Technology Books

I agree with everyone else, if you are a grad student or new researcher you need to buy and read this book. BUT BEWARE: This book refers to turbo pumps as a new innovation, and ignores magnetic charged particle optics. Discussions of topics are fairly through but lack the depth of schematics, however many of the references are now considered seminal letters on their topics. The references alone will save you a lot of time.

The physics covered is accurate and usable, and the references, clear presentations of topics, and lists of suppliers make this book essential for any serious experimental scientist to be.

Buy it! :)

This book is an invaluable reference source for anyone whose work requires them to become involved in unfamiliar (physical science related) technologies. Though it would certainly be useful to laboratory researchers, it is equally valuable for the scientist or engineer who needs to apply these disciplines. As a physicist involved in design of commercial instrumentation, I have often had to become involved in various disciplines which were outside of my area of formal training and this book has commonly been my point of entry into unfamiliar terrain. This isn't just a "how to do it" book, but also provides a solid grounding in the basic theory. Over the years I have used this book as a primer/refresher for: (a) vacuum technology; (b) light optics; (c) charged-particle optics; and (d) mechanical drawing. In each case, this book provided me with the fundamental concepts, equations, and techniques to become productive, often without access to any other source of expertise. Though I do, of course, employ other sources as my knowledge advances, I still find myself regularly referring back to this book.

I know of no other reference that manages to pack so much useful information into so few pages. And yet, it remains easy and enjoyable to read. Part of this may be due to the abundant drawings which have a certain charm of their own -- echoing the style of the famous C.S. Stong illustrations in the "Amateur Scientist" section of Scientific American.

This book is so good that I own two copies: one for my office at work and the second for reference at home.

Have never seen a book which was able to pack so much practical information into so few pages, and able to explain complex concepts so simply.

If you have to work with any type of laboratory equipment you would be insane to NOT have this book on your shelf.

I would like to cast a somewhat dissenting view of this book. It is certainly a good place to start for information on various projects but comes up short on construction techniques. Perhaps an older source, Procedures in Experimental Physics (Lindsay Pubs), is better. Of course, it was written in 1938, so materials cited might be out of date, but the construction techniques aren't bad. I recently decided to build a good sized water tank (40" by 6" by 3") of acrylic and found nothing about construction tips. I was thinking of building something that probably required casting, and found a paltry two pages on the subject.

It would be good to see it updated every 5 years or so. I see the pub date is 1991. Things have changed a bit. It has a very good list of references, but with the advent of the web, it would be good to see some the reference material cite the web.

This is a _great_ book! I buy a copy of this for every student who starts work for me--which I consider to be a fine investment. Practical, hands-on information is given on a huge variety of skills needed by those working in Physics labs. From glass blowing to vacuum systems, to instruction on attaching BNC connectors, it's all in here.

At first glance you may easily dismiss this book; featuring a rather dull cover; size that is dwarfed by the more "popular" C books - do not be fooled! This is an excellent text for learning about the C language.

Admittedly, if you're new to programming in general, then this book may seem a little difficult. For instance the first chapter launches straight into a discussion of C idioms: keywords, variables, operators etc. If these are foreign to you I would recommend you also buy an introductory programming text, then return to this book when you understand these concepts.

These assumptions aside, Kalicharan clearly and concisely discusses control structures and arrays, functions, character handling, data types, input/output and more. The concepts of each chapter are thoroughly explained and incorporated into numerous programming examples.

Indeed this is one of the strongest points of the book. In particular I liked the way Kalicharan introduces the three programming constructs; conditional execution, looping and iteration first, BEFORE discussing for example, the printf statement like most other C books do - which can be highly confusing to the novice C programmer. (Kalicharan leaves it until chapter 9). Thus a strong grounding in the fundamentals of programming is emphasised from the very start and is a consistent theme revisted throughout the book.

Unlike other C books, Kalicharan gives a brilliant discussion of pointers. What is dismissed as "too hard" in other texts is covered with ease and again, numerous examples to illustrate. For this chapter alone, one should buy this book.

Following the chapter on pointers is a good introduction to "advanced" data structures, linked lists and binary trees. These are left out of most other C books, bar those dealing with data structures specifically (university texts etc) but it is here that the power of the C language becomes apparent.

Topping off the book is a chapter in file handling. Text and binary files are discussed.

The range of topics, clarity of expression and *working* examples (I compiled every program in the book without error...) makes this book an essential addition to any C programmer's library. I hope another book from this talented author is on the way soon! (How about Java or C++?)

