I do not read the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, or any of the other publications that deal with the world of big technology, big business, and big personality. I did however avidly read Bad Boy Ballmer and found it an informative and balanced account. It is also rather funny 'cause when the techno-richies start dishing dirt they know where the chips are buried, especially Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems.

I suppose though, as one reviewer complained above, if you are a stockholder of Microsoft you may have heard some of these stories before. But if on the other hand, you are like me and the brash Steve Ballmer is something of a new face in the pantheon of business demigods, if you too haven't heard his fascinating American tale, or perhaps only picked up bits and pieces of it, I think Frederic Alan Maxwell's presentation is well worth reading. Bad By Ballmer is by turns stunning and surprising. Mr. Ballmer lives in neon colors and Mr. Maxwell has done his homework..

Perhaps the real issue here is that as Microsoft piles up more gold, how can all that money not have a tremendous impact on the politics, law, and culture of the futurel? Maxwell uses the anti-trust cases involving Microsoft to explore this question. And there are big, big issues here concerning our democracy in the face of gathering corporate power, of which Mr. Ballmer's Microsoft looms like a thousand tentacled beast. Maxwell also gives you an inkling of the unprecedented size of the fortune produced by the juggernaut Microsoft. It is truly astounding. Carl Sagan's TV mantra, "...Billions and billions." seems inadequate in face of these numbers Maxwell also explains to the non-technologically inclined what all those Windows operating systems do. And as best as an outsider can, he informs you about one of the most interesting business partnerships in US history -- Bill and Steve's excellent adventure, indeed.

In short, this book may very well open your eyes to a new world just on the horizon. Be uninformed at your own peril.

I got Bad Boy Ballmer as a present, put it on my bedside table, and picked it up one night last week. I read it all the way through, discovering more about Microsoft than I'd read anywhere else. A tech buddy has his birthday next week. I'm getting him a copy.

I hadn't heard of this book until I read a New York TImes Magazine piece by the author, about how he was investigated by the Secret Service while writing the book. The author has a fine sense of humor as he relays the story of how Ballmer became a multibillionaire and possible the highest paid employee in American history. Most important, he researched the story at over fifteen libraries and archives nationwide. There's even a chapter about my town, Birmingha, Michigan, where Ballmer went to high school.

I purchased this book to gain more information about Italian culture and history in general and to plan a trip to Italy as well. The "Idiots" guide is properly titled since its information in trite and common and I found the book to be pretty useless. Many other books on the subject are much better.

I just returned from a fabulous trip to Italy, and I found this book to be an invaluable aid. It truly helped me get a richer and more insightful appreciation of Italian culture and history. Congrats to the authors for a superlative job. Their work was instructive, detailed and entertaining.

Gabrielle Euvino's guides to Italian language and history provide clear, consise information imbued with intelligence, warmth and humor. She has an inherent love of the culture and strong sensitivity for the neophyte student who seeks information. A desire to learn is all that's required of anyone looking to Euvino's books for understanding Italian and Italy. Expect to be charmed and entertained by the unexpected, as well as provided an education.

I guess if you enjoy reading Rolling Stone, then this is a great reference. However, if you listen to slightly more challenging, but equally essential music and are one of the ones complaining about the lack of a new edition, then look no further than the fifth edition of the Trouser Press Guide. Available right now from Amazon. But don't expect to read about Led Zeppelin or the Eagles in the TPG.

This is the second edition of this particular tome, and for somebody trying to get a sense of the history of rock 'n' roll and which old albums by artists are worth tracking down (and which ones aren't), it's a very valuable thing to have around.

Now, I mention this 2nd edition bit because I first stumbled upon this book sometime in the mid-late '80s, and the 1st edition from '79 or so did great coverage of old albums from the '50s-'70s, but good luck on getting the latest word on John Cougar or Def Leppard or the King of Pop or those other '80s artists we loved so much! Some solace was to be found when a 2nd edition came out in 1992 -- you could now find out what Rolling Stoners thought about '80s albums you had aleady purchased by then (in addition to the '50s-'70s albums, naturally).

