Finally, a book I have been looking for; a readable reference with solid examples. Does a great job on the namespaces it covers. Looking forward to similiar books to cover additional namespaces. This is not a tutorial. Gets straight to the point and provides you with the information you need to use a class and its associated methods and properties. Provides just enough background to provide context for the namespaces referenced. If you are interested in a reference that show you what namespace to use for a particular purpose and concisely shows you how to use the namespace, then this book is for you.

After 11 years this book remains a great resource for everyone who evaluates a starup's health or is thinking about starting a business. The book contains a very comprehensive set of really good questions that evaluate the business in every dimention critical to its success. The success is virtually assured if you have the right answers to all of the test questions presented in the book. Great resource for high-tech enterpreneurs, VCs, hires.

Word of caution though. This book isn't really about how to build a successfull business. It's more about how to tell if a given business (or a business decision) is to be successful. Most of the case studies in the book are really annotated examples of falures, as oppose to examples to follow.

Highly recommended.
--

Having worked for 4 pre-IPO companies, I've seen a lot of inexperienced entrepeneurs make a lot of ill-advised decisions. Even worse, I've watched their backers blithely sit back and believe that they will become rich on the strength of some new buzzword.

It takes a good plan and better execution to turn a startup into a real company--two things that seem to be lacking in most new ventures.

Gordon Bell has created a complete model for the stages of a startup firm. VCs, executives, and ESPECIALLY potential new hires should use these models to estimate the success factor of a startup. I think the 6 characteristics of a successful high-tech CEO are priceless. Of the duds that I've worked for, none of the CEOs could meet these stringent requirements. Are there many people who do? No. Do most startups fail? Yes. I urge anyone looking to join a startup to get this book, and even if you don't feel inclined to read it through, at least see what Bell has to say about the CEO, and then use his criteria to evaluate the leader at the team you are considering joining.

Another one of his observations that rings true to my experience is the danger of 'multiple agendas.' There is something in the nature of an entrepeneur that seems to make it almost impossible to focus on a single product or niche market, at least until it some measure of market success is achieved. I've fought this battle many times, and I've never understood why the VCs and the Board don't reign in their eager young entrepeneurs. I've concluded that it is because they are often ignorant themselves. Being able to spend somebody else's money doesn't automatically confer wisdom.

This book is almost 10 years old, but many of the author's predictions came true. I think he over-estimated the advantages of Japan, but perhaps American business actually learned something from Japan and applied it. If American management had not done that, perhaps Bell's predictions of Japanese economic superiority would have come to pass also.

I did think that it was interesting to read an engineer's perspective on marketing. An intelligent and experienced person often has wise things to say, even about disciplines where they have no formal educational background. I would strongly urge both marketing and engineering people to approach this text with an open mind.

Overall, this is a wise and perceptive book. It provides a good persective on the high-tech startup phenomenom and anyone who wishes to better understand the internal dynamics of a startup would find this an interesting and rewarding read.

This is the one book to have if you're starting a company. Theexamples are very dated but the content is timeless - and dead on themoney.

1. The book is comprehensive. It describes many algorithms, and includes several studies on statistics about text compression and language modeling. It is very good in this respect.

2. Math theory is not approached systematically neither algrebaically. For instance, a proof that arithmetic compression works can take less than a page, and the details given take a lot of space and are not as clear as they could be.

3. Although the book emphasizes the idea of separating the model from the coder, the language used is the C programming language, which imposes severe restrictions to this separation. The model and the coder do not exist as entities on their own, they just have different memory space allocations. Compare this to a reasonably good implementation in a pure object environment, where you can actually model a coder object and a model object.

4. I wrote a final project based on this book consisting of several kinds of compression algorithms with implementations for the course Mathematical Objects in Smalltalk at the University of Buenos Aires.

Hi y'all...

The authors have released the second edition of this book titled as "Managing Gigabytes : Compressing and Indexing Documents and Images". It is more upto date & also covers image compression rather than the first edition (this book, that is, Text Compression) covering only textual compression. It also has lots of other new info in the second edition. Btw, the second edition is cheaper than the first edition.

BTW, this is a tremendous book to have if you are brand new or a pro in compression technology. One of the authors also wrote another book called "Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools & Techniques with Java Implementations", which is a really good addition to one's library!

Sir, I am an Undergraduate student. I like to be different from others. While all are looking in the above layers of programming i look into the core level. I am in India. If i see the cost of book as some 50 $, i comes nearly to 2000 Rs which is nearly 1/3rd of my family income. So if you make this Cost factor considering the Cost of living of other countries then it will be really a boon for the Indian People who has stuff but no proper guidence. Thank you for listening my Comments. Avail disounts for Students.

