Technology Books

I have been working on each chapter every week and I can't wait to start the next one. Not only does it give great tutorials which are easy to follow but while you're reading it gives tooltips that make you work faster or even better, if something goes wrong how to fix the problem. I recommend this to anyone who is just starting to learn editing or just needs a quick refresher. A+

I went from knowing absolutly nothing about Final Cut Pro HD to knowing enough to be top of my class in Film Editing. The lessons go by quick to. Easy to learn and really hands on. I HIGHLY suggest buying this if you are interested in editing video.

Like the rest of the series, it gives basic how-to information for newbies. It's well written and concise.

This was my first Apple Training Series book, and it was a very good experience. Going into this I had never learned a software package, let alone a complex one, almost completely from a book, and this experience proved it possible for me. It's no-nonsense, as comprehensive as I would want as a beginner, with very few errors, and user friendly - much more so than the tutorial that came with my software. At times it was very challenging, but that's the complexity of the s/w. Pictorials may not be as colorful as in other books, but this quickly becomes a non-issue as they are more than adequate and offset by the clarity of the text.

After several attempts at learning FCP, it was this book that did the trick. Each lesson is clear and concise. Not to mention, the book follows a logical progression in what it teaches you. In the end, I recommend this book without any reservation.

This is by far the best book on real applications using XML. The author is an expert in the field, and the book is clear and concise, yet it deals with fairly complex applications also.
I highly reccomend this

This book covers the most popular XML application architecture patterns. Great source both for ideas and ready-to-go source code. I was pleasantly surprized to find the whole chapter (Chapter 6: Import from Any Format) devoted to the problem I am facing in my current project... Another excellent book from Marchal that really helps me to do my work.

There are already lots of 5 stars here and it seems unnecessary to vote another 5 stars. Anyway, I would like to give some personal feedback.

1)This book is short in length but rich in content.

Chapter 1 convers XML in a standalone java application, SAX parser is used in this chapter; chapter 2 shows a survex project using SAX parser and servlet; chapter 3 demonstrated how to use DTD, CSS within XML editor XMetal; chapter 4 covers XML publishing, same content can be published with different style sheets for HTML, WML and RSS; chapter 5 and chapter 6 describe the conversion between XML and EDI using xsl; chapter 7 is devoted to an e-Business project, using xsl and servlet; chapter 8 can be read after chapter 4, it is also devoted to publishing, with dynamically generated xml content; chapter 9 is devoted to a stock tracking project, which uses SOAP as the communication protocol, it can be read after chapter 7.

In a whole, this book covers:

a) XML parsers in chapter 1, 2, also java, servlet, design patterns Builder, Visitor.

b) XML editor in chapter 3, also CSS, DTD,

c) Publishing (XSLT) in chapter 4 and 8, also servlet.

d) XML and EDI in chapter 5 and 6, also XSLT.

e) e-Business: chapter 7 and 9, also servlet, SOAP.

2)This books is written for java developer, good understanding of java and servlet is required.

3)There is no chapter on JSP and XML, although there are application of XML with servlet and you can transfer some servlet into JSP; there is no chapter on JMS and XML neither, you may hope to find this kind of example in a JMS book.

4)This book is surpringly easy to use. I read it several times, from the beginning to the end. I tried EVERY EXAMPLE in the book, and every example works.

To be more honest, I only find one problem in the example (I just want to prove that I really tried every example): on page 81, third paragraph, first line, the author talks about how to chnage display style in XMetal:

Choose Tools, Editor Display Style

I found "Editor Display Style" in the menu "Format" instead of menu "Tools", so maybe we shuld replace "Tools" by "Format".

5)This book uses a JDBC database HypersonicSQL, and it is on the CD. So no preinstalled database is required.

6)The servlet container used in the book is jetty, the author provided batch file to use it without any difficulty. However, if you use Tomcat or Weblogic or jrun or another servlet engine, you need to configure it.

This book has many projects, which gives insight into various parts of XML. Basic knowledge of XML is required though. Implementation of these projects is a good way of learning XML. Nothing like hand's on experience.

The author's writing style is also good, he gives reasons choosing any particular implementation.

If you really need to know XML, buy this book.

