Services Books

I believe that purchasing this fabulous well-put-together kit, was so worth it! I never have played drums, nor did I think that I had the talent to do so!I have been interested in the effects of music, and healing,for some time now,and when I saw this kit mentioned in a recent woman's world magazine article, I decided to give it a try,and purchase it! Wow! it certainly exceeded my expectations! The #1 CD is SO well done...so thorough, AND relaxing! Some nights, I just LISTEN to the CD to RELAX, without even picking up my drum!The #2 CD is fun, lively,and informative,as it gives both info.on world-drumming styles, plus great music to play along to! The CD's alone, are teriffic,but of course, the kit also includes a very well written and easy-to-follow guide book,PLUS, a set of cards that you can use with or without the CD's for your playing enjoyment. The final item, the drum is quite nice, sounds great, and can be easily transported to wherever you wish to take it....so convenient! I am VERY IMPRESSED with this kit, and for the price, it IS a great little investment. Kuddos to Christine Stevens! The neatest thing though, is I became a drummer!I play along with the music, and sound quite decent, for a novice! PLUS, knowing this had a direct{positive} effect on my health, and well being, makes me want to keep playing all the more! Who knows? Maybe drumming will be the new "Red Wine" for health! Instead of a nightly glass of Rose', one can grab their drum, and play away !!!!

I have used this drum kit several times since I purchased it. It is very helpful to have the CD's for instruction to be able to play along with the music. i however do not feel the cards that accompanied were useful to me. I have also purchased native american drumming music and have been able to play along with those CD's using my drum and with help from the instructional CD's in this kit.

This is wonderful!
I purchased this so I could learn to play a frame drum for healing and spiritual edification. This kit is helping me to accomplish this.
The drum is beautiful, light weight, and easy to play. The book, CD, and cards are a great combination of tools from which to learn.
This program is laid out so that it is easy to understand. I have NO previous experience or training, yet I feel comfortable and successful as I learn with this kit.
The drum kit far exceeded my expectations. It was developed by someone who truely understands the drum and how to teach others to play it.

This is the perfect hand drum and learning manual to start with. I wish I found this years ago. The remo drum is the perfect size for traveling or just taking with you to the park or a drum circle. And the cards are amazing and easy to under stand. The guide book is also full of very good information. Ive recomended this to a few friends of mine already.

I would highly recommend this kit if you have any interest in drumming at all. It is easy to learn and very relaxing. My grandchildren also love it and what a good way to have fun and teach them rhythm and stress management at the same time.

Book arrived just days after I ordered it. Great service from seller. Everyone should read this book to understand exactly what has happened in the past 30+ years that has weakened the economic security of middle income and low income American families. It is frightening and it is happening because so many of us are too busy to keep up with what is going on politically at the national level. No wonder we are in the economic crisis we are because the big corporations have been allowed to run amuck (and over us) for so long.

I don't think this book will get much notice or have much impact. Sure, it will encourage those who agree with its points, but I can't imagine that it will reach the general population in a big way. The idea of the book is that Americans, all but the very richest, are being sacrificed on the alter of private ownership that only benefits that thin upper crust of wealthy people. The rest are losing their ability to retire, to have health care, to securely own their homes, provide college educations for their children (or get them for themselves), or even have a job with a good company.

The author does point out the very interesting idea of the "unjob" where many of us work because the traditional career is closed to us for a variety of reasons, yet we can't start our own profitable company (or are working towards that goal), and we scrape by making a living and providing our own benefits with consulting, contracting, or other short term work. Usually we have multiple gigs running at the same time.

My own view is that our system does put too much of the burden of dislocation and disruption on the workers and too little on the companies and executives who either create or decide to use these dislocations as part of their business strategy (even if that is bankruptcy). However, many of the examples Gosselin cites in his book, while unfortunate, are also fairly well to do people who chose to live a life of consumption rather than with prudence and thrift and now want someone to bail them out of their difficulties. Sure, some of them got some very bad breaks in health or dishonest companies. And others did not read their insurance policies closely enough. Still, there is no doubt that some insurance companies push those with expensive claims into court hoping that either the claimant will die before they can collect or that the legal approach will simply be more costly than they can bear.

