Software Books

I was going to avoid reviewing this book because I'm too close to the authors and my copy was free so I thought I would be too biased, but the book merits a stellar review...bias aside.

Generator concepts are in bite size chunks and easy to follow, yet not so easy that they bore the reader. The book follows a natural progression in complexity and will be usefull to developers of all experience levels stepping up to the Generator plate.

The level at which the author's stand in the developer community gives them the opportunity to bestow their knowledge in "we know it all" manner, but instead they maintain a humbleness that says "hey, we're just developers like you who've had a lot more time on our hands."

Chock full of all the essentials, and the non-essentials, this book is a must have for the Generator developer (or the developer wanna-be) and looks to have a long shelf life.

Chris, Phil, Mike-nice work!

Finally someone to really take the shrink wrap off two of the best tools in the business. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the eccentric behind flashenabled.com would be able to show all of us common men how to take the next step with Flash and Generator. Awesome.

I was going to avoid reviewing this book because I'm too close to the authors and my copy was free so I thought I would be too biased, but the book merits a stellar review...bias aside.

Generator concepts are in bite size chunks and easy to follow, yet not so easy that they bore the reader. The book follows a natural progression in complexity and will be usefull to developers of all experience levels stepping up to the Generator plate.

The level at which the author's stand in the developer community gives them the opportunity to bestow their knowledge in "we know it all" manner, but instead they maintain a humbleness that says "hey, we're just developers like you who've had a lot more time on our hands."

Chock full of all the essentials, and the non-essentials, this book is a must have for the Generator developer (or the developer wanna-be) and looks to have a long shelf life.

Chris, Phil, Mike-nice work!

Want to learn Generator? This is it, bar none!
As a Generator and Flash trainer I always look for good material to add to class for future reading, this book will not only top the list but will be integrated into all future classes. Having used Generator since 1.0 I thought I knew many of the tricks but this book showed me a few that I have never seen before and will use immediately.
If nothing else know that the authors are top of their game and that the material for this book matches their excellence.

This book is a must-have resource for anyone interested in working with Generator. Mike, Phillip, and Chris not only know their stuff, but they did a great job at sharing their knowledge in a way that even a novice can understand. They are able to share their real-world experience, and make using Generator just a little (maybe even a lot?) more palatable for the average Flash user.

Four years into the Christian life (1958) I was given this book. How did I like it? Thus far, in July of 2008, I have bought and sold or given away over 1100 of them. There is nothing else like it. It permeates every aspect of life. Children, grands and greats learn how to live and raise children who do not rebel, having no law to rebel against. We evangelize using the principles of grace. We grow older with no stress, all thanks to what Chafer has written and what God has provided.

This book was a life-changing read for me. Chafer's exposition of grace displays probably the clearest exposition of a classic presentation of dispensationalism and its position on the difference between law and grace. It presents lines of discontinuity in the drastic way it is needed in today's church. Law is not Grace - Grace is not Law, to confuse the two is tragic. Beyond anything, Chafer makes sure we understand how foolish and dangerous it is to infuse and confuse law with grace and confuse the two. Luther clearly saw this great discontinuity in the bible between law/grace (more so than the Reformed churches), truly bringing freedom to the person dead in sin. This is not to imply that Luther was dispensational, clearly not so, its just that both sides see a clear contrast in the law/grace economies.

I could comment on all the distinctives Chafer applies from this system of discontinuity such as the Sermon on the Mount, the Sabbath, the Christian Life, etc. but I'll leave that to your reading. What is clear is that Chafer sees a drastic, drastic difference in these economies, sometimes I think a little too discontinuous. This is not to say Dr. Chafer is wrong, just that he seems to emphasize the differences to the extent that it misses the continuity between the dispensations and the progress of history and God's revelation. I think this is a bit problematic even though I am a dispensationalist and love Dr. Chafer's works very deeply. This has already been revised in expression and corrected in dispensational teaching (see Ryrie's 'Dispensationalism', Renald Shower's 'There Really is a Difference') for quite some time, but it is still important to know that it has been corrected.

