This book is the bible of BBQ. I read several books and checked the internet sites and this is far and away the best. Mr. Hale not only teaches you proper technique for cooking he teaches you WHY the techniques work. I recently did my very first brisket in a high quality offset style cooker using Mr. Hale's recipes and instructions and it was one of the most tender, juicy and flavorful briskets I've ever had. If you only buy one BBQ book - this is the one to get!

Far from being faint praise, saying that this is a "pretty darned good bbq book" is the greatest compliment one bbq'er could make to another. As a life long (ex-Kansas City) proponent of the slow, lazy method of cooking ribs and other treats, this is undoubtedly the most dead-on manual for anybody who wants greater insight into cooking outdoors. For the novice, it is a definitive introduction to serious grilling and bbq. For those of us who have spent as much time trying to figure out WHY we try to coax any goodness out of a nasty cut of meat like the brisket as we do actually doing it, it is a great resource. The book is filled with information that will improve the efforts of bbq'ers of any level. This is the one bbq book every cook should own.

I have subscribed to the Barbecue'n On the Internet newsletter ... for about 3 years and that is where I first 'met' Smoky Hale, who has a column there. His 'aw shucks' self-deprecating style is both humorous and very informative. His many inside tips and experience with the art of 'Q' made me an instant fan. When his book was released in 2000, I eagerly purchased it and to no surprise, I use it regularly. The book is really a conversation with the reader. Smoky shares his years of experience, some good, some bad and you get the feeling that making some really bad food is part of the learning process. And he does discuss every aspect of the grilling and barbeque process. Barbequing, broiling, roasting and smoking procedures are thoroughly covered in detail. He also talks about seasonings, rubs and marinades....what to use and why. I really appreciated Smoky's discussions about choosing the right grill, cooking with a variety of heat sources: wood, charcoal, gas and electricity, meat selection, storage and safety and the chapter on building your own grill. These chapters were not only informative, but were replete with many humorous anecdotes and quotations. Whether you are a novice to barbeque and grilling or a self-styled pitmaster, you will enjoy this book. I have over fifty books on the subject and this is without question one of my top choices. It will demystify a sometimes confusing cooking genre and will give you answers to most, if not all of your questions.

If you are utilizing J2EE on your current project you owe it to yourself (and your project) to read this book.

I've spent the last several years consulting to numerous companies implementing solution using J2EE technology. This book covers many of the most common mistakes made in J2EE projects. Most of these companies had exceptional expertise in their domains but lacked experience mapping their business needs into J2EE. The result was many variations of the anti-patterns covered in this book, many sleepless nights for the development team and many missed delivery deadlines.

A few of my favorites anti-patterns are: Tangled Threads, Ham Sandwich; Hold the Ham, Application Joins, Rusty Keys, Performance Afterthoughts, Thrash-Tuning, Manual Performance Testing, System Loaded Application Classes, Running with Scissors, and Integration Hell.

Most projects contain at least a half dozen of these anti-patterns. You can rediscover these anti-patterns on your own or benefit from the excellent advice and experience contained in this book.

Bitter EJB couldn't have come at a better time for me. My development team is at a crossroads. Having developed a reasonably complex web-based model-view-controller architecture from scratch in Java, we thought we knew everything. Then it hit us: scalability problems, transactional integrity questions, database portability nightmares... we were in trouble. Ah, but knowing all, we determined that a simple migration of some of our logic to Enterprise JavaBeans would solve everything.

Or would it? We started thinking: Are EJBs really better than JDO? Or home-grown solutions? How about JMS? Does it let us scale too? And what's with these Message Drive Beans? If we go EJB, do we use CMP? Hey, we hand-tuned a lot of JDBC code... aren't we going to see a performance degredation? Why would we choose Entity Beans over Session Beans or the reverse? How do we tackle the complexities of building and testing these components? We read the JavaDocs and specs, but we still had lots of questions, and not a lot of informed answers. Suddenly, we didn't feel so smart. At all.