The author presents very practical example projects in each chapter. The project in Chapter 9 is especially clear on demonstating the SOAP concept. Buy this book to jump-start your XML/Java knowledge and experience. You'll never regret buying this book.

The author of this book does an excellent job of analyzing the operational and tactical performance of Arabic Armies in the latter 20th Century. But, be forewarned, the book can be a slog to get through for the novice. Mr. Pollack examines the good, bad and ugly of the national performance of several armies (Iraqi, Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian) in a manner which is useful to any decision maker who might have to confront an Arab Military foe. The best part of this book and its most useful application is in detailing Arabic Armies 'mismanagement' of information. Yes, poor leadership has doomed many Arabic Military operations, but within Arab Military leadership the fatal mismanagement of information is at the heart of each defeat. As detailed by the author, Senior and Junior officers both lie. They lie to their troops, lie to their political masters and lie to each other. At times they seem incapable of any truth telling whatsoever. The author details Senior Officers describing "Great Victories" where battles are being lost. Junior officers repeatedly fail to provide timely analysis of opposing forces or give a true picture of ongoing operations (lest they be termed cowards?). This has caused missed opportunities to adjust deployments and often leads to catastrophic defeats. Another excellent point is that the author never dismisses the ability of the individual Arab foot soldier to display extreme bravery and tenacity often despite overwhelming odds.

This is a superb and easily read treatise, of use both to the military professional and the interested lay reader. The book meticulously details strategic and tactical performance of each of the prinicple Arab states, not only with respect to their well-publicized conflicts with Israel, but it also investigates the lesser-known military endeavors (e.g., Egypt's war in Yemen, Libya's adventures in Chad). As a result, this is a comprehensive evaluation. Fortunately, it was not burdened with background details on Islam and it's baleful influences on the technical aspects of modern warfare: this material would constitute a separate treatise and has been detailed elsewhere. Nonetheless, the insights gained from Pollack's investigation of military performance transfer to Arab domestic politics and Islamic cultural influence on military doctrine.

Unfortunately, the cost of the book and it's length will deter many readers. In summary, this is an outstanding book and should be on the 'must read' list of readers of Middle Eastern affairs. It's only shortcomings were in the maps: symbols used throughout the text were only annotated in one map and never completely explained. Otherwise, a superb work.

This is a solid study. It is well written, well researched, solid on its data, and thorough in its scope.

The sections on inter-Arab/Muslim/African conflict give good looks at relatively obscure pieces of information -- the author's discussion of the Libyan-Chadian conflicts, for example, is outstanding.

A number of interesting conclusions are evident here, whether about Arabs' failure to maintain their weapons and equipment, their poor battlefield employment of intelligence, their horrendous logistical systems, or the failure of their junior leadership to execute, lead, and decide sua sponte.

My only real complaint is that often, I found myself thinking 'but what do you think?' The author is so thorough in the book that he often leaves his intermediary conclusions for the reader to absorb, and extrapolate. This makes the book something of a tool, as opposed to the pedantic thing you would expect given its girth. But I would figure that with all the author's knowledge (and his resume to boot), he would have more of his own things to say. He does offer, at the end, that this book is essentially a shortened version of his dissertation, and there is a follow-on work that looks more in depth, examines other aspects, and offers more analysis.

Bottom line is that this is a great piece of work. It should be seen as, essentially, an encyclopedia. If you're looking for anything else you'll be woefully disappointed. But if you're serious about the subject, this book is well worth the time.

I won't repeat all of the detail and commentary provided by other reviewers, but I wanted to provide a favorable review for this excellent work.

In the introduction, the author addresses the factors often cited for the poor performance of Arab armies--poor junior leadership, poor equipment, lack of intestinal fortitude, etc. etc. He then provides rare detailed coverage of specific operations of the various Arab armies, including their successes and failures, and then returns to address, on the basis of his analysis, the "poor performance factors" for each of the armies which he covers. Very interesting (to military history fans) and well done.

TMR

Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq are six major players in the Middle East. Whether they are US allies (such as Saudi Arabia or Jordan) or die hard enemies (such as Syria or Libya) Pollack gives an objective analysis of their military prowess, or lack there of.