Well, I think you see what I'm getting at. This is a great guide to what's out there at the time of publication, but it rapidly goes out-of-date. Sure, you'll find out good information about (yes, I'll go ahead and call him what I know him as) Prince's older albums, but as far as learning about the 348 albums he's released since 1992, you're out of luck. This is a book that really needs to come out in annual editions -- though that would be a difficult and likely unprofitable option for the writers. Too bad -- I may actually be willing to plunk down the money once a year for this thing.

Excellent and good fun. The New York Dolls review sums up the tone of this guide nicely. Definitely not for the Top 40 crowd though. If you're one of them, stay away as you'll probably get somewhat insulted.
A drawback is that out of print albums were omitted, which makes the guide incomplete as soon as these albums are reissued. And of course the guide is outdated. Any guide is the moment is goes off to the presses.
That said, we want an update now.

Book Two of the Corellian Trilogy is, like its predecessor, not great, but good enough to enjoy. I'm sure that everybody, like myself, winced when they read the synopsis on the back of the book and saw that they had written that Han had an "evil cousin." While the character of Thracken Sal-Solo may suck, the plot he's involved in isn't all that bad (the familial relationship was entirely unnecessary, though).

There is lots of adventure in this book. Han, Leia, Mara, and the kids are trapped in the Corellian system and cannot communicate with the outside universe. Meanwhile, the New Republic can't find its way into the system because of a massive interdiction field. Meanwhile, in Corellia, Han makes an awesome, seat-of-the-pants escape attempt and finds another wonderful furry sidekick in Dracmus while separated from his mainstay, Chewie. The subplot with Luke and Lando starts to take on some meaning in relating to the main plot, and the Bakurans make an appearance, with Gaeriel Captison returning to the pages of the novels at long last. Plus, there is the looming threat of the Starbuster super-weapon. And the ending is a superb cliffhanger which, as it should, leaves you begging to read the next chapter (the first book didn't do so well on this mark).

As usual, the second book of the trilogy picks up the pace bigtime, with great action sequences and building tension that set us up for the grand finale. This is not my favorite SW novel trilogy, but it's not that bad (better than Black Fleet Crisis). Still, it is kind of tiring to see yet another weapon of massive destruction with the formulaic name (planet/star/sun/etc. + destructive verb, such as World Devastator, Death Star, Galaxy Gun, Sun Crusher, etc., Darksaber perhaps being the one pitiful exception).

Overall, average, but worth reading because it sets us up for the third book, by far the best of the trilogy. Now if only the movies had actually pulled that off...

Assault on Selonia begins where Ambush at Correllia left off. Han is captured, Leia is trapped, and Luke is on his way to find help. Luke is able to find help with the Bakurian navy that readers meet in the novel Truce at Bakura by Kathy Tyers. Bringing the two books together helped to tie some loose ends that were never really answered (like whatever happened to Gaeirel Captison).

Also, the characterization stayed pretty much true to the other books. The dialog and actions were believable. What also helped Assult at Selonia was the detailed craftsmanship of the narrative to bring the Selonia and Drall culture into the storyline. The anthropological feel to the cultures and how they worked helped to illustrate how the new characters Dracmus, Marcha, and Ebrihim reacted to certain situations.

The book receives four stars because of its narrative. Though it helped to convey the culture and action of the Star Wars universe, it took too long to explain certain aspects of the story. At certain points, I felt as if I was reading a technical manual on the Millennium Falcon or any other ship. Much of the detail about repairing that ship or any other didn't really need to be in there and slowed the pace of the book down a lot. But overall, it was an interesting read, and I recommend it for any Star Wars fan.

