I was surprised when I got the book, because the listing says that thebook is 272 pages but it's really more like 170 pages, and doesn'thave much useful detail. The authors are apparently thyroid surgeons, and so they spend most of the book talking about thyroid surgery, and the conditions that can lead to thryroid surgery like hyperthyroidism, thyroid lumps and thyroid cancer. As someone who is hypothyroid, I was looking for more information than book's statement that "an underactive thyroid is easy to treat." They say this several times in the book, and the fact that they keep repeating this when it sure hasn't been true for me makes me think that they don't have a particular handle on what is involved in being hypothyroid after the surgery. Also, the cover talks about nutrition and self-care, but the nutrition chapter is only about 3 pages, and all it really talks about is iodine. These doctors also must not believe in alternative medicine because their section on it is 3 sentences that say that it doesn't really help anything, except maybe things like "insomnia or nervousness." This book might be good for someone who was going to have thyroid surgery, but this book didn't have much to offer for me, since I've had the surgery already, and am now dealing with being hypothyroid.

What I liked most about this book is that you don't have to be a surgeon to get value from it. For myself, I knew nothing about thyroid disease, other than to say that a very good friend of mine has recently been diagnosed with a kind of hyperthyroidism. I purchased The Thyroid Guide through Amazon.com because I was hoping to learn more about my friend's disease and maybe pass it on to her to provide her with some peace of mind. I am glad I purchased this book. The Thyroid Guide is an excellent source of information about all types of diseases affecting the thyroid. And, the information is presented in an easily accessible, unintimidating, readable way. Ditkoff and LoGerfo understand that it's not surgeons who need to read this book. So they have taken great pains to keep the technical stuff to a minimum. They have focussed on symptoms, choosing physicians, procedures, medications - the kind of information the layperson should know.

As an idividual familiar with the field, I think The Thyroid Guide is a must read for anyone faced with thyroid disease or thyroid surgery. Many people are hesitant to confront health issues that may be related to the thyroid, but this guide walks you through the steps from diagnosis to treatment. It contains all the questions a patient should ask his/her physician. It explores the different techniques used in dealing with thyroid surgery in an unbiased manner.

I feel that these two surgeons have dealt with all the issues facing patients dealing with thyroid cancer, disease, and surgery fully in writing this book.

This book brings uncountable information not only about network operating systems, but also about network hardware. It is very easy to be read. But if you really want to learn about networks, this must not be the only book to buy, of course. Since it is written in an easy language, it can be read not only by the ones who already works with networking, but also by the ones who are willing to enter this field.

This book provides an excellent treatment of network fundementals from the perspective of a person designing or repairing networks. It is a good book for a person with little or no network experience.

However, there are limitations to the book that are not apparent from the description. First, the book is primarily about Novell networks. If you are looking for an in-depth treatment of other networks, this is not the book for you. Second, the specific hardware and software recommendations are few and far between for a book of this type.

I recommend this book for people wanting to learn about installing and repairing networks, particularily Novell networks. Just be aware of its limitations.

This book has left a bizarre legacy. Que's "Upgrading and Repairing Networks, Second Edition" is written by a different author (Terry Ogletree, though it bears Scott Mueller's name in significantly larger type), and its true sequel ("Upgrading and Troubleshooting Networks" by Craig Zacker) is published by Osborne. One can only imagine the intrigue that gave birth to these two rival heirs, and one can only wish that such events had not taken place, as this book is far better than either of its descendents.

Though a few years past its prime, Craig Zacker and Paul Doyle's "Upgrading and Repairing Networks" remains one of the best, broadest, most authoritative and most comprehensive guides to local area networking in print. Published prior to the certification frenzy, this book was designed to teach the journeyman technician both the theory and practice needed to perform effectively in a crisis situation. Subjects covered range from "the stuff in every book" (like the OSI model, hardware, and a plus/minus analysis of operating systems) to arcane but incredibly useful information for those new to the care and feeding of LANs (such as a chapter each on UPSes and tape drives).