I think its very important to understand this since Christians from other views (primarily Covenant teachings) have given solid, solid critiques of the 'classical' understandings of Dispensationalism (as taught by Scofield, Chafer, Brookes, A.C. Gaebelein, etc.) and Dispensationalists have listened (please see the great dissertation by Todd Mangum titled 'The Dispensational-Covenantal Rift, 1936-1944'). Poythress is a high suggestion, also Hoekema's 'The Bible and the Future', and Hans K. LaRondelle's 'The Israel of God in Prophecy'. Please steer clear of foolish and error filled critiques such as John Gerstner's book, 'Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth' and many others. Though I am still a dispensationalist, these (former) works are important to help us to understand that both 'extremes' lead to an imbalanced perspective. When I say 'imbalanced' I mean that the Classic Disp. position tends to be almost dualistic in its thought of earthly/heavenly which is problematic and I do thank others for those kind of critiques. However, the other side (such a Covenant teachings, etc.) when very consistent upon emphasizing that everything is a spiritual shadow, type, etc. seems to err on the side of a metaphysical problem in the Christian faith. Clearly we don't want that either.

Also, one last slight critique; Chafer holds to a view of Christian filling of the Spirit that is an either/or on/off teaching. I think the view errs slightly because you are not filled with the Spirit simply by confessed sin and repentance in the life of the believer. I believe the filling of the Spirit has to do more with a walking of obedience than an instantaneous experience of spiritual filling/spiritual life. Though this is minor, it has been critiqued by others and I feel they are correct in their critiques of Chafer on these points.

However, with all that being said, Chafer's work should be read by every Christian because it is so clear and thorough on the teaching of grace as the thread through which the history/progress of revelation is seen. It truly brings the bible together for a Christian who has applied themselves to the study of the scriptures. It sheds so much light on the scriptural truths of justification, assurance, growth in grace (progressive sanctification), and our expectation of the return of Christ. Truly a monumental work by Dr. Chafer that is vital for the growth in grace of every Christian. Highly recommended.

Helping the Christian to understand the great gift of grace that has come through the Lord Jesus Christ.

This book reminded me of Einstein's "Theory of Relativity." It starts with a quick summary of simple absolutes about the concept of the grace of God, and then blows your mind with their implications.

After reading it, I wonder how those who think they are still under The Law, or those who think you can lose your salvation, define grace. I doubt they've thought through the implications of their beliefs or tried to reconcile them with the concept of grace, supposedly the foundation upon which God deals with us.

I can't recommend the book highly enough. For those unused to reading early 20th Century proper English, it's worth the investment of time and effort.

This is the best book ever written on God's Grace.
If you want to have a thorough understanding of God's
Grace, than this is a must read for you!

I learned alot from this book and I have been programing foxpro from the dark ages in 1991! These guys know their stuff. If you program foxpro for money you need this book.

Granor and Roche do an excellent job of explaining the treasures and pitfalls of VFP3. I found this book after I had been banging my head against a particular problem for several days, and was able to find the answer immediately, where no other book I had checked gave the answer. They document both how VFP3 works, and how it _should_ work. Most of the book still applies to VFP5, and presumably it will still be good under Tahoe.

Even though this isn't out yet for V5.0, it's still worth the freight. In-depth discussions of each command, property, event, method, etc. It's saved me hours of aggrevation, and I even curl up with it in my spare time!

FoxPro is both wonderfully powerful and maddeningly quirky, as is well documented in this excellent volume. Having used FoxPro to develop and support commercial software products for many years, I have a large library of FoxPro books, and this one is by far the best. It is exhaustive in its coverage of concepts, features, bugs, and documentation errors, and includes many excellent examples. If you are serious about FoxPro, buy it.

Although the book was intended for VFP 3.0, it is an excellent introduction to FoxPro Object Oriented Programming. It is intended as a short introduction and command reference and it does that well.

As it was written near 2000, a chapter or two suffer from obsolescence already, but the excellence of the rest of the content make it very forgivable.

Adamsky has produced a superb guide to the Hiring Process that is of great interest to Executives, Recruiters and Job seekers alike. The book is applicable to a wide range of industries well beyond the IT industry.

The book provides a great deal of actionable ideas that you can put into place now to improve your hiring practices, land the best candidates, and keep them as satisfied productive employees. Similarly, the book helps potential applicants better understand the hiring process and get inside the mind of hiring managers. It also contains a plethora of valuable and interesting ideas and commentary on the HR landscape. Truly an enjoyable and informative read !

