Biographies (and autobiographies) suffer from one over-riding defect - no-one really knows anyone else completely, or even themselves, so to attempt to accurately describe a person's life is fraught with danger. Interviews with friends and relatives will still only give a slanted or emotionally-coloured idea, either for or against. Yet so many biographies confidently claim to be "authorised" or even finite - I wonder at their courage and impudence. However, if reading every biography you can get hold of about someone enables you to find a path somewhere in between all the lines, you might eventually begin to get a glimmer of what makes that person who he is. When that person is Peter Sellers, though, you must remember you shouldn't presume to try and pin down such a complicated genius of a man, and always mentally add "maybe" to all your "facts". This book tries hard and the author thinks he is being scrupulously fair, and it's not a bad effort. Just bear in mind that "authorised" in this case means by the Sellers estate, and that the author is a journalist and film critic.

To write about the life of Peter Sellers is such a complex undertaking that only the best writers should attempt it. To try to understand a man who didn't even understand himself is inviting hubris. However, Alexander Walker has been a film critic of a leading London newspaper for many years and should have some idea of what he's taking on, having met Peter Sellers on a number of occasions and apparently been privileged to have been considered a friend (any real friendship is a privilege). It certainly reads well, without all the distasteful "muck-raking" with which other authors have found it necessary to pad their offerings. How accurate any biography (or autobiography for that matter) is, can only be guessed at, but this book appears to be trying honestly to depict and evaluate a man whose genius is only now beginning to be appreciated - rarely in one's own time or country, sadly.

The book is made of 132 tips, around 3 or 4 per page, with no more than 160 words per page. It would be a good introdutory book for middle school students. However, if you at least read Business Week once a month, nothing new will come out

After spending $50+ on magazines and other books on how to successfully market my service via the Web, I wish I would have discovered this book initially. Why read a manual when the essential checklist has already been developed? This book includes hints and reminders helpful at the design stage all the way to site maintenance. Although marketed for executives, anyone who has an Internet presence will find the information in this book valuable. It's a resource that I'll use frequently.

This is a classic case of "less is more". This little book is deceptive. It is packs more real knowledge and usable ideas and tips into fewer pages than anything else on the market. The authors clearly have "been there--done that" when it comes to designing and supporting web business.

This book seems to cover most of the right topics for explaining how MIDI works. However, I find the organization of the book very confusing and the advertised "plain English" missing. Where was the editor when this book was being written? Just a little more organization and better writing clarity could have made a huge difference.

The title of the book is "How MIDI Works" but the first three chapters barely mention MIDI as the system requirements of computers are explained. Eventually, when we get to Chapter 4, we see a discussion of "Multiport MIDI Devices". However, even at this point, MIDI has not even been defined. Only when we get to Chapter 9 do we start to see a definition and a real discussion of the MIDI interface and its data and control formats. However, I still have not found a concise summary of the MIDI format as it is sprinkled throughout the book but never really summarized. I would expect a book with this title to function well as a reference source for MIDI information. I looked for MIDI in the index but found there is no index!

It appears that the title of the book should have been "How to Build a PC-based Recording Studio" since that is what the book actually attempts to deliver. MIDI is just one technology that gets discussed among all the other ins and outs of putting together a PC-based audio system. I'll need to look elsewhere for a good reference on MIDI.

This book was "OK" at best. Like others have mentioned, it is kind of organized oddly as MIDI isn't even mentioned until a third of the way through. The title is semi-misleading because it strays from MIDI quite a bit from time to time to explain other things. And also as someone mentioned, he has a bad tendency to mention terms and concepts well before he actually explains them.

Also, it's already seriously outdated as far as system specs, software, etc...

One more complaint: This book is full of blatant advertisments for the author's other business ventures as well as the music school where he teaches, and also for Gigasampler/Studio which is mentioned SEVERAL (I mean SEVERAL) times in every chapter and shown in nearly all diagrams, and even goes as far as having an entire chapter dedicated to Gigasampler/Studio. If you were a complete newbie reading this, you would be convinced that having Gigasampler was the only way you could make music on your computer.

