,500 people and had a gross income of $892 million. When he stepped down in 1971, employees numbered more than 270,000 and gross revenue was $8.3 billion. Fortune magazine once called him "the greatest capitalist who ever lived."


It is a great book, though I initially had misgivings getting the book. Are the principles of 1963 applicable today? When I looked at the Amazon site, it was ranked 433,861 in sales, and I would be the first to review it. Uhmmmm... If I had not been so enamored by his story by another book, "Father , Son & Company" which he co-authored with Peter Petre, I would not have bought this one.

Notwithstanding, I will not hesitate to say it is still one of the most important book in building the foundation of a great corporation, much akin to the principles in the bestseller book "Built to Last" by Jim Collins (#31 in Amazon list) . Only it is less sensational, but written by a True Blue practitioner who can really claim to the saying, been there, done that. With plethoras of business books proliferating, it is important to see, before believing, that the authors recommendations match his accomplishments. Or else, there will always be the question -- if he knows the stock market so well, why is he writing the book instead of investing in Wall Street?

It is one of those rare books, that is as relevant today as it was published over 40 years ago. According to Watson in laying the foundation on the importance of beliefs ( we call it now VISION) , "

"the basic philosphy, spirit and drive of an organization have far more to do with its relative achievements than do technological or economic resources, organization structure, innovation or timing. All these things weigh heavily in success. Buthey are, I think, transcended byhow strongly the people believe in its basic precepts and how faitfully they carry them out."

What are these basic precepts? He outlined three:

- have respect for the individual

- give the best company service of any company in the world.

- pursue all tasks with the idea that they can be accomplished in a superior fashion

He says, " The relationship between man and the customer, their mutual trust, the importance of reputation, the idea of putting the customer first -- all these things, if carried out wth real conviction by a company can make a great deal of difference in its destiny."

He is a great man, and it is a great book, if only to review what we may have forgotten in our haste to accomplish our everyday tasks. He is a great manager, but the one thing that will always put him in my all time list of great people will be an incident when he refused a higher salary and bonuses from a grateful board saying his pay was already enough, and he said something that I hope I will always remember in my own quest for fulfillment and happiness --- " I do not want to be a pig. "

by wilson ng
www.bizdrivenlife.net

This book is a wonderful size for little people to grip and carry. It also tucks well into a diaper bag, purse or jacket pocket. And after leaving it at Grandma's, it fit nicely in a mailed envelope! My son is a typical little boy and he just loves trucks and the like so he enjoys sitting and looking at all the color photos in the book.

This book has cute drawings and has photos. Tells how to buy buttons, make them, how to sew on, care for them, make games with them, and ideas for using them in crafts. There is history, stories, and it is a fun book for a button lover. Covers know how and fun stuff. Delightful read, hard to put down.

This is one Clipper book that every beginner should have. It assumes you don't know how to program in Clipper and takes you through all the basic components: scope/lifetime rules, UDFs, user defined commands, memo fields, TBrowse, file functions and more. I particularly liked all the examples found in the book. You can even buy a companion disk from the author's company to assist in understanding. I have successfully used this book for a class I taught to Clipper programming beginners

This is fantastic book for those of us who weren't around to experience the cafe racers of the 60's and 70's. It's like a time capsle sending you back to the lifestyle and genre of the ton-up boys and what it meant to earn that label.

Book was just as described from seller, perfect and unused condition.

This book deals with issues that we do not think in our daily life and this is what it is to be a person. It is amazing how the arguments of the book are construed and seems absurd to take the consideration of animals and machines being persons. Yet, regardless of its absurdity it is something that should be considered; an issue that should be debated on. The first thing that came to my mind while reading this book is that a person is similar to a computer in that persons are also 'programmed' by society and education (this issue is not about the computer we use in our daily lives but a more complicated machine). When reading this book keep in mind that a human being means "any individual of the genus Homo, esp. a member of the species Homo sapiens." So, obviously Justin Leiber is not saying that computers are humans because they are not from the same species. Now, what it is to be a person is something different. I never thought of the way we use the word person being equal to human being. In fact, I thought person=human being, but now I have realized this is not so. A human being is a person (there is no doubt about this) but not necessarily a person is a human being. For example, in law a corporation, a partnership, an estate, or other legal entity is recognized to a person, but not a human being. Think about it if a corporation that does not function with the same autonomy as the computer in the book is a person why the computer can not be a person too. All these things I have thought of came from reading this book. I strongly recommend it because it gives the possibility of opening our mind and seeing reality from a different perspective.

Noted aviation historian and photographer Bob Lawson has produced a multi-faceted, well-illustrated and absolutely first-class history of all the officers who led U.S. Navy carrier air groups or wings - the CAGs.

The list of the officers who have served as CAGs reads like a who's who of naval aviation -Jimmy Flatley, David McCampbell, "Jig Dog" Ramage, Frank Ault, Bob Elder and Jim Stockdale, to name just a few. Their exploits are legend and are well-covered in this book.

After relating the development of naval aviation from 1900 to the 1990s, Lawson discusses the genesis and evolution of the CAG billet before jumping into the meat of the book, profiles of over 40 of the Navy's most notable CAGs. These first-person reminiscences give the reader a very human look into the world of these men as they relate highlights from their "CAG tour".

Lawson then caps off the book with a section of color photographs and artwork depicting the various "CAG birds" flown by these men.

Lawson's book is obviously a labor of love. The many fine personal reminiscences he solicited are complemented by a stunning collection of rare photographs of the men along with color profiles of their aircraft. Anyone interested in the development of naval aviation in the 20th Century should have this book on his shelf. It is the definitive book on the subject and a hell of a good read as well!