While I do agree with to some extent with the people who said they hated this series because of the author's writing style, even so it was fun and interesting and had a good plot that was well executed. Sure, this author isn't Tim Zahn, but I think he did a reasonably good job (better than a few others I could mention anyway) and the series is certainly worth reading if you're really a serious fan. However, if you're just a casual fan somewhat interested in finding out what happens next, this is not one I'd recommend, especially if you're just starting out and don't know anything about Star Wars chronology. Also, for all of you who (like myself) hated Callista as Luke's girlfriend and always thought he should be with Mara, think about the consequences if this series hadn't been written when it was, or not at all! (This series taking place about fourteen years after Return of the Jedi, and Star Wars history at the time it was written being at about six or seven years after Return of the Jedi) Though Callista was officially introduced in Children of the Jedi (eight years after Return of the Jedi) this series had already been written at the time and though it takes place some years later, she is never mentioned in it, since her character did not exist at the time it was written. So naturally it was fundamentally impossible for Luke and Callista to end up together due to George Lucas's lifesaving rule of all Star Wars books having to relate to each other. Anyway, this series picks up almost exactly where the previous one left off, shortly after the attack on Corona house, with Han imprisoned in a dungeon by his own long lost cousin, and sharing a cell with a somewhat bloodthirsty alien, Luke and Lando trying to get help for the Corelian sector which is trapped under an interdiction field, and Leia also stuck in a cell on Corellia with a room mate she isn't exactly pleased with... I have to admit Lando and Tendra make a cute couple. I didn't really like her much at first, because she seemed pretty boring, but I do like her with Lando. She's stable enough to keep him on the ground, but fun and interesting enough so he won't be bored, and I suppose anything is better than that whole Lando/Mara thing that seemed to be going on in some of the previous novels. Also, Gaeriel Captison makes her return at last in this book. I have to admit I like her better now since she seems a stronger female and can stand up for herself. Also she is no longer a love interest of Luke's so that opened me up to her more as well. Speaking of Luke, I felt bad for him in this book, since, while Gaeriel is no longer a love interest, her presence reminds him of how lonely he is... Also this book has some very interesting interaction between Leia and Mara, two characters who, while initially not trusting each other, have to work together to escape, and eventually start to become friends, which is good since within a year or so they're going to be sisters. It annoyed me though, that Han and Leia still seem to distrust her so much. She's been their friend for what, nine years? And even when she was an evil imperial agent it was Luke she wanted to kill, and even he has long since made up with her, and they have been close friends ever since. The kids are also fun to watch, since, being a longtime fan of Young Jedi Knights, it was fun to watch them as cute, spoiled, mischievous, superpowered, youngsters. Anyway, this is a good book that I greatly enjoyed and would recommend to most fans.

I read any and every Star Wars book that I can get my hands on. The Bounty Hunter Wars series was no exception. About now, I'm wishing that I wasn't such a die-hard fan! I've always bben intrigued by the bounty hunters in The Empire Strikes Back and I usually like to know the secrets behind the characters in the background of the trilogy. However, this novel doesn't give much insight into anyone except Bossk. This is the sequel to Mandalorian Armor, and the second book in The Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy. A dancing girl that escaped from Jabba the Hutt's Palace is searching for keys to her past. She knows she wasn't always one of Jabba's slaves, and that Boba Fett is somehow involved. In this part of the trilogy, Boba Fett has healed from his injuries in the Sarlaac Pit and is on his way to an unknown destination in a stolen ship with Neelah (the slave dancer) and Dengar (his savior) in tow. Along the way, Neelah forces information about Boba Fett out of Dengar. There are some scenes with Prince Xizor, but each scene seems to be a repeat performance of the first. Kud'ar Mub'at started off as an interesting character, but then became increasingly annoying. What happens to his character is pretty predictable considering that the author finds it necessary to remind us several times how Kud'ar Mub'at came into power in the first place (I won't tell you what happens in case you decide you still want to read this series). The book starts slow, gets slower, and finally, at the end, begins to pick up speed. However, by then, most people would have lost interest. I'm still trying to figure out what Neelah has to do with all of this. At least in this sequel, we finally begin to realize why Kuat Drive Yards' Administrator wants Boba Fett dead. Hopefully, the third book in the series will be the best. If you're a die-hard fan like I am, then you'll read this book. Otherwise, I suggest you ship this series - you won't be missing much.