Pollack's argument is twofold. He claims that because of Arab society Arab militaries lack basic skills that modern European armies take for granted. For instance because Arab culture looks down upon those who preform physical labor nations like Saudi Arabia wouldn't teach maitenance skills for rifles and aircraft. As a result Saudi Arabia still rely on foriegn advisors. Pollack notes that "Saudis also were limited in the fact that very few of their people were willing to take on a job that they considered menial labor-hence the support services suffered." (pg. 431)

The second portion of his thesis is that the junior officer corps of most Arab armies is incredibly poor. Considered having one of the finest armies in the Middle East, Jordan showed that on a tactical level it simply could not preform. While most Western militaries have based their soldiers tactics off of the old WW2 German saying "every corporal should carry a field marshalls baton." Arab countries such as the Hashemite Kingdom have good generals but poor lower level leadership. This was evident when Pollack states (talking about the battle of al Karamah), "The artillery was accurate but almost exclusively preplanned, preregistered fire missions and, therefore, did not demonstrate any real improvement over 1967. Whenever Jordanian armor encountered Israeli armor-and these were mostly even fights in both numbers and types of tanks engaged-the Jordanians either lost or, at best gained a draw which still favored the Israelis."(pg.334-335) There was simply little or no improvisation on plans that were drawn earlier.

There was only one minor flaw I found, this had nothing to do with what was written but with the book itself. The sofcover copy has a bit of a poor spine and doesn't do well under a little stress.

Pollack's book is as one review by Choice Magazine says, "[an] encyclopedic study will be of great interest to scholars, military planners and analysts, and policy makers." it really is a true encyclopedia chronicaling every major and minor conflict the above countries were involved in. Whether you are reading because you love military or Middle East history, this book is for you. I couldn't recommend Pollacks book more.

Coggins wrote some excellent books and his extremely valuable and accessible text was always made even more clear by his wonderful illustrations. This should be the first book anyone buys on the equipment of the American Civil War and even in an extensive library will often be the last book needed to answer questions, from the most general to highly specific. It isn't the most in depth or the most wide ranging but is certainly the most generally useful and is solidly rewarding from cover to cover

This book, although not very large, contains a wealth of information on varous Civil War supplies. It is highly detailed and Jack Coggins provides illustrations with virtually everything so the reader can get a good feel for what an item really looked like. Many of these items are cut away pictures giving the reader a visual account of the operations of the items described. This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in the equipment and weapons of the Civil War.

I first discovered this book when I was a kid, it was origionally printed in 1962. I checked it out of the library so many times, my Dad ended up getting me a copy for my birthday. This was one of my favorite sources on specifics of unit tactics, engineer job, etc.. The text is concise and too the point and the illustrations further clarify what is described in the text. Unfortunatly, my beloved copy was lost, much to my chagrin. In studying the Civil War I often though of this slim volume and how Coggins clearly laid things out when reading more obtuse textss that didn't quite measure up. While searching on Google on individual unit tactics a link for this book came up. I felt as if I discovered a long lost part of my childhood, I immediatly ordered it from Amazon and it was delivered. I went through it and rediscovered the classic drawings and text that I loved as a child and remembered the richness of this volume.
Although I loved it as a child, this is not necessarily a childrens book. It is great for all ages and should be part of any casual or serious student of the conflict.

Alas, there is - or was - only one Jack Coggins. A matchless illustrator, a good writer, and a man who did exactly what he set out to do, and did it completely. I suppose it would be possible to put together a better book on the arms and equipment of the Civil War. I just don't know how. Great illustrations, clear and lucid text, thorough. If you like this, try his book on Guadalcanal, or the Campaign in North Africa; they're cut of the same cloth.

I would recommend this book to every amateur Civil War historian. The scope of the text is limited to equipment used in the Civil War and reads quickly. I found a lot of interesting information that I had not seen in all my other Civil War readings. Also the drawings are very detailed just plain fun to look at.

