When I first went to Vietnam I used the Fodor guide and my traveling partner had this Rough Guide. On my second trip I purchased the Rough Guide, which I found much more useful than Fodor. It gives good information about hotels and restaurants and also gives a good historical/political perspective of Vietnam from a non-American point of view.

The bad things about the book: 1. I believe the authors are Australian and some of the word choices were difficult for an American like me to understand. Some sentences were difficult for me to "translate" into American English. 2. The book states that there are no gay outlets in Vietnam. This is simply not true. There are several places (nightclubs and hotels) in Saigon and Hanoi that are gay tolerant/friendly. There are even gay tours of Vietnam. While it is best to be discreet in Vietnam, one can find ways to meet other gay travelers and locals.

I was very happy to have Rough Guide Vietnam for my travels in northern Vietnam during December, 2000 - January, 2001. For one thing I felt like I wasn't getting channeled down the Lonely Planet path, as most independent travelers were carrying that book and using it like their Bible. Also, whenever anyone compared my Rough Guide to their Lonely Planet, they said they found RG to be better. Rough Guide goes into more depth than LP in describing the sights and history. LP's maps are a little more comprehensive, but RG's listings of hotels are more user-friendly than LP. I very much enjoyed the book.

Just came back from a three week trip to Vietnam with three books: the Lonely Planet, the Rough Guide, and Footprint Handbook.

The Rough Guide is the best guidebook around for the country. It is superior to the Lonely Planet guide in the breadth and depth of coverage and especially its accuracy. I liked LP for other countries but here they did a very poor job.

I have not found even one instance where Lonely Planet provided information that Rough did not have. If you are traveling to the north, you may want to consider reading Footprint before you leave -- it has some interesting information.

Also, all hotels -- even the top ones -- can be negotiated down in price. Send them an e-mail and ask for special rates, corporate rates, etc. You can stay at the Metropole in Hanoi for less than half their rack rate.

Baker's book is the definitive work in the growing baseball autograph hobby.

It's too bad his publisher has not commissioned an update. The book is nearly ten years old and as such it's now about 25 players short and the autograph values are now just wishful thinking. Babe Ruth signatures for $495 -- I'll take a dozen!

Regardless of its age spots, if you are considering entering the hazardous world of baseball autograph collecting this book will be your core reference.

This is the best book on the market with regard to baseball autographs. However, this book is almost ten years old and there are a lot of new players to reckon with (Sosa, Garciaparra, Jeter, etc) and the information in the book is in need of total revamping. This book is most helpful in providing pictoral samples of autographs, especially throughout different stages of the players' lives. It would have been more helpful to have forgeries shown side by side with real samples, particularly with those players now widely forged (McGwire, Sosa, Dimaggio, Mantle, etc). This book teaches a lot about the hobby and is almost as good as studying actual samples.

The best part about the book is that the author doesn't look as an autograph as a commodity but, rather, as a form of connection between himself and the signer. He appears to have a lot of respect for each individual he asks for autographs and there is a lot to be learned from his fine approach to this great hobby. I hope that he is working on an update.

This book tells you everything you need to know on autographs. A must buy

I'm a fan of what the author calls 'self-made worlds' and take pictures of them wherever I find them. This book treats its subjects with respect, but could include more photos of each place, and perhaps a general map to its location. I find myself wanting more from each section. Also, there are some particularly famous spots that are missing from the book, most notably Gilgal Gardens in Salt Lake City. There is a very handy index to self-made worlds in the back.
Maybe a Self-Made Worlds Volume II is in order?

As a collector that is just getting started in this field, I found this book both highly interesting and amazing. Anyone who is interested in this field will find this book enjoyable. I would have given it five stars, but it is the first one I have read and did not have a reference point.

I just keep buying this for gifts -- it's a coffee-table book that not only stays on the coffee table, it gets read and passed around. amazing background on how America's visionary roadside shrines are imagined as well as built -- i love the insights into the hearts, minds, and spirits of these folk art contrarians. by giving copies of this book as gifts, i feel i'm doing my own small bit to help people appreciate this art form -- and maybe even create something startlingly original of their own someday! the perfect present for every outer yuppie/inner wildchild on your list, or for anyone who's stuck in a rut or going through a life change. this book reminds us all to cherish eccentricity -- keep America weird -- and nourish our own (and everyone else's) inner visionary.

I found this book to be a solid roundup of good practices within automated software testing.

It doesn't provide any startling new techniques, but makes a good job of explaining the common pitfalls that are usually encountered when trying to automate testcases, and provides good advice for how to get the best out of commercial tools such as the one available from julianjones.com.

The writing style can be a bit dry, and there are times when the thought of reading 500 pages can be a bit daunting.

All things considered, highly recommended.

I bought this book because I was new to software quality assurance, yet placed in charge of an automated testing effort. This book clearly encapsulates years of experience -- you can almost feel the pain the authors must have experienced as they learned these lessons the hard way! I have already avoided making a number of mistakes.

