Buy this book. Buy it new, buy it used, buy it for your friends, buy it for your enemies. Petersen has written a thoughtful and thorough examination of recent grizzly bear management policies (or lack thereof) in the San Juans of Colorado. The book is a pleasure to read.

As someone who occasionally sees grizzers on his property, I can't conceive of living in an environment that doesn't have a population of apex predators to keep things interesting. Petersen masterfully chronicles how government funded assassins with the support of short-sighted local ranching communities and clumsy land managers, managed to kill virtually every grizzly in Colorado. He also accurately details how Western ranchers have come to view public lands with more than a sense of ownership but rather with a sense of absolute entitlement. This has led them to run their stock on federal land at ridiculously cheap rates, ignore even the most commonsense principles of husbandry, and push bears and wolves into the zoos and picture books while trying to keep everyone else out. Also to blame are the Baby Huey-like semi-rich, who hack 20 acre ranchettes out of the diminishing habitat and in the process are strangling the thing they profess to love most.

Petersen manages to stay somewhat balanced, using an essay by the outspoken and bearlike Doug Peacock to say what is probably really on his mind regarding sheep ranchers and development dingbats. In the course of researching the book, Peterson also forges unlikely friendships with former (but not reformed) professional and amateur bearslayers , including Ed Wiseman, who killed the last known Colorado grizz in hand to hand combat in 1979.

There is the general belief in the book that the great bear still lives in the San Juans but has become more nocturnal and reclusive as it adapts to its shrinking habitat. There are certainly drainages wild enough to support a grizz but I personally don't believe there are any left. My heart tells me that any state with a wildlife management policy as pathetic and dumbheaded as Colorado's can't have allowed for even a single surviving great bear. Also, I am reminded of a story in Scott Weidensaul's recent (and excellent) book on vanishing species entitled "The Ghost With Trembling Wings." Weidensaul tells the story of an animal who escapes from a European zoo and whose likeness is posted on the news. Consequently, hundreds of eyewitness calls come flooding in from all over the country, each caller claiming to have personally seen the critter. It turns out that the koala had actually been run over by a train several hundred yards from the zoo immediately after escaping. Weidensaul's point is that people WANT to believe something so badly, they convince themselves of its existence. And I'm afraid that is what we are doing with the Colorado grizzly.

My copy of this book is dog-eared and worn-out after all my readings of it and loaning it to others! David Peterson is one interesting writer. I had visited the San Juan Mountains prior to reading this book and explored the area where the Wiseman grizzly was killed. At the time I thought the Wiseman griz was the last in Colorado. This book inspired me to return and do a little searching of my own. Found some bear sign but was really amazed by how spectacular the high San Juans are in July. I think this book needs another postscript wherein "the search for survivors" is updated!

This book is one of the best books I've ever read. David Petersen does a fantastic job of educating the reader while involving them in some exciting adventures. While searching for grizzlies in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, David fills you in on grizzly natural history, the history of the San Juans, and the need for preserving wilderness in North America. This is a must have book for all who are interested in grizzly bears, the Rockies, wilderness, and the outdoors in general.

This is a book that transcends generational barriers and age barriers in language and content. I got this book when I was eight and the way Peters fluidly coalesced extinct and extant creatures into one book influenced my entire outlook on life! I still refer to the book in university now that I'm an ecology major.

This book, although texted for the 10-15 yer old reader, is excellent enough to be enjoyed by readers of all ages. It briefly examines all manner of large creatures, both extinct and living, and by full-color, scaled drawings, with a man and and woman for visualization, shows how truly huge such things as apatosaurs and blue whales really could be. One of the interesting features is that each and every creature is drawn in the same scale, so such things as triceratops and modern rhinos, and mammoths and elephants and tyrannosaurs, may be compared. You will receive some surprises. I recommend this book to all readers.

When my boys were in grade school, they LOVED this book. Now they are in high school and college and they still love it! It is filled with wonderful illustrations drawn to scale and an informative easy to read text. A delightful book for all ages.

So many children's books are just junk. This one is too, but for once that's a compliment. My 4 year-old picked this out, and now it's one of our favorites. The illustrations are so detailed that we can spend ten minutes just pointing out different things on one page, and this is the neatest retelling of the Jonah story I've ever seen. I always talk to my daughter as we read, and it was clear she understood the point exactly.

My kids love this book, and they choose it over and over again to be read to them. They also love to scour the pages for all the hidden items they need to find. The unique illustrations keeps them alert and interested while listening to one of the best Bible stories for children.

Unlike other retellings of the story of Jonah, this charming book focuses not on the point that Jonah tried to run from God and couldn't--but rather on the fact that though Jonah (God's chosen messenger, no less!) thought the people of Nineveh were bad, and therefore unworthy of God's love and mercy, GOD thought they were good and was determined to show His love to them. A powerful message for adults and the children they read along wtih. The illustrations are so imaginative, as well! I highly recommend this book!

JSA is the only comic I collect and for me it is the only one worth collecting. Many other books have retold the hero's origin to keep it fresh, but Goyer and Johns remind me why I collected comics when I was a kid. The raw enjoyment of reading about superheros; no contrived plots or edgy themes, just good old fashioned comic book goodness.