I thoroughly disagree with Gosselin's notion that somehow we need to turn back the clock and go back a few decades to large corporations that employed people for life and provided pensions. We can't go back because the world has changed, people live too long after 65 to have that be the retirement age. Do you realize that when Social Security was first created only about 3% of the population lived to collect it? We would have to push the retirement age up past 72 or more to achieve similarly "secure" retirements that would not bankrupt companies or society.

While I appreciate Gosselin's good heart and like some of his observations, his prescriptions are faulty and too nostalgic to be taken as a serious prescription for what ails us.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

Wow, what a fantastic book! In my quest to understand the financial workings of American society, I came across this book. What an education. As a British expat now living in the US, I have been shocked by just how insecure I feel in my financial life here. Attempting to build an element of security into my family's new life, I am faced with insurance companies that no longer keep their promises, pensions that no longer exist and a host of eager sharks fighting to get me to invest my meagre savings with them. College costs are exorbitant and the economy so fragile that even a masters degree is now more of an albatross around the neck (debt) than a guarantee of a stable income.
Peter Gosselins book confirmed what I was beginning to realise myself. I'm caught in a game that I have no chance of winning. It is a call to arms; a warning shot across the bow of the presidential campaigns to ensure that the real issues facing this country are included in the ballot. These are the issues that affect Americans every day, so 'Excuse me, Mr. President. In your run for the White House, could you please remember the electorate.'

I read this at work. Mr. Gosselin's descriptions of the displaced "c class" executives shows an expanded view of how so many of us may be going to the dogs. I am just wealthy enough to be able to cruise through the rest of my life, if nothing bad happens. By the way, the book arrived quickly and in excellent condition.
jb

This is a GREAT book and I would encourage every citizen of America to read it, young or old. It's actually a hair-raising book. Well researched and each chapter has a personal, true life story of a family or individual that has been challenged with the topic being discussed.

Since the other reviews to date go over the book, I want to share what I took from it. First, I got out all my insurance policies after reading the chapters on how the insurance industry has slowly & slyly sandbagged us consumers. I read them with a fine tooth comb and voila! wouldn't you know it - just like the author said they were doing, well that is what they are doing. Sneaky company (and this is one of the Big Three property/casualty companies in California and the rest of the country) well guess what, they did exactly what the author said they were doing - changing the terms of the policy in such a way that the ordinary consumer, you & me, who (unfortunately) trust our agents so well ... are/were clueless that this got by us. Yep they changed me from the Guaranteed Replacement coverage on my home to the Limited Replacement + some percentage of cost overrun. And it got by me and I'm pretty smart (at least I thought I was). Just as it has probably gotten by most of you too. I called my agent last month and he told me it was the best policy money could by, Limited but with a 150% total replacement ratio, and furthermore the company I was considering replacing them with, well they had a reputation of quoting low and then next year WHAM they would sock it to me. I don't think so because that company is the one used exclusively by AARP and I just don't think AARP would stand for that kind of treatment. But back to my agent .. funny, but my policy said ... 125%. My agent disagreed with me and spoke to me in such a way that I would never want to go look further. But I did look further and HE WAS WRONG. I called the Home Office and got clarification and it is 125%. MY AGENT DIDN'T KNOW WHAT HE SOLD ME and my agent has been my agent since 1988 - or my agent wants that commission. He's a nice guy, I really don't know. But I'm not asking him. I got very angry when I realized that I had been sandbagged and g-d forbid if my house did burn to the ground, I would end up paying out of pocket over $200,000 to rebuild it just as it is.

Just as many of the Oakland/San Diego and other parts of California that have faced total losses have had to do.

