The death of fifteen-year old Andrew shocks his mother, Lyla, father, Bruce, sister, Kathlyn, and brother, Tim, to look at the self-centered void of their lives. Andrew leaves clues that implicate his mother and father as his possible killer. The possible guilt veers from one to the other as Detectives Brodie and Sloan search out the clues and ask for alibis. The darkest secrets of the Waterford family are exposed as the detectives track down the evidence. Arriving at the castle-like home on the waterfront of Bedford Isle, Dectective Sloan, thinking of his own modest family home in Seattle, looks at the upscale estate and says, "When a family has all this, how can anything go wrong?" How, indeed.
Not just a mystery, but a revelation of secrets that made Andrew feel like an outsider, leaving him desperate for affection.

With the Mighty Ducks now in the Stanley Cup finals, Paul Kariya is now center stage in the hockey world. This book is a great choice for any young (8-12) hockey or sports fan. Lots of photos of the young Kariya as a kid and as a junior hockey player. Interesting text with lots of biographical details. If you have a child in your life who is dreaming of playing in the NHL one day, this is a great inspirational book about a really nice, decent player, a good role model.

When one takes the initial steps of such an exotic trip as the middle east, a guide is needed to educate yourself on everything. Even the experienced traveler will find their trips to Europe did little to prepare them for the Middle East. This is why this guide does so much for the independant, and is so invaluable. Lonely planet has a history of helping people travel on a meagre budget, however gives a warm and caring introduction as to why indulging yourself occasionaly in the more expensive treasures can make your vaction. The authors expell the myths of all around violence in the region and firmly warns you where not to go. The religion and customs sections are so informative that I found myself prepared for the basics of Islamic life and ready to learn more. This book inspired me to take the unbeaten path and to still take in the wonderful tourist draws. Ive browsed through the two other major guides on the middle east, they dont compare to the thorough down to earth writing that Lonely Planet produces. Occasionaly, there could be more entries on Long Distance Travel (getting there and away) and there could have been more mention of the smaller budget tours that are offered in the region, however I still contend that this is the best pick for Middle East travel guides for all traveler of all Budgets.

Timothy Webster provides a superior treatment of web graphics fundamentals, using clear and practical examples. Writing for both Windows and Mac, his Web Designer's Guide to Graphics first lays down a tight review of graphics file formats, monitors, color models, bit depth, resolution, palettes, anti-aliasing, compression and interlacing. Not stopping there, he gives pragmatic examples of when to use PNG, GIF and JPEG formats.

The book's one major weakness is that many of the color screen shots used do not hold up well when printed. The occasional ineffective 1:1 screen shot is used to point out details which would only be recognizable if printed at the same size as its screen display counterpart. This problem, present in many of the current web design books, could be easily resolved by zooming in on the screen to show the slight differences in detail.

That being said, out of all the many books that are available on web graphics, there are none that I've found which are more comprehensive and accurate than this one.

Web Graphics Instructor
Bellevue Community College
Bellevue Washington

Many newer guides have been published about birds of this region, but this book still deserves its place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in birds of South-east Asia. Illustrations are good, and descriptions are detailed and mostly accurate. A bit bulky to carry in the field, but not a problem if you bring it in a backpack. The situation with forest fires in South-east Asia (especially Indonesia) is growing worse each year, so get out there and see some of these extraordinary birds while you still can!

Any serious birder to the listed regions of this book would buy this book.

It is the best guide of the region so far with excellent plates and useful details. What I find especially useful, particularly for the raptors, is that they show illustrations of the birds in flight.

The drawings appear consistent and the bird's information at the back of the book is easy to access.

The birds are categorised according to their family which definately makes for faster checks and identification, which I find important when in the field.

The spine of the book though is a little week and you might want to have it rebound before it falls apart - especially with all the browsing that is to be.

This was the book that everyone who seemed to be serious used in Borneo, but if you are going to be out in the bush for more than a few days and make frequent use of field guides, consider having it re-bound before you leave -- many people I passed along the way were finding that the plate pages were starting to fall out.

This is an in-depth account of Microsoft's "early" (i.e., pre-1995) days. First, let me say that I wish the authors had updated the book, since the computer business has gotten VERY fascinating since the launch of Windows 95, as the Internet seized the day and also as an intrusive DOJ started an effort to dismantle a 20-year-old company that had suddenly become America's Public Enemy No. 1.

That said, this book provides excellent accounts of Bill Gates as a person and Bill Gates as Microsoft. The emphasis is on how Bill Gates ran Microsoft as a business, how he interfacted with his employees, business allies and competitors. If you are looking for information on how Windows 3.0 or Flight Simulator was designed, this is not the place. But if you want to know how Microsoft really got started, how Gates allegedly "screwed" Apple, or how Gates started dating Melinda French, you'll find it right here.

