Looks to me like Andy Viterbi pulled together some of the technical papers done at Qualcomm while developing CDMA. Of all the books Viterbi has written (or contributed to) this one seems like it was done in extreme haste. I disagree with other reviewers that claim he introduces the material well. No way.

It is true that this book is a tour de force of the performance analysis of CDMA. However, I would not describe it as readable. Maybe, not that Viterbi has made his hundreds of millions of dollars, he take time out to write a second edition that is done right.

Deep mathematicians concepts on Spread Spectrum technology. Even when i have only reviewed the first chapter deeply and the rest not too much, i got the impression it's for advanced level students. All my doubts are getting clear, and much knlowedge is still to come. Besides, it's Andrew Viterbi, one of the most important person besides CDMA technology.

Perhaps not the best book for a beginner in CDMA, but is a very good book if you have some background in CDMA and are interested in finding out the reasons why certain things are done in the IS-95 or other CDMA standards, and the analysis/performance of the CDMA system. I liked the book because it is to the point which is nice (of course, assuming you have prior knowledge about digital communications and are familiar with CDMA). But the material covered in the book may be a little daunting to a beginner in CDMA.

I simply cannot finish reading this patronising, overwrought, smarmy (yes, smarmy) bit of prose by a writer I wanted so much to like and admire. I kept going back to it, giving it a fifteenth or sixteenth chance, only to abandon it quickly, in favor of truly brilliant Penelope Lively or even merely skilled Rosamunde Pilcher (other mature, contemporary British female novelists).

The dialogue in the Camomile Lawn is nearly always unrealistic, the characters cartoonish, and the atmosphere / setting overly fussed over. In prewar Britain, the embarassingly good, upper class protagonists go on and on about their simpathy with the Jews (so politically correct now, simply not such an important part of upper crust 1930's Anglo Saxon sensibility), the sexy lovers dish out measured amounts of sauce and swear words... it's just an embarassing mess of an attempt to be raw and real.

I never got past the first hundred pages, and I will not seek out Wesley's other works. I really wasted my time, rolling around in a little bit more than just camomile blossoms.

In August 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, five cousins come to spend the summer holidays with their uncle and aunt in Cornwall. (The title refers to the lawn in front of the house, which later becomes a symbol of their carefree pre-war youth). The novel then follows the changing fortunes of these five, of their Uncle Richard and Aunt Helena, of Max and Monika, an Austrian Jewish refugee couple, of the local Rector and his wife and of their twin sons, through the war. Intercut with the wartime scenes are scenes set in the 1980s, at Max's funeral, when his surviving friends and acquaintances meet to reveal what has happened to them during the intervening years.

The above synopsis might suggest that this is a lengthy novel; in fact, it is quite a short one (in my edition only 330 pages), and in my view it is the shortness of the novel which is its major problem. Miss Wesley has set herself the task of telling the stories of a large group of people, but has not allowed herself adequate space in which to perform that task. As a result, the complex story is told in insufficient detail, which means that the characters fail to come alive.

The major theme of the novel is the challenge posed to conventional ideas of morality by the changed conditions of wartime. (Most of the characters either form adulterous liaisons or indulge in casual promiscuity). This theme could have been an interesting one, but unfortunately the characters are under-developed and lack any sense of an inner life. It is therefore difficult to understand their motivation or the reasons for their behaviour, and the oportunity to develop this major theme is lost. Most of the main characters, in fact, simply come across as self-centred and lacking in feeling. Even those described as being in love are frequently unfaithful to each other. This would not matter if Miss Wesley's aim had been to create a portrait of a cold, selfish group of people, but I was left with the strong impression that she wanted to make many of them sympathetic or attractively unconventional and failed to do so. This is not a book I could recommend.

I noticed a few factual errors in the book. I will not go through them all, but I must say that, contrary to what Miss Wesley states, the conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler was not "very pro-Hitler".

I found this to be a delightful story ,set firstly in just pre-war England,about a group of cousins and how they interact with each other as the war begins. I wonder if the sexual licenses taken were really a reflection of how young people felt at that time--live for all your worth today for tomorrow we'll probably be dead-- or would it have happened an any case.You really come to grips with these characters as the book is written by a woman in her 70's who HAS lived and obviously knows what she's writing about. Great read and I'll be looking for more by Mary Wesley--a woman after ny own heart.