Pulmonary Rehabilitation-Guidelines to success Lippincott Williams & Wilkins 2000 (ISBN 0 7817 1989 5) illustrated 726 pages Edited by John Hodgkin MD

This book aims to provide a clear insight into the possible treatment methods used in respiratory therapy. This third edition is a compilation of works primarily focussed on rehabilitation of chronic respiratory conditions written by various authors according to their particular area of expertise It is well written and follows a logical pattern, initially defining pulmonary rehabilitation leading on to individual therapeutic methods and, most impressively comparisons of treatment around the globe. Although written by Americans it is, in the whole very easy to understand as a student and treatment is not too dissimilar from UK procedures, however some methods of aerosol and oxygen therapy may be new or be referred to differently. All the chapters are well referenced and evidence-based practice is certainly emphasised. This book also confronts the personal and potentially awkward topics such as smoking and sexual activity of the patients highlighting possible patient problems and concerns. The beginning of each chapter has a bullet-point summary of the chapter's contents for easy referencing, for example in chapter 1 William Miller 'identifies early workers who defined the concepts of rehabilitation'. This book impressed me in that, although essentially collated by a doctor, all areas of pulmonary rehabilitation are commented upon. Within the section entitled 'Therapeutic intervention...' there are chapters regarding physiotherapy, occupational therapy and also a chapter outlining the importance of team integration in rehabilitation. Finally, John Hodgkin MD raises some very valid points for future research into pulmonary rehabilitation. Students can exploit his concerns, using the excellent summary of the book as a basis for dissertations and/or general research to further improve this area of healthcare.

Potentially this is an excellent book for the student interested in the subject, however, care must be taken as some areas are conducted in more depth than others. Having said that, I personally, am finding it a great reference book during the respiratory phase of my physiotherapy training and feel many others will also benefit.

A side of the civil war in the west that you don't hear about. It is nice to read about the Confederat side in the west. The confederates did treat the indians lots better than the Union side. An excellent story.

Buddy Bell tells it like it is...pulling from a wealth of experience in this area, you'll be blessed by his insightful (and sometimes hilarious) stories while learning new ways to equip the lay/support staff leaders in your church to attain a higher standard of excellence and quality in their ministry as ushers.

The idea behind writing this horribly amateuristic work was noble: to gather a large number of encyclopedic facts about the wars of Yugoslavian succession--something that would be useful to historians, journalists, politicians, and ordinary people.

Examples of gross errors and misrepresentations:

In one part of the book the main war protagonists are listed in the alphabetical order. Since one of the main characteristics of these wars has been their inhumanity, it is hard to believe that most of those currently or previously imprisoned at the Scheveningen prison (awaiting the trial at the Hague war crimes tribunal) are not listed. But those who are listed are sometimes listed on the wrong side, as is the case with Rasim Delic (Bosnian army), who is listed as "a veteran of the JNA Vukovar campaign." Vukovar was, of course, besieged by the Serbians, but the authors missed that one.

One of the most infamous Serbian warlords, Seselj, is listed as having been born in 1941 (false). The birth year is sometimes not even presented, as in the case of Blagoje Adzic, who was not even a teenager in 1941, so it's hard to believe that he was in the Partisans, as the authors claim.

The authors glorify Muhamed Filipovic, the former ambassador to London, to the point of making the reader think that Filipovic himself was the source of those entries. However, since there too are numerous errors present, it's probably the case that the authors themselves decided that "during 1992 MBO [Filipovic's Muslim Bosniak Organization] joined a small liberal party [headed by Kadic] and formed LBO, which to this day remains a true voice of non-secular Bosniaks." Considering that Kadic's liberals are still well and alive on the political spectrum of Bosnia, while LBO didn't even manage to gather sufficient votes to enter the Parliament the last time around, I wonder where and how the authors gathered their "encyclopedic" info.

The authors showcase their ignorance when they say that ex-Yugoslavian nations were shunned at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, where "Yugoslavian nations were suspended and barred from participating." So who was the audience at the opening ceremony so warmly greeting? Some impersonators posing for the Bosnian Olympic Committee and delegation? Also, the very real successes of the 1992 Croatian Olympic basketball team is also in the virtual realm. Hmmm...

The connection between Thessaloniki in Greece and the Serbian desire for access to the Adriatic is lost on all but the authors. If the Serbians wanted access to the sea through this Greek port, they would have surely not attacked Dubrovnik, and would have directed their mortars to Greece.

Even maps are sometimes inaccurate. On one of the maps Mostar is entirely within the Croatian territory and it doesn't even border the Bosnian territory, while it's totally emerged in the Bosnia entity on the next map.

It is a shame that this horrific book got a favorable review, if only because those reviewing it lack the background to verify the claims presented by the authors. If your interest is the break-up of Yugoslavia, there are much finer works out there.

First of all Lukavica isnt in the center of Sarajevo as this book says. Secondly, the procenteges used to describe population are reverted and incorrect.

Very purly and badly written book. It will just confuse you.

I was born in Sarajevo, and lived there until 1995 so i was 'living' situation this book tries to portrait and fails at evry aspect of it.