the book does not give directly the advantages and disadvantages of c band over ku band in satellite communication

Oran and Tosti do a nice job of defining legal terms for the nonlawyer. As a professional who needs to understand legal terminology, however, I have found this book unnecessary. I bought "Law Dictionary for Nonlawyers" before I acquired "Black's Law Dictionary." The latter is so complete and has such clear definitions that I rarely even bother to use "Law Dictionary for Nonlawyers."

I strongly recommend that the layman buy and use "Black's Law Dictionary," rather than this or other legal dictionaries designed for laypersons.

This book is an extension of Learn C on the Macintosh. Dave is an excellent writer, but doesn't do quite as good a job with this book as he has done with the others he has written. This book assumes you know C pretty well before you begin it. Also, Symantec C++ is no longer published and book is not up to date with current ISO standards. I wish Dave would rewrite this book and bring it up to date with Codewarrior and current ISO standards and introduce the language from a "ground up" beginners point of view. Basically, if you can find your way around C and have not yet learned C++, it's a fairly good, but outdated book.

I really liked the TV show and sorely miss it. I am therefore ever grateful to the few authors who have written anything on the show, hence the extra star. It is only really a 2 star book, Vornholt has done better before and worse! Out of all the Earth 2 books out there, I personally prefer the Sean Dalton novel Puzzle because he has the characters right. Earth 2 : Leather Wings by Vornholt is an okay book. The colonists arrive at an enormous canyon which stretches as far as the eye can see in either direction. Way down below a river rages. Somehow they must find a way across.

If you're taking Global Studies, this book could help, but don't expect anything that'll bring you from an F to an A. There are sections on the history of each area of the world, mostly just to get an understanding of the events. This book would be most helpful when reviewing for the regents, since you get a brief overview of the whole course. In order to improve this book, I think Barrons should include a lot more review questions so the book could be helpful when reviewing for all tests during the year. Then, this book would deserve 4 or 5 stars.

There is an over reliance on academic insights. The Christian scriptures are explicit concerning the limitations of rational thought. Rational inquiry into the ways of the Almighty always ends with a gaping question mark! This open question can only be bridged by personal experience which produces a personal knowing without the need to comprehend. This quote from Carl Jung makes my point : "I cound not say I believe. I know! I had the experience of being gripped by something that is stronger than myself, something, that people call God." While calling upon the sights of a multiplicity of sources, why did the authors neglect insights from two very well known Christian psychologists/priests: Morton Kelsey and John A. Sanford?

Good!Good!Good!Good!Good!Good!Good!

Somewhat disappointing for a LP guide, lots of text but not as much "meat". After travelling in the Solomons and talking with others one gets the impression that the author did quite limited travelling throughout the islands and largely relied on other's reports. The hike to Mataniko Falls is way more strenuous and dangerous than hinted. (It is still an awesome sight, especially if you're a caver) Likewise a hike along the Weather Coast is more challenging than one would gather from the text, there are places where villagers go by boat because of the vertical exposure. Makira Island is only marginal habitat for salt-water crocodiles according to a Conservation International report and not as abundant as stated in the guide. Given the dearth of information about the Solomons it is still worth buying, but prudence is recommended.