This is not a highly technical Oracle book but it does demonstrate how many of the Oracle features rely on intuition instead of science. It is not the kind of book that you will refer to later, but it is an excellent one time read

This book is a great place to start to learn about performance tuning for Oracle. The book covers the different type of performance tuning methods in a neutral and matter of fact manner. I like the candidness of the author and the fact that he does not push or suggest one method is better than any other. Use this book to start to understand the different methods then move on to more in depth books on a particular performance tuning method. Take a moment and look at the Table of Contents

Lawson gives the Oracle DBA many useful ideas on customising your Oracle database. He pretty much assumes you already possess a reasonable background in Oracle. There is no wasted space on elementary SQL or Oracle tasks.

Perhaps the key chapters are 7, "Oracle Pathologist" and 8, "Analysing SQL Bottlenecks". Later chapters add important refinements. But if you are in search of quick gains, chapters 7 and 8 could be the most fruitful. The ideas in those might not have to involve a major overhaul of your architecture.

Great book,nice and easy to follow approach,fine life examples.

Among other things the author very intelligently also reiterates

the importance of a good self image and the importance of a

good relationship to co-workers in a very casual,realistic and

non intrusive manner

The technical Oracle performance tuning section doesn't start until Chapter 5. The first 94 pages of the book is spent on topics such as "Maintain a Healthy Skepticism","Blame should be Avoided","The Cost of a Poor Working Relationship", and "The Universal Law of Reciprocity". Although the author's advice on these matters is sound, the first 94 pages clearly does not provide what the users are looking for.

The crown jewel of this book is its technical explaination of wait events. Its explaination of v$SQL, v$system_event, v$session_event, and V$Session_wait tables is well worth your money and your time. If you do not know of these tables, then do yourself and your Oracle users a great service and buy this book and master its contents. You will not regret it.

The weakspot of this book is in the resolution of Oracle's slow performance. Although the book provides strong hints that most Oracle issues can be resolved with better indexing and index hints, the book does not emphasize it as much as it should. It also doesn't provide a whole lot of suggestions on how to optimize the SGA.

This is a good book to have if you decided to get back to nature, downsize your life, get with it or just make ends meet when food prices are going up, up, up. Just know that it takes a lot of work, especially if you are into organic. That said, this is a good start on making money with gardening when you don't have a acres of land. My lot is 1/3 of an acre and it is quite productive. This book helps you make the best of what you have. I recommend it. I didn't give it five stars because it doesn't have all that much that's new to me, but then again I read a lot.

Not only is this book a great guide to gardening using organic methods, it goes to great lengths to show you how to market you extra production or even to start a full time endeavor. Very good coverage of modern methods in irrigation, crop rotation, pest controls, and marketing. I highly reccomend this to your library!

This is a tremendous resource for anyone who believes that you don't have to 'go big' to make money. This is something you must own.

My Husband has not put this book down since it arrived! It contains exactly the information he's been looking for to help him make the right decisions about selling what we grow. Needless to say, this book gets a very high rating for content!

For eight years, Lee averaged 110 cubic years of compost per season. Each year Lee added 5,000 square feet of garden. The idea was to cash in on new farmer markets in Boston Neighborhoods. In 1988, Lee had nearly one acre planted and grossed $36,000 and that average out to 50 hours a week or 12 an hour. Don't be afraid of creating too much competition. Growers are currently only serving 1 to 3 percent of the market with organic foods. The number of acres dedicated to growing organic foods amounts to less than 1 percent of the national agricultural land base. Organic foods include more than 200 varieties of vegetables, 1,000 varieties of flowers, and close to 100 different herbs, several distinct growing methods, and at least 10 prime marketing methods. 97 percent of the market buys from the supermarket.

Tomatoes grown organically have five times more calcium and 2,000 times more iron than conventionally grown tomatoes. 16 commonly known trace elements are: boron, calcium, carbon, chlorine, copper, hydrogen, iron, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, and zinc. Without the proper balance of soil pH, moisture, naturally occurring soil minerals, and biological activity, the nutrients may remain locked in the soil and usages of compost is one of the best ways to increase humus levels. Compost provides a healthy, nutrient-filled environment for the plant roots. You need 3 cubic yards of cow manure for every 1,000 square feet of garden. A 1,000 square feet of garden can grow 100 tomato plants. After three years of manure, tomato plants yield 14 pounds per plant; and in super rich soil, potatoes yield 5 pounds per plant. To get 65 yards of compost, 200 cubic yards of raw materials will need to be formed into a 4 foot piles, 10 feet wide, and 200 feet long.

