Rascals, Varmints, & Critters 2: The Book of Curses, is an excellent supplement to any Marshal's game. The book is choked full of all sorts of monsters that the party could run into, the vast majority of which could add a distinct Cinimatic flavor. Characters such as Frankenstein and his Monster, Dracula, and dangerous mummies are detailed, as well as ghosts and haunted houses. I great buy!

Why on earth would you need a strategy guide for a button smashing game? The only thing it might have useful is hidden characters and levels, but that is easily found on the Internet.

This book is great! Very helpful and useful...especailly the pictures and chart of the moves for the characters!

This guide has everything that Prima has plus more!

Although this book lacks real world examples, it provides complete reference for ADO.NET, and this book has examples in both VB.Net and C#.
For ADO.NET beginners to start to write code in ADO.NET, this book is not enough. This book is for developers who already have some ADO.NET experience, and need some information about specific method or property. --Reviewed by Richard X.

Let's face it, ADO.NET introduces some brand new concepts and design philosophies that even classic ADO experts are not familiar with.

I found that this book provided me with a great ADO.NET foundation to build on. I have read many ASP.NET/WinForm development books and I am of the opinion that ASP.NET/WinForm developers will benefit from a book like this *before* diving into their ASP.NET or WinForm developement books.

I liked it that each chapter is based around the most important parts of ADO.NET, so that I know exactly where to go to get the help I need. This makes it almost like a reference manual.

It also has excellent coverage of XML with ADO.NET and XML Web Services. My copy is getting worn out.

I'm normally a big fan of the Wrox books. They generally do an excellent job of selecting authors and editors. This book, however, was a huge disappointment for me.

Others have said, "It's full of samples." While this is true, many of the samples are for very obvious functionality, whereas very fundamental and complex functionality ends up getting minimal treatment (an example is the Fill() methods for the Data Adapter). While there's more written explanation of the Fill() methods, it is sorely inadequate and the samples are very basic. I would expect much more coverage and probably even an appendix at the end to cover it in more depth.

For the most part, I find the book no more useful than the SDK documentation and samples that you get for free. For a book with 10 authors, I'd expect a lot more insight and knowledge to be passed on and sadly, that doesn't appear to be the case.

Even for the "Reference" books Wrox does, they normally do a much better job of passing along great insight from the authors. If you need treeware docs for ADO.NET, then I guess this book will do but personally, I'm sticking with the online documentation.

This book is the single most valuable book I bought from WROX in terms of being able to borrow ADO.net code for my application.

ADO.net is the most undocumented are of .net and this book offers hundreds of code samples. The COM Interopability chapter is very good and introduces he obcure Recordset fill and how to use ADOMD from .net!

The Transaction chapter is way too small and incomplete. Another flaw is the fact that the book is supposed to cover VB.net and C# but they were sloppy and it is not a 50/50 split. Often they forget the VB.net samples. You would think their editors could count and make sure all examples come in pairs.

I think it is a great buy but I hope they get all VB.net examples in 2nd edition and a re-orgnization to be more task oriented.

Wrox lists this book as a "Programmer's Reference". In a reference I look for detailed information and code samples demonstrating usage all of which should be more extensive than what can be found in the help files or online API. This book succeeds very well as a reference providing a great deal of information that you will want to have nearby while you are coding. The book starts off with a description of ADO.NET which I found to be the weakest part of the book. This section doesn't quite put all the pieces of ADO.NET together in a meaningful way. The remainder of the book is excellent. Each of the key ADO.NET classes (DataSet, DataReader, DataAdapter, etc.) and their constructors, properties, methods and events are discussed in detail with code samples in both VB.NET and C#. Each key class or concept (data relationships, transactions, XML mapping, etc.) is given a chapter in the book. The explanations are much more useful that what you will find in the online help files. Besides covering SQL and OLE, the book also covers the ODBC classes which are not documented in the help files included with VS.NET. In a reference the index is important and here the index is good although some entries seem to be off a page or two. If you are looking for an in-depth introduction to using ADO.NET you will want to look at other books. If you need a detailed reference book then this should be your first stop.

I had mistakenly thought that Wrox books were held to a higher standard. First getting a taste for them going through both of Rob Vieira's two SQL Server Programming books and regarding them as the finest technical books I've ever seen. However this Professional SQL Server 2000 XML is a disappointment. Part of the problem lies with having 12 different authors because it seems a bit jumpy. I think I'll really try to limit my future purchases to single source efforts. Also, no care was taken with the code examples that you can download from the Wrox website. The book shows the source but there is really no way of really matching the example to the source other than guessing the name. Often I've needed to open up all 15 or so files in the directory to realize that the particular example is not included. I'm picking my way through but it is not pleasant.