Whenever I read book reviews, I am struck by the differences in my tastes and those of others. To be honest, I don't like very many books I read But I read almost constantly - perhaps 3 or 4 books every week. There are a lot of mediocre books out there - books that tell a good story, but do so flatly, without any passion, books with greatly realized characters doing boring things, or books that are written competently, but without any pace or plotting. As much as I would like all the authors I read to write with the poetry of James Lee Burke, or the electricity of Dashiell Hammett, or the imagination of Tim Powers, I know this can never happen.

So it always surprises me when I have finished a mediocre book that I read based on someone else's glowing review. One such book is "Cat-Eyed Trouble" by Robert E. Skinner. In the past three months, I have read no fewer than 7 raves about this book (although I tend to discount Harriet Klausner's reviews, as she does not review a book as much as summarize it, then tell you whether she liked it or not), but my experience was less than glowing.

This book represented the worst of what I call "Dungeons and Dragons" mystery writing. IN D&D, characters explore a room and may find clues that point them off to a different room. In "Cat-Eyed Trouble", Wesley Farrell, the quasi-criminal, half-white, half-black proprietor of Le Tristesse spends the entire novel knocking informants around. None of them knows anything at first, but after a few pokes in the snoot, each one has a single piece of information that adds to the whole story. That single lead is always a good one and Wesley is off to the next "room". It seems odd to me that no one lies, no one knows more than one piece of the puzzle and no one bests the hero.

Iz Daggett is a black cop who is just returning from a stint in Angola prison after having been framed for the murder of Junior Obregon. The entire cast of baddies is thrown into an uproar because they think that Iz will somehow figure out who actually committed the murder. All of the book's action hinges on this fear, yet it leads me to one question: why didn't one of these turkeys pay to have Daggett hit while he was still in prison rather than wait until he was out wandering the streets?

Another source of irritation is the solution to Obregon's murder. I won't reveal the name here, but the one person in the entire book who acts contrarily to expectation is the murderer. Skinner telegraphs the answer so loudly the book becomes less of a "Whodunnit?" than a "Whyamistillreadingthis?"

Finally, and this is a minor one, Skinner seems obsessed with the kinds of alcohol each character drinks. The book is so filled with lists of name-brand liquors that the action is broken because you find yourself asking "Did they really have Peter Dawson scotch in the thirties?

When I first read about the character of Wesley Farrell, I was prepared not to like him. A man that would hide his African blood didn't sit well with me. But as I got into the book and his character, I found myself drawn to this enigmatic character. What a sourpuss reviewer bernpage is. What a shame to be an avid reader and not enjoy half of what he reads. Anyway back to my review. This book has suspense, romance, and Louisiana flavor. I loved the French names associated with Louisiana's rich French history. The women were beautiful, strong, and shrewd; the men handsome, r smooth and oozing with southern charm and masculinity. Israel Digget is my kind of guy as well as Wes. I will definitely add Robert Skinner's books to my shopping cart. I'm getting ready to order Blood Red, Skin Deep!

This was a fun book! An exciting, intriguing story, great characters, and - all-important for nit-pickers like myself, all the little background details rang true. He got the clothes, the cars, the music, the streets, the guns, the talk, the atmosphere.... right. Excellent. After wading through so many dreadful 'period' novels where the hero 'clicks off the safety catch on his revolver', talks in 1990s jive, and stumbles through the book doing stupid things and surviving on dumb luck and the benevelence of the author (for this latter, that Robichaux buffoon of James Lee Burke's novels comes to mind - what a pathetic doofus!) - here I find a gem. Set in 1938 New Orleans, it brings that time and place to life as it unfolds the twisty-turny storyline, throws the various characters into (often-violent) conflict, and rips and roars along in juggernaut fashion. As usual for me, I found this book at our local library - where, almost invariably they will stock one book from a series but never the first one, so now I'll have to track down SKIN DEEP, BLOOD RED. And anything else (fiction or non-fiction) that Robert Skinner has written. One review said he was a librarian at Xavier University in New Orleans. Hmmm.... well, his painstaking research, delight in detail, and above all - love of the 'noir' genre - shines through in this terrific book. I read a lot of books - I devoured CAT-EYED TROUBLE in less than a day (greedy!) - and confess also to being a student of history (with degrees in it - gasp!) and a technical nit-picker. I *love* to pounce on author's technical errors (if they are egregious!) as well as lame plots, inconsistent characterization or - most of all - incompetent protagonists (like Robichaux) muddling through yet another bad book. But, when I find one of the rare good ones, I am enthused. And CAT-EYED TROUBLE is one of the very very best. I loved it. You probably will, too. Three thumbs up! :-)