Mark Amory's new biography, "Lord Berners: The Last Eccentric," traces the hedonistic and self-indulgent life of Gerald Tyrwhitt and his odd assortment of friends, who included some of the most supremely talented people of upper-class England, but which also comprised a collection of noted homosexuals, freeloaders, parasites, neurotics, and ambitious social climbers with whom he associated throughout his life. They are all here in Amory's biography - Gertrude Stein, the Sitwells, Picasso, Dali, Frederich Ashton, Siegfried Sassoon - and they all helping Gerald avoid boredom. Gerald Tyrwhitt became Lord Berners in 1918 and also became immensely rich. He sets up his estate at Farington, near Oxford, and for the next thirty years he hosts the beautiful and the rich, regaling them all with his eccentricity, practical jokes, and dark, sometimes cruel, humor. Robert Heber Percy, a man almost thirty years younger than Berners, becomes his companion, lives with Berners until the latter's death, and inherits almost everything from him, including the estate and over 214,000 pounds sterling. Of course, biographist Amory goes into the wild happenings at Farington: Berners' dying his pigeons different colors; Berners' inviting birds and his favorite horse into the dayroom for tea; Berners' inviting noted homosexuals like Cecil Beaton, Noel Coward, and Andre Gide for weekends; and Berners's designing a useless "folly" tower, one hundred feet high, partly to annoy the neighbors. During World War II, when Lord Berners became morbidly depressed (old age had closed in on him, his friends were leaving, his world was transformed beyond recognition) he confessed in a letter that for thirty years "I have given myself up to self-indulgence and hedonism." Lord Berners, however, was also a rather talented composer, an author of six novellas and stylish memoirs, and an artist of note. Stravinsky called him the most interesting composer in England, and he maintained close relationships with such creative artists as William Walton, Constance Lambert, Diaghilev, the Sitwells, and Frederich Ashton. Amory is particularly strong in describing Berners' musical career which included a number of ballets, including "The Triumph of Neptune," some light miniatures, and the film score to "Nickolas Nickleby." (His music is well documented on an excellent CD with the Royal Liverpool Orchestra, conducted by Barry Wordsworth.) Amory also examines Lord Berners' literary output. Berners' wrote a series of novellas throughout his life, but the ones he wrote during the 1940's when he was undergoing a nervous breakdown are the most fascinating. The story "Percy Wallingford" metaphorically describes this breakdown. He also includes in his stories characters that are based on his friends, sometimes mischievously, at other times cruelly. Lord Berners was apparently never a pleasant man - what would he have done for friends had he not inherited a fortune? - but his brutal teasing of such men as William Walton is unconscionable. So it is all there in Mark Amory's book, a biography that tells us about the eccentricities of Lord Berners, but never really involves us in his life or reveals who he really was. I thought the style of the writing to be mediocre, the analysis to be interesting but far from profound, and the details to be far from complete. For example, there is little discussion of Berners as a painter, despite his success in showing at galleries and selling his art for astronomical prices. It is, however, a thoroughly adequate portrayal of Berners' life until something better comes along. Since I had read almost all of Berners' fiction and memoirs, and since I am an enthusiast of 20th century British music of which Berners' is a small part, this biography served me well for putting pieces of Berners' life together and providing a chronological outline from which to work.

The _Mac OS 9.1 Black Book_ is touted by its authors as being written for three groups of people: (1) system administrators; (2) programmers; and (3) power users. Although I do not consider myself to have "geek" status, I might imagine that I am a "power user." Since Apple released Mac OS 9.1 on January 10, 2001, I found the publication date of this book, December 29, 2000, to be slightly suspect. After I browsed the book at random and cross-checked index references, I was rather disheartened to discover that the information seemed to be rather basic (more in line with what one would find in a _ for Dummies_ book). Moreover, I found that the index pagination did not match up with the entries.

Further, I discovered that there were no references to _Microsoft Office 2001 for Mac_, which I consider to be a serious omission since this software was released in September, 2000. There are only a few pages on MS Word and Excel, and the information states that the Mac OS 9.1 user should not have very many problems because of the improvements made in _MS Office 98_!

Another entry that I checked was for the ARA (Apple Remote Access) control panel. The _Black Book_ gave some very basic information on it, and concluded that the ARA was not something that most Mac users would be employing, unless they were connecting to a LAN (Local Area Network). The book gave the rationale that most non-networked users would connect through a PPP rather than use ARA. To me, this information is not only outmoded, it is rather incomplete. Without going into too much technical detail, there are several ways to connect to an LAN, such as using AppleShare, AppleTalk, IRTalk, a LocalTalk cable and adapter, an Ethernet cable, or IrDA (Infrared). Unless I want to connect to one of the online services directly, I always use ARA (rather than PPP) to connect to my ISP (Internet Service Provider) because I get a higher baud rate that way, and ARA supports multiple connections, which is necessary if one is doing data transmission, using more than one browser, connecting to online services (such as AOL), e-mail servers (such as Telnet or Outlook Express), and instant-messaging applications (such as AIM). Also, one might use a DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) modem, cable modem, or direct network connection.

This _Black Book_ does go into some detail about cross-platform connectivity. However, most power-users, programmers, and sysadmins already know about how to address this issue. Mac OS 9.1 is a major system upgrade from Mac OS 9.04 in some respects, but not that much in the area of cross-platform connectivity. However, this book does discuss the new "streamlining" of folders that occurs. It also has a lot of detail on tweaking the "Appearance" control panel settings.

After I looked up a few more topics, I concluded that the information provided in this _Black Book_ was lacking in sophistication for "power-users." Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, there are no other books in print yet that address Mac OS 9.1, (although Apple does provide online help and the "Mac Help" menu on OS 9.1 does cover the basics and "what's new.") So if you are upgrading from Mac OS 8.6 directly to 9.1, and you have not bought a _for Dummies_ book on your Mac system software in some time, you may find this book to be a useful reference.