A friend recommended this book after I complained of the difficulty of learning C, having tried more popularly recommended books. I'm glad she did, for this book made C easy and fun to learn. An excellent book, strongly recommended.

I had Noel Kalicharan (UWI) for my Year 1 programming. Used many of the books he wrote and can vouch for the calrity and ease of use of his books, overall high quality. Even better when combined with his lectures.

A fantastic book! Its simple, clear and systematic presentation and explaination of concepts along with the abundance of examples make learning to program in C an easy task. And all the scary stuff you may have heard about pointers in C become mere rumours after reading the relevant chapters! An excellent book for learning and teaching.

This book is one of the best books explaining ANSI C. It starts from the newbie level and delivers the knowledge needed for any good C programmer to survive.

The writing style is very nice, the author has done some fine efforts in keeping his threads of thought clear and easy to follow.

For people who already know C, this is also good as a quick reference and is something concise to quickly refer to, in small issues. They could also just use it to quickly refresh their knowledge of C every once in a while.

It doesn't cover any advanced topics, but it does what it promises to do, so there's nothing serious to put this book down.

This book could have helped me greatly when I was just starting to learn C programming, but it didn't... Just because I only bought it too late, at the end of my C programming days!

-Mokhtar M. Khorshid

I found this guide to be comprehensive and full of practical examples.
This book helped me to understand the basic as well advance concept of HP-UX. I highly recommend this book to all unix/ hp-ux admins, whether they are on job or preparing for CSA HP-UX exam. This book certainly deserves a five star.

I used this book as my primary study guide to pass the CSA exam, though even before taking the exam I was pleased with the book for many reasons.

The hardback is nice.

The introductory "unix for dummies" section which seems to afflict all Unix books published these days was of a minimal length, keeping most of the book focused on meaty subjects.

Though I've been an SA on HP-UX machines for many years I've never implemented any DNS or NIS solutions. Those topics and others are succintly explained - but without extraneous verbage.

Test takers can make great use of the almost 600 questions listed in the back. Though a bit of criticism here: a handful of questions had incorrect answers and some of the questions were vague and depended on the context of questions which preceded it. Unfortunaly, not all these faulty questions were listed in the author's errata page.

This book walks you through every major aspect of the operating system.The author have a clear writing style, and the content isn't heavy.
I've read other computer books that consume 30 pages trying to make one conceptual point, and all they do is confuse the reader,Mr Ghori make good use of their pages and thereby the reader's time.There's also not an unnecessary amount of jargon. The book has a light feel to it without forsaking content or resorting to witty remarks. It's the kind of book that I wish had been available when I was first learning Unix. It probably would have saved me at least six months of struggling with concepts and several practical aspects.

I have cleared my HP certification quite some time back (HP0-002 Exam) by using another book by Rafeeq ur Rehman. I recently decided to re-certify for HP CSA. The Exam code is now HP0-095.
This book covers all the topics required for current HP CSA syllabus which are mentioned on HP website. Although the cover of the book says that this book is for HP0-091 Exam, it is perfectly suitable for HP0-095 Exam which is going to replace the HP0-091. All the topics in this book are precise and to the point. Some topics like HP Integrity server, LDAP and HP-UX 11i V2 are available only in this book. The HP CSA official guide from Rafeeq ur Rehman is lacking all these latest topics, its outdated as it was published in Aug 2004.

So if you are looking forward to get the HP-CSA certification, this is the book for you.

I already passed my CSA exam using another book written by Rafeeq Rheman. I bought this book for 2 reasons. The first reason is I need something to refresh knowledge before I take on the next level of the track which is CSE. The second reason is I wanted to add this book to my collection of UNIX/Linux system administration books.
It turned out I made a good choice. The book is really good. Chapters are short and go straight to the essentials. The book covers well the Networking, security, and LDAP section. Those are the tricky areas of the exam. LDAP was not covered in the Rafeeq's book but this book does the job. If I have to choose between this book and the Rafeeq, I will go for this book. The reasons are the following:

Pros:
The book covers all the topic on the exam
Chapter talk about the essential and important topic.
Some screenshots, if you are not familiar with the HP-UX gui.
The book has 564 practice exam questions, enough to put your brain to test.

Cons:
Perhaps the book layout but does not affect the topic at all and a few inconsistencies as expected.

My advice if you have the means get this book and the Rafeeq book to maximize your chance of succes on the exam. I give 5 stars.

It seems that everybody likes this book so I won't waste your time writing another long review.
This book is by far the best Cisco book I've read, and I've read a few. It's full of detail and a very very good starting point for QOS.