I strongly urge beginners to the networking field to put in the extra effort necessary to get this book; its scope all but guarantees that you'll learn new and valuable information, and its tone and style make this knowledge fairly painless to obtain. Seasoned networking professionals might also consider picking this one up (especially at marketplace prices)... that is, if the copy they've relied on since 1996 has worn out.

I enjoyed reading this book very much even though I found some of the arguments a bit too simplistic to stand against a hostile opponent who has thought some of these issues through..
The biggest weakness is the author's use of the Moral Argument without laying it out effectively. A few sentences destroying a straw man of relativism does not prove theistic absolutism nor does the existence of moral outrage prove that there are objective moral principles.
The book does however demonstrate an approach for the thinking Christian but is far more effective in dealing with the lunatic fringe of Christianity who advocate "Creation Science", violence, racism etc. in the name of their God than it is with dealing with a determined critic of Christianity.
The open minded skeptic will find much of interest in this book.

This is quite an interesting book. I adore Mr. Copan's ability to not merely "chop logic," but to hold up the torch of intelligence. This book, and his previous book, "True For You, But Not For Me," are geared toward defeating the pseudo-converational sloganeering that passes off for discussion and thought that will be the undoing of Generation-X.

Copan tackels these "bumper-sticker" thought-bites head on. Try these out on someone who is a walking platitude, and you see what I mean.

The most objectiobns will be with the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Evolution. He takes a more Trinitarian approach to the Trinity, which some would interperit as polytheism but as the Good Book says, "There be gods many, and lords many . . ." (1 Cor. 8:5). This is really a mystery that even Aquinas couldn't logically prove. Wasn't it C. S. Lewis who siad that the Trinity of the Creeds was either the greatest truth or the greatest lie?

In regards to the incarnation, he wrestles with the tempations of Christ and His divinity, and asserts that Chriat had laid his divinity aside, as per Phillipians 2. He runs betweeen making a monkey out of the Bible, or making a monkey out of the Savior, andf I think he steers a steady course between the two.

He advocates a hybrid theiostic evolution, with the days being of indeterminant length. See the usage of "day" in Genesis 2:4 versus Genesis 1:5.

The trick is to defend you faith, and affirm the strengths of your opponents position, without selling our your own theology in the name of reason, or some theoretical elegance.

Paul Copan does an admirable job of presenting arguments that will prove useful especially to the general reader. He strikes a nice balance between real substance and accessibility. It's true that here and there the author might have strengthened his premises and thus his conclusions. However, by doing this he would also have moved the treatment of relativism beyond the grasp of some general readers--those who would profit most from the book. In response to the Mormon reviewer below, I have to respectfully disagree with his criticism of Copan's treatment of the Trinity. There is no possible way that Copan can be construed as veering into polytheism--or, a plurality of gods. In line with historical Christian orthodoxy, he understands that there is no contradiction in the classical doctrine of the Trinity. And, emphatically to the contrary, St. Thomas Aquinas presented one of the most lucid and logical expositions Trinitarian doctrine. To say that there are three persons in one divine substance is no contradiction. The categories of "person" and "essence" (or "substance") are distinct. The doctrine of the Trinty does not say that there is one God who is three gods, nor that there are three persons who are one person. It accepts from biblical revelation that there is One God (one divine substance), and three persons or centers of consciousness. Logically, this is to say that there is one "A" and three "B"s--logically distinct, and thus coherent categories. What WOULD be irrational would be to claim that the "godhead" is comprised of three finite beings, with a mere unity of will but not of Being. Copan is not guilty of such a silly blunder, and it misrepresents his thought to suggest it. In short, the book will prove useful, because accessible, to a wide range of readers.

This is a rehash of the same Deitel style textbook which I suffered through in school. They were boring, boring boring then, they are boring boring boring now.

You would be much better off buying Gary Cornell's great book from Apress which has a similar title. It's much cheaper, much better written and it's not boring, boring, boring. Unlike the Deitel's, Cornell can teach real programmers with boring them.