But, I'd say that the information is mostly straight forward, easy to understand and finally when it gets into actually talking about MIDI, has some good info. This book had potential, but the little things really add up to make it sub-par in my opinion.

I'd give it 2.5 stars if I had the option.

I am so excited that I found a music book that could help me with all the midi stuff. I needed somthing and this book is it. I gives you list and pictures of equipment that you could buy to make systems that work. It explains all the reasons for each piece of hardware and what their use is in the computer. For me it shows me how to buy the correct type and how much computer hardware. This book really has been great!

For developers involved with web-based projects, whether it be an online store for electronic commerce or an Intranet site for accessing and modifying company data, the powerful blend of JavaServer Pages (JSP) and Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) technologies can really make life simple. Once you've mastered them, creating new components that encapsulate business logic, or new web interfaces to existing systems, is easy. The trick, for developers, is mastering the technologies.

Professional JSP is one way to get up to speed. Like many of the books published by Wrox Press, Professional JSP covers a specific technology in-depth, as well as the various ancillary topics relating to it such as databases, servlets, and XML. While not every developer will need every web technology covered by the book (and there are many), the book works both as a tutorial to cover the basics and a reference for technologies that you may encounter later.

Professional JSP starts by covering the basics of Java Server Pages, and how they relate to other web technologies. Embedded in HTML pages, JSP provides an easy mechanism for creating interactive web interfaces that draws on server-side components, known as Enterprise JavaBeans. While the presentation logic is written in JSP, the processing occurs within these JavaBean components. The book takes a balanced approach, covering both JSP and its syntax, as well as how to write and interact with JavaBeans to perform useful tasks, like accessing databases through JDBC and using other Java technologies. However, if you've read other Wrox titles, you may find there is some overlap in the topics covered.

One of the nice things about Professional JSP is that, in addition to covering theory, it goes further and examines practical applications of JSP, and issues for programmers like security and debugging. Like other titles in the Professional series, there are case studies of real projects using JSP and related technologies. My favorite would have to be the case study on porting Active Server Pages to JSP -- something that is extremely important for developers with "legacy" web systems. On the whole, Professional JSP is an excellent book for web developers wanting to get up to speed with Java Server Pages, web development, and Enterprise JavaBeans. However, developers with less of a web presentation focus and more of back-end server view may also want to consider the excellent Professional Java Server Programming title, which also covers JSP. -- David Reilly, reviewed for the Java Coffee Break

This is a book for programmers who have a solid background in servlets programming and some experience in JSP. For beginners and for people who wish to learn those techniques on a standalone machine, they will be better off with Hall's "core servlets & JSP" or Fields&Kolb's "web development & JSP".

The book consists of 20 chapters. The first 12 chapters discuss the various salient aspects of JSP and the rest ( about two third of the whole book) is devoted to case studies.

A. THE BOOK'S STRENGTH:

By adopting Tomcat as its main testing software, the editors of "Professional JSP" have assured that most of the code examples will work. This is a big improvement over the past wrox books.

There are some excellent chapters in the first part. The discussion on session tracking is a real gem although the author failed to make a showcase of the code examples. The chapter on JSP Architecture contains some of the clearest explaination on the techniques of redirecting, forwarding and requestdispatcher. The chapter on customtags is equally very well done. But my favorite is the chapter on Global Settings, the idea is so practical. I also like the idea of emphasizing the importance of authentication which showed in many chapters of the book.

The case studies will serve as an excellent reference. Its coverage ranges from (1) the front end of an insurance company (2) a good pictures website which use JSP to publish its data (3) Security with JNDI (4) a online store using LDAP and JSP (5) J@EE, EIBs and Customtags (6) Multimedia and JSP (7) Weather website with JSP, XSLT and WAP (8) Porting ASP to JSP.

2. BOOK'S WEAKNESS:

The book is a combined effort of many authours and its unevenness showed. The first three chapters to introduce to JSP are out of place and a real waste. The chapter on Dynamic GUIs is a great idea which turned into a joke: after showing the general diea how to do it, the author sent readers to his website to learn the rest(?). And the chapter on JDBC connectivity and Pooling is a big disappointment: most of the chapter devoted to get connection, create databse,editing it and make query; and the rest the author explained how to use his own pool manager package, PoolMan. This wouldn't be too bad if PoolMan worked, with Tomcat.