This was a stupid book. It's only saving grace was that it was a very easy read. This trilogy started off with a good premise (aliens on a planet with a 2006 year orbit "harvest" large areas of the earth), but just got worse and worse. I don't think the folks hired to write this book (nominally, the "authors") cared about it much either.

Although published as three separate books, the Tenth Planet trilogy should really have been released as a single compilation. None of the three books are able to stand on their own. As a set, they are a light but engaging read. These books are pure escapist fun, with stereotypical characters, some plausible pseudo science and a fast paced plot. As long as you are not expecting great literature like Gene Wolfe and are prepared for sci fi that is more in the spirit of Edgar Rice Burroughs, you will enjoy this series.

In the second book, Earth has learned the terrible secret of the tenth planet. Not content merely to defend themselves against the rapacious Malmuria, Earth breaks out it's stock of antiquated nuclear weapons and prepares to take the battle to the Malmurians on their home turf.

If you enjoyed this series then you will probably like the Heritage Trilogy by Ian Douglas, which is far better written.

The Tenth Planet: Oblivion is not as riveting as the first book in the trilogy, but the action does pick up in the second half of the book. In this middle book, we see much more about the aliens. The authors show a great deal of imagination in presenting beings so foreign to us, and yet with a sense of ethics and emotions that are close to human. It's an interesting twist that these aliens are not evil, but it comes down to their survival or ours. The characterization of the humans is fair but not great. This is definitely a story of plot, not characterization. There is no great moral message that I've seen so far. I give the book 4 stars for two reasons. First, the creativity and great plot line begun in the first book of the trilogy keeps the reader eagerly pursuing the outcome. Secondly, reviews indicate that the third book, which I'm about to begin, is satisfying and better than this second book. All in all, I think any science fiction fan will like this series. It is set in the near future, making it more "real" than the far-out stuff you can try to wade through. It seems plausible that these things could happen. Enough writing--I'm headed for the couch to begin the next iteration!

Problems have been reported in the Teacher's Guide for the 1997 Edition of this textbook. ...

Completely pleased. Book in great condition-just as advertised. Arrived quickly. Will use again.

This book is a truly inspired work of genius, created by the fine minds of three nobel teachers, men who are experts on the smallest building blocks of our lives - the very atoms and molecules that define us and all that surrounds us. As a young girl, an earlier edition of this book revealed to me many secrets of the universe. Even now, I can't help but grin when remembering one particularly fine analogy, using cooking a pot of chili to explain the more difficult concepts of dimensional analysis. As an adult, I consult this outstanding text to clarify everyday questions about chemical reactions and other scientific information. Encourage that special child in your life. Give them the gift of knowledge and understanding of the world around them.

This book provides a fair description about modeling for basic business components. However, it fails to be useful for specifying a buildable or testable system and does not address enterprise issues. The models in chapters 4 and 5 are useful only for coffee discussions - they are far from practical for business analysts, requirements engineers, testers, and OO designers.

Furthermore, it misses the mark by representing OO design as ontology under the disguise of UML diagrams. I was disappointed and expected more from a book that is published in the Object Technology Series.

I bought this book by seeing its title. But, when I finished reading it, I did not learn anything new. The book is written as a novel instead of a technical book. Bottom line, I did not get the worth of my money back after reading this.

As a Management Consultant with an IT company, I have always been compelled by ideas to improve communications between the "top" consultants and the actual analysts and programmers. This is a very hard exercice indeed as everybody seems to speak his own language.

UML can certainly improve on this and more, but beware, it is not a panacea as it is only a way to express situations. There are still a bunch of loopholes like uniform B-IT patterns that have to be developed (in-house).

So, yes indeed, this book gives you more than a few kicks in the butt, but we still have to walk a long walk.

