News and Media Books

I feel really lucky to have stumbled across this book. It is not Lingo heavy, but tells you all the little tricks to making Director work for you, including what is the best movie format for your target audience, how to mask movies, how to control sound with simple commands, and much more. The author has a genuine enthusiasm for his subject matter, and he plainly has a lot of experience in designing multimedia interfaces with Director. His advice is straight from the field, and that's invaluable. His generous sharing of experience steers you away from frustrating mistakes that would otherwise drive you crazy. This book tells you all the cool, juicy stuff you need to know to make presentations with Director. You will not become a Lingo God, but if you are a beginner, you will advance to intermeadiate and borderline advanced levels with the knowledge gained from this book. And the author makes it all seem so easy - which it is!

This is a great book for web and multimedia developers. I have been using Flash and Dreamweaver, but saw a demo on what Director can do for the web. Although this book cover more than developing for the web, there's a ton of information to build the coolest interactive Shockwave sites. This book was extremely easy to follow. The section about the games and how to build them quickly was amazing. This book is worth getting.

This is an adorable book for young fans of the movie, or any little kid who loves dalmatians. In the book Oddball is hideing, and her bothers try to find her by asking the other dogs from the movie if they've seen her, and in the end they come up with a plan to get her out of hideing.

This is an adorable book for young fans of the movie, or any little kid who loves dalmatians. In the book Oddball is hideing, and her bothers try to find her by asking the other dogs from the movie if they've seen her, and in the end they come up with a plan to get her out of hideing.

I liked this story it was really interesting and it is funny and it is cool how the car can do all those thing. When I saw the cover I thought it would be boring but it was very interesting I liked the movie the best but I liked the book to and I loved when she was looking for a car I thought that she was going to pick a diffrent car and then she picked herbie and it was awesome she did not like him at first and then she saw kevin and she loved herbie and they fixed herbie up really good and bet the best race car driver in the world and herbie had a mind of his own and it was awesome to see that she loved the car after they washed it up and she was keeping a secret she said she was maxx and she wasn't and she lied to her dad and the news and every body and the bad thing about it is that she lied to her dad and that is very very very bad and I wish that she would have just told them and not have to be in that kind of thing she did it I would not have done that if I were her I would not have lied and be in a bigger mess I would have just went on and told the truth but I don't like her ling because it is just not right for her to lie right in her dads face it hurt him more but then he was really mad because she did not tell him the truth the first time and that is why he was mad because she lied to him the first and then he was there when she toke off her helmet and he was very mad at her because he thought that she would not lie to him but then he saw her and then he did not beleive her no more then her brother got in a car reck and he picked magie to drive and her dad said it was okay with him and then her dad was happy again when she won her dad was so proud of her. that is all i had to say.THE END!!!!!!!!!!

Twenty-one-year-old Maggie Peyton has just graduated college, and is about to start a high-ranking, behind-the-scenes job at ESPN in the Big Apple. But first she must survive a month-long stint in her hometown of Riverside, California, where she is sure she will spend her time skateboarding. Oh yeah, and looking for a job that will cover her new apartment's first and last rent payments. However, when her father takes her to a used car lot, she is quickly drawn to Herbie, a white, '63 Love Bug that could use a bit of a paint job, as well as some other work under the hood. Which is how Maggie ends up getting involved with her best friend from high school, Kevin, who intends on fixing up Herbie, free of charge. The only catch is that Herbie has a complete mind of his own, and a heart for racing, which is how he and Maggie, along with Kevin, get mixed up with Trip Murphy, a professional racecar driver who bugs Herbie just as much as Maggie. Now the little car has decided that he's going to beat Trip in a race that Maggie's not even sure she wants to participate in. But when Herbie's driving, she has no choice.

I adore the past HERBIE movies, so hearing about the newest release HERBIE FULLY LOADED starring Lindsay Lohan, I knew that the film would capture my heart instantly. However, waiting is not one of my virtues, so when I saw the HERBIE FULLY LOADED novelization recently, I had to pick-it up. Irene Trimble has done a fabulous job of bringing the movie to life with this novelization. The characters are quirky and fun, and Herbie is completely adorable. While it is obvious from the movie trailers that the novelization cut parts of the movie out, it features enough to tide over any HERBIE fan until the movie is released to theaters. Overall, this is a must have novelization for HERBIE or Lindsay Lohan fans. You won't be disappointed!

Erika Sorocco
Book Review Columnist for The Community Bugle Newspaper

great entertainment,Use coloring books for tracing pictures to draw my own scene. have brought other books from Amazon.com and is worth time, effort, and cash.

customer from Amazon.com

The book is very good. Even though I havent seen the movie I still like it! It would make a good stocking stuffer.

A fun and interesting book filled with action and adventure. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a book that will strech their imagination.

I think this Treasure Planet book is really good. The pictures are great and the book is just like the movie. Jim finds a map and joins the crew. An alien first told him to beware of a cyborg. He sets sail on the ship as a cabin boy and Silver as the cook. Silver teaches Jim what he knows and is beginning to get a soft place for Jim. They find the treasure but it is a trap. They escape and Silver leaves the crew. I recommend this book to anyone who like short adventure stories.

This is best craft book for children I have ever read. It is absolutely perfect; you can't go wrong with this one.

This is a great book for kids ages 3-8. The activities are not only enjoyable and well-explained, but they acutally come out looking as good as the pictures in the book. The materials needed are common items that we had in the house which did away with needing to make frequent trips to buy things. There is a gentle humor in this book that fits perfectly with the stories that were selected to accompany the crafts. One extra bonus - my daughter frequentlty chooses this as her "bedtime book". How many other "craft" books can match that?