In 1990 the farm had four hogs. After a year the hogs are moved and rock phosphate is added. Potatoes and strawberries are planted first; wood ash is added and two years of peas and beans replenish nitrogen in the soil; and in the fourth year the plot is ready for any crop.

Another great book by Sarah Sink Eames!-Great outfits and pictures-easy to see values-Fun to see how Barbie and friends followed current fashion trends for the late 60's and early 70's-very helpful to any vintage collector!!

Great book. Found outfits and the year they came out. Do Recommend if you are into Barbie clothes...

If you are a collector, you should have this book on your shelf. Comprehensive, complete, with photos galore. A+++++

In Hong Kong, it is not popular to collect vintage Barbie dolls so that it is not easy to explore specific related knowledge. This book really helps a lot. It is a bible for every Barbie collectors!

This book and its companion volume, 'Barbie Doll Fashion: 1959-1967', are without doubt the most beautiful and informative books on the market for the vintage and mod era Barbie collector today. They are very well-written, with lovely photographs of absolutely pristine examples of each outfit, enough to make you drool over on every single page!

'Barbie Doll Fashion: 1968-1974' covers the fashions from Barbie's exciting Mod era, and includes fashions not only for Barbie, but for her friends and family as well. These include original outfits, Pak outfits, Best Buys, Get Ups and Gos, Store Exclusives and every other type of outfit available from 1968 to 1974.

Each outfit is described in detail, with a photograph showing the outfit and all accessories next to it, laying flat. Some outfits are shown on the doll. The photography is stunning, by far the best of any Barbie book I've ever seen.

'Barbie Doll Fashion: 1968-1974' isn't just informative, it's a catalogue of dreams to build on, and a fun book just to sit and look at. You'll never be sorry you own it!

First off, Col. Bolger was a great battalion commander who gave NCOs and Officers who screwed up second chances, something that was unheard of in the 101st Airborne Division at the time. What we learned at JRTC is, a leader must adapt his training to the environment and this case, the environment is MILES or laser warfare. You can't tell me the OPFOR would run around behind small bushes when a rifle Platoons SAW's and 60's are blazing, it just wouldn't happen. The enemy would break contact if the weren't cut down in a wall of lead. But we learned to be effective in an environment where small groups of soldiers who carry butt packs, wear boonie caps, and spend every waking minute zeroing their MILES lasers is, you have to do the same...that's what good leaders do. So we spent months perfecting the art of MILES warfare and honed our call for fire skills and essentially turned the tables on the OPFOR. We coined the "system" earth pigs!

I've been through JRTC six times and the most effective units are the units who spread their units out, spend a lot of time zeroing their MILES, and have good casevac plans.

I was a team leader in Bravo Company and during the first rotation and like SSG Eric Bitzer said, the Company commander showed his incompetence by leaving our platoon in the open on the side of the hill after the initial assault. In leadership theory you learn about the emotional competency known as self regulation. I saw a company commander have a virtual breakdown on the objective after our platoon leader LIED on the radio about our location. Self regulation basically refers to your ability to regulate your own behaviour, speech, and emotions.

I served in units after where this kind of mistake would have led to the automatic relief of duty on the spot. Something the comapny commander in question liked to do with the soldiers under his charge. Didn't have your PVS7 on when it got dark? Automatic article 15, even if they didn't work. Great way to look out for your soldiers?

I think not.

If you want to see the deatils of a unit preparing for combat and the training involved, I recommend this book. Col. Bolger was one smart officer.

Daniel Bolger has done an excellent job explaining not only what goes on at the Joint Readiness Training Center, but he does much to explain how and why his first experience there was a bust and more importantly how he corrected his mistakes and performed outstandingly in a later opportunity. Excellent book on what goes into battlion level command.

I disagree with the reviewer complaining about jargon.If you are afraid of learning a little military jargon then you shouldn't be reading books about command and control. The small amount of jargon used in this book is easy to keep track of.

