It's a lovely book to look at and very accessible to read. The text is thorough without being out of reach for young teenagers. We used it for background information for a science project on seed germination and enjoyed learning from the many other topics covered.

This book is up-to-date, nicely organized, and full of useful information. It is intended to be of value to readers who have some general programming experience and is, by extension, ideal for those who already have some knowledge of SAS programming. My only complaint, and it is not an insignificant one, is that the writing is often unclear. I find too many passages that I understand only because I know quite a bit about SAS already. I fear that other readers with less experience will end up puzzled or misinformed. This is a good SAS book, but it is not a good "first" SAS book.

The shape caught my eye and was quite appealing. The text follows a young girl on a tour of the state in an interview style, so there are no chapters and the text flow is a bit awkward for an adult but kids should like it. Nice graphics with a unique question/fact on the bottom of each page. This book would also be good for younger children. I wish he had more states completed!

Conversations recorded in 1995 between Leonard Sweet, at the time the Dean of the Theological School at Drew University, Madison, NJ, and Rick Warren, Senior Pastor of Saddleback Community Church, Orange County, CA.

Although I was somewhat familiar with Leonard Sweet's writings this was my first exposure to Rick Warren. This audio book is a great introduction to both of these cutting edge Christian leaders!

Although set up almost as an interview, primarily with Sweet interviewing Warren, the recording has a feel of listening in on a living room conversation between the two men, it "feels" natural, not staged.

The discussions range from a bit of personal history in their ministerial journeys, to some observations of the current "state of the church", to a call to seek out the leading edge of the next wave of ministry in the 21st century.

Much of Warren's material comes from his book, The Purpose Driven Church, published around the same time. Sweet, a cutting edge historian, philosopher, author, and commentator on Christian life and ministry, adds some wonderful commentary of his own to Warren's ideas.

I was especially "grabbed" by Warren's concept of ministry as surfing - how to recognize a rideable wave, how to climb on the board, how to ride the wave, how to get off again, and especially, how and where the wave begins.

Sweet and Warren's books are much more in-depth than is possible on two 60 minute tapes but The Tides of Change is a great introduction to the ministries and philosophies of both men. I would highly recommend this audio book to anyone attempting to lead a struggling church through the swirling "Tides of Change" in today's world!

While there was some good information in this book, I was hoping for more behind-the-scenes info. The advertised 'stats of every ship' is nothing more than screen shots of the vessels and buildings that you can get out of the in-game help.

That being said, it does have some good techniques for multi-ship cruising and tips for the campaign.

If this book is a typical example of the new Wrox "Handbook" style books, then I look forward to seeing more of them. While this "Handbook" is considerable smaller (just under 300 pages) than many of the technical books I have purchased over the years, it is much more densely filled with useful content. By the time you've read the first 100 pages, the authors have walked you through the basics, including a practical example that covers a lot of what you will need to know to deploy a windows forms application with the VS.NET deployment tools. Important topics (such as how to protect your code) are also covered. I did find a small mistake in some of the text, but Wrox was quick to update the Errata page for the book. The only thing that would have made this book perfect for me is if they would have covered web deployment as much as windows forms deployment. Still, there is enough useful information that applies to both that if web deployment is your focus, you will still find this book useful. Plus, you can carry this book around without breaking your back! Well worth the money if you are deploying VB.NET applications.

A refreshingly insightful and humorous work. One of the cleverest books I've read in years. Mr. Widmaier answers questions I've wondered about in a superlatively witty way that even the layperson can understand.

Maybe it wouldn't be too bad to live this story for just anyone. Some of us are more independent than others, some are just simple, and some are unemotional. But this is the story of an emotional, intelligent, and complex boy, and a brief year of life with his mother and an extended family.

Paul's widowed mother has left him several times in unhappy circumstances - with his grandparents for several years, and in various institutions. When he finally has the chance to live with her in a family context, he never wants it to end. But it is wartime, and everything is much too complicated and desperate for normalcy to prevail. This is the story of Paul's manic struggle to swim rather than sink in the much-too-adult life current that has collided with his childhood.