I'm a Star Wars fan who has never read any of the books. I received it as a birthday present, from a non fan. Although I received it out of order, I enjoyed every minute of it. It took me three days to read, and as soon as I finished it, I ran out and got Mandalorian Armor. I finished that in two. At times I found certain passages and dialogue a bit wordy, but I can't wait for the third one. Prior to this, I didn't think twice about Boba Fett. I know he's a bad guy, but now, I'm rooting for him and can't get enough. After I read this book, I re-played the trilogy to get glimpses of him. I think this series would make a pretty decent movie.

Well, what can I say? good characters etc, the plot, ships, charcaters EVERYTHING (a lot of the things people are complaining about are resolved in the first 30-40 pages of book3) this series is the best of the star wars books I've read (except Courtship of Princess Leia, cause that had rancors, which are the best, if it had Bossk, nothing could have topped it unless you added Boba Fett etc etc) anyway, buy this, buy Shadows of the Empire, buy book 1, buy book3 (Hard Merchandise) and read them

After reading and hearing the accolades for this book I figured I just had to read it. I was looking for the perspective of the guy on the ground during the Persian Gulf War. I was a carrier based bomber pilot at the time with my own experiences but wanted to know more about what it was like for the ground pounders. This book provided little in that regard. Swoffard seems a little too distressed and saddened for his brief experience in combat. I got the sense that some of his recollections were exaggerated for the purpose of bolstering his views. He fails to understand the purpose of the military; to carry out the orders of the Commander and Chief, regardless of ones feelings for the justification of action. Sorry, the military is not a democracy, soldiers can't pick and choose which war they feel is worthy of their participation. Let's face it, once the shooting starts all any of us who have been in combat care about is not getting killed, which basically means killing as many of the other guys as possible. I would rather look down on a 1000 dead Iraqis than one dead American. If a hero's tale or combat action is what you are looking for, look elsewhere. This is not a war memoir, it is just a memoir.

A gloves-off recounting of one Marine's journey from recruit to veteran. Swofford was an intelligent, bookreading Marine, unlike so many of the simple fighters around him. By his own account, he hated what the Corps made him, yet admits that his post-service life entailed in part a slippage from the keen edge the Corps honed him to.

The narrative flow is all chopped up into flash-forwards, flash-backs, and whatnot. This is completely unnecessary, as Swofford's story is compelling enough to be told straight. Maybe the editors insisted on shuffling the story, in order to keep the attention of video-impaired Gen-X readers.

Memoirs by bitter ex-soldiers are nothing new, not even in America. What makes this more than a big Bronx cheer at the military is Swofford's evident intelligence and powers of observation--sniper skills that just happened to translate into book-writing talent. A Marine who reads Nietzsche in a bar and The Iliad in the desert? We're lucky he survived. And the fact that he thinks the war was all a put-up job, all about oil, is no barrier to granting him a hearing. (I doubt that he runs everywhere in his home town of Portland.)

Since the book is a jumble of vignettes, it's no sin to pick out the best ones. Years after being discharged, he goes on a bender with a former comrade. They drink and run and sing cadence and slap each other around, drunkenly angry at each other "for changing, for slipping". He gets into an argument with some German tourists about Desert Storm not being a "real" war. He answers that the significance of the war won't be known for years, and that he underwent hardship, uglines, and terror and saw death, just like every other frontline soldier in any war. He idly threatens a comrade with death, at sadistic length, for getting Swofford in trouble. In the war itself, he happens onto a bombed out Iraqi encampment, and joins the dead Iraqi soldiers around their campfire for a few moments, soaking in the ghastly impressions.

The actual battle scenes are very brief and seemingly inconsequential--if you're only reading about it. Swofford indeed knew the terror of war, but his war was over so quickly that he never underwent the numbing acclimation to the terror, reported by soldier-memoirists in other wars. He never even fired his weapon in combat, his only chance being spiked by glory-hound commanders, he says.