Nixon will always take the blame for the dishonorable acts of Dean. Read silent Coupe for the most likely truth here.

This story is quite interesting. When I first read it, during the 1970s, I bought Mr. Dean's version of events hook, line and sinker -- and boy did he suck me in. He postured himself as someone involved way over his head who ended up being, in effect, a victim. I have concluded that some of the presented details are true, and some are not. The presentation, however, is uniformly riveting.

Read additional Watergate material for a broader view and better picture. The lesson here is that you can't always believe the story which appears, at first glance, to be the most convincing.

I've never learned so much about the unseen world of politics as I have in this one book. George Stephanopolous' book pales in comparison to the amount of insight this book reveals. It's something we've known all along about government - just put into straightforward terms that everyone can understand. None of that NewSpeak politics that we hear about in the mainstream press, that limit our range of thought.

Anyone who gives this book a bad ranking is a government operative, seeking to hide information from the populace.

*A*

I bought this book because my teacher recommended me and i thought that the real toefl test would be easy. I took the test and i couldn't believe how different it was from the book. Now i changed my teacher and i do not recommend the longman prep to anyone. If you really want to be prepared for the test, practice with the ETS and see the difference.

I used this book as a sole source for my TOEFL preparation and I've got a 627. Extremely useful especially if you don't have much time to prepare for the exam.

I have been preparing students for TOEFL examinations for over 2 years and this is my number one book. Compared to Barron's , Peterson's or other preparation materials, Deborah Phillips' book gives the student the chance to actually improve their scores by focusing on how to think and approach the test. In the case of "Structure and written expression" section, for instance,the results were amazing. When doing the preliminary test most of my students not only got wrong more than half of the exercices, but they were also unable to finish in time, which meant even more mistaken answers. Time is of crucial importance! After having completed the preparation in this book, first, all of them managed to finish in time and second, the number of errors dropped dramatically (from 20 out of 40 to 10 and even 5). All my students have used this book and all have scored above 550 in the TOEFL examination. It's been a valuable and indispensable instument for me and I highly reccomend it.

Parkin does a good job of introducing the elements, and is particularly helpful with the graphs. However, he labors, generally unnecessarily, concepts that are quite straightforward. He is not very good in the macroeconomic, especially fiscal and monetary, parts of the book. More applied examples would also have been helpful.

Parkin does a wonderful job of explaining the intricate concepts behind microeconomics and macroeconomics. The emphasis of this textbook is on understanding, and Parkin clearly makes an effort to elucidate every graph and concept presented. Although Parkin's text overlooks the mathematics of economics, it is superb for an introductory level Economics course.

Through close reading of this textbook, I was able to fully understand economic terms and the graphing of economic forces (supply/demand curves, GDP curves, aggregate supply/demand curves, etc.) Parkin's explanation of each graph facilitated a true understanding of economics.

With excellent, easy-to-understand writing and extensive use of graphs, Parkin's guide served as an Economics bible, and I did not need any supplementary reading for the course. Although a little confusing in certain areas such as growth theory, as a whole, Parkin's text is undoubtedly the only textbook you'll ever need.

Parkin's text is probably one of the best introductory textbooks for economics. The primary criticisms of Parkin's text seem to stem from its perspective on teaching economics. Parkin presents the full breadth of "high economics" - a means of analyzing and resolving problems of scarcity. Parkin stresses the underlying problems that the techniqiues of analysis are designed to address rather than merely reciting mathematical formulae that seem to exist in a vacuum.

Parkin's graphs and explanations are generally excellent and well worth reading.

To Parkin's credit, he clearly distinguishes between positive and normative conclusions of economics. Many introductory textbooks become dogmatic regarding the author's conclusions.

Some readers apparently do not like the additional information and text boxes that Parkin includes in this book. These criticisms appear to be misguided. One of this book's greatest strengths is that it is not afraid to admit that it is introductory. In many ways the best introductory texts are survey-type books that allow you to learn the language and primary concerns of that field of study. Further courses in price theory, public choice, welfare economics, antitrust, money & banking all rely on a strong conceptual understanding of basic economics. After reading Parkin the careful reader will be able to comprehend the primary considerations of economics and communicate with more advanced scholars in this field.