This is a very American story, and many American readers will crack a grin as they identify with Paul's maudlin escapist daydreams, as he visualizes himself at the controls of a fighter plane, coming down in enemy territory, and (of course) dying dramatically in the arms of various beautiful women!

A very good read, sad and funny, with a haunting aftertaste.

I have no doubt that the authors of this book are very experienced at development and admin of SQL Server 2000 and earlier versions. They covered all topics in sufficent breath and depth. However, I would only rate this book as adequate for the following 2 reasons:

1. There was a definate lack of organization to the way the material was presented. Quite often, there were non-sequeters: the text would be explaining some concept, but then suddenly there would be a paragraph on something quite unrelated (at least, I did not see the connection). The authors should have explained how the paragraph relates, or put it in a side-bar, or perhaps in another section. 'Stream of Consciousness' prose does NOT belong in a book providing technical instruction!

The book was also disorganized in the fact that concepts were often used before they were introduced or explained. I know this is necessary sometimes, but it should happen rarely, and an author should explain fully why they are doing it so the reader is not left to wonder if they missed something.

2. There were some errors in the code examples, not as much as in some computer books I have seen, but more than I think is acceptable. When I am paid to write code, I make damn sure it runs, and I hold authors of computer books to the same high standards. As a novice to T-SQL, I need to be able to examine CORRECTLY WORKING code examples; I really am not in a position to debug code in a langauge that I am just starting to learn.

Bottom line: this book is OK, but the authors need to do a better job at organizing their material before presenting it, and checking over their own code.

This is a fantastic book for people who need a crash course in SQL Server 2K. The information is presented in a style that gives the reader the "bottom line" on how to perform a task, with enough information to explain what the reader is doing and why.

The book is also well-written, so if the reader is learning SQL Server on one's own, the reader should struggle very little.

This book also comes with a 120-day evaluation of SQL Server 2000, so the reader can easily perform the hands-on exercises in the book, as well as experiment on one's own.

Will this book make you a maven of SQL Server 2K? No, but this book will give you the information that you need to be a SQL Server Database Administrator.

I've read the reviews here - some of which complain that it's not detailed enough - but I disagree. Technical books almost always fall short when it comes to detail about specific topics simply because there's a limit on how many pages one wants to wade through!! When one needs specific technical details about a topic, you don't pick up a "teach yourself in 21 days book". The book did an excellent job of accomplishing what it states -the users leaves with a solid overview of SQL Server, with adequate foundation laid to uncover other information needed. I was also pleasantly surprised to see the non-technical lingo used to cover database design basics as well - ambitious coverage, well done!

This book is better than most other books for first time HTML programmers. It gives good introduction on related topics like JavaScript, Java, DHTML, Active X and VBScript. I got a good idea of HTML from this book but I went on to get two more HTML books for better reference and in-depth programming techniques. However, I would NOT recommend this book to someone who already knows basic HTML or who is looking for a good reference book on HTML. One important thing to note is that this book was basically written for HTML 3.2 and later when HTML 4 came, a few last minute changes were made to put 'HTML 4' on the cover. So this book does not cover HTML 4 the way it should.

I think that the book is truely great for someone that just needs it around to double check things, in that case this book is all you need as far as HTML 4 goes. I don't think this is the best book to learn HTML from, but if you know HTML and just needs to familiarize yourself with HTML 4, then it serves it's purpose. The book skims through the basics and gets to the more advanced, then skims through that, which I don't value very much. I will especially disappointed with the coverage of CSS and JavaScript. I can't say I am going to never use the book, because I use it alot, but I was hoping that it would teach me more than it has. Overall, not a bad "REFERENCE" book, but you will need other books to accompany it on the shelf in order to become an expert.

Sections on CSS, dynamic HTML, effective layout, XML, and scripting give this book added value. The cross-browser HTML reference table is worth the money alone. Well-indexed, with solid real-world examples.