What is it about blogging that inspires millions to commit their feelings to a public place? The author of Dispatches from Blogistan : A Travel Guide for the Modern Blogger is a technology journalist and media pioneer who here surveys the culture of blogs, reviews its tools and design features, and considers related issues of privacy, trust, and safeguards on the Net. While it's a cultural and social overview, it also provides novice bloggers with plenty of facts about the online self-publishing revolution - and the hot topic will prove popular not only for computer libraries, but for general-interest holdings and college collections interested in the culture of the Internet.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This is a shortened copy of a review that I wrote for TidBITS [....]

In today's world of profit-pumping book publishing, a blog-related title is easy - the technology is simple enough to explain without much research or tech-writing talent and the buzz factor should make the book easy to market. Suzanne, however, pleased and surprised me by taking the text far beyond a get-rich-quick effort seen in other blogging titles. She includes historical context and piles of advice, and dishes it out with an appealing writing style intermixed with interviews and quotes from Internet denizens such as Cory Doctorow and Laura Lemay.

My favorite part of the book is the section covering topics like why an RSS newsreader is cool, and what the deal is with tags, tag clouds, blog search engines, [...] trackback links, permalinks, Flickr, and other jargon that savvy Internet users fling around widely but rarely explain with any sort of satisfying depth. I read this section with avid interest, since I hadn't previously understood how it all fit together.

Suzanne's prose is personal and witty, and I expect to keep this book on my shelf as a reference for a few years and perhaps as a memento of an era after that.

This is a great book ... I especially like to read this one to my granddaughter when she visits ... beautiful story and illustrations are excellent. D. McGee

My daughter loves this book. We got it for her a year ago (when she was 3) and she still loves it (she turns 5 in March). The vinyl clings are cool because my daughter can put them wherever she wants. The only problem is that there isn't a place to "store" them, which isn't really the book's fault. I only suggest keeping them somewhere safe as we lost one piece. :( She got creative and used another cling to continue her fun with this book!

If you've read other Dora books, you know that not all actually capture the essence of the show...I know it's not Shakespeare, but come on... at least try & get the basic elements that the kids recognize into the books such as if we need to know where to go, ask the kids who they need to as (Map!) then explain where their going, let the kids yell, "Backpack!" & then pick what item they need to help Dora & her friends, etc. The book includes counting, singing silly songs (a favorite of our daughter's), and an extra bonus if your child loves Diego too, he's along for the ride. We read this book about every night (it's one of our daughter's favorites), and it isn't painful-like some children's books can be. I have fun singing & listening to my daughter participate, sing along (something she started with this book) & laugh, and you probably will too.

I am not a parent, nor am I experienced in reading books for small children, but I had heard of Dora the Explorer and, when I saw this book at the office, where I worked, about to be tossed out, as it was getting pretty beat up, I thought I would give it a try.

This is a glossy, 8" by 8" 24-page paperback, that is very colorful, and it is aimed at ages baby through preschool. It is meant, I believe, as a read-to or read-along book. The text is by Lisa Valdes and the illustrations are by Dave Atkins.

The illustrations are large, plentiful, very colorful, and decidedly upbeat. The text is cheerful and adventurous in tone and suited well for its purposes and target audience. The story involves Dora and her friends wanting to put on a play about pirates, but having their plan waylaid when piggy pirates snatch their chest full of costumes. The piggy pirates mistake the chest for a treasure chest, and whisk it away to an island. Using a very helpful and talkative map, Dora and her friends sail off in pursuit. Along the way, there is a counting task, in Spanish, plus they have to help the singing bridge sing its silly song the right way. The conclusion involves a non-violent confrontation with the piggy pirates, that lends a touch of suspense, without being scary.

The tone of the story is not only fun and adventurous, but also very inviting. It repeatedly, but not annoyingly, invites the reader and those being read to, to join in. The counting and the singing are clearly aimed at this. The story moves quickly and that, combined with the abundant and colorful illustrations, should make it good at engaging and holding the attention of young children. The characters are depicted as cute and friendly, with Dora definitely taking center stage. While Diego is along for the ride, he does not say anything.

The book itself, while the copy I read was pretty beat up, looks very durable. I work in a children's mental health clinic, and the book likely got a lot of use by several children, some of whom might well be quite aggressive and destructive. That this book survived, for months, in our waiting room, is a testament to its heartiness.

I purchased this book for my five year old granddaughter and she really loved it.

A very special surprise visitor arrives at Dora's house on Christmas Eve. Can you guess who it is?

Just as Dora begins telling her baby brother and sister (and Boots!) a story about Santa, they hear a knock at the door. Turns out that Santa himself needs Dora's help!

Santa's reindeer have gotten colds and can't pull the sleigh to deliver gifts around the world. The man in the red suit is distressed that his Christmas surprises will be ruined!

Dora and her cousin Diego come to the rescue! Diego stays behind to take care of the reindeer (he even makes them special carrot soup!), while Dora, Boots, and her special backpack go with Santa to deliver the presents.

But who is pulling the sleigh? Why, eight of Dora's special star friends--including Supra, Ultra, Mega, Rocket, and Helada Star!

Colorfully illustrated, this tale follows Dora as she and her friends deliver presents all over the world--to the ocean dwellers, denizens of the mountaintops, small towns, big cities...even the rainforest!

Dora and company arrive home just as the sun begins to rise on Christmas day. They helped save Christmas!

But there's one more special present--one that a grateful Santa wants to give to Dora, Boots and a Diego.

Dora's Starry Christmas is a magical tale of a smart, resourceful girl who helps out Santa in his time of need. A great holiday story for bedtime--or anytime!