The Deitel's seem to have created an industry of writing boring wordy textbooks and now they want to move into the Apress/Microsoft Press/O'Reilly space for books about .NET.

They don't offer anything over the established books that I have praised elsewhere so do yourself a favor and get the Apress book by Cornell. Then get the Balena book from Microsoft Press to learn how to apply .NET and you won't need anything more. With these books you'll learn a lot more and you'll save money to boot over the Deitel book.

I recently finished reading Visual Basic .NET for Experienced Programmers by Deitel, Deitel, Nieto, and Yaeger, and found it to be very well written and a great tool to learn Visual Basic .NET. The book covers all the important aspects of Visual Basic .NET (the IDE, object-oriented approach, graphical user interface, multithreading, XML, ADO .NET, ASP .NET and Web services, and the mobile Internet) in approximately 1000 pages - quite a feat. Each chapter contains several entire programs ('Live-code examples') and thorough explanations of the code, to illustrate the concepts covered in the chapter. Some of the sample programs are fun, such as dice, tic tac toe, and blackjack games. The book provides clear explanations of why and how things works (chapters on ASP .NET - chapters 17 and 18 - are especially good at making the complexities make sense). The authors also emphasize the terminology of object-oriented programming (explaining terms such as composition, self-referential classes, and abstract data types).

The only minor complaint I have about the book is that it doesn't provide any programming assignments (except for one small task) for the reader.

Although I haven't read other books on Visual Basic .NET (other than approximtely 100 pages of Balena's Visual Basic .NET Core Reference - which I found tedious), I feel that by reading and studying the Deitel book you will gain a solid base of knowledge about Visual Basic .NET.

It is easy to read. You must keep it on your desk as long as you continue programming in Visual Basic. I have found different programming styles and approaches. Actually I did not finish it yet. It is not easy to read it all in few weeks. It is filled up with knowledge of programming. I can suggest this book to any visual basic programmer. Because They can use this styles and approaches in VB 6.0, 5.0 etc too. Maybe you will learn this knowledge in two years but with this book you will make it very short. Time is money. So go on...

As with a lot of the wrox press books ; they are incredibly difficult to read; both literally and physically!!!;
you can't keep a page open because the book spine is so tight that it keeps flipping shut.
The book should start at the beginning and work its way through but instead it jumps into the deepend drowning newer users.
Really found this book annoying and although it has a lot of content and usefull code the format and delivery make it ultimately a waste of money (my opinion.)

Wow! Quite impressed! I have been programming in VB, C and Java for years. This book is a concise explanation of strings with great history for perspective and detail about .NET implementation.

This book reads very well and has great code examples. I suppose someone that doesn't know anything about programming shouldn't be trying to read a book about string encoding and regular expressions in the first place. This is not an introductoryto VB.net book (thank god!)

If you are an intermediate or greater developer that is new to .NET then this book is a must read. I've seen so many VB developers hurt themselves with string concat in VB. This book explains why and how the .NET framework solves those problems.

Regular Expressions is such a powerful tool. It is a shame that it took so many years for it to become part of the Microsoft arsenal. It has been used in Perl for decades.

It behooves every programmer to learn about the following three topics...

1] The StringBuilder class
2] Interning Strings
3] Regular Expressions.

Also, in the past, I have not been a big fan of wrox books. ..not sure why. I think, comparatively, they were hard to read. Even when reading topics that I thouroughly knew, I found the wording and layout less than ideal. It was probably just a bad group of editors. (There are even a few mispellings and mistakes in this book) However, I am a big fan of this new layout. Smaller books covering specific topics that you want to learn is the way to go.

This book is great. Get it.

Not only did this book live up to my expectations but it exceeded them. Wrox is really onto something with it's handbook series. It's what I've always looked for: a complete book on one subject that is all meat and no bones.

In fact, I used to learn various programming techniques from Wrox's "Programmers Reference" series for this very reason: all meat, no bones.