Hawkman has always come across as a rather boring character and I initially passed on this collection. That was a mistake on my part that I realized when I finally picked it up and read it.

The writers of this excellent series have smartly chosen to keep story arcs fairly brief lasting about five issues. This allows each trade paperback to contain two arcs. The two in this volume are excellent.

The first arc finds the JSA being attacked by the Injustice Society and Johnny Sorrow. The Flash winds up accidently travelling back in time to ancient Egypt in his efforts to defeat Sorrow. (Time travel isn't something treated lightly like in Dr. Who.) This ties the two arcs together nicely and also relates the origins of three legends: Dr. Fate, Captain Marvel and Hawkman.

Other surprises wait as Black Adam joins the JSA and the exploration of Hawkman and Hawkgirl's relationship deepens. Kendra discovers she's really Hawk's wife reincarnated, but everything isn't peachy keen. All in all, it's well written and art is top notch. Enjoy!

Perhaps the title is misleading. There IS some pre-Crisis confusion, but now it's all locked away in Carter's head. Hawkman is a great character and the conflict between Hawkman and Hawkgirl has been played out really well in the pages of HAWKMAN. I recommend this book to everyone. JSA is the original superteam--and they have characters from Alan Scott to the Sand to the new Hawkgirl. It is appealling to all.

I have been a huge fan of David Handler since I read the first "Hoagy" novel. This latest installment is excellent! Witty, sharp, and leaves you guessing till the end.

As one who has read all the Stewart Hoag mysteries by David Handler I feel qualified in saying each one is better than the last! Not only are the books getting thicker, they are getting more rewarding and entertaining. The characters, plots, dialog, humour and Handler's voice improve with age. In this outing, an old Ivy League classmate of Hoag's is accused of murdering women. The suspect clearly fits the bill given his violent and abusive past . . . and present! Though 'King Tut' Tuttle is suspected even by his good friend Hoag of committng these murders, 'Hoagy' owes it to himself, Tuttle and their faded friendship to investigate as only he can. The story is filled with great characters, moments of suspense and enough likely suspects and red herrings to keep the reader entertained and guessing throughout. Readers familiar with this series will be happy to know Lulu, Merilee Nash and even Hoag's beloved vintage Jaguar continue their usual prominent roles.

David Handler continues to amaze me with his wonderfully witty works of the adventures of "Hoagy". His books are always thrilling, exciting, and leave you guessing until the end. "The Man Who Loved Women to Death" is no exception.

It's difficult to find original material in most security books. "Hack Proofing Your Network, 2nd Edition" (HPYN2E) breaks that trend. Responding to feedback on the first edition, the authors have made numerous improvements in the second edition. If you're looking for relatively novel content in a security book, read the sections of HPYN2E I discuss next.

HPYN2E shines in many respects. The "laws of security" in chapter 2 are accurate and enlightening. Chapter 4 helps teach secure programming techniques by comparing insecure and secure code snippets. Chapter 4 also demonstrates debugging and disassembling code, usually not seen in security texts. Chapter 8 probably contains the most advanced coverage of buffer overflows I've read in a book. By actually showing and explaining stack traces, the authors share a level of detail sufficient to satisfy all but the most elite coders. Chapters on "diffing" (5) and format strings (9) are robust. Hardware hacking, thoroughly described in chapter 14, is fascinating. The author cared enough to include numerous clear photographs of disassembled equipment, and mentioned many helpful external web references.

While these great chapters comprise more than half of HPYN2E, the remainder is not exceptional. I was not happy with the rambling, wordy chapters on spoofing (12) and tunneling (13). Spare us the quotes from Dante's "Divine Comedy"! Still, this material is easily skimmed.

Because HPYN2E is written more from an intruder's point of view, the title doesn't seem to reflect the material. The book isn't exactly a "how to hack" manual, but it expertly illuminates many facets of compromising information resources.

When I read the first edition of this book, was truly disappointed. I was wondering how such people could have written such book. Not that the book was worthless, but too 'standard' to met the expectations I had from these guys.
Still the idea was very interesting (information directly from the real experts), and I kept waiting for a new edition.
Well the second edition is now out, and not only fulfills, but exceeds all my original expectations !!

Let's take a look:

The Approach:

Understanding attacks and vulnerabilities, by understanding 'how to hack' (good hacking of course. . . .ahem )

The Book:

Rewritten, expanded and improved, the book consists of 800+ pages well structured into 18 chapters (against 450+ pages and 15 chapters of the first edition).
Well written, well presented, with a real fancy table of contents, the chapters include url's, a FAQ section and a SOLUTIONS FAST TRACK one.
A lot of CLEVER code is included as well as helpful 'Tool & Traps' and 'Notes from the Underground. . . ' outlines.

The new sections (all outstanding) include:
- Hardware Hacking (otherwise only found in papers)
- Tunneling (excellent)
- IDS evasion (very easily explained)
- Format strings attacks

The Intended Audience:

People willing to become network security pros.