This is a good book to read together with another memoir by another Marine from another war: E. B. Sledge's _With the Old Breed_, about a Marine rifleman's war on Peleliu and Okinawa. The similarities and contrasts between these two remarkable men are as thought-provoking as their books are separately.

Swofford deserves thanks for his service, and for his sacrifice--because losing faith is a sacrifice.

I was in the Seventh Marines like the author. I was in Kilo Company, 3/7 (3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment for those not in the know), some five years before the events experienced by Mr. Swofford. I also knew some of the guys in our own Battalion's STA platoon. While I don't know anything of their indoctrination, their training regiment or what else, it seemed to me like they spent a lot of time on working parties or just plain skating their way through their enlistments.

Gulf War memoirs are beginning to pour forth from publishers. I wonder about the timing sometimes, but it wouldn't surprise me that Swofford's slim volume is the best of the lot. Like James Webb's classic "Fields of Fire" Swofford catches the lingo of Marines perfectly, but he also discusses the ups and the many downs of being one of the Few and the Proud (sometimes I felt like pride had little to anything to do with my own enlistment). I don't necessarily agree with whomever wrote the dust jacket in comparing this book to Caputo's "A Rumor of War" or "The Things They Carried," by Tim O'Brien. "A Rumor of War" is still probably the best Vietnam memoir out there, and Caputo's experiences are as far from Mr. Swofford's as they get. Tim O'Brien's book is a work of fiction, something "Jarhead" is not. If they tried to compare it to say, "If I Die in a Combat Zone," I feel that would have been more appropriate.

Swofford's book entails his peacetime experience as well as the Gulf War. He shows how his fellow Marines wage war on each other long before the Iraqis intrude. The deployment ("Desert Shield") is a long and monotonous one, and despite some brief but terrifying moments, 2/7 STA platoon's war is frustratingly short. These men have spent years readying themselves for this moment and the war ends before they really experience it. The end feeling is one of curiosity and frustration. Swofford is wonderful in describing the almost Dantesque Kuwaiti landscape that is littered with shattered Iraqi Army vehicles, and dead Iraqi soldiers.

I found myself seeing my own experience in reading Swofford's chronicle. It's well written, humorous (the deepest most black sense of humor pervades this narrative) and moves briskly. In the tradition of other Marine memoirists like William Manchester and Lewis B. Puller Jr., Swofford seems to be highly ambivalent about his service. No doubt he, like the others previously mentioned (as well as myself) could tear the Corps a new one up and down, for their pettiness, for their abuses, for their ridiculous obssession with small details, but to hear an outsider try to do the same thing only invites annoyance and scorn.

Jarhead is a good read. I hope Mr. Swofford's novel will deliver more on the excellent promise his memoir affords us.

Semper Fi, Mr. Swofford...

The one word that characterizes all the books of the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy? BORING!!!!!!!!!! The book moves too slowly and is simply too inconsistant. Luke Skywalker runs off to become a hermit at Darth Vader's old retreat rejecting his Academy, his family and pretty everything else. Only a mysterious woman who is able to enter his stronghold induces Luke to leave with promises about his lost mother. Leia is shown much more as the Chief of State, an idea that did have merit, while Han Solo is shown more as the family man. The problem is, is that the story moves so slowly. The characterizations are weak: Princess Leia, the people's leader refuses to learn the names of her bodyguards preferring to ignore their existance. That is totally contrary to Princess Leia, Han Solo is done all right but that is because he really has nothing to do. Luke is done terribly. The Black Fleet crisis marks the epitome of stupid Jedi power Luke. It took Zahn coming back into the fold to save the expanded universe after the Black Fleet Debacle. The Lando adventure has possibilities but it too drops by the wayside due to just too much non-sensical writing. Perhaps this story should have been a one or two book set not a trilogy, at time it feels like the auther was just trying to fill space. In any event, this book needed some major editing and marked a dark period of Star Wars literature that not even the Jedi Academy Trilogy (horrible as it was)reached.

There really ought to be a place where you can rate these trilogies as a unit. Trying to write reviews as if they were independent volumes doesn't make a lot of sense.