It's great having a book that doesn't spend hours explaining things the I already know and that gives me everything I need to know about the topic at hand. I've noticed on Amazon that there are several other books that fall into the Handbook series that are due out this year. I'm looking forward to them also.

While this book would be good for the beginner, I found it great for the Intermediate programmer looking to understand all of the power of string handling new to .NET. In fact, this book starts of with a great, highly technical discussion on how .NET and other platforms handle strings. This discussion isn't used heavily through out the rest of book but makes for better programming practices and good geeky water-cooler discussions.

From there, it's all very practical. The book explains just enough to make everything clear and avoids the all-too-common over-explaining that is a downfall of most computer books. I found myself re-reading the odd page 3 or 4 times to get the concept through my head. I would far rather do that then read a book that makes me want to pass out from boredom due to the massive over-explanation.

Plus different programmers might re-read different pages due to different understandings. Believe me, it's all there and it's all presented well. And since the book is only, like, 230 pages long (plus the Appendices), it's awesome. It covers as much as a 1000 page book but it's all laid out and explained so much better. You can use the 80% time savings to actually use what you've learned (or make fun of your manager, which ever is more valuable to you).

Lastly, this book is quite complete. Programming for different cultures and languages could honestly be a handbook in it's own right, but certainly this book gives you a great introduction and more. The regular expression coverage is a very completely introduction as is the string handling chapters at the beginning of the book. Oh, and the last chapter is like a regular expressions "Cook Book" with REALLY practical examples.

This book is fantastic to use as a learning tool and just as fantastic to have on your bookshelf for reference. Seeing that text manipulation is the name of the game when it comes to data, this book isn't leaving my side. Check it out - you'll love it.

The other Web Matrix titles target rank beginners - including the MS Press web matrix book. WHERE THIS BOOK EXCELS: it quite simply provides more details, and depth, that the other web matrix titles. THe Web Matrix Developer's Guide is appropriate for folks who are beyond the "ASP 101" stage and want to learn more about Web Matrix as a tool (including mobile web development.) This is a book for ideas and insights!

The author obviously saw beyond Microsoft's hype for this product and demonstrated the true range of the Web Matrix features in his book. The fancy pictures on the Web Matrix web site would have you believe that this is a training aid for ASP.NET. In reality, this is a cool tool that you can use for a variety of tasks.

I like the fact that every chapter has something interesting to do. Instead of saying that you can do data reporting, the author shows how to perform this task. Another chapter shows how to create your own controls and components, and then add them to the Web Matrix toolbox. The Web services information was interesting, but it's not something I'm using today. Even so, it was nice to know that it's there.

My favorite chapter has been mobile application development. It's something I hadn't thought you could do with Web Matrix until this book showed me.

The bottom line is that the author chose not to follow Microsoft's lead. This book tells you what you can really do with Web Matrix, which is actually a lot. The author also doesn't pull any punches. If something is broken or doesn't work quite right, he tells you about it and often provides a fix to boot.

All of the tools in this book are indeed downloadable for free (you should register the shareware). If you're like me and find the high price of Microsoft products a little difficult to swollow, then this book is very much worth looking at. The author has gone to great lengths to show you how to build a complete development system for free.

I found the author's writing very clear and understandable. He covers everything from simple Web pages to Web services. This book is a wealth of information about new and existing technologies including both XML and SOAP. The author also includes tips on how to modify the IDE for your specific needs, such as adding new controls to the Toolbox.

The inclusion of MSDE Query was a big perk because MSDE doesn't include any user interface. Using MSDE Query has saved me considerable time and expense.

The only thing that I don't understand is why you have to download Appendix B from the Apress Web site. This is actually one of the best additions to the book because the author shows how to extend Web Matrix to perform other tasks. The author told me about the appendix when I contacted him for additional information. The bottom line is that this book can save you both time and money.