The team of Cavanaugh & Odom have hit a homerun here. This book has everything; Sex, Politics, Intrigue, Suspense, Greed, Betrayal and Redemption. Well, okay, it has none of that. But, it does have everything that the Experienced Networker could want to know about Quality of Service, and it's role and implementation within today's rapidly converging internetnetworks. The authors have proven to be knowledgeable, insightful and easy to understand. And, while this book may seem "overly long" to many, it strives to give fairly complete coverage of this important matter regarding today's internetworking environment. This is a very important point when your seeking to spend some "quality time" with a Cisco certification exam (not mention some quality cash on an exam).

Cavanaugh & Odom have moved beyond the normal course of just re-editing Cisco TAC web content for bound, portable consumption that is the hallmark of many of Cisco Press' previous publications. While the layout will be familiar to previous C.P. readers, the actual format and content presentation is fresh. Each chapter's order and flow strongly adheres to the tried and true, but Illustrations, Diagrams, Scenarios and Examples are not just simply reprinted fare from Cisco's website. Each chapter's content is easily on par with all other Authors/Publishers that are typically quoted as being "easier to digest and understand". Even the book's index is surprisingly extensive and comprehensive, and misses very few important items. When the working examples actually are repackaged from Cisco's web content, the explanations and follow-throughs are incisive and accurate. Knowledge and understanding can be gained from every page without overkill or excessive repetition.

Any exam candidate seeking an in-depth review and preparation for the Cisco QOS or DQOS exams will find this book a treasure trove chocked full of the expected scenerios, examples and practice questions. All networking professionals should strongly consider stocking this in their personal reference collection for handy lookups to otherwise difficult QOS problems. However, I caution one, if you're seeking a quick and simple introduction to QOS, or looking to "break into" or "get their foot in the door" of internetworking, you should go elsewhere. This is definitely not the kiddy end of the pool. But then again, it certainly won't require the deep sea background of a CCIE either. This manual may start with the foundations of QOS but it very quickly ramps up to a professional-level internetworking reference. This is a book that goes beyond the classroom and heads straight for the real world.

As my industry and workplace move further towards voice and data "Convergence", this book has quickly become my working cookbook for smoothing out tough QOS implementation questions. And, It shall remain an important part of my desktop reference library for a long time to come.

I recently read the book titled "Cisco DQOS Exam Certification Guide" by Wendell Odom, ISBN: 1587200589.
This book takes the user through the topic of Deploying Quality of Service in Cisco networks to a new level of knowledge. QoS has become one of the hottest if not the hottest topic in enterprise and medium size business networks. The ability to control traffic based on its priority and the ability to prioritize the traffic based on any number of criteria has become a required skill in today's marketplace. To Quote from Cisco's Web Site "Quality of Service (QoS) is an essential element to building a flexible, accessible, and efficient network. Its role in multiple technologies underlines the need for most networking professionals to master the features that implement QoS" The advent of Cisco's AVVID network and the proliferation of IP telephone services and applications along with the advancement in Video Conferencing and Group Collaboration software have created an unprecedented need for Quality of Service implementation. This book is filled with examples and thorough explanations of many complicated and essential configurations. The authors display a thorough knowledge of this sometimes difficult and always challenging subject. There are numerous charts and graphs to help aid in understanding the concepts presented. This book takes the reader step by step through configuration of all of the commonly use techniques and gives the user a good understanding of not only how to enter the commands but also what the commands do and how they interact. The topics covered in this book will give a CCIE R/S candidate essentially all of the skills needed for the QoS portions of the CCIE Practical Exam. The book covers all of the currently available traffic prioritization and queuing methods in a high degree of detail. It is, I think, geared towards an audience of knowledgeable professionals who already have some knowledge in the area of QoS. The book provides a reader with the tools necessary to implement virtually any needed QoS features in his/her own network. I would rate it as a MUST HAVE reference for anyone who might be required to implement QoS in a Cisco environment. This is a winner for Cisco Press. It proves once again the commitment to excellence of Cisco Press and delivers a book that is very useful to anyone involved in the implementation of the topic it covers. The authors have taken a difficult subject and broken it down into manageable chunks. At the end of the day the user will have a good understanding of the broad topic of QoS and have the tools necessary to implement it in a Cisco environment.