The 'Black Fleet' trilogy takes a long time to take off in volume 1, seems to develop some promise and momentum in volume 2, and it isn't until you finish volume 3 that you really realize how much of a waste of time it was to read it. The first volume takes some time getting three plots moving. The main plot is the war between the New Republic and the evil and aggressive Yevetha, who are planning to take over their star cluster (and then the universe) with the help of some Imperial ships they captured a few years back. This gets going really slowly, as Leia spends most of the book getting utterly duped by the evil Yevethan viceroy who engages her in long and pointless "negotiations" in which he apparently does nothing but talk about how badly his people were mistreated by the Empire. The war has hardly even started at the end of volume 1. Leia spends much of the trilogy fighting off evil politicians who want to depose her from the presidency, but I have to say that she doesn't have any great claim to the job from the skills she exhibits.

Meanwhile, Luke starts off deciding to be a hermit like Obi-wan and Yoda before him, but is quickly derailed by a mysterious and irritating woman named Akatha who promises that he can find out some information about his mother if he hares off across the galaxy to who knows where with her and listens to pious lectures about how bad it is that Jedi kill people. Luke is somewhat of a disappointment here, since he seems to be a strange mixture of 3 parts mature Jedi sage and 7 parts Luke the Kid from Episode IV. Obi-wan wouldn't have been as naive as Luke here on his worst day.

And in plot number 3, Lando, Lobot, C3PO and R2D2 go off to help investigate a mysterious Flying-Dutchman type ship. Also, Chewie goes off to his homeworld to help his son get through a coming-of-age ritual, but he isn't seen again until volume 2 when it will be necessary for him to return to help out Han. This is not giving away a secret, since there is a lot of discussion of Chewie's life-debt to Han, so you just know he is going to have a chance to pay it off.

Like I say, it's slow going, but the writing is competent and you may be willing to trust the author in the hope that he will bring these plots together in some interesting way down the road. Well, it is my sad duty to tell you that this hope is in vain. One of the subplots ends up having ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with everything else. The war will not get resolved in an interesting way, and the bottom line is that you will end up feeling disappointed. Or at least I did.

The writing might merit 3 stars for volume 1, 4 stars for volume 2, and 2 stars for volume 3, but if it winds up on a 2-star note it's a 2-star trilogy in my book.

I've read several Star Wars novels. Some of them are quite good (Zahn's original Thrawn trilogy), and some of them make me wonder how they ever found their way to print (Anderson's Jedi Academy trilogy).

But nothing in the entire Star Wars line up has impressed me the way Michael P. Kube-McDowell's "Before The Storm" does. The book is exceptional. I could not put it down. It is not only THE best Star Wars book I've read, it's one of THE best novels I've ever read.

The book holds its own against the best works by Tom Clancy.

I'm not kidding.

Gone are the silly situations that Star Wars is sometimes known for (Ewoks beating a Legion of the Emperor's best troops; Jar-Jar taking out several attackers because his foot stuck in the wires of a downed droid).

What you get instead are the more "adult", serious types of situations, like the attack on the Death Star or the battle against the giant Walkers on the ice planet of Hoth.

The story is a very believeable look at the "empire building" the New Republic is engaged in 12 years after the events of "Return of the Jedi".

If you like the political intrigue evident in "The Phantom Menace", you get much more of it in this book. I like what Kube-McDowell did with Leia--she's not infallible.

You also get some gruesome, realistic action, that takes you to a Star Wars universe that is more akin that of "Babylon 5" or "Aliens" than the sometimes too childish "Star Wars" flicks and books.

For example, take a peek at this paragraph describing the reaction to a planetary bombardment:

---- On what had been one of the wide, flat landing pads of Ten South, those who had come out to watch the visitors land were evenly divided between the stunned and the screaming. A man near Plat Mallar went to his knees and vomited. Turning away from the sight, Mallar found a woman clawing madly at her allsuit with such force that she was bleeding profusely from beneath what was left of her nails. The sight galvanized Mallar out of his paralysis, and he began edging his way toward the east edge of the pad. ----

If you want to read something more believable than your average, every day Star Wars book, I suggest this one. If you want the more "fantasy" style of stuff, then you might want to look elsewhere.