The case studies in the book are all the same - about how the families of Oakland and San Diego fires really took it on the chin. The losses above the policy limits were/are staggering. Guess what, with rare exception, I'll bet you a zillion bucks that if you are reading this review or the book, chances are you are grossly underinsured.

I changed that. I changed companies and policies in the last 2 weeks. And surprisingly, between my car, home and umbrella policy, I went DOWN $600/year in premium along with going up from $1M to $2M in my umbrella. That was worth the book right there.

Then on to the ERISA chapters. What a shocker. I really was stunned at what I read. Imagine this law, passed to protect US the workers, in reality does not protect anyone except the insurance companies. Coincidentally there was a story in the LA Times last week about a woman whose 30-yr old husband died and was covered with $400,000 in his group life policy through his job. Guess what, the company and the insurance company refused to pay the death benefit even though the deceased employee paid the premiums for over the 3 years he worked there. The widow sued in state court, the insurance company knows its rights and got it into federal court (because this is ERISA) and the grieving widow was ordered by court to get the premiums paid returned to her and no payment for the policy. And it is not appealable. Who in the world ever knew that? Did you? I didn't. Does this mean that all life insurance policies through your job won't get paid? I guess I was lucky when my dad died 21 years ago because his group life policy did pay me. But then again my dad owned the company so suspect they didn't want to futz with that claim. However the gall of the company to deny the claim and then the courts, under ERISA precedent rulings, denying the payment. I almost fell off my chair. This is just as the author described is happening in the book.

So if ERISA is undermining employee's benefits (and this includes health coverage too, not just pensions, IRA's & other employer provided plans, employer offered disability and the rest of the benefits of the job) and if ERISA is stripping all our rights of we workers, what is left?

The chapters and stories on employeer provided disability coverage almost left me in tears. I usually shed tears only when reading fiction. This was just a scandalous nightmare to read. But I believe it. And the reason I believe it is that my former husband went blind in his last job due to a detached retina-like condition and his privately held disability company policy (coincidentally the same one talked about in the book) denied him his benefits for close to 4 years. Good thing my ex is an attorney and could take them on. 4 YEARS. While my ex is an attorney what he wasn't able to do was to pull money for living expenses out of a hat along with a few rabbits. He ended up on the brink of bankruptcy with this stunt the company pulled. How an attorney that goes blind can continue to be a litigator and read his briefs is beyond me - and the disability company plays the 'let's see who can hold out the longest' game.

This really is sick stuff.

I realize this is a long review. But I decided to list real life stories to support exactly what this book is all about. I have to say, anybody reading this review that is thinking about buying the book, STOP NOW and buy this book. I came upon it at Borders by accident, it was shelved under Economics and not my favorite category which is Investments - and I don't really like economics, but this is an easy & engrossing book to read. And the time has now come at this passage of time in our history that the public, ALL OF US, need to get our heads out of the sand and meet these challenges head on, informed, and not stupidly ignorant. Ignorance costs and at this point of our historical times, NOBODY can afford to be ignorant anymore.

Please read the book. And thank you for reading this review.

As the title says, I'm a bit bewildered. I would have ordered this book from all the glowing reviews, but I spent some time looking through it in a bookstore today and was disappointed. Yes, the material is well presented and covers a lot of ground.

However, it is all fairly rudimentary. If you want to understand police procedure, buy a textbook instead, even if it's a tougher read.

Lee Lofland has written the ultimate insiders guide to police procedure, an invaluable cheat-sheet for crime novelists who want their fiction to feel as real as possible. Now every writer has a friend on the force he can turn to for accurate information on how cops do what they do.

Lee's book is brilliant--filled with every piece of information a mystery writer could ask for. Mystery Readers International agrees--they just gave the book one of their 2008 awards for Best Mystery Non-Fiction!

Congratulations, Lee. You deserve it.