As the MIS Director for a large educational institution, I have felt the impacts, first-hand, of recruiting and retaining top IT professionals in a tight job market. Yet there is clearly a methodical approach that can be followed to target the "right" employees and, once hired, ensure that they remain happy and content within your organization.

This book does an excellent job of outlining that process in a simple, easy-to-follow, step-by-step approach. The author not only covers all aspects of the hiring process but also reminds us of best practices that we too often (and too easily) forget to ensure success once we bring top players on board.

This book was pertinent and informative. I intend to pass it around to all of the managers on my staff.

I didn't actually buy this book but won it as a door prize at an industry trade show. I tossed it in my briefcase and didn't give it much thought to it until I was stuck in an airport on my return trip home. Although I don't hire a great number of "information technologists", the book was filled with excellent advice for any manager. His advice applies to the dynamics of locating, interviewing, hiring and retaining exceptional individuals. I like to underline when I read, and when I finished the book I realized I had underlined just about everything! Don't let the title throw you off because this is an excellent resource that truly cuts across all industries. He has his hand on the pulse of human nature, and an incredible insight into those people who understand how (technically) the world works.

I have already given a copy to a friend that owns a small company and has found it a challenge to find and retain good people. If my friend follows the program outlined in the book I am sure he will see the results. One thing I really liked about Adamsky's writing style is that it's light on philosophy and academic drivel and packed solid with the experiences of someone who has obviously been in the trenches.

I feel better prepared to operate in today's challenging job market after reading this book.

As an IT professional I have had occasion to be on both sides of the interview desk. This book clarified and reinforced many of the beliefs that I formed from these experiences. However, I derived an even greater benefit from those sections that challenged my preconceptions. Mr. Adamsky's use of logic, examples, and self-deprecating humor helped me to see things from a different viewpoint. I am confident that a company can only benefit from the encorporation of his strategies.

An enchanting story! Many readers will see themselves in the story as the characters juggle their personal and professional lives. The mystery will keep you guessing right up to the end and you won't be able to put it down!

of a woman who lost her faith in God, but rediscovered it along with a love strong enough to weather any storm. Braci and Kyle are strong people who will protect those they love. We see a family that will stick by one another no questions asked, and a young woman who finds a family she needs. This tale with its warmth and tender storyline and down to earth characters make for a wonderful read.

Not only did the Lacey family love and support one another, they also never looked down on people who were less fortunate than themselves. I enjoyed this story very much!

about taking a good look at yourself and facing the truth. The twists and turns are both surprising and intriguing as the truth about the Lacey brothers is uncovered. In her debut book, Robin Bayne has done a wonderful job creating very real characters with hopes and dreams and flaws that we all can identify with, despite social differences. After all, truth and faith have no social boundary. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a sweet romance filled with family values.

his brothers child is a charming story of romance , ambition, and trust. braci falls in love with kyle, who comes from a wealthy family. a family with a secret.

I just bought a camera phone 3 weeks ago, and this book has saved me! Well, not literally. But it has been a big help. It's a pretty hefty 300+ pages with easy to follow steps. And it's geared to non-techies like myself.

Now I know how to work the camera, but I still take $#!++% photos!

at last I have a book that I can give to my technology-impared friends and family! thanks for getting me off the hook, john frederick moore!

This is a book made for the person (like me) who's basically intimidated by technology, afraid that any attempt to utilize this or that fancy feature will spell nothing but frustration and futility in the end. It doesn't have to be that way. I was given a camera phone as a present, and until I found this book, it stayed in its box. I was that intimidated. (Let's just say my experience with user manuals hasn't been good.) The first thing that struck me about this book was the clean writing. Moore has a knack for making complicated things seem really simple. This book is comprehensive and straightforward and has lots of helpful visuals to add further clarity. I can now begin taking advantage of my phone's features without fear. It's terrific.

As someone whose technological literacy is only slightly better than a mushroom, I was hesitant to use and intimidated by my new cell phone camera. Despite the salesperson's assuarnce that "anyone can use it," I knew I'd be the addled exception. Thank God for this book! Not only is it well-written and interesting, but it's for people like me - who need lots of extra help. Because of this book, I'm happy to say, I now love using my cell phone camera and have become quite the master at it - even giving my friends advice and "tutorials." I take great photos with my cell and have captured and shared lots of great memories I would have otherwise missed. Thanks for the great, helpful read!