CiscoPress's "Cisco DQOS Exam Certification Guide" by Odom is a best-of-class book. The book is not for the meek - weighing in at over 850 pages, the book is a sizable investment of time and energy to properly appreciate. While the book was mainly written to be utilized for a few QoS exams, I'd expect to see this book on the bookshelf of many CCIEs or CCIE wannabes (including myself).

The beauty of this book is that it covers QoS in a depth that is not equaled elsewhere. For example, the book's first chapter, simply an overview of QoS, is almost 80 pages (some overview)! The first chapter succinctly describes the differences and nuances of the enemies of QoS - delay, jitter, bandwidth and packet loss. The second and third chapters do a great justice at trying to explain the dizzying array of tools available to adjust QoS - the different classes of tools and the differences between classification and marking. And so forth..., each chapter does a great job at explaining the mysteries of QoS.

Of course, with any book of such complexity, typos must be expected. Two typos that I noticed are:
-on page 333, I believe the correct Bc should be 93.75ms.
-on page 456, FRED can match on layer 4, not layer 3 protocols

If I had a `Top 10' for books that I feel would be necessary for the CCIE, I would place this book on the list. I have not been able to find the same explanations for QoS on Cisco's website or in other networking books.

I give this book 5 pings out of 5:
!!!!!

Let me just start off by saying that I wish I had Wendell Odom's Cisco DQoS Exam Certification Guide a few months ago when I was studying for this exam. I had looked at a number of other Cisco Press and non-Cisco Press books and could not find one that adequately covered the topics in the exam. This one covers all of them and more.

The book starts off by listing all the exam topics that will be covered in both DQoS 9E0-601 and QOS 642-641 exams and then explains how to interpret those often nebulous expectations. Do not get me wrong. It does not give you a blow by blow of what is on the exam but rather informs you of how test makers come up with course objectives and a method to use in studying. I found this very helpful. In fact, I wish someone had taught me that as a freshman in college.

If you are familiar with Cisco Press Exam Certification Guides you will not be disappointed in the familiar format. Each chapter starts with an overview and "Do I Know This Already?" quiz. I always find these helpful in determining my level of knowledge on a particular subject and those areas I need to study.

It then proceeds to the meat of each chapter. They are filled with many useful diagrams and tables that do a wonderful job complimenting and expanding Odom's covering of each chapter. There are plenty of switch and router configurations that also provide help in giving real life examples of how QoS is implemented.

Each chapter then wraps up with an excellent Foundation Summary and Q&A section. Answers to the questions are found in an appendix in the back of the book.

In general I found all of the topics covered as well, if not better, than the DQoS class I took to study and pass the test. In particular I found the first two chapters great in providing a great overview of QoS, its architectures and tools. I have used Odom's example of bank teller lines, with a number of customers, to provide a way of explaining the difficult topic of QoS and it quickly resonates with them.

I also found the last two chapters on QoS Design and LAN QoS very useful. The LAN QoS chapter provides information on the 3550s and latest Modules/Supervisor Engine cards for the Catalyst 6500 and 4500/4000. I have already used this information as a resource on a project. The design chapter has also been useful in helping me "flesh out" customer's goals and providing design recommendations based upon those goals.

In conclusion, I always feel that for a study guide to truly be useful, it must have some use after the exam. Wendell Odom's Cisco DQoS Exam Certification Guide certainly does that well. It will not only be sufficient in providing you the information that you need to study for and pass the test, but it will certainly be useful as a quick reference guide on many of the topics covered. I plan on having it with me from the project planning stages to the optimizing and troubleshooting stages (although if your good and follow his teachings on the former you probably will not have much of the latter). Thanks Wendell for another well written and useful book.

A very good reference guide for any new/existing cme/cue deployment. Specifically the sample config guides were very useful. Overall this book is well written.

Cisco IP Communications Express: CallManager Express with Cisco Unity Express (ISBN 1-58705-180-X) is an all-in-one resource for configuring, managing, and troubleshooting the Cisco CallManager Express (CME) solution. It is almost 900 pages and is well organized into five parts: overview, feature operation and applications, administration and management, maintenance and troubleshooting, and appendices. If you are involved in configuring or maintaining the Cisco CallManger Express, this book will provide you with all the information you need to get your work done.

Cisco CME is an integrated solution offered by Cisco for meeting the IP telephony needs of small businesses or branch offices. The CME solution, which consists of the call processing feature and the voice mail feature, runs on the Cisco routers ranging from the 1700 series to the 3700 series and beyond. Whereas the CallManager suite offers centralized approach to building out an enterprise wide VoIP network, the CME is meant to serve the needs of smaller businesses or to integrate seamlessly into the larger, enterprise solution.