I give this book my highest rating and recommend it to anyone interested in reading Star Wars.

It's a new take on a familiar universe.

Kenneth.

One studies HTML, putzes about with a text editor/Netscape, andfinally gets confident enough to buy a nice HTML editor and forgetabout tagging. Tagging taken care of, this lurking feeling that there must be more remains... but what?

Here is a nice broad overview of the tools one needs to create an all the bells and whistles, fully functional, dog and pony show website.In 3d.

Explaining things like JavaScript, VRML, Java, etc. at a level for those have only have heard of them, the book provides examples and tools so the reader can play with, and become familiar with the potential of all these tools.

I was stuck in an HTML rut; it sure was fun and exciting to write my first little 3d world, and incorporate little Java thingies that I actually got working!

The book is not successful as a reference manual for the experienced programmer, and that is not it's intention. It is for the intermediate web page designer with moderate programming ambitions.

The book is presently a little dated, other texts may be better ( consider Html, Cgi, Sgml, Vrml, Java Web Publishing Unleashed, William Stanek,et al.) and $70.00 list seems about $40 too dear.

Still, this book remains a good introduction, and was one of the best texts of it's kind whan it hit the shelves last year. I like it, learned a lot from it, but can not bring myself to buy another copy- having changed jobs, and left the Platinum Edition with it's rightful owner.

I agree this book shouldn't say it covers Java1.1, but I was surprised at the number of negative reviews here, so I went and checked your page on Stanek's book. What seems to be going on is that people who are into web pages that LOOK good love Stanek's book, but people who are into web pages that DO things (like electronic commerce) find useful info in the Que book on subjects such as Web connectivity to databases, database primers, and so forth that Stanek does not seem to cover. I did not buy this book primarily as an HTML book. And even though the Java coverage is dated, it's well illustrated and much more extensive than Stanek's coverage of Java seems to be. Mac users may be annoyed that the CDs are for Windows only.

Buy this book and get 12 more books on CD! No other book can rival this book's library of references. Javascript, Java, Perl and CGI programming are all covered in its actual pages. The books on the CD are accessed using any web browser. Start here to become the super web master. We fight over it in our office

Both parties make up "stuff" that they float out there to see what the reaction is. This author took a lot of "stuff": with no basis in fact and tried to make a buck and to pile on a man that was brought down in a silent coupe.

This is a very well written book that covers Nixon's birth through the aftermath of Watergate. My interest in this book bloomed when I watched Anthony Summers on Face the Nation on the 30th anniversary of Watergate. He even shared the spotlight with John Dean to the somewhat disgust of the author if body language means anything.

Summers has done quite a bit of research and links quite well the major partners in Nixon's campaigns and in addition the men that eventually help run the country. There is so much about Nixon's personal flaws and self gain obsession there is a question of balance. On the one hand I am amazed at the amount of detail that links Nixon to win at all costs campaign men, illegal money contributions even from mobsters, a long association with Howard Hughes, money laundering through Beebe Rebozo's bank, Swiss bank accounts, Nixon's plan to screw Johnson's peace initiative to win the election, his over compulsion with dirty tricks. It's hard to conclude otherwise that Nixon was a bad man more caught up with his own style of government. However, at times when the author goes back to Nixon's HS days its almost seems impossible for anyone retrospectively to say anything nice about Nixon other than his earnest desire to succeed. You almost expect someone to say "I remember Nixon when he was in diapers, even my dog didn't like him!" A question to be explored upon a broader canvas is how bad was Nixon compared to other politicians. Was illegal fund raising rampant and typical of the candidates in that era? Is it still happening today? After all, Nixon even on tape seems to say the other guys are doing it too. And the author concludes that Robert Kennedy was bugging Nixon while he served as his brother's Attorney General which Nixon discovers.
During the presidency, Nixon finds out the Joint Chief are spying on Kissinger (The Radford Affair).