Stephen Manes has been a long-time critic of Microsoft's producty quality (and rightly so, IMHO), and the book comes across as quite critical of Gates' business tactics ("bullying", "anti-competitive", etc.) and personal idiosyncracies (both selfish and selfless, intolerant, etc.). At the same time the authors show admiration for the Gator as a technical and business genius. But because the authors evidently believe that Microsoft has done lots of evil, every conflict Microsoft had with a competitor would be Microsoft's fault.

In summary, this book is easy to read, generally objective (Gates was interviewed extensive for this "unauthorized" biography), and informative. I highly recommend it to anyone fascinated by Bill Gates and Microsoft.

This is one of my favorite books of all time - I have read it through twice, and I'm reading it again. It's so worn out that soon I will have to order a new one from amazon.com! Seriously, this really is a great book. It's mind-boggling to think of what it took to get all the information contained in it. The book not only gives a complete history of the life of Bill Gates but also contains most of the history of the entire computer industry. I reccomend this book to anyone who has any interest in computers at all

I bought this book expecting to skim through it to find out a little more about what Bill Gates was like. But it's a wonderfully readable history of the growth of PC's, from the early days when the best a school kid (Bill himself) could do was to try to get access to a teletype time-share system, on through the first home "computers" that amounted to little more than a bunch of switches and LEDs (no keyboard or monitor), to IBM coming out with the PC and Microsoft's amazing good fortune at supplying the OS (great story! Bill just cared about programming languages, mostly BASIC, and saw the DOS manuever mostly just as a way to ensure that BASIC would run on the new IBM machine!), on thru the OS/2 vs. Windows battles.

It even has a lot of inside detail on the development of the Apple Macintosh. I recently read "Accidental Empires" (the basis for the TV documentary "Triumph of the Nerds"), and found Gates to be a far better and more readable history of the PC's startup.

The book is packed with interviews and amusing or interesting anecdotes. It's well written and well edited. One drawback for some people will be that it hasn't been updated since 1995, but for the two main things that have happened since then - the anti-trust suit against Microsoft and the rise of the Internet - there are plenty of other sources.

I have been looking for a book to cover OOP in combination with Windows for a long time. I wanted something that gave more than short examples meant to demonstate the power of a certain API call. My desire was to create my own mini-library to complement the tools I use now. Windows++ seems to do all that by actually taking the reader through the process of writing a class library for Windows 3.1. Not only that but there was a Win95 code update available on the authors website.

If you are looking for something similar this may or may not be the book for you. On the good side the author does a terrific job of explaining his thought process on how and why a class library can and should be built. Many of the problems (i.e. call backs, messaging) are still relevent today but at the same time Windows has changed alot. For instance chapter four is on memory managment which is absolutely Windows 3.1 specific (Win95 and above does not have these problems). When I emailed the author he didn't even know what chapter four was about and suggested I learn MFC. In chapter two he begins by describing a better POINT structure and tries to employ inlining to keep it small. It is one of the basic lessons of the book. But the constructor calls a member function before the member function is declared inline making it non-inline. He also declares a copy constructor for a base type. Later in the book he makes extensive use of circular referencing and forward referencing which really creates a tangled web of code. Difficult to update and debug.

This book will give a definate roadmap to writing or developing your own API specific software library but use extreme caution and prejudice in using the authors code. Most of the time the class library that comes with my compiler is fine but there are many time when having a lightweight class library would be invaluable. Given the choice of transfering a large Exe or a small one across the Web most people would choose a small one. There really is a need for this kind of book. If the author ever decided to write an update to this I would be thrilled

Windows++ gave me the best a book can give, the courage to begin to write a library myself. It works! Hoever i hate to separate C++-code and dialog boxes code. So i hope that the author would show us how to avoid it and write easy dialog boxes in C++. P.S. I know that he has mentioned it in his book but i think its not enough

DiLascia's writing style is very readable, but you better know something about C++ and object-oriented programming. Personally, I had to learn about more before approaching the subject. Now I would place it next to Petzold's Programming Windows books for insight and value to my library. Published in 1992, the companion disk IS STILL available from the author: Paul DiLascia, 30 Duck Rd, Reading, MA 01867-1729 or email: dilascia@pobox.com. I wish there were a revised edition for Windows 95/NT.