The authors organized the material effectively and wrote it in a way that promotes skimming and scanning. By reading the first few sentences of a section, you will know whether you are interested in the section. If you're not interested, skip to the next section. The authors even occasionally tell you what sections you can skip should that material not apply to your situation.

These skimming and scanning aids are important because the text itself is frequently unexciting and cumbersome. There's not much to do about the former -- nuts and bolts are hard to make exciting. I hope, however, that the authors will consider a good edit for more vigorous writing should they update this book for a second edition.

Anyone who claims to be a Principle or Senior Software QA Engineer, or a QA Automation Engineer, but has never read or used this book should be convicted of professional malpractice.

Absolutely the best current reference book on why and how to analyze, architect, design and construct verification and validation vehicles that dramatically improve the probability of software defect detection - both manually and through later automation. Said vehicles can be easily audited and inspected to improve positive and negative software behavior coverage and equivalence classes. But most important, this great book describes how intelligently devised manual vehicles can be used to automatically drive future software builds and release regression assessments (to achieve automated regression testing).

Describes everything that the software test tool vendors refuse to tell buyers, but what every software QA professional must know (in spite of the vendors).

This book is simply a breath of fresh air.

It is a virtual bible to positive and negative software behavior verification and validation. My only displeasure is that the authors choose to continue to use obsolete terminology: specifically testing. Software testing is not what this book is about. This book is about how to create and achieve highly effective software behavior verification and validation.

Software QA professionals must clearly move way beyond ad hoc testing, because the need today is far greater than ancient testing paradigms. The need is for intelligently designed, architected, constructed frameworks that enable software behavior and performance verification and validation, whether performed manually, automatically, or through agents such as monkeys and oracles.

Welcome to the wonderful fantasy land of Ma and Pa Brindle's. This book tells a delicious and fulfilling tale of one Sweet Dream Pie and what happens when people indluge in this enormous pie. Through colorful and rich pictures and such descriptive words as: "clouds of powdered sugar, a chocolate tornado, or a thick, sweet syrup bubbled and oozed down the sides," Audrey Wood allows the reader to feel as if they too are enjoying a piece of Ma Brindle's Pie. Come and allow your dreams to indulge in a piece of Sweet Dream Pie.

For parents who like to read aloud, this book is an absolute must. The story and characters are brought to life by vibrant, fun illustrations, and the story is equally entertaining to children and adults (doesn't everyone know at least one "Pa Brindle?"). Audrey Wood is an outstanding story-teller.

My boys, ages 5 and 7, can't get their fill of this colorful, wacky book. The love indulging their imaginations with it each night before bed and "sweet thirds and fourths" of it in a single sitting would not be enough if they had their way!

If your idea of love is limited to visions of puppies and balloons, The Thing About Love Is... probably not for you. In Polyphony Press' first effort, the heavy topic of love is tackled in gritty, gutsy pieces that cut to core of this complex emotion. Sometimes it's bliss, sometimes it's bizarre, and quite often it hurts, but regardless of its form, love is always intriguing. This anthology is in keeping with that notion. With a variety of styles and voices, the works featured here are unanimous in their ability to draw the reader in and keep him hooked. It is truly a great read that may challenge one's personal definition of love. Call it an enjoyable experiment in mind expansion!

It's difficult to find an anthology that has as much stopping power as this one. Reading it, I was impressed not only by the diversity of the authorial voices, but also by their veracity. Each story, poem and play seems to have come straight from the gut. What's more, the contributing writers help to remove our blinders; particularly when it comes to matters of the heart. Love, they argue, is nothing less than a battlefield on which each of us daily chances victory or defeat.Those seeking to enter the contest fully armed would do well to buy this book.

Anthologies are not my usual choice of reading material, but as this was recommended to me, I decided to give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised. While I could not relate to some of the pieces here, I enjoyed the underlying topic immensely. The poetry, drama, and short stories were a good blend. The Thing About Love Is... an enjoyable and fast read, but has a peculiar lingering effect that required that I return to it for further exploration. It's a perfect book to read from the relative comfort and safety of your best chair, where you know that you can dip into the joy and angst of love and for once, walk away unscathed.

Welp, unfortunately I can't tell you the whole behind the scenes look at what it took to get The "X-Files Phenomenom" going (It will take Forever and a Day, plus I wouldn't want to spoil the joy of you reading it), but I can say this is worth the money. Find out what it took to get the show on the road, how it was for everyone when they first got together, to the time they had to leave Their Vancouver Home where it All Started.
Written by Tom Braidwood (Fohike of the Lone Gunmen) so you know there is more than what an ordinary journalist can get a hold of. I guess you can call this Book "The little Diary of Tom Braidwood, and Friends."

Learn Everything you need to know about how They found the perfect location for each episode from Seasons 1-5, and find out how the weather was at the time of filming. . . hmmmm. It also has many Black and white pictures for your enjoyment, some funny, and others that illustrates how each set looked at the time of filming. It's definitely a keeper.

This book was an excellent read for myself, an X-Files fan and a resident of Vancouver. It expresses the love and dedication that all the X-Files crew members had for the show.