Today's readers are savvy and quick to pick up on inaccuracies, so it's important for a writer to be up-to-date on terminology and procedures. Police procedure, murder investigations, the straight dope on DNA, autopsies, prison terminology, and a whole lot of other areas in the crime and mystery genre, Lofland's book is one-stop shopping. Highly recommended.

Lee Lofland brings his experience as a veteran police investigator, who worked his way from an officer in Virginia's prison system, then a sheriff's deputy, a patrol officer, and a detective to Police Procedure & Investigation. According to his web site, Lee solved cases dealing with narcotics, homicide, rape, murder-for-hire, robbery, and ritualistic and occult crimes. He was an undercover officer and even a narcotics K-9 handler. He's certified in the U.S. Department of Justice, Virginia State Police Academy, and the DEA, as well as continuing to be certified in Crime Scene Management and Crime Scene Investigations.

One major thing Lee lets readers know is not everything shown on TV and in the movies is correct or accurate. Much is completely wrong. The material in this book, including photographs and illustrations and detailed information, gives a firm basis for mystery/suspense/detective writers to incorporate reality in their stories and books.

Chapters include "Law Enforcement in America," with a breakdown of local, county, state, and federal law enforcement agencies; "The Police Academy," with information about the training and courses found in different jurisdictions; "Police Officers: Their Duties and Equipment," including job descriptions and equipment used.

Personally, I found the chapters "Detectives" and "Tell it to the Judge: Courts and the Legal Process" to the most helpful for me in my writing career at this point, but most of the information is useful and enlightening. An index at the back of the book and appendixes helps readers find itemized material.

Lee presents information in such a way that almost everyone can easily understand what he writes. He shares his mass experiences and research so that readers can know reality and authors can make their writing more interesting, believable, and realistic.

The material on the back of the book states, "Police Procedure & Investigation is the next best thing to having a police detective personally assigned to your book," and I wholeheartedly agree.

I advise that anyone interested in procedure and investigations find, and keep on hand, a copy of this book. Police Procedure & Investigation by Lee Lofland is one of the best written and most usable reference books for readers and writers interested in crime, mystery, police, and law enforcement.

Reviewed by Vivian Zabel

A really colorful, informative book. It is filled with clear, clean pictures of the artist & his works.

This book is informative and very well made. Hundertwasser is one of my favorite artists and I own several books about his life and work. This is one is (so far) the best. The Taschen book reproduces his work beautifully, showcasing the washes and color use that make his work truly sublime. It also contains some wonderful photographs of the buildings he designed, which make one wish all construction could be so imaginative. This book was more than I expected for a very fair price.

This book really shows off Hundertwasser and is a great addition to any art collection. This is another hit by Taschen.

I am a quilter, and bought this book largely because of my love for batiks,(which are cotton fabrics hand dyed)and on recollection of a show I saw 32 years ago on Hundertwasser in Toronto's ROM.I like it,big time.Yep,there's no gold leaf in them thar hills and curves of Hundertwasser repros,if it bothers you enough,grab a gold leaf marker and add it yourself.Taschen offers value for your money,if you want gold leaf,you may have to add another 20.00 to the cost of the book.I have no problems about the quality of the repros.Anything that looks like pale brown,try and doublecheck,it is likely it is gold leaf. The artist may not have alot to say as other painters,but his designs,and color sense are really got me going into my studio.
I am glad I got it!

Any book about art or an artist that doesn't make me fall asleep gets five stars from me. The only downside (but it still gets five stars) as that you don't get the full representation of the pictures and need to look at the description to see the medium. For example the foil overlay. Still wonderful. (Feb 17, 2008)

I eventually found a small, beautiful, cloth-bound catalogue of his Australian and New Zealand exhibitions (the one I have was produced in 1973 by cicero, gmbh and titled 'Hundertwasser 1974 Australia') and there you get glimpse of the phosphoric metallic brilliance that I find missing in many of the books about Hundertwasser - although for the price of these books, no complaint. This book and the catalogue are a good combination. The catalogue I was able to find at a very reasonable price of $30, but it took a bit of searching. (April 16, 2008)

For those frustrated with off-the-rack diets and an apparent inability to lose weight, this is the book for you. Refreshing, honest, and empowering.

this book is rather complicated to follow, and i was not real thrilled with it.