Contents:

- Introduction to Security, Attacks and related Methodologies.
- Cryptography.
- Unexpected Input, Buffer Overflow, Format Strings.
- Sniffing, Hijacking and Spoofing.
- Tunneling, Hardware Hacking, Viruses (et al.).
- IDS Evasion.
- Automated Tools.
- Reporting Security Problems.

The Bottom Line:

It is not just a good book, it is the best book among high level network security books, and the only that compares with specialized papers. Only quite easier.
I got more than 60 papers on buffer overflows. None compares with the classical 'Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit' by Aleph One. IMHO, however, the corresponding chapter from this book, does compare and is really easier to understand.
Finally, the 'piece de resistance' of the book, is the chapter about Spoofing. Really enjoyed it, and by the way got surprised reading the innovative (to me) technique to 'Spoof Connectivity Through Asymmetric Firewalls'. Good Job Dan ;-)
As an added bonus, as an owner of this book, you'll find a lot of code files, applications and links...

I have the first edition of this book also, and I was really glad to see the second edition come out. There are some great hacking books out now, but I really think these ones are the best. I found in depth coverage on a lot of stuff you just can't find any place else. Some very cool info. on administering hosts locked behind a firewall and tips for making a "poor man's VPN". I also like that a lot of big names wrote the book, and their personalities really come through. A lot of tech. books can be a little dry even if they are well written. This one is actually entertaining also.

"Hack Proofing Your Wireless Network" (HPYWN) weighs in at 512 pages, but it could easily be half that size. While the book contains good information, its internal redundancy and inclusion of security advice not specific to wireless adds unnecessary pages. I recommend security professionals skim HPYWN for the material they need, and skip the generic network protection advice.

Unlike the attack-minded "Hack Proofing Your Network, 2nd Ed", HPYWN is indeed a defensive-oriented book. It offers strong overviews of widely deployed wireless technologies. These include modern cellular networks and wireless area networks created by 802.11, Bluetooth, and HomeRF. HPYWN offers sound advice on making the best use of available wireless defensive mechanisms, despite acknowledging that Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is "broken." An overview of popular wireless assessment tools like Netstumbler is helpful although not especially thorough...

Of the book's nine chapters, chapters 2 (A Security Primer, 50 pages) and 8 (Auditing, 43 pages) don't add anything original to the current body of published security books. Furthermore, many wireless security topics are discussed repeatedly. For example, I didn't need to read in chapters 1, 4, 5, and 6 that WEP's insecurities stem from weak Initialization Vectors. Other recommendations on changing default configurations, enabling logging, and so on also appear in multiple sections. The editor should have consolidated this information to avoid wasting the reader's time.

Overall, Syngress should be credited for getting into the wireless game with this book. I would have preferred to see protocol decodes, thorough documentation and usage examples for wireless assessment tools, and in-depth VPN deployment guidance. Should the second edition of HPYWN contain this information, it will justify its current page count.

Obviously, with WLANs the big issue now is security. If you are looking for a good introduction to the topic or work with WLANs already and need to learn about security, then this is a good place to start. This book lays a good foundation of knowledge and then is an interesting an easy read on the topic. The authors certainly demonstrate that they know their business. In a total of nine chapters they will take you through the majority of what you would need to know to keep your WLAN safe from the wardrivers. In addition to this, if you are thinking of going for any of the WLAN security certifications, this book will take you a long way down that road as well. Once again, another good publication from Syngress!

A good book to keep in reach whether you're looking for a refresher, or to learn new processes, techniques, etc. I've got some experience with wireless (although not a guru), and I learned some new stuff... A good book written by authors with obvious wireless experience.

Beware that this is a sequel to Waylander. However as a sequel, this book goes above and beyond my expectations. It is classic Gemmell

A mighty warrior and a feared assassin among the Drenai, Waylander the Slayer is now a man hunted by his own people--with a fortune in gold offered as grim reward for his murder. But this is only one of many evils closing in on Waylander and his daughter, Miriel, the beautiful and deadly Battle Queen of Kar-Barzac.

I highly recommend this book to everyone. A truly great fantasy book. Gemmell will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Never have i been captivated by a book to such an extent that i have, quite literally, not put it down. From start to finish this second instalment of the tale of Waylander draws you in. You becaome part of the book, you experience what the characters experience. I do not cry often but this book made me weep more than once. A superb novel from a superb writer.

Wallace is first an explorer, then a writer. He explores the wild places of the Kalamath Mountains, from the "wonder of dreams" of the upper canyons of the Chetco River, to the scrubby peaks of the Siskiyou and fits it all together in a fasinating evolutionary story. I have explored many of these same areas and found this work to best capture that feeling of being in truely wild places. Read it, then go explore!

Wallace takes on evolution (and the way we were taught about it) the way Annie Dillard lifted the veil over nature in "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek": you are forced to replace the myths with a newer, even more mysterious understanding. Ironically, the theory of Sasquatch is retold as common-sensical, scientific fact. The steelhead trout, in fact, comes across as the greater nystery!

I count this book among my all-time favorites, a sort of heir apparent to "Walden."

Inviting book that made you want to visit the Klamath Mountains and learn about the wild plants of any forest system.