Anyone who likes the X-Files will get a kick out of reading the various stories behind acquiring all the locations for the show. A synopsis of *every* episode shot in BC is given, making this a useful episode guide as well.

After reading the book, I can say I am truly lucky to live in a city that stood for so many diverse places during the X-Files run.

After watching Sunday's finale episode, I pulled out my "X Marks the Spot" book to reminisce about the "good ol'days" when the X-Files was filmed in Vancouver - which was seasons 1-5. This book, written by Louisa Gradnitzer and Todd Pittson (who were location managers on the X-Files for 5 years) and an introduction by Tom Braidwood (also known as Frohike of the Lone Gunmen), shows the viewer the places that the X-Files filmed in Vancouver, a map to show where they are located and behind the scene facts about the episodes.

What is great about this book, it is split into seasons and episodes so that you can find your favorite episode, what locations were used for it and trivia about the filming of it.
This book also contains black and white behind the scenes photos featuring the cast, crew, buildings, props, cast parties and the final shots from Vancouver, which closes the book.

This book is a must if you're an X-Phile planning on visiting Vancouver.

The author states that the book was created as a text for his class and it certainly reads like a textbook. For a book that is about usability, the text is almost unreadably tedious at times. (e.g. "...the first step toward Web site usability is to figure out the main goals of your Web site. For labeling purposes we will call these 'goals of the purpose.'") Each of the points in the book is better made and illustrated in other texts (Krug - "Don't Make Me Think" is good). The attempts to lighten the subject with gratuitous cartoons and humor were more irritating than amusing.

I loved this book. I am a new psychology PhD looking to get into web usability consulting and this book was perfect for me. I have not read other books on the topic but i can say that I am glad I found this one. It was a very easy read, and i really learned a lot. I like how it takes a psychological viewpoint much of the time. I also really like how he sets you up 100% to be a usability tester. He tells you everything you need to know from A-Z with very little budget. He is also very generous giving away all his secrets and a CD rom that has all sorts of pre-made forms to get you started (powerpoint presentation on usability to show clients, informed consent forms for experimental participants etc...). Now I feel i am ready to read something more technical.

I loved this book. I am a new psychology PhD looking to get into web usability consulting and this book was perfect for me. I have not read other books on the topic but i can say that I am glad I found this one. It was a very easy read, and i really learned a lot. I like how it takes a psychological viewpoint much of the time. I also really like how he sets you up 100% to be a usability tester. He tells you everything you need to know from A-Z with very little budget. He is also very generous giving away all his secrets and a CD rom that has all sorts of pre-made forms to get you started (powerpoint presentation on usability to show clients, informed consent forms for experimental participants etc...). Now I feel i am ready to read something more technical.

An awesome way to ignite (or re-ignite) passion in your marriage. This was a great idea. The mystery, the romance, the anticipation is all wonderful! It is heightened by the fact that all of this is done to glorify God!

I HIGHLY reccomend this for couples (married of course) of all ages!

This is more than a book. It is a resource package for married Christian couples. No, there's nothing earth-shattering here, but the book gives so much background information about God's gift of sex. This, coupled with the 24 fantastic date ideas, is sure to renew any marriage bed!

My husband and I have loved doing the "date nights" in this book. I feel so special when he is planning and carrying out his dates, and I feel so close to him while I am planning and carrying out my dates! This is a great plan and so easy to follow! I highly reccommend it!!

With 2 book on our Web services library shelves, this book adds in as the best for getting introduction to Web services security specifications and popular implementations. If you are little lazy to read the specs from web sites, this book is an ideal choice to get an introduction to them. But again, this book is a bundle of content reproducing the specs of XML Security efforts at W3C, OASIS, WS-Security (IBM & Microsoft), Sun's Liberty, Microsoft Passport. Interestingly this book also contains some obsolete versions of Security specs (So be careful, before you assume things).

If your are an Architect seeking a practical implementation solution or a case study to practice in your architecture, this book DOES NOT add value at ALL. As I said, this book lacks practical implementation scenarios especially examples using real world security implementations like Passport, SunONE, EnTrust, Netegrity TransactionMinder etc. So think about it.

If you are newbie wants to get ideas about Web services security then this BOOK IS THE BEST at this time ! But always lookout for latest book so that you don't get buried with obsolete specifications.

This is a very complete reference in that it covers all the current standards that directly and indirectly impact web services security. I really appreciated the examples of how I would go about implementing various features. In that respect, it is a valuable reference for both architects desiring to design a secure web services solution as well as to developers who must implement the solution.

This is *the* book to date on the topic. I particularly like the blend of strategy and practice that Mark and the others have achieved. They've managed to get straight to the point: The best way to secure web services today is through XML Signature, XML Encryption, SAML, and WS-Security, and this book explains how those technologies work.

Unlike another reviewer, I found this book to be a far better way to learn than the specifications or the online white papers. True, it doesn't get into vendor-specific implementation details, but I expect the vendors to provide that info.