First, if you're going to rely on this guide, spend some cash on a couple of decent maps, especially for Kuala Lumpur. This guide has by far some of the most off-the-mark maps I've ever experienced with Lonely Planet. DO NOT rely on the book! As well, some amazing hotels are missing, and they're literally next door to some pretty grotty places the authors here rave about.
Also, I found the author's attitude to Singapore to be rather tiresome. Much is made of the fact that the city-state is cleaner than other congested and polluted cities in South East Asia, and that 'color' has been wiped out of Singapore.
But it seemed to me that authors had an underlying motive when writing about Singapore, to slyly convince travellers from visiting the place, or at least, from staying too long.
Of course, Singapore's not a place where anyone stays on for more than a week. But the author's mightier-than-thou point of view (that only cities with disgusting toilets, $5 hotel rooms and edgey red light districts are worth visiting) was annoying. Also, it was continually noted that Singapore is a "repressive" country. I think one only has to travel to countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and even Morocco before they can whine about Singapore being repressive.
But I digress.
Finally, precious space is wasted in the guide with the inclusion of Brunei. I think LP should give Brunei it's own slim little guide (look at Maldives or Bhutan if you want to see tiny countries with their own books). First, Brunei is culturally and politically different from Malaysia to warrant its own book.
And it would give the Malaysia authors precious space in which to include some decent maps.
Yes, I'm griping here, but when you bring a guide for a longish trip, you tend to notice these things!
Anyway, you could do worse... but Lonely Planet could have done better.

Lile most Lonely Planet guidebooks, this travel guide won't come as a disappointment to any of its readers. The unmistakable excellent standards we can expect from LP, combined with the fact that this particular guidebook is in its 8th edition already, makes of this book a masterpiece no traveller to the region should leave behind. The information about hotels and restaurants, things to see and do, etc, is dense, well-written, excellently ordered, and up-to-date. Likewise, the maps, the various tips on do's and dont's, are invaluable. As always, the sections on history, politics, culture etc, are excellently written and well condensed, ensuring pleasant reading for the traveller and the prospective traveller alike. Without exaggerating nor diminishing the fascination of this wonderful part of the world, this guidebook does great service to Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. It is the ultimate travel tool for those intending to visit these countries, enabling them to make the most out of their stay, as well as ensuring moments of fascinating reading.

We ended up calling it "the Bible". Why? Because all the answers are in it.!! Several times we said to our selves that this information should have been in LP. And looking one more time - it was usually there. LP helps you plan and avoid vasting time. Of course you shold try to do things which is not mentioned in LP but this can be a major challanges. The guide goes every where and the information is incredibly reliable. So if you go - bring LP or bring no guide book at all - alternatives are poor sustitutions. We also brought a Footprint - but the reality is that nobody is above or besides LP. 22-08-2001

This book is technically competent, but goes right past the two most important factors; if you are developing XML, then you will probably be using Java, and that if you are developing applications (even with XML) on SQL server, then you are probably using COM+. Sorry.

This book is an excellent addition to the documentation provided with SQLXML, especially if you are just starting to use SQLXML. The book helps you decide if SQLXML is right for your situation. If it is, the book will continue to walk you through some real examples, covering some of the pros and cons of different methods. Being a developer, I highly recommend this book if you are using or considering to use SQLXML in a Microsoft environment.

This is what a technical publication should be. The book covers all aspects of SQLXML, from programming to administrative issues (including security concerns -- everyone needs to do more of that). It even discusses some of the other technologies out there, such as Oracle's integration with XML and the native xml datatype. If you are using or thinking of using SQLXML, I'd consider this book to be required reading.

This is one of those books that makes you wonder if anyone attempted to proof or edit it before publication. A couple of the exercises referred to in the workouts cannot be found in the exercise descriptions. Sometimes, the written descriptions of the exercises contradict the accompanying photographs. Don't get me wrong, the routines provide tough and credible workouts. But reading the book requires some interpretation and assumptions.

This book gives a simple but effective way to get in shape, using calisthetics, weights, running and boxing to achieve it. It offers three levels of training, all basically the same format but with different intensity levels.
I have used this book several times over the last 2 years and enjoy the workouts. I break up the daily routines into 3 segments-the calisthetic part in the morning, the weights in the afternoon and the ad work in the evening. On running days, a similar pattern-running in the morning, weights at lunch and ab work in the evening. The routines don't take long that way but adds to fat-burning and muscle-building without exhaustion.
There are some negative points: they show exercises that they don't use and suggest exercises that they don't show.
But overall, I recommend this book to everyone who wants to get in shape without joining a gym.

I bought this book 2 years ago and still use the routines. This is a good book for beginner to intermediate trainers who want variety. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to get in shape quickly and effectively.