The richness of the case studies is also its weakness. Unless you are experienced and have the facilities, you can't test them all. These techniques become obsolete pretty quick.

Probably the strongest objection to the book is its price. Buy it for your company and share with your colleague.

This books lives up to its title in that it provides both real-world JSP techniques (through 7 very informative case studies chapters), as well as JSP background information that serves as a quick start guide. I rank it as one of the top 2 JSP books currently available (the other one is Web Development With JavaServer Pages by Messrs. Fields and Kolb).

After the JSP fundamentals are out of the way (which I am sure any JSP newcomer will appreciate and can benefit from), the book picks up pace with discussion on JDBC connection pooling, and the best practice for data access from JSP. Then comes the chapter on custom tags. My favorite chapters are the ones on debugging JSP's and implementing the MVC design pattern in JSP/servlets.

The case studies are very comprehensive and closely correlated to the earlier chapters. In one case study the design methodology is clearly explained with UML diagrams, which are very helpful to someone who is currently architecting an enterprise Java Web application. Other case studies cover such a wide area of topics such as JSP in combination with LDAP, EJB, XSL, and WAP.

For ASP developers, this books has two enormously useful chapters to get them started on JSP right away. One is a case study showing how to port an ASP app to JSP, and the other compares and contrasts the object model and syntax between ASP and JSP.

Having said all the above, this book does suffer from certain weaknesses. One is typical of any multi-author book, i.e., repeat of the same topic in different chapters. This is the case with JDBC, which shows up in both chapters 4 and 7. Another problem is the lack of the use of a standard servlet/JSP container, which will help new users to run all samples under the same software setting (although there is an appendix on setting up Tomcat server). Finally, a few chapters seem to be out of place in term of the logic flow of concept, such as the ones on dynamic GUI's and JNDI.

Finally, this book is still thin on heavy-duty J2EE topics, such as EJB, distributed transactions, message service, and interoperability with CORBA. This is why I consider it as an intermediate level book, not an advanced one. Hopefully we will see another Wrox book in the near future that addresses some of these issues.

I bought this book to provide me with some background information on bentwood furniture and it seems to me that it performs this task quite adequately. There are plenty of high quality color photographs of surviving furniture; these are combined with historic black&white photographs. The accompanying text describes basic principles clearly and provides a fair bit of history.

I am not a Thonet buff, so I dare not compare it with other literature on the topic, but viewed in isolation it seems nice enough. At good coffee table book, or better.

My only complaint about this play is that Shakespeare should have had some dialogues where the characters discussed crucial history before the play opens. Gloucester (murdered or dead before the play but mentioned several times) had tried to usurp Richard's crown too many times. History itself is not sure if Gloucester died or was murdered. Bolingbroke for a while conspired with Gloucester and now sees another oppurtunity to usurp the crown.The virtuous John of Gaunt served Richard with honor and integrity and eventually moved parliament into arresting Gloucester for treason. This would of made John of Gaunt's rages all the more valid. Otherwise this play is outstanding! Richard shows himself to be capable of ruling at times, but gains our contempt when he seizes his the honorable John of Gaunt's wealth. John of Gaunt's final rage in 2.1 is a passage of immense rageful beauty. Also, Shakespeare moves us into strongly suspecting that Richard had Gloucester murdered. However, despite Richard's crime, Shakespeare masterfully reverses our feelings and moves us into having deep pity for Richard when he is deposed. The Bishop of Carlisle (Richard's true friend) provides some powerful passages of his own. I can not overestimate the grace in which Shakespeare increases our new won pity for Richard when Bolingbroke (Gaunt's rightful heir) regains his wealth and the death of Gloucester is left ambiguous. 5.1, when Richard sadly leaves his queen and can see that Henry IV and his followers will eventually divide is a scene of sorrowful beauty. 5.4 is chilling when Exton plots Richard's murder. 5.5 is chilling and captivating when Richard dies but manages to take two of the thugs down with him. The icing on the cake is that Bolingbroke (Henry IV) can only regret his actions and realize that he has gotten himself into a troublesome situation. But that will be covered in "1 Henry IV" and "2 Henry IV." We can easily argue that it is in "Richard II" where we see Shakespeare's mastery of the language at its finest.