I am SSG Eric Bitzer I was there during this battle I was the Point Man for Bco 1/327inf when we hit the opfor the problem is not army doctrine but was in a decision that was made by the company commander of Bco 1/327 inf to stay on the objective after taking it instead of moving off the objective that all light units do. If we would have moved off the objective this battle would have been a total success. Remember that this book is from a Battialion commanders veiw not from a soldier that fought the battle Col. Bolger makes some great points and was also a great commander but the fault is not his it was with one of his company commanders.

This is another good book by COL Daniel Bolger, this time about his battalion's (101st ABN) rotations to JRTC in 1994 and 1995. Lots of great details and observations about JRTC and the OPFOR. Bolger's battalion was badly abused in its 1994 rotation and he decided to get even the next time, which was fortunately less than a year later. Bolger criticizes the Deliberate Decision Making Process (DDMP), big Tactical Operation Centers and suggests alternatives. Thought-provoking as always but I don't agree with everything he says. There is no doubt that the US Army's cumbersome DDMP is geared toward set-piece, short-term battles but Bolger's approach combines common sense with anti-staff bias to try and just avoid all that messy staff work. From the intelligence viewpoint, he is dead wrong because Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) does save lives and it does take time to do it right. Bolger's command instincts are good, particularly about nitty gritty items like reducing soldier loads, but there is bias here that detracts from his message. For example, sometimes he says erroneous things, like the S-2 (intelligence officer) is on the S-3's staff (the S-2 works for the commander, not the S-3). Maps are poor.

The Battle for Hunger Hill should force the US Army Infantry School as well as the gurus at Ft Leavenworth to seriously consider re-writing current doctrine for light infantry units (especially with regard to Low Intensity Conflict and OOTW). The 1-327 Infantry proves again and again throughout the text that the "cookbook solution" (i.e. doctrine applied as dogma) is often the surest way to ensure one's own defeat. Rather, HOW to think instead of WHAT to think is the surest way to secure victory.

Any soldier or leader concerned with mission accomplishment and force protection through the artistic application of Maneuver Warfare (Auftragstaktik) simply MUST read this book. It is highly entertaining as well as informative. Indeed, any commander whose unit is scheduled for a rotation to JRTC should require every officer and NCO to read this book no later than twelve months out (thirty-six months out for RC units). You may go without it...but only at your own peril.

The book covers the physical layer aspects of modern cable networks, in comparatively greater details than the MAC and transport layers.

The author has done an excellent job in choosing relevant details of each technology presented in the book and laying them out in an easy-to-understand manner.


Overall, it is a good reference book to have within one's reach and is a better starting point in one's understanding of cable networks, instead of searching for terms or concepts using internet search engines.

Dr. Ovadia has written a thorough and carefully researched dissertation on the end-to-end Cable TV network architecture. The book is excellent for both a high level overview of the Hybrid Fiber/Coax network as well as for an in-depth review of the various network components, including laser transmitters and optical fiber amplifiers, plant noise characterization, head-end and subscriber modems, media formats and more. There is also an overview of the Docsis protocol. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the Cable Operator network architecture. The contents should be required knowledge for anyone involved in developing any of the components of a cable TV network.

As a non-expert in the field, "Broadband Cable TV Access Networks" is a very complete book that is well-organized and full of information. The introduction sections are very clear and setup up the rest of the book very well. It is clear that Shlomo is an expert in the field and also a very good writer that integrates difficult concepts into a readable story. On areas that Shlomo is not an expert in, the descriptions are not so complete. Sometimes, the book moves too quickly through the details, but the amount of material in the book is impressive for its size. Overall this is a very good book that holds the reader's interest.

The book "Broadband Cable TV Access Networks" by Dr. Ovadia presents both a high level overview and low level details of CATV technology. It is a well organized system engineering handbook for cable TV network. It gives an excellent introduction to the overall CATV architecture. The introduction is very descriptive and easy to understand. And then extends to rigorous technical details in transmission technologies (over both fiber and coax cable), RF and digital transceiver design, cable modem protocols, software architecture and applications. The book can be a good tutorial for people interested in CATV technology and a good reference for engineers working in the area.

I am working in MRV Communications in the field of FFTx Receivers Transceivers design, focusing in the analog side of the system video transport.

I had purchased the book and enjoyed reading it. Indeed, it is a great system engineering book covering a broad spectrum of technical subjects which I have a lot of interest. It broadened my knowledge on the arena of CATV which was new to me.
(I came from Israel from the Satellite Communications field).