It is a good book as far as explaning what SQL Server has to offer regarding XML capabilities but it should have covered the case studies fully with the .Net Framework. Also, it covers very good the IIS configuration, and how to manage XML Templates, XPath and Schemas. The book has a migration example from ASP to ASP.Net which does not cover ADO.Net. If you want a rich source on how to integrate SQLXML and the .Net Framework THIS IS NOT THE BOOK.

I looked at two other SQL Server 2000 XML books, but found this one to be the best - covering almost everything on SQL Server 2000 XML. Very well written, nice examples help understand the technology better. The chapter on Updategrams is very useful. I wanted to learn updategrams and this chapter covers it nicely to get started using them in production.

The book was great and inspired my kids to learn about magnets. The best part is that the book introduced magic that they could do easily. The book was easy to understand with graphics that attracted kids. The only problem is that the magnets broke easily if dropped. Three of the five doughnut magnets broke within the first day of use.

I am an elementary teacher and bought this book to use with my fourth graders. As a source of activities during our explorations of magnets it was invaluable. In addition to the "magic tricks", we had a GREAT time using the magnets to learn about their properties! Many of my students ordered the book to learn more magic tricks on their own. It's a fun, educational book!

If you are new to programming and want to really learn vb 5. DON'T BUY THIS. But if have a lot of experinece this if for you.

This book was fast paced and very descriptive. It helped me out tremendously.

The scope of this book is very aggressive: Mumford attempts to cover just about every Microsoft-sponsored Web technology within 446 pages (despite boasting 700 pages, the non-appendix content only comprises 446 of those). This wide focus means that no one topic is covered in sufficient detail.

I'll give you the summary up front: as an introduction to Visual InterDev 6, this book shines (4 stars). This book also makes an excellent primer for Web technologies. However, I think a true beginner would be better served by focusing on a single area and gaining some confidence first, and then returning to this book for an idea on where to go next. As such, its value is somewhat limited (2 stars).

I'll move on to the content of the book. The order in which these subjects are presented is well-conceived.

Chapters 1 through 3 introduce VI6, and how you can create Web pages through the design interface-think FrontPage. We are introduced to Design Time Controls and site maps for navigation. We create a quick form, and enter a very short (four-line) JavaScript function. Mumford does not elaborate on forms, for example the differences between the GET and POST methods, nor does he spend any more time with JavaScript.

Chapter 4 covers the use of Themes for style, and introduces Design Time Controls (DTC's) and Site Maps for navigation. Themes are essentially out-of-the-box style sheets. Mumford does not delve into style sheets, or describe how you could customize themes.

Chapter 5 is about Database Basics. This is a great chapter that describes how VI6 can be used to develop databases. Some of the Web pages are built using DTC's. A couple of quick hits: at this stage, Mumford hasn't admitted that DTC's are ill suited for heavily trafficked sites. Nor does he mention that client-side DTC's expose all of the database connection information (including server name, user name, and password) within the HTML source that is sent to the browser.

Chapter 6 focuses on Client Side Script. After a brief admonition that JavaScript is a more suitable scripting language for use on the Internet, Mumford plows ahead and provides examples in VBScript. VI6 has some excellent tree controls for creating skeletal form handlers, and support for IE-specific DHTML. Of course, we aren't given a rigorous treatment of either scripting language. The chapter finishes up with using ActiveX controls, but fails to mention Java applets.

Chapter 7 is a decent introduction to Active Server Pages. Mumford touches upon the Response object, the Request object, and even the FileSystemObject. He discusses session state and briefly mentions server-side includes.

Chapter 8 revisits DTC's. The dirt finally comes out about them. I would advise you to avoid them altogether.

Chapter 9 is a good chapter about using ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) to connect to a database. VI6 can provide some of the same "IntelliSense" features that are available in Visual Basic.

Chapter 10 is a concise, high-level introduction to XML. VI6 does not have any native support for XML, but Mumford does a good job of presenting the benefits of this new standard. I found the exercise of embedding an island of XML data within an HTML document, and using client-side script to navigate its recordset to be very interesting.

Chapter 11 is an admonition to include error-handling routines in your programming. If the stars are properly aligned, you might even get the server-side scripting debugger to work.

Chapter 12 discusses the benefits of moving business logic code from the ASP's into COM objects. There are several worthwhile statements made throughout this chapter with regard to Web application design. A very preliminary introduction to MTS is provided.

Chapter 13 starts out well with many valuable comments about designing your Web application's architecture. It then bogs down with a cursory discussion about Visual SourceSafe, and wraps up with the "Visual Component Manager."

Chapter 14 is the last chapter, and it is a case study for an internal help desk Web application. This is a great example to work through. It typifies real-life development in a Microsoft environment: mostly hand-coded pages, no DTC's, themes, or site maps, using ADO, and creating COM objects.