Disclaimer on the star rating: I don't have a camera phone, but my mom does. And my mom called, a lot, to ask how to use this, that, etc. So I bought her this book, and my time spent on those calls have been cut to almost nothing!

Clear direction, illustrations and well written instruction mean that even my mom can master her phone. Of course now I spend even more time downloading the pictures of my neices and nephews she captures on her phone, but it is time well spent! And seeing the results my mom is getting....well, a picture phone might be in my future as well.

You should not try reading this book from start to finish - that may be a little too much. As a reference, it is the best HTTP book I was able to find. Clear and concise information compiled from multiple sources.

I,as a university student with great interest to HTTP,borrow this book from school library. This book gives me basic and clear concept about http operations between client and server and stuff behind the scene. a list of explanation of http message and header is heleful too. later, the author writes very detail about proxy server,caching server and how the webserver are build for serious commercial use.
I am able to finish 2/3 of this book in 3 days. it's so interesting and keeps me reading on.

This is definitely a book to get you start with all kind of term for HTTP and a grasp for HTTP/Webserver concept.

for ppl with solid backgroud on HTTP, i would recommend the "HTTP: The Definitive Guide".

If you work in web development you can't miss this book. Two words: complete and clear. Buy IT!

Get this book. It reads a whole lot better than the spec. The language is so straightforward that your grandmother might enjoy reading it too. It comes with a dictionary of exception codes too, so you'll never be left scratching your head if a few important message packets begin to burp on their way to Paris via Kuala Lumpur.

An excellent book for learning HTTP and much more about how web servers work at the protocol level. What you can learn in a few hours from this book is amazing because it is organized so well, the author is a gifted teacher with an excellent roadmap of what he wants to present, and the hierarchy of overview and detail is so well designed. The book covers the context in which the HTTP protocol resides, the details of HTTP itself, and then branches into important usages of HTTP for creating secure, reliable and scalable web sites.

Must have for reference. Great shop manual. I hope author keeps writing good Illustrator manuals. Well done.

For some reason, books on Adobe Illustrator are always terrible: they either pander to new users, recycle out-of-date content, or rehash the same boring techniques as every other book. Steve Kurth's Illustrator 10 Shop Manual puts the competition to shame, digging deeper in a single page than the other hacks do in a whole chapter.

Kurth has actually documented EVERY LAST feature in the program, down to the tiniest checkmark in each dialog box. He understands how I need to use the software, and offers the most specific and helpful advice I've ever seen.

A perfect example: a designer in my company needed to convert all the shapes of an expanded gradient from CMYK values to a single spot ink. If you think you know the answer, guess again -- it's not as easy as it sounds, and I've used Illustrator professionally for 8 years. The Shop Manual gave me an answer in less than five minutes.

And that's the key -- notice how I said "it gave me the answer," and not "I found the answer." No book could ever predict the above scenario and give clear-cut steps to the reader -- and that's why the others fail. Because it covers so much so well, the Shop Manual actually LEADS you to the connections you need, using Kurth's experience and a surprisingly intelligent layout.

I bought two copies: one for work, and one for home.

There's not much to say: I picked it up off the shelf, everything I needed to know is in there and it's easy to use. Simple praise, but rare praise indeed for today's often obtuse computer manuals.

This book is very good. I read it and learned a lot about the program. No nonsense. Later, I ask him questoin from his web site and he knew the answer right away. I look forward to other books by the author

I find these shop manual books amongst the most useful in my bookshelf. For an experinced user most often all that you need is to quickly look up the features and settings of a particuliar tool or dialog box.
This is a complete reference manual to the whole package, forgotten how to do something it will be in here somewhere. There is also a useful how-to section at the back covering common techniques.
These books make a designers life soo much easier.

This book it's a must have. Really interesting most of the things it contains, other are rather basic.

I felt I was reading a rather old book. It'd better talk about new J2EE technologies. Great book anyway.