It is a recommended book to any communications engineer, component engineer and system engineer dealing with fiber optics data communications and video transport.
It covers all design aspects in all perspectives, system wise and component wise.
It provides a broad review, showing the affects of RF chains and , optical links imperfections on a QAM signal in most scientific analytic and professional way.

The book is structured as a zoom-in, taking the reader from a broad picture of definitions, system architectures and topologies such as HFC, PON, zooming into each building block requirements and constrains such as optics CWDM WDM optical none linearity, pre-distortions, CATV receivers topologies , specs and optimized solution. Additionally it covers the aspects of protocols such as DOCSIS and CATV standards showing how to approach to system design, understanding its requirements in order to reach the proper design.

The books provides block diagrams, schemes plots and conclusion to each chapter subject.

Indeed Dr. Shlomo Ovadia did here a huge effort and a great job.
This book is must have in any technical library.

Avi Brillant
Senior Design Engineer
Luninent-Inc
20550 Nordhoff Street
Chatsworth
CA-91311

Cell 818-266-7330

After reading the first few of chapters of "Career Opportunities in Biotechnology and Drug Development," I couldn't force myself to keep reading, and so, I scanned the rest of the book hoping I would find something that would pique my interest. I did not. The book is very dry and boring and chockfull of business-speak generalities. It was like reading a user's manual. I expected something more interesting, exciting, and useful like "Bioevolution" by Michael Fumento.

The first 6 chapters of this book provide general career advice, giving an overview of what is expected in the biopharma industry, what it takes to succeed, how to write a resume, network, etc. The second, and major, part of the book breaks the drug discovery enterprise down into its various stages, describes the role of each step in the process, and details positions available at each stage. The positions described range from those that require a PhD or MD, to those that are accessible to those with a college degree, and so on. Freedman describes the types of positions, typical job titles and career paths, roles and responsibilities, typical tasks, and relative salaries and other compensation. She also describes in detail the pros and cons of each field, how to excel in the field, and what personal characteristics are most often found in those who succeed in that field. She predicts where the field is going and what job prospects will be like, and also talks about how to get started in each field. Finally, each chapter ends with recommendations for training, professional societies, and other resources.

The entire volume is well organized, with important points in callouts, and many clarifying diagrams.

Anyone who reads this book will come away with an understanding of the drug discovery industry, and how complex it really is. Hopefully, they will also come away with several ideas of places they might fit into that industry, and the resources and inspiration to follow them through. Overall, a very thorough book, and highly recommended.

This book is a great resource for career changers as well. I've worked in Biotech R&D my entire career, but now I'm looking for a position in marketing. An MBA gave me a solid understanding of the field but "Career Opportunities in Biotechnology and Drug Development" has given me the industry specific vocabulary and knowledge to focus my search. I only wish I had read it sooner!

Having worked in biopharma marketing and business development management for over 30 years, I am often asked by young professionals working in biotech R&D what positions they might pursue successfully on the business and marketing side of the business. I feel comfortable sharing what the roles, rewards and expectations are for business and marketing functions but don't have the background of actually moving from R&D myself to understand their current positions and the questions they should be asking. In the future, I will now recommend Toby Freedman's book to help them find the position that best fits their background, skills and temperment. I was especially impressed with the extremely valuable information about career ladders inside functions in all divisions as well as great insights where those with "Research bench" experience can move successfully. This book is not just for newly graduated life scientists but for those desiring a transition after years in a function. I was amazed with the breadth and depth of the myriad career paths covered and quality and accuracy of those positions I hadn't expected the author would have understood as well as research.

Many college graduates, and even professionals, often wonder whether working for the pharmaceutical or biotechnology industry is appropriate for them. I am a recent graduate who faced that question. The career and development office at my school recommended Toby Freedman's book "Career Opportunities in Biotechnology and Drug Development". It is the best source of information I have encountered to guide me through the almost endless possibilities of career options in the health care and life sciences industries. By interviewing more than 200 industry executives, she provides in an easy to read format all the information necessary to determine if a career in this industry is for you. It is fun to read and it provides great insight. I highly recommend it.