THis is the first novel length fiction I've read of Sartre. Not his best form I think. Perhaps too many blank, beguiling pages to fill with unrelenting existentialism incarnate in meandering vignettes of characters that one can neither really place nor pity. A pity. Such a stunning writer in a shorter format ("The Wall" and other short stories). One grows a bit weary of self-castigating anti heros (the common man hero I gather one is supposed to infer) but a bone to lick for all one's trouble would be nice. Alas, one is not ever offerred a bone, which is not really the problem. One is never offerred a bone and therefore expects one. What one does procure, in turn, is a handful of mordant, self pitying and pitiable characters indignant that their forces were overcome with such swift Teutonic efficiency. Above and outside of this, however, Sartre has his own efficiency for writing dialogue, the sum of which, becomes many times more than the mere words which comprise it. Suffice it to say, if one is interested in Sartre's philosophy, this book, in parts, is not a bad sugarpill.

This novel is the third in the trilogy which started with "The Age of Reason" and "The Reprieve". Through the eyes of his characters, Sartre depicts French reactions to defeat and occupation in 1940.

There is comparatively little "battle action" in this novel, so if you're looking for a conventional war book, this is not the one to pick up. Sartre seemed to me to be far more concerned with staring in the face the uncomfortable realities of 1940. What and who did the French blame for their defeat? What were their reactions to the on-coming German occupation? In this sense, it's a deeply introspective work about one of the (if not the) most difficult eras of French history.

The feelings of the characters are deeply mixed: betrayal; regret and anger at pre-war disunity; loss of "moral fibre" and so on. The reactions to occupation are as, if not more, interesting, ranging from the sheer folly of the belief that now the war had "ended" life would return to normal, through collaboration (Hitler's an OK guy and France deserved what she got, it will do France good), to the early seeds of resistance.

I thought the the Communist characters were very interesting. Within the French prisoners-of-war, the Communists find each other and start organising a "cell". They hold the most realistic views of the Nazis, and yet hold the least realistic views concerning the nature of the Soviet regime. Their great intellectual and moral struggle is to come to terms with the Communist party's ambivalence towards the Nazi threat in the immediate run-up to war and invasion.

I understand that Sartre intended to continue with further volumes of this work, and this novel does feel part of a bigger scheme: I found myself wanting to read the next instalment. The downside of it is that you can be left with the feeling that it's a somewhat inconclusive piece of work. Nonetheless, I thought that it stands on its own as a very interesting novel.

This is the first Sartre book that I have ever read. I liked it enough to read more from this author. There were 2 (maybe more) other sub plots going on that just left you hanging, I thought.I have not read much literature that dealt with WW II that wasn't directlyrelated to the Holocaust(sp?) or from an American perspective. That made, for me, all the difference in the world.

I feel I need to address the first reviewer's concerns about the accuracy of this book (with the exception of Mr. Grave's foreword). Indeed, the reviewer is correct about the Law School Library. The architect of that work is mistakenly identified in the text. It was E. A. Glendenning and not Herbert Hilmer. The records of the University architect and archivist both contain this mistake; and it wasn't until I researched the records of the Law School itself (on this reviewer's prompting) that I discovered the truth. I apologize for this, and any other instances of mis-attribution.

However, I must take issue with the alleged mis-identification of the person responsible for the master plan. Steger, McGirr, and Chatterjee all verify that the organization of that master planning committee was initiated by the president's office, and not by Chatterjee alone. However, most everyone involved with the process credits Chatterjee with being the primary mover of the entire idea of remaking the campus by pushing for high quality, high profile architecture. This is made explicit in the introduction of the book, and much credit is given to Chatterjee for this. However, it would be wrong to say that he orchestrated the master plan committee and gave it its landscape focus.

Taking into account the comments of the above reviewer, this is still a wonderful book. I have a copy and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It has excellent colour 3D maps and colour photos, with a couple of pages of text for each building. A good read if you are interested in architecture, particularly modern.