What can I say:"WOW".
This book is well structured into different aspects of J2EE(example: servlets, JSPs, webservices, EJBs etc). Each of the sections are given detailed coverage with regards to design and architectural decisions that can go wrong.
This is not a start to end read. This book is better usable as a reference while we execute or plan during technical development cycle.
For each anti-pattern, a detailed background, symptoms, refactorings and example are provided. At the end of the book we are provided a Anti-pattern and Refactorings catalog.
The book also covers capacity planning type of antipatterns at the beginning. This will help give broader perspective about making design and possible implementation decisions on a enterprise scale.
A must read for enthusiastic J2EE practitioners who strive for quality output.

Why should you read this book?... I mean you've read the J2EE Blueprints and that's supposed to be the best practices and you've followed all it's advice... didn't you? You should read this book because it gives you a way to see what you "didn't" do and how to fix it.

In this book the Antipatterns (APs) are grouped by J2EE topical area, several are identified for the area and then solutions proposed for each AP. Not only do they expose issues with designs that are common mistakes, but they then go on to not only tell you a possible solution(s) and also impart good principles on why.

Each AP has the following sections: Background, General Form, Symptoms and Consequences, Typical Causes, Known Exceptions, Refactorings, Varations, Example(s) and Related Solutions. The catalog of AP's in the appendix of the book provide a quick summary of each AP also, so you can see if your Symptoms are listed quickly.

One example is from the "Distribution and Scaling" chapter. The just of it is that in an enterprise system you use layering, workflow and the idea that the network is the computer to model and solve your problems. If you haven't you'll notice all of your code linking into libraries of many different types when library access should be localized to one workflow point that other workflow tasks utilize. By doing what they suggest you'll end up with a highly distributable solution and a weakly coupled system that will be flexible to change.

So save yourself some future troubles, or help yourself fix your current ones, read this book! It imparts knowledge you can't get from a Blueprint!!

Did you ever have the feeling that there was something wrong with your application design but you just couldn't put your finger on the problem? The authors of this book have taken their own experience developing J2EE applications and produced a book that will help you avoid many mistakes in application design. The book is geared toward helping the experienced designer/developer produce robust, maintainable applications and fixing applications that are not robust and not easily maintained.

The book covers most of the J2EE spectrum. There are sections on JSPs, Servlets, Entity and Session Beans, JMS, and Web Services. There are also sections on general J2EE architecture including distribution, scaling, and persistence. Each chapter gives a background on a specific antipattern, discusses the typical symptoms of the antipattern, and then covers various refactorings that can be used to correct the antipattern. Some of the antipatterns discussed may sound familiar ("too much code in JSPs") but the list of refactorings will provide useful information for even these obvious coding errors if you happen to be supporting an application that suffers from that antipattern.

The authors have done a great job of clearly explaining each antipattern, both explaining why it is an antipattern and what you can do to fix the problem. Each refactoring is demonstrated with code samples as well as with UML diagrams where appropriate. Overall, this is an excellent book that should be on the shelf of anyone involved in designing J2EE applications.

Often, managers of medium to large scale software projects do not have the time (or inclination) to learn the technical nuances of the development environment they're managing. This lack of understanding can quickly give birth to worry and stress. "If only I knew the right questions to ask..." is a common lament among project managers as they wonder "why is module X so brittle?" and "why can't we ever meet the performance spec for subsystem Y?"

"J2EE AntiPatterns" is a useful guide for helping project managers with technical (but not necessarily J2EE) backgrounds zero-in on the major pitfalls the development team must circumvent. The Background, General Form, Symptoms and Consequences, and Typical Causes sections of most AntiPatterns provide the manager with sufficient information to recognize, understand, and (hopefully) avoid technical problems. (The exceptions are the AntiPatterns for entity, session and message-driven beans - the book assumes a basic understanding of J2EE beans.) Project managers do not need to fully comprehend the code examples (the book has many) to employ the lessons described in "J2EE AntiPatterns" - simply recognizing and understanding the AntiPatterns will be valuable to the team.

If I had read this book before (or during) my last project, I would have been able to recognize some significant problems by simply observing and listening to the engineers discuss their challenges, including the following AntiPatterns:

"Too Much Code" - our LOC metrics would have fleshed this one out quickly;
"Using Strings for Content Generation" - we spent many hours debugging HTML that rendered properly in IE but not Mozilla;
"When In Doubt Make it a Web Service" - it can be expensive mistake to implement something purely for technology's sake.