I read this book after realizing that the weight wasn't just going to fall off after having kids. Jonny has a different approach than many of us have heard over and over. His writing is so personable and I laughed out loud quite a few times. Many of us know people who have done great on diets. Many diets haven't worked for us. Most of us have the wrong idea of the word 'diet'. Jonny helped me figure out what worked for me and I had a lot of fun in the process. I definitely recommend this book for anyone interested in their health.

I've recently completed reading Shape Up and was really inspired by the approach taken by the author. He really nails it on the head with his observation that one diet/healthy lifestyle program does not fit all. Our bodies are different, our lifestyles are different and our preferences regarding food, exercise and life goals are different. It therefore makes sense that any health program needs to be developed on an individual basis by the person him- or herself. I know what I 'should' be eating and what exercises I 'should' be doing (from the dozens of other books I have read). This book made me feel like I want to do them - it honours choice and is firmly based in reality and a wholistic approach to wellness. I recommitted myself to a healthy body and have lost 4 pounds in the last week. And I'm not feeling under the whip of any diet/exercise regime. An inspiring, informative and sensible book.

Mr. Bowden's "Shape Up!" Plan makes *intuitive* sense. Simply put, the person on the plan creates his or her own strategy to lose weight. His tool is information, and he provides great frameworks for continuing your path to good health, *as well as for creating a sound mind.*

One drawback is that, although I generally enjoy an informal writing style, I find myself annoyed at his. The text also contains way too many typos. (...Maybe it's just my edition? Is there more than one?).

I give the book 2 crooked thumbs up. Regardless of his or her weight, every person should hear what this man has to say.

This is not to say a thing against either of the two TV two versions of this play, which I saw and loved, but to say that when I first heard the play it was on a recording with the voices of John Gielgud, Penelope Browne, and Richard Burton.

I thought I had never heard words spoken by human voices that was so alluring they were close to opera. Hearing them was like getting drunk on words. I can't find that audio tape now that I used to copy the library recording, and I wonder if there is any way of tracing that performance and getting another copy? I remember Gielgud's way of expressing tedium of the party that was to mark the last night of his life and Jennet's. "Tedi-UM, Tedi-UM, Tedi-Um, on a falling scale, or naming the party "ice bath of pleasure." Yet he was in love and bordering on desperate when he told Jennet that when she had rejected him after a brief pause: "I'll chalk that hesitation all over the walls of Hell."
And about the future, which they didn't think they had: "I can give you generations of roses, here, in this wrinkled belly," He murmured, putting a rose hip in her palm. Wonderful, indeed.

Centering around the notion that two antithetical people are nonetheless in the same kind of predicament makes an interesting subject for a story, comedy, or otherwise. What makes this play such an entertaining read, play, and piece of literature, is also what keeps it from being an enduring classic. Language can be a beautiful but it can also be ruined by needless toying and that's exactly what the lead character, Thomas, does for large portions of this play. The two leads are so conceited about their lives and goals and proving things to others. I guess that's the reason the play is both laughable and exhausting. The characters in the play concede to truths and judgment not by reason, they can just ignore it no longer. Everyone in this play, with the exception of Richard, is unsensible and their actions are unpredictable in tradional terms, but the one thing you can count on is that they won't do what someone else wants them to do, they will always do the opposite unless it's already what they set out to do. This is classic comic folly, however, it doesn't come out that way because of Fry's language taking center stage.

As a previous reviewer put it "not everyone will enjoy reading "the lady's not for burning" I'll take it a step further and say that not everyone will find it essential, because I don't. Although I enjoy it and am thankful I read it, I think it's a disposable play, that depends on virtuosic acting and an uncanny knowledge of the English language.