The thing with Shakespeare histories is that almost no one reads them, as opposed to his tragedies and comedies. I don't know why that is. The histories that are read are either Henry V (largely due to Branagh's movie), Richard III (because the hunchback king is so over-the-top evil), or the gargantuan trilogy of Henry VI, with the nearly saintly king (at least by Part III) who much prefers contemplating religion and ethics to ruling and dealing with the cabals among his nobles.

So why read a relatively obscure history about a relatively obscure king? Aside from the obvious (it's Shakespeare, stupid), it is a wonderful piece of writing - intense, lyrical, and subtle. Richard II is morally ambiguous, initially an arrogant, callous figure who heeds no warnings against his behavior. Of course, his behavior, which includes seizing the property of nobles without regard for their heirs, leads to his downfall. Nothing in his character or behavior inspires his subjects so he has no passionate defenders when one of the wronged heirs leads a rebellion to depose Richard II. But Richard now becomes a much more sympathetic figure -especially in the scene where he confronts the usurper, Richard acknowledges his mistakes, but eloquently wonders what happens when the wronged subjects can depose the leader when they are wronged. What then of the monarchy, what then of England?

On top of the profound political musings, you get some extraordinarily lyrical Shakespeare (and that is truly extraordinary). Most well known may be the description of England that was used in the airline commercial a few years back... "This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, ..."

If you like Shakespeare and haven't read this play, you've missed a gem.

Richard II was incompetent, wastefully extravagant, overtaxed his nobles and peasants, ignored his senior advisors, and lavished dukedoms on his favorites. His rival, Henry of Bolingbroke (later Henry IV), was popular with the common man and undeservingly suffered banishment and loss of all his property. And yet two centuries later Elizabethans viewed the overthrow of Richard II as fundamentally wrong and ultimately responsible for 100 years of crisis and civil war. Queen Elizabeth's government even censored Shakespeare's play.

Shakespeare masterfully manipulates our feelings and attitude toward Richard II and Bolingbroke. We initially watch Richard II try to reconcile differences between two apparently loyal subjects each challenging the other's loyalty to the king. He seemingly reluctantly approves a trial by combat. But a month later, only minutes before combat begins, he banishes both form England. We begin to question Richard's motivation.

Richard's subsequent behavior, especially his illegal seizure of Bolingbroke's land and title, persuades us that his overthrow is justified. But as King Richard's position declines, a more kingly, more contemplative ruler emerges. He faces overthrow and eventual death with dignity and courage. Meanwhile we see Bolingbroke, now Henry IV, beset with unease, uncertainty, and eventually guilt for his action.

Shakespeare also leaves us in in a state of uncertainty. What is the role of a subject? What are the limits of passive obedience? How do we reconcile the overthrow of an incompetent ruler with the divine right of kings? Will Henry IV, his children, or England itself suffer retribution?

Richard II has elements of a tragedy, but is fundamentally a historical play. I was late coming to Shakespeare's English histories and despite my familiarity with many of his works I found myself somewhat disoriented. I did not appreciate the complex relationships between the aristocratic families, nor what had happened before. Fortunately I was rescued by Peter Saccio, the author of "Shakespeare's English Kings". Saccio's delightful book explores how Shakespeare's imagination and actual history are intertwined.

I hope you enjoy Richard II as much as I have. It is the gateway to Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2) and Henry V, all exceptional plays.

I found this book a very poor effort. This is neither a hands-on approach or a practical approach. It is full of waffle and I get the impression that the authors were not really sure of the subject they wrote about. I look forward to the book that Gareth M. De Bruyn will write on R/3 & the Internet !