The book is well written and starts out with a high level architecture of the deployment scenarios for CME. The second part gets into the features and applications side of the solution. This part is where the crux of the book lies. It presents a detailed coverage of the commands used to configure the CallManager solution under various scenarios such as implementing different call features, integrating VoIP with PSTN, and deploying CME as part of a larger CallManager solution. This part presents a thorough coverage of Unity Express (UE), the voicemail module of the CME. The third part relates to the management of CME. Particularly useful in this part is a real-life configuration example as it illustrates and brings together a lot of the material covered in the earlier part of the book. Part four gets into the essential topic of troubleshooting the CME solution. It provides useful tips and solutions for common problems found in deploying the call processing and voice mail aspects of CME. This is definitely a very useful section of the book. The last part, the appendices, has reference materials and scripts used in the book to make daily tasks easier etc.

One of the strong points of the book is a multitude of sample configurations. The authors provide sample configurations throughout the book to help illustrate the concepts being presented. This sample configuration goes a long way if the reader has the task of actually configuring CME. The other strong point of the book is the depth of coverage given to each topic that is discussed. With the exception of a handful of topics (one in particular which I'll mention), the book never glosses over any topic; rather it covers it in detail, ensuring that most aspects of the topic are addressed. The exception to this was the coverage of the D/A module(s) used for attaching analog devices to CME, such as a fax machine. Given that analog fax machines still constitute a critical part of any business, I would expect this topic to be covered in detail. However, I found that no configuration examples were provided on how to configure this in the CME suite.

In summary, this book is a great all-in-one reference for configuring and managing CME. I would highly recommend it to any professional tasked with working on Cisco's CallManager Express.

overall this book is very good. I like the examples it presents to make thing clear, and also the broadness of topics it covers.
Since Cisco IP Telephony evolves so quickly, I wish Cisco will release newer editions with updated technologies. in particular I was hoping this book should contribute some to SIP and its deployment in UCME environment.

I've used this book as a main reference for my first complete implementation of CCME and CUE. I said "main" reference instead of "only" reference, because there are few small gaps to be filled by Cisco on-line documentation, but the deficiencies are too small to justify anything less than 5 stars. Additionally, there is a lot of general (IP and traditional) telephony information so even a relative beginner, after reading this book, will be able to intelligently interview future users (Chapter 5 is simply brilliant!), design quite complex system with many fancy call features, and even create scripts for quite sophisticated Auto-Attendant options. Certain concepts are not explained in complete detail (for example dial peers or voice ports), but deeply enough for the needs of CCME.

A must have book


This book is a great tool for full and complete understanding of Cisco's IP Communication Express. The structure is geared to first provide a foundation with an overview, then moves into design and implementation the book is organized into different parts that provide great coverage of all aspects.

Part I starts with introducing IP Communication. The coverage begins by taking you on a journey into what Cisco IPC is, the benefits of IPC, and the architecture of IPC networks. The one thing you notice is that the authors took great care in organizing the chapters. Each chapter is well written and easy to follow along. This makes the book a great choice as either a first learning book or as a refresher book for experienced professionals looking to augment their knowledge. One of the first chapters shows you the features and functions of the various gateways, WAN interfaces and IP phones available for use in an IPC network. This allows you to pick the best equipment for your particular solution. I believe this is great because it allows you learn some features of the product in order to decide if you would like to research it further; this helps streamline the process of design and political issues. Another section of the Part 1 goes over the architecture of IPC. You will learn the ins and outs of what happens at a low level. You will learn a-lot of core information; get an introduction to equipment and technologies that can be utilized.


Part II of this book is where the fun begins. Chapter 4 goes over the IP phones in more detail. You are taught about features and how to configure the individual phones. The chapter is short and to the point. Chapter 5 is an incredible book where the engineers' ears will perk up. Call Manager Call processing features are presented in this chapter. The topics here include hunt groups, call parking, shared lines, intercom, paging and much more. I really like the configurations and examples in this book. With this chapter you will be able to quickly implement the CM features.
The next chapter deals with Connectivity to the PSTN. The focuses in this chapter are signaling and how to handle the inputted digits. One of the only faults I think with this book is that chapters 5 and 6 should be swapped.

Part III and IV cover Administration, Management, Maintenance and Troubleshooting
Now is really where the techies cheer up. Here is all the goodies on how to setup CME, UE, and what to do if problems arise. The gold mine is located in these 2 parts.
These chapters provide the reader with detail and examples to help reinforce all that is being explained.