Besides the illegal contributions, the most devastating part of the book deals with not so much Nixon's development of the plumbers but in his post Watergate obsession to deal with Watergate instead of running the country. Summers does a great job of accounting of Nixon's whereabouts in the final 18 months of his presidency where according to the logs, Nixon spends a great deal of time on the California coast or Florida with Beebe. In addition, the critical tapes show Nixon totally focused on Watergate In addition, Summers states quite emphatically that Nixon without his secret psychotherapist was unstable due to the use of Dilantin, alcohol and sleeping pills. The latter part almost sounds like Elvis' final hours as Nixon is portrayed as a mentally compromised man who could no longer govern. It's a pretty frightening portrayal and if the Nixon Summers describes is accurate, then Al Haig and Henry Kissinger did a disservice to the country in not working to ease Nixon out of power. In Summers' portrayal, the final period of Nixon's presidency almost reminds me of the movie "Dave" where the Chief of Staff tries to take over the government by not disclosing that the president had a stroke. While reading these parts of the book I was hoping that this was overstated because if not, Nixon was not lucid over the final 12 months of his presidency.

A book worth reading but a little more balance on how Nixon compared to his political adversaries would have been helpful, gosh Tom Dewey supported Nixon and he appeared to have similar fund raising issues. And didn't Nixon do more than just break down the cold war barriers a bit with Russia and China? Did he have any interest in domestic issues at all?

Now if Summers would do a book on John Dean. Dean acts extra clean since he bailed out first. Is a hit man any nicer because he cut a deal?

Whoever claims that this book is badly researched hasn't read it! Summers has collected enough persuasive evidence in his Nixon biography to prove that this was a man that should never have become president of the United States.

This book leads its readers to a more important question for today's world: is there something wrong in the way America's leader (and thus the most powerful politician in the world) is (s)elected? Events in autumn 2000 have shown that with the support of big business weak political figures can still achieve the highest office of the land.

This is not to say that George Bush Jr. and Richard Nixon share the same character flaws. But if there's a message in Summers' book it is this: political funding by the big business interests must be properly regulated and restricted if a repeat of the Nixon desaster is to be avoided. Over to you, Senator Mc Cain!

First of all. I have mostle used the second part of this book, that is, double, triple, line and surface integration. I have read some pages of the first part but not much. I will focus on the title. This boos is good as a quick reference for some information. Have you forgotten Stokes Therome? No problem, you will find it fast. Don't know how to parametrize an helicoid? Well, look in page number ... Examples are good and information is somewhat ordered in a good way, except maybe some things about vector fields. In the bad side. This book is not rigorous. It focus a lot with "graphics" demonstrations, which renders it quite bad in a strictly theoretical point of view. Some of the examples should have been somewhat more clear. More tome should be spent in a more formal tratment of parametrization of curves and surfaces.

Conclution: buy it if you just need it for some practical thing. That is, if you need this book just to have some ideas of how to do vectorial calculus wihtout caring much for justification, go for it. Otherwise, drop it. Maybe Calculus from Apostol is a better choice for a rigorous treatment of the subject.

This book in its fourth edition benefits from revisions to earlier editions. For a short quick reference the book by Schey is delightful. Marsden and Tromba give a more thorough and complete work. It is well laid out and has good illustrations. One could look at this book as Calc III with applications. For most people that part of the calculus sequence was far too quick and terse. This book is the antidote. It is definitely worth considering for use in the junior-senior level course on vector calculus.

When I was a university student back to the 80's, there are many vector calculus books I can read from the library. However, Marsden's book is the best book I ever read on this subject for students. It is very good for both college students and for self-study purpose. I couldn't resist to buy and keep one myself and it is still very useful to me today. It is the most complete book on the subject of VC extends from introductory to even higher than master level. Very clear, systematic, strict but inspiring. Then comes, later, books with the same title from Colley, Barr and Matthews etc. Colley's book is very good for student also but I still find Marsden's book the best. Highly recommended.