This is a very one sided and very SAP-oriented book, but it will give you an indication of the SAP-blessed way of doing things. Just be aware there are lots of falsehoods and generalizations, e.g. "mainframes cannot connect to the internet.", when one of the first successful things of the internet was LISTSERVs from the IBM VM operating system long before SAP could even pronounce let alone spell internet. Like most SAP stuff it pats SAP liberally on the back and paints themselves as the conveyers of "THE TRUTH". If you read it with a critical eye and believe about one half it is a good book and at the very least when people start slinging the buzzwords which is a favourite pastime in the SAP world you will be able to accurately gauge there knowledge.

I am using this book as one of my required textbooks this quarter at the University of Washington. As indicated by the title of the book, the focus of the book is on how current SAP R/3 users can make R/3's functions available over the Internet. The authors have not attempted to explain similar efforts by the other major ERP vendors.

As a professor, my choices of books and of ERP systems have been easy. SAP has provided its R/3 system to more than 70 American universities and to more than 350 universities worldwide. Only recently did J.D. Edwards start a grant program for universities. Anyone may search amazon.com's database and discover that there are very few books available on any aspect of the other ERP systems. The authors of this book should be applauded for writing an excellent book for use in universities.

As a professor, I expect authors to provide a theoretical framework in the first chapter. These authors passed my test by covering basic concepts of the extended supply chain in the first chapter. Systems developers need to understand why they are developing a new system and how to evaluate the success or failure of the new system. The authors have not provided a step-by-step guide for developers and for programmers. Readers will not find a CD-ROM at the back of the book. Instead, the authors have explained what you need to know about SAP R/3 and about the Internet to make them work together.

The authors discussed centralized, loosely coupled, and decentralized systems. A correct representation of the views of the authors about the use of mainframe computers may be found on page 18: "There is one exception: mainframe systems, such as those used in many large enterprises, for example insurance companies. Terminals attached to these systems cannot accept the client software required for the Internet." The authors understand the difference between a mainframe computer and a terminal.

For an opposing view, I require my students to read Andrew White's white paper: "The Value Equation: Value Chain Management, Collaboration and the Internet." This white paper explains why Logility, Inc. has taken a different approach to extended supply chain management than that taken by the ERP system vendors. You may find the white paper at the Collaboration Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment site: http://www.cpfr.org/

My students must read also the excellent materials you may find at the Web sites of RosettaNet and of the Uniform Code Council: http://www.rosettanet.org/ http://www.uc-council.org/

In sum, this is a good, introductory book for SAP R/3 users who want to provide R/3's functions over the Internet. There are already entire books on supply chain management and on the Internet. This book provides a good starting point for understanding how to combine SAP R/3 and the Internet. Someday, perhaps other vendors will find the courage to provide their systems and books for critical evaluation and use in universities. I am still waiting for other reviewers to cite better books.

Do not buy this book, and for your own good, don't even read it!

First of all, I am an experienced computer programmer, and have developed code for the Java core programming language. I have read many-a-programming book, and can tell you to stay away from this one. Why?

This book:

* is not practical
* is filled with *serious* errors - not just typos
* fails by attempting to cover too many topics
* lacks examples and good diagrams
* lacks a sense of continuity from chapter to chapter

Many of this book's chapters are written as if they were a theorem: generalizations and buzzwords that don't get you anywhere. For example:

"If a set of permissions can between them imply a permission - even if no single permission in the set explicitly implies it completely by itself - you will need to provide your own implementation of PermissionCollection." Ha!

"Because sockets are just *programming* abstractions for network protocols, the other side of the connection does not have to use them. For example, the network program on the right side of this example may be coded in an exotic system that does not use the socket abstraction. That is, sockets don't use any additional communications mechanism other than that provided by the encapsulated protocol." Gimme a break!

Some of the errors in this book are the following:

* Chapter 5's author says that java.io.InputStream's "public int read(byte[] buf, int offset, int length)" method reads the input stream starting at 'offset' bytes deep into the input buffer - skipping the bytes toward the front of the buffer. This is incorrect. The author even has a diagram and examples to complement his error. This method actually reads starting at the front of the input buffer, and reads the bytes into 'buf' starting at buf[offset].