I had the pleasure of seeing John Gielgud and Pamela Brown in "The Lady's Not For Burning" when I was teen-ager. It has been a pleasure to relive the joys of this delightful play once again.

It's 14th Century England and Thomas Mendip is tired of the world. He just wants someone to hang him so he can leave this life for good. He keeps telling people that he's the devil himself and the only way to send him back to Hell is to kill him. But the village leaders have bigger problems to worry about. The daughter of a local deceased alchemist, Jennet Jourdemayne, is certifiably insane and the townfolk think she might be a resident witch. It doesn't help that on the day that Thomas begs to be hanged, the beautiful Alizon Elliot is arriving to greet the son of the mayor to whom she is engaged. Thomas and Jennet are forgotten while the preparations for Alizon's arrival take place and that night during a ball for Alizon, Thomas and Jennet meet. The fates collide and they fall in love. But Jennet's supposed to be hung. What is a devil to do?

THE LADY'S NOT FOR BURNING is hilarious, but the comedy takes a backseat to the witty wordplay. The characters are secondary performers and the real star of the show is the language. One would probably assume that THE LADY'S NOT FOR BURNING was a product of the English Renaissance, perhaps even a missing play written by Shakespeare himself. But it's just good ole Christopher Fry's twentieth-century version of a Shakespearean-type comedy written in grand form.

Not everyone will enjoy reading THE LADY'S NOT FOR BURNING as the delightful language might be too much for some to understand. However, if you like Shakespearean comedy or just have a love for the English language, then THE LADY'S NOT FOR BURNING might be something worth your reading.

Charles Williams once yelled something to Christopher Fry from the top of a London bus. I forget what he yelled but I'm surprised they couldn't communicate psychically, for Williams and Fry were soulmates in more ways than one. Critics find both obscure and obtuse, overly given to purple prose and awkward phrasing. Readers who want to be banged over the head don't like either author, but those who enjoy sublety and coaxing a text to give up its secrets often enjoy their whimsical wordplay, even if they find their works overly freighted with ideas.

Both writers are given to many-layered interpretations. One writer found in Fry's play A Phoenix Too Frequent an almost allegory of St. Paul's contrast between the "law" and "grace" in the book of Romans (in a full allegory everything corresponds to something else, which is not the case here). Charles Williams' plays are works in progress that are worked out dramatically on the stage. His most famous novel, Descent into Hell, develops the story around the attempt to put on a play.

Charles Williams would find nothing odd in these resonances between himself and Fry, both members of what he called the confraternity of poets, or between author and reader, whom he would say were linked in the web of souls. This language yearns to be spoken, almost as an incantation, and this potential energy longs to turn to kinetic action on the stage. Our age, given unto despair, finds both writers alternately too somber and too flippant. But for readers who, like Fry and Williams, find themselves out of step with modern (or post-modern) sensibilities, these plays may be just the thing. Maybe that's what Charles Williams was shouting from the London bus.

Melody Beattie tells of her exeperience of great human tragedy with integrity and brutal honesty. Her book ends with a greater understanding of the human heart and with a message of hope.

Melody Beattie has great infornation in this book to help you help yourself

This book has been the most helpful book that I have read since my 15 year old son died of suicide in May 2006. She knows exactly how we who have lost children feel. It gave me hope. She made me feel more "normal". I have read Melody Beattie for years and was deeply touched by this book. I would highly recommend it to all bereaved parents.

Melody Beattie's book is a profoundly poignant, honest, courageous, heartfelt, and inspiring journey from being shattered at the loss of her precious 12 year old son, to learning how to embrace life again, and how to love and live fully.

It is not an easy journey, and takes time to adjust, and plunge wholeheartedly into the life circumstances you are facing NOW, so that you can re-claim the love in your heart that you can give both to yourself, and others who do need you.