I don't want to spoil this book or be long winded so I will say the remaining pages of this book are well worth the read. It covers everything you need in order to obtain a solid understanding of Cisco's IPC. There is no area that isn't covered with attention to detail. The authors provide quality information that is very useful in all areas of understanding and implementation of Cisco IP Express. The reader will come away with exceptional and relevant knowledge to do anything needed with IPC. I got this book to help augment my 4+ years with Cisco Voice products, I feel that it did help cement my knowledge and also taught me quite a few new things.


Brion S. Washington

It is astonishing every potter should know it
It say most news that other book don't write in a way simple and undersatndable even for the novice.
I find that is complement is another book on the glaze spectrum written by robin HopperThe Ceramic Spectrum: A Simplified Approach to Glaze and Color Development.

This is the best book to start with and never part with if you are a clay artist.

Everything you ever wanted to know - and more - about clays and glazes. If you just want a quick introduction to the topic, you should skip this book. If you want a well-written, very thorough, and very clear explanation of basic ceramic principles, this is it. If you want to go even further, delving into the intricate complexities of specific clay and glaze formulations, that's all here too.

Very good book that's being used for text in my husband's ceramics class. A good book for anyone having questions about pottery, clay ans glaze

this book is quite informative of clays, glazes, colorants, temperatures and many little details that a ceramicists needs in order to experiment and produce different effects with various materials. this books is very helpful and easy to read..

This book, Collaborative Communities, adds significant value to your understanding of bringing together multiple organizations to serve the all the desires of a certain customer segment. It puts your business in a facilitators role the definitely extends a huge competitive advantage.

Well organized book, I think the end of chapter summaries really save you time. Solid bibliographical references make it easy to get more from practical examples included in each chapter.

You will not be disappointed with the wealth of insight available if you are willing to read past "the most profound implications of the rapid shift." The authors are very enthusiastic in their language, but the underlying message is powerful.

As an entrepreneur, my time is precious and I rarely read all the articles and books on my "to do" list. However, since I knew the authors professionally, I decided to pull this book to the top of the pile. I'm very glad I did.

I enjoy business books that you can read in a couple of hours but that still have plenty of substance. COLLABORATIVE COMMUNITIES fills that bill. It details how business models have changed along with the growth of technology and believes that for the foreseeable future COLLABORATIVE COMMUNITIES are the way to go. If you are interested in insights into strategic timing, information infrastructures and how to build a profitable collaborative community, this book is an excellent choice.

"I read a lot of business books and COLLABORATIVE COMMUNITIES is the best I've read this year. It combines philosophy and practicality in an easily digestible manner. It helped me understand what collaborative communities are and how to transform my company into one. I recommend it for anyone interested in the subject."

Collaboration is a popular business buzzword but I haven't found many who can describe clearly how to make it work. This book is like a light in a dark room. It makes the process clear. It goes into a detailed history of how the evolution of technology has increased the power of the consumer to the point where it takes a collaboration of companies connected by the Internet to define, produce and deliver the right products at the right price. The book answered a lot of questions for me. I am looking forward to the sequel. I highly recommend this book! Buy it.

Many years ago, I read a book by Wilson S. McWilliams (The Idea of Fraternity in America) in which he provided a broad yet probing analysis of how and why Americans have formed and then sustained various kinds of groups. The groups' structure and purposes vary: military, commercial, religious, political, economic, social, athletic, etc. Most groups emerge as a result of what might be viewed as enlightened self-interest. Our nation's motto ("E pluribus unum") correctly suggests one of the basic principles of Colonial solidarity. McWilliams' concept of "fraternity" is quite similar to Shuman and Twombly's concept of "community" even as the two books written by these authors, obviously, also have a different structure as well as different purposes.

In the Preface, Shuman first acknowledges the "conventional wisdom" that if a given business is based on a good idea and that idea is effectively implemented, the business will succeed. Then he rejects it: "In reality, no matter how good a business idea is, no matter how well the idea is implemented, as soon as you open your doors for business [literally or virtually], you will find your business has to change -- not just minor adjustments and small shifts in marketing or product design but radical [italics] change." Shuman then asserts that what he calls "The Rhythm of Business™" (TROB) is the most reliable process by which to develop and grow successful businesses of every size and type, not just today but yesterday and tomorrow. (The Rhythm of Business is the title of Shuman's previous book.) Given this methodology and all of the new technologies, Shuman then shares a "second thought": the business pattern required for the 21st century "is what I call the Collaborative Community™."