* As if all of the previous chapters' authors' errors weren't bad enough, Chapter 9's author took me to a screeching halt and compelled me to write this whole review when he said this: " It should be noted that the java.net.Socket object returned is bound to an ephemeral port number that is different from the one the ServerSocket is listening to (most applications don't care about that port number)." Whoa! This is absolutely, fundamentally wrong. In truth, the returned Socket has the *same* receiving port number as the ServerSocket. (Otherwise the client's Socket (whose destination port number is the same as the ServerSocket's receiving port number) wouldn't know what this "ephemeral port number" is, and so wouldn't be able to send packets to the server's newly created Socket.) IP packets are demultiplexed according to their *connection* (The 2 connected sockets, i.e. 5 parameters: the common protocol, the source's IP address & port number, and the destination's IP address & port number) and according to socket specificity, not just according to the receiving side's socket.

* Wrong diagrams. p.163: The diagram is of a program's output which shows "access denied", while its caption above says, basically, "tada, and it works." p.52: This diagram belongs in the I/O chapter.

The only chapter I found to be somewhat good was the Thread chapter (and a chapter on threads shouldn't even be in a book on networking). This book also suffers from lacking continuity due to the fact that it was written by 10 authors! For instance, this book has no consistent (or good) way of listing the API's and diagraming class relations. Chapters do not pedagogically build on the previous ones. I could go on...

If you want to learn about networking using Java, then here are your prerequisites. You should learn each of these from a book which specializes in the given topic.

* Basic Java Programming including I/O and Threads
* The TCP/IP protocol suite and TCP/IP networking
* Cryptography (optional)
* Java Security

After you do that, I highly recommend the book "TCP/IP Sockets In Java: Practical Guide for Programmers". This book gets the job done at only 110 pages. Another reason I recommend this book is that it lists references to 22 other good and relevant books/documents.

If you want to learn about HTML, Javascript, Servlets, JSP, RMI, CORBA, etc., then you should find a book specific to that topic. For instance, Marty Hall's books on Servlets and JSP are great.

Just because a programming book is thick, doesn't mean it's good. The book's publisher, Wrox, does put out some good books, but this just isn't one of them.

I bought this book in hopes that it would help guide me on the path to learn Java programming. Numbering over 1000 pages by several different authors, this book does not have a very consistent feel to it, and jumps around to various subjects about Java and various networking principles. The first 200 pages would be good for a university networking class, but as for being a decent tutorial, it is horrible. This book gives little code snippets here and there, but never fully combines them into one large, solid, and useful application.

If you are looking for a book to act as a Java tutorial to networking, this is not the book for you. It is very comprehensive in some areas, and much more than many people are willing to spend in getting through sections of this book. However, if you are looking for a little more general purpose Java networking Bible, then this book might be more suited for you.

I was looking to do more than what you normally find documented in Java and this gave me the details I needed. It has a lot of network protocol details right in the book so you don't have to keep switching between a protocol book and a Java book. Although it's titled, "Beginning Java Networking" it would also benefit an advanced Java programmer interested in writing networking programs.

This book is for all intents and purposes a recording primer. I could see it possibly being useful to someone who has absolutely zero recording experience, but that's about it. Since there's a ton of basic recording articles already available out there on the web, this book's recording-related contents can be had for free by doing some surfing or by hanging out at the Home_Recording Yahoo group for a couple of days.

As far as its coverage of the BR1180 goes, if you've already attempted to record one or two songs on the unit and have read the manual through once or twice - and that's how I recommend you approach learning this unit - you've already learned more than this book will ever teach you. The author ducks the difficult topics - at one point saying something like, "Don't try to bounce, it's too complicated"!!! Again, you're time would be better spent hanging out at the BR1180 Yahoo group.

I am quite familiar with the works of Kluge, and was both intrigued and excited to read this book. I came away from my reading of this book disappointed and thinking that I could have written this in less than one day. Unfortunately, and I regret that I have to say this because too little is written on interesting people like Kluge, there is nothing new here to those of us who know Kluge's work and something about his history in German cinema and public television. This is probably a fine book for freshman to consult in an introduction to german cinema class, but I was under the impression that this book was in the series because it was aimed at a professional or graduate school audience. Sorry I can't be more positive, but I wouldn't spend my money on this one.