This is another book in the excellent series by Princeton Architectural Press covering US campuses. The book gives a 15 page history of the campus with reference to its architectural roots.Then there are chapters covering each part of the University. Each chapter starts with 3D view of the area to be covered. Then a colour photo of each building is shown together with a page or two of text describing the buildings history, architecture and use. If you are interested in architecture I can strongly recommend all guides in this series. I bought one and was so pleased with it I buy them as they come out and have never been disappointed.

I bought this book as a present for my grandparents who are native Cubans. Cuba is a beautiful country with some of the most amazing art, food, music, people, and architecture. This book shows nothing of that Cuba. If you want to see photographs of people living in poverty, than this book is for you. If you want to see the real Cuba, look elsewhere. The photography itself is decent, but the subject matter is just shameful.

Everybody knows the stereotype all too well of the joyous Cubans, with their 8-day Carnavals, incredible music and high culture. As someone who visits the island frequently (my wife lives there) the happiness of the people is so uplifting. The suicide rate is so much lower there. The murder rate is way below that of the US. It is a cocaine-free society because of all of the anti-cocaine canine patrols in the major cities. It's really a revelation being there. No drugs, no homelessness (the right to shelter is guaranteed under the Cuban constitution), a LOWER infant mortality rate than the United States, more doctors per capita than Canada, Sweden, and the US, a 97 per cent literacy rate.

This book however is a REAL eye-opener. I have only experienced Cuba after President Castro took office. I have only seen his good work in a country where EVERY schoolhouse now contains at least one Pentium III computer or better (don't you wish you could say the same about the USA?).

The fotos inside this book are unbelievable. Absolute abject shoeless, starvation poverty, photos taken from a pre-Castro Cuba. Looks like modern day Haiti, a country which has subjected to US policies from Papa Doc, to Baby Doc, to Aristide, all handpicked by the CIA and look what a mess that country is.

These fotos and the commentary inside are a revelation. If you EVER wondered why the people revolted and continue to adore President Castro, buy this book! These fotos don't lie. There is NO ONE living like this in present-day Cuba....

Walker Evans was one of the greatest social realists and here he displays the same eye for understated emotion and quiet resistance that he showed in his famous WPA photographs in the American South. If you're familiar with the work of the visionary Brazilian Sebastião Salgado, Evans shows an earlier, perhaps gentler aspect of that vision of Latin America's poor.

The idea that photographing the poor in pre-revolutionary Cuba is "shameful" is in itself shameful. Did you want pictures of gangsters in nightclubs living the high life?

This book is pretty much a sequel of sorts to Steve Turner's "A Hard Day's Write," which remains the definitive book on the background of the Beatles' songs. Du Noyer was right to decide that Lennon's solo work deserved a similar reference of its own, but, unfortunately, it doesn't measure up to the Turner book. Using the same format, and even some of the same photos, Du Noyer takes us through Lennon's mainstream albums from Plastic Ono Band to Milk & Honey, but in the end can't come up with anything new; it's all a retread of the same old story - and Du Noyer can't decide whether he wants to believe Ray Coleman or Albert Goldman, so he just chooses to dodge the delicate question of whether Lennon, as a person, was an all-around wonderful guy (the 'St Lennon' of rock'n'roll myth) or a deranged, self-destructive hypocrite. Even worse, Du Noyer can't decide whether he's a fan of the music or not. He intersplices fan-like gushing over Lennon's best songs with snide put-downs directed at most of the rest of the repertoire. In the end, there's not much here for either the devoted Lennon fan or the newcomer, who may wonder what all the fuss is about if so much of Lennon's music merits all this criticism.

In the decade that elapsed between the Beatles' dissolution and his death in 1980, John Lennon wrote songs that were inspired by events which affected him personally. Here some light is shed on the biographical background to his solo work by veteran music journalist, Du Noyer, whose 'Q' and 'Mojo' credentials shine through in the magazine-style form and glossy photos.

I don't think that the author is necessary conflicted between the Coleman and Goldman views of Lennon's life so much as looking from the outside, considering all possibilites without claiming to "know" anything. Not as good as A Hard Day's Write, true, but still a very excellent companion to Lennon's life and works.