I was deeply touched at how Melody shares generously with depth, and inspiration that anyone who is suffering from loss will gain tremendous benefit from reading this beautiful gift to humanity.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who is in grief, as well as to grief support groups, so you can re-gain your life set by Melody's example. It is a beautiful and genuine one.
Barbara Rose, author of "Stop Being the String Along: A Relationship Guide to Being THE ONE" and 'If God Was Like Man'
Editor of inspire! magazine

Melody Beattie's book is a profoundly poignant, honest, courageous, heartfelt, and inspiring journey from being shattered at the loss of her precious 12 year old son, to learning how to embrace life again, and how to love and live fully.

It is not an easy journey, and takes time to adjust, and plunge wholeheartedly into the life circumstances you are facing NOW, so that you can re-claim the love in your heart that you can give both to yourself, and others who do need you.

I was deeply touched at how Melody shares generously with depth, and inspiration that anyone who is suffering from loss will gain tremendous benefit from reading this beautiful gift to humanity.

I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who is in grief, as well as to grief support groups, so you can re-gain your life set by Melody's example. It is a beautiful and genuine one.

Highly recommended! Barbara Rose, author of, `Individual Power' and `If God Was Like Man'

This is another good book of logo ideas. Great for inspiration. Nicely laid out and the pages are of good quality glossy paper. Very nice book for my collection.

This series is a must have for any designer. Not only is it great for ideas, but a nice tool to have when a wishy-washy client just isn't sure what they want. If you are a serious designer, you must own all the Logo Lounge books.

Always a fan, the assemblage of brands from every corner is impressive and helpful. The Lounge has always been and continues to be a wonderful resource for jump-starting logo block.

Great book for inspiration and search for the right ideas. This time RockPub. is making few more pages showing how the logos work in the graphic design environment.

I was excited to see foreign companies using the latest styles in advertisement, like the russian phone company "BeeLine."

Wold highly recoment this book for a graphic design major and advertisement.

Whether you are fresh out of college or a seasoned Senior designer, you will find this book an amazing resource of ideas, trends and just plain good design.

We actually have purchased every volume and they keep getting better and better. Logo Lounge 3 is no different in terms of the unique talent chosen to be showcased in this edition.

If you need a design spark look no further, this is the book of choice.

[...]

This simple, beautiful book highlights all of the aspects of attachment parenting. It is comforting to babies and reassuring to mommies. This would be a great gift for a new mother (with Papa Papa for the new dad).

This book (and Papa, Papa) are two of our favorites. I now give them for baby shower gifts!!!

I absolutely love this book. The illustrations are so serene, calming and beautiful. The rhymes sound great without risking good content. The message is really wholesome and sweet. My baby really enjoys this book.

This book (along with Papa, Papa) was given to me as a shower gift for my first daughter. It was always one of our favorites, and now my second daughter enjoys it as well. Both girls love the pictures and the rhymes....and I just love the last rhyme, it almost always makes me tear up. I am going to be giving these books to friends and feel confident they will love them as much as I do.
-L

I have never read seven sentences in a children's book, (besides my own) that have had such a powerful impact on me as this one has. It is very hard to find books that demonstrate attachment parenting but this one does it perfectly; a baby cheetah nurses on his Mama, a baby panda and her Mama are co-sleeping, and a koala Mama is "wearing" her baby! Each Mama and baby pictured is experiencing life together, in close contact. This book truly embraces the attachment parenting philosophy. My children love to read this book with me because they still call me Mama and are delighted that my name is in a book. They also like the repetitiveness of the verses and the sweet pictures of the animal babies and Mamas. This Mama and her babies are definitely "attached" to this book!

If you want to understand programming the Flash Communication Server and it's capabilities this is a good place to start.

Although I'm using Flash Media Server 2, this book is still highly relevant as not much has changed. The core objects and language is the same so I would not hesitate to recommend it for anyone looking to use FMS.

This book is all about the design of applications using Macromedia's Flash Communication Server MX. FCS MX enables the building of media-rich web applications by taking care of the basic tasks required in the networking of the applications. Thus, you can focus on the application itself rather than worrying about low-level communication details.