Coupled with a book or two describing J2EE at a high level, "J2EE AntiPatterns" is essential reading for technical project managers. This book will undoubtedly increase the project manager's effectiveness and help him/her better communicate with the team. A little knowledge for project managers is NOT always dangerous!

Excellent Book. Who said an old dog can't learn new tricks. Found several little tid-bits that have trimmed a number of my scripts or changed the way I've implemented services! A great desktop companion for advanced and intermediate admins.

This is a very good book. These remarks are for Linux users on the way up. If you are already an über-üser, well, you will probably like this book anyway.

If you don't have the first volume, you might want to start with it. It has some simple but very useful things that apply to just about anyone with their own Linux box and a command line.

This volume is much more advanced, and most of the tricks and techniques deal with much more specialized problem domains, ie. things you might not have run into yet. One advantage of this book over the first is that it is very up to date in its recommendations of existing software to use.

'Linux Server Hacks Volume Two' by William von Hagen is an outstanding companion guide for ALL Linux users and administrators. Packed with over 450 pages and 100 new hacks not in Volume 1, these aren't just known by everybody things that you can do with Linux, these are hot tips and tricks that most any Linux freak can excel from learning about.

Chapters Covered:

01. Linux Authentication
02. Remote GUI Connectivity
03. System Services
04. Cool Sysadmin Tools and Tips
05. Storage Management and Backups
06. Standardizing, Sharing, and Synchronizing Resources
07. Security
08. Troubleshooting and Performance
09. Logfiles and Monitoring
10. System Rescue, Recovery, and Repair

Pick this book up now, you will NOT be disappointed in this delcious Linux FEAST!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I can't say enough about the work done in Linux Server Hacks vII by the two Bs. Bill and Brian have hit the ball out of the ballpark with this one.

Just the section on LVM (Logical Volume Management) have saved my bacon!

Every single "hack" (read tip) is extremely practical, applicable and relevant to managing and administering Linux systems whether "servers" or not!

The absolute best part of this book is that you get really useful, insightful views into the experiences of seasoned veterans of Unix systems. If you sit in a NOC or if you're the 24x7 guy/gal on a server farm, this book is an occupational requirement! Everyone else will appreciate it if they're running Linux. In my modest network of perhaps 30 Linux systems, I can tell you that I saved hours of effort with just two of the hacks included in this volume. Considering the time savings, buying this book saved my company more than 300% on the cover price.

Are you a system administrator? If you are, then this book is for you! Authors Bill Von Hagen and Brian K Jones, have done an outstanding job of writing volume two of a book that focuses on cool hacks they developed or used in their server and system administration careers.

Von Hagen and Jones, begin by exploring the authentication options that are available to you in heterogeneous networked computing environments and simplify administering user accounts and passwords. Then, the authors explore ways of connecting to remote systems. Next, the authors explain how to set up central servers that do things like synchronize the time on all the systems in your environment, deliver IP addresses to newly connected hosts, and integrate these services with existing ones. The authors then present a variety of cool sysadmin tips and techniques that they've accumulated over the years, including how to keep processes running without writing a daemon or staying logged in, how to use PXE to netboot Linux, how to share information with fellow sysadmins in a centralized fashion, how to get the most out of classic but incredibly useful terminal-oriented applications, and so on. They continue to explore some cool ways of making it easier for you to manage storage, deploy new systems, do backups of today's huge disks, and even reduce the need for some of the restore requests that occasionally clog every sysadmin's inbox. Then, the authors provide some tips and tricks for managing distributed storage and making sure the administrative environments on your servers are synchronized. They then discuss a wide range of security tools and techniques that can help you sleep at night and protect your systems at the same time. Next, they provide techniques for optimizing system performance, whether by figuring out who's hogging the entire CPU and shooting down that user's network sessions or by using cool knobs in the /proc filesystem to tweak system performance or using journaling filesystems to minimize system restart time. Then, they include hacks that enable you to centralize log information in a variety of ways, be warned when problems arise, and get the most out of system status information, whether it's log information, internal disk controller status data, or remote hardware status information that you can collect via SNMP. Finally, the authors show you how to boot crippled systems so that you can diagnose problems, repair munged filesystems, and even recover deleted files of data that was stored on disks that have gone belly up.

This most excellent book has presented hacks that are techniques that the authors have used at various times. More importantly, they view these techniques as time- and hassle-savers that are usually downright fun and cool.