The appendices are relatively useless. The Visual InterDev menu reference can be discerned within the application itself, and the HTML, VBScript, and JavaScript references can be readily found in a multitude of electronic and hard-bound locations.

A better title would have been "An Introduction to Visual InterDev 6," for that is the aim this book sets out to achieve. I believe this book accomplishes this task very well. However, a beginner who purchases this book with the expectation that she will be a full-fledged Web developer by its end will be sadly disappointed.

This book treads the borderline between a beginning and intermediate text - and succeeds. It starts somewhere close to the beginning by introducing the basics of web development using the Visual Interdev environment, and progresses to explain how to use COM objects to make your site more robust and responsive. The book is a good example of the Wrox Press "Microsoft Technologies" approach, and gives a thorough understanding of not just the Visual Interdev product, but also of the many technologies used in a professional web site, namely ASP, VBScript, JavaScript, databases, and COM. I would recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn this excellent product - it is well written and does not bog you down with unnecessary detail. It is clear, precise, and to the point. The examples are well thought out, and the book delivers all that it promises. Well done Wrox - once again!

I have to agree with the fact that the book is a little vague in places, however, if you are a beginning web programmer who has a little knowledge of the Microsoft development environment (Visual Studio, MS-SQL), then this is a really really good start. I have to give the book five stars when reviewing it in the context of a book for beginners.

Mumford does a thorough job of explaining net programming and Visual InterDev, plus he touches on everything from T-SQL to ASP and XML. What beginner could ask for a more comprehensive glance at web development? Also, the book takes a hands-on approach, so you'll actually build a little business2consumer website solution complete w/database support. If you think you may be a candidate for this book, then there is no question - buy it. If not, buy several books concentrating solely on individual topics.

What a SUCK-FEST! This is the worst book I've read in a long time. The (unlucky) 13 authors seem only slightly concerned with plot continuity, and the result is like a novel with every third page torn out. Characters come and go, and come back again for no apparent reason, other than to satisfy the authors' self-indulgent egos. In particular, the chapters by Elmore Leonard and Vicki Hendricks were appallingly bad. Hendricks ignores all the preceeding chapters and suddenly changes the eponymous manatee from an aquatic pinhead into some amalgam of Lassie and the Hardy Boys. In a later chapter Carl Hiaasen openly mocks this sudden swerve in character. (Tip: avoid books where one co-author ridicules another co-author's writing) Elmore Leonard contributes a time capsule that might have been hip 25 years ago, with a black character refering to someone as a "cat", and in the very next sentence actually using the phase "shuck and jive". I am very happy I checked this book out of the library, instead of squandering 22.95 on this train wreck of a book

OK, thirteen of Miami's favorite writers are sitting around a campfire (this isn't a joke). Dave Barry kicks off a story involving a couple hit men, a manatee, a 102-year-old woman and a box containing the head of Fidel Castro, and passes it to the writer to the left. The next eleven writers circle the story around the campfire in an attempt to blend this motley cast of characters (and heads) into the literary equivalent of a refreshing Miami Beach smoothee.

Throwing in monkey wrenches, stranger characters and even more heads-in-boxes in the process, they mostly succeed in creating a wholly unbelievable, extremely offbeat and wildly entertaining mystery. Poor Carl Hiassen (of Striptease fame) is challenged with tying up all the loose ends without playing the Demi Moore card, and succeeds in delivering an ending as strange as a manatee is large.

Above all an interesting experiment, Naked Came the Manatee is also an entertaining quick read.

Booger is the answer to the walls talking. Suspend belief and enter the world of a manatee that thinks, feels and reasons like us. He becomes involved in a mystery not as a victim, but as a participant in important events. The concept of a manatee detective aiding the likes of Brit Montero in solving the case of the Castro heads is only exceeded by the writing of this by the many different writers, from Dave Barry to Carl Hiaasen. No mystery should be this much fun

I, too, am disappointed in this book and will be returning it. I bought it as a gift thinking it was a collection of the Pope's prayers to God. Instead, I have a found a collection of speeches/papers/instructions to Secular Institutes asking them to "Love the Church" and "Challenge the Young." In the last chapter of the book, there were three actual prayers. Perhaps I allowed the book's title to misguide my expectations. The writing is lovely if you are looking for secular instruction, but don't expect to find the Pope's private prayers.

These are not prayers, but speaches.
You'll need to be very spiritually advanced to listen to them.
Valuable CD's under incorrect title.
I bought this based on an newspaper ad by publisher.

i found the book to be different from other Pope publications. to follow the Pope through out his journey as a great spirtual leader and the head of the vatican. To read his thoughts through out his travels and time as the Popei find to be very interesting and very englightening. i find the lay out of the book to be beautiful...........i'm glad i have it on my shelf and a bought a few for christmas presents.