In this book, Shuman and Twombly (with David Rottenberg) develop that "second thought" by incorporating -- integrating, actually -- technology with TROB inorder to enable their readers "to stay in touch with us and continue to develop their understanding of how to achieve and maintain success in our new networked world." What they envision, in essence, is a new "fraternity." The material in the book is organized within three Parts: The Revolution in Business, The New Reality, and The New Business Pattern, followed by a "References" section for those who wish to extend and enrich their understanding of various issues addressed in this book.

For whom will this book have the greatest value? Probably owners/CEOs of small-to-midsized companies; especially those who are perhaps struggling, now, with the always-difficult transition from entrepreneurship to professional management. Decision-makers in larger organizations will also derive substantial benefit from this book, especially if they are primarily responsible for business units or even departments within those organizations. Those who share my high regard of this book are urged to check out Fitz-enz's The E-Aligned Enterprise, Segil's FastAlliances, and O'Dell and Grayson's If Only We Knew What We Know.

The Good
Its is an awesome preview of the world of Software Engineerin/Information technology. The huge difference between academia (with professors having little experience in "real world" non-academic activities) and the real-world jobs (which has long lost its connection with academia) would be less surprising, less frustrating and a way easier transition if every entry-level candiate read this book in its entirety. I highly recommend this book.

The Bad
The author does not write this book as if she is writing a textbook or journal article. She write it as if she is having a conversation. This is not neccessarily bad (sometimes a relief if you are tired of textbooks.) But the problem with this approach is that you do not get references for citations, ideas are not always rigorously developed. You should not read it to learn how to write professional software engineering documents.

The Ugly.
Thats all folks. There is not going to be another edition. The book did not sell well enough to justify one. Software Engineers generally do not read "self-help" books when there are problems. Rather they buy software books like those from Jesse Libery or Dietel and Dietel. Just look at the disparity between self-help software books to programming books. This trend does not encourage publishers to make more self-help books this Ruhl's book. This is sad because technical skills alone will not enable you survive in software engineering/development and many leave this up to chance for newbies to catch on.

I enjoy mentoring people who are interested in moving into the high tech world but don't know where to start. I used to spend hours explaining how the IT world is divided up, what different technology choices there are and how they relate to jobs and training alternatives. Now I suggest people exploring information technology careers read Janet Ruhl's book; she's much better than I at explaining how everything works. I like this book so much, I've bought it as a gift for three prospective computer professionals.

But the Computer Job Survival Guide is equally good for those of us who are already computing professionals but want to continue to move on and up. Janet reviews some common-sense job skills, such as salary negotiation, but also hits on new hot topics, like stock options, working for start-ups, and when, how and whether or not to move from technical work into management.

The main thing that is different about this book is it talks about things about computer jobs that you normally don't see in print that often.

One main idea is your long term computer job longevity can greatly be impacted on what you do in your first computer job. If you are 1 of 100 people programming and you only get to see a small part of a project, your skills don't increase that much. If you are 1 of 100 people but split in 10 projects and you work on a project from start to finish, you will learn a lot of new skills in a short period of time that are useful to other companies.

You need to constantly increase your skills that are in demand outside of your company because you may be in trouble if you are fired or laid off.

Another idea in the same vein is start off as a maintenance programmer instead of as a developer. You may learn more of the system and also add many new skills compared to a developer that only sees a small part of a project.

The main thrust of this book plus her other books is you need to take control of your career. I worked 15 years at 1 company without much of a career plan and I had a hard time finding a job when I got laid off. If I had these books 5 years or 10 years or even 15 years into my career, I would have known what to do to stay in a technical career. The 5 years that I have been contract programming along with Janet's books, I now realize how I want to continue the rest of my career. Janet's books explains why and how I will achieve these goals.

This book should be on every computer professionals bookshelf.

Though geared for the american labour market, most of the content is applicable to professionals in any country.

The topics dealt with involve every possible facet of a career in IT: breaking into the field, the importance of a first job (IT apprencticeship), looking for work (how to write resumes, handle interviews), the merits of contracting, going into IT management, job hopping, etc.

Great reference book for anyone in the field, or considering working in IT.

Like all Janet's books, it is easy to read and covers all relevant and important issues without insulting one's intelligence. Highly recommend along with all other books by the author.

A clearly written book, which employs a simple language. Another beauty of the book is that all loose ends are tied up. As sentences unfold one will realize why a particular phrase was used earlier and so on. That makes a big difference for an engineering text book.

It is the best book that I know for fundamentals. Hence, it will be useful for years to come.