Since this book is concerned with situations where multiple Flash applications will be executing on the same server simultaneously, there is going to be considerable effort involved in coordinating events, which is addressed by this book. You should already have FCS installed and running on your server and you should also have Flash MX available on the client. The following is description of the book by chapter:

Chapter 1, Introducing the Flash Communication Server - Acts as an introduction to FCS and an overview of the whole book.

Chapter 2, Communication Components - How the FlashCom communication components encapsulate commonly needed features such as chat, video recording and playback, bandwidth control,and user configuration. These components implement many basic building blocks for your application.

Chapter 3, Managing Connections - This chapter covers connections in more depth past the SimpleConnect component, including how to write custom code to handle various changes in the connection status as well as different errors.

Chapter 4, Applications, Instances, and Server-Side ActionScript - This chapter describes how to write Server-Side ActionScript and work with the objects that control application instances and the Flash movies that connect to them.

Chapter 5, Managing Streams - Offers a somewhat oversimplified but complete example that shows the basic steps in publishing one live stream and subscribing to a second.

Chapter 6, Camera and Microphone - This chapter explains how to use both the Microphone and Camera classes to record live streams. These classes are at the heart of most communication applications involving multimedia.

Chapter 7, Media Preparation and Delivery - This chapter covers many details for compressing and streaming audio and video.

Chapter 8, Shared Objects - This chapter starts an entirely new subject - shared objects, which provide a mechanism for the transmission of data between client and server.

Chapter 9, Remote Methods - This chapter also shows how to broadcast method calls to every movie and application instance connected to a shared object or stream, or send them to and from individual movies using RMI.

Chapter 10, Server Management API - Discusses the Server Management API and its applications, including monitoring a FlashCom Server, gathering statistics on application instances, and managing the log streams.

Chapter 11, Flash Remoting - Demonstrates how Flash Remoting can be used to add data connectivity to FlashCom applications. Flash Remoting can access web services, server-side scripts, CGI applications, XML files, or the local filesystem with the help of an application server such as ColdFusion.

Chapter 12, ColdFusion MX and FlashCom - Teaches some specifics involved in using Flash Remoting with ColdFusion MX and FlashCom. There are some practical working examples shown that demonstrate how you can leverage the benefits of Flash Remoting in conjunction with FlashCom.

Chapter 13, Building Communication Components - This is the first step in building complete applications, and is demonstrated through an extensive example.

Chapter 14, Understanding the Macromedia Component Framework - How to modify an existing component and how to create a new one. Also discusses server-side framework code and its core features and data structures.

Chapter 15, Application Design Patterns and Best Practices - Describes some of the best practices available to application developers. This chapter provides some useful design options, patterns, and best practices that will help you build better applications.

Chapter 16, Building Scalable Applications - Deals with building multi-instance and multiserver applications that don't bog down as the number of client connections increases.

Chapter 17, Network Performance, Latency, Concurrency - Traditional network design issues affect FCS also.

Chapter 18, Securing Applications - Specifically this chapter examines the three A's of security - Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting.

Excellent book, stuffed of examples very well explained, easy to read and to understand, essential for who desires initiate or even though to profound itself studies on FlashCom.
Obligator reference in projects involving FlashCom, either for fast consultations and advanced tasks.
Excellent approach of subjects as Design patterns and security, yonder a perfect demonstration about audio, video and much more.

If you're a developer looking into real-time server communication using Adobe Flash, this book is a must-have. It guides you thru various levels of application development in an easy to understand format, and provides well documented pieces of code to assist you in the learning process of putting together your project:

Topics covered include:

- learning about components and how to use them
- establishing and managing client connections
- publishing live and recorded streams
- local communication with clients
- remote communication with outside applications

The book also shows how to build and integrate your own custom components, and how to scale your application using the components that you've created. Other highlights include information on how to use shared objects and server management API, as well as ways to improve both design and performance.