Must have for all embedded systems people.

Helped me in my undergrad (older version). Helped me when I gave subject GRE recently. Covered Pipelining superscalar, out-of-order execution processors, caching and secondary storage, combinational and sequential ckt review etc real well. No computer architecture book covered them all so clearly, and in one book.

This was the assigned text for my junior year computer engineering course on computer organization. I loved it. The explanations are clear, progress logically, and are clearly presented. I find myself picking it up from time to time, both to read the more advanced chapters out of personal interest and to look up details needed in more advanced coursework.

After reading this book do not believe you'll know everyting about computing , but you'll know more than others do.

I had a chance to recommend this to a colleague just last week. It is easily twice the price of the "competing" books on the market, but you get what you pay for. With this book plus (perhaps) a hands-on course in the microprocessor laboratory--interfacing various logic families to output devices, e.g., or whipping up a robot of limited capabilities--the student gains the ultimate understanding of what makes computer systems "tick," from the loftiest levels of software, through the details of instruction set implementation (microprogrammed control, prefetching, cycle-stealing DMA transfers) and even the detailed digital logic circuits that underlie the CPU.

I dare say the student who aces this course is all but prepared to build a simplistic CPU on his own--"simplistic" because, though the concepts can be understood quite completely, it's an intricate challenge. Notably, the book has kept pace with the times: while the PDP-11 instruction set is didactically wonderful--clear and easy and even sporting reasonable opcode mnemonics--you don't see lots of PDP or LSI (or, for that matter, VAX) minis floating around nowadays. So, HV&Z moved on to the 68000, the Power PC, perhaps even the Pentium in the latest (of five or six) editions. (Good move, gentlemen: you've actually done your homework rather than just changing "happy" to "glad" and reprinting with a new version number!)

I used this book as a junior, but (a) I went to Cooper Union, which operates at an extremely high intellectual level [let's put it this way: I took a number of graduate-level computer science electives--compilers, OS, etc.--taught by Bell Labs MTSs as a junior and senior; and some "doctoral" courses that I took at Case were--honest Injun--watered-down versions of similar courses I had taken at Cooper], and (b) I graduated more than twenty years ago, and requirements always creep downward: a few credits fewer, a few tangential courses eliminated, perhaps one fewer humanities elective necessary to matriculate, etc. By 2006 standards, I would reluctantly have to reclassify HV&Z as a postgraduate text.

(A little puzzle for the reader: we had to build--from NAND gates--a microcomputer featuring two three-bit registers, and my squad was the only one that implemented an "exchange registers" function that required only one cycle and used no auxiliary storage registers. How did we do it? Tick ... tick ... tick ... time's up! The circuitry compared corresponding bits from both registers. If they matched, it did nothing; if they differed, it flipped both! So, there was no literal "exchange" operation: rather, each was simultaneously reset to the value of the other.)

I LOVE this book. It's my "go to" when I want to know something. It was also my "go to" when I was still a dreamer.
If you want to be a hobby farmer, then this book is a must have.
It's got wonderful information, and beautiful clear photos.
This is one out of two of my favorite farming books.

I checked this out from the library. I'm so glad they had a copy since the book is so expensive! I really like this book because I'm not quite sure what all I want to include in our future farm, so it gives just enough information on many different animals and other farming options for me to be able to make my decision when the time comes.

The book is 192 pages and has tons of pictures and sketches. It offers suggested layouts for small, medium and large farms. It discusses different kinds of fences and shelters and how to build them, and it even offers recipes in the back of the book you can make from your own home-grown ingredients!

I will definitely check this book out again in the future, and if the price comes down, I would like to have it in my own library.

I found this book to be very informative. A good teaching book on the many aspects of tools, animals, food, and more. It is a fantastic book. I really enjoyed it and recomend to everyone even remotely interested in this subject.

This is a very attractive book --- like all Dorling Kindersley books, it's beautifully published with brilliant photos and Heiney surely knows his stuff, but, at 192 pages, this is really an inspirational book more than anything else. It's also out of print and, as of today, I see someone is attempting to sell a copy for $347.00 (and used book searchs won't turn up many better prices). Please. Go to your library and if they don't have it, order it through inter-library loan. Look through the sections that might apply to your situation a couple of times. Take a few notes. You'll thank me later.

The Bible of the Self-sustaining Farmer! A must for anyone remotely interested in the basics and essentials of a truly agrarian lifestyle. This book is very hard to find nowadays and is out of print. However, it is worth the effort to track it down.