Thankfully Bitter EJB tackles these issues and more with humor and insight. There are plenty of good books that tell you how to build an EJB or use a message queue from Java. Instead of regurgitating the mechanics, this one tells you the why, why not and when to's of developing with EJBs and related technologies. You won't find a lot of EJB cheerleading in these pages, but rather a whole lot of unbiased, intuitive advice that will help you make the right decisions for your environment, product, team and goals.

Bitter EJB is a terrific book about technology that's hard to get a good grip on. EJB technology is complex, with many pitfalls. Some of those pitfalls are hidden, while others are so obvious they obscure the possible benefits.

Alfred Korzybski once wrote, "There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking." Many people are currently sliding easily through one side or the other of the EJB debate, but the authors of Bitter EJB have clearly done some serious thinking. Some of the familiar EJB criticisms are here, but so are endorsements -- with warnings, to be sure, but endorsements nonetheless -- of some EJB techniques that many others have dismissed. It's an extremely fair and balanced book, and I think nearly everyone who reads it will learn many useful things about when and how to use EJBs, as well as when not to.

Although not a reference manual, the coverage is both broad (covering the various types of EJB) and deep (including discussions of transactions, interfaces, deployment descriptors, build systems, testing, and performance). To top it all off, it's an enjoyable read. It's a must-read for anyone currently or soon to be involved in a project that might be a candidate for EJBs.

Not only did my 5 children enjoy this story, but I found myself laughing through the whole book. I found the illustrations to be especially enjoyable. They really captured your imagination and brought the story to life. I highly recommend this book for all ages to sit down and read together.

This is NOT A HIKING GUIDE. This is a MTB guide to Idaho, a
fact which eluded the previous two reviewers. THERE ARE time and
difficulty ratings for each trail. It is well done and worth
your time if you are into MTB and would be in Idaho. It also
has altitude changes for the rides. Very helpful. Enjoy.

The trail descriptions are great. The maps are great. The depth is great.

BUT, there are two things this book is missing that any good hiking book has. Each and every trail description in this book has a 'quick glance' section which lists a quick description, general location, maps, special attractions, difficulty, season and contacts for more information - BUT not trail LENGTH or an estimated time to complete! You have to read the entire description to find the length and probably won't find an estimate of the time required. Sure, this is OK if your friend recommended hike 'X' and you want to look it up. But, it is terrible if you are looking for a hike of, say, 6 miles that you can complete in 3 hours. It's just not readily available - you'd have to read the whole book! Even better, many guides have an index of sorts where you can see this information (and the availablity of backcountry campsites) for all trails at a glance, then go to the specific trail(s) that interest you.

This is what this otherwise great guide is missing. I returned mine and picked up 'Trails of Western Idaho' by Margaret Fuller instead - which does contain this information. Ms. Fuller's book is older (1992 vs. 1995 for this Falcon Guide), but not terribly so. She has some newer revisions for her other quides and I'm hoping this one will be reviced soon as well!

Falcon's guides are consistently good references to the areas they cover, and this is no exception. Reading it will inform you about the many excellent wilderness hiking opportunities in this beautiful state. For more specifics on an area, like the Sawtooths, also consider one of Lynn Stone's books, like Hiking Idaho's Sawtooth Country.

The third installment of TRMGS is a welcome addition to the canon of literature for the role-playing game Space:1889. Although some of the material is re-printed from the old GDW magazine Challenge, the bulk of this title is new, fresh information. The quality of this volume stands up well with the previous two volumes, and it is clear that the publisher (Heliograph, Inc.) is starting to better understand DTP layout and the limitations and/or strengths of their printer, Lightning Print, Inc.

The only quibble that keeps me from rating this volume with 5 stars, is the interior artwork. Bob Brown's drawings are a welcome addition but do not (in this reviewer's opinion) stand up well against the vintage victorian artwork (clipart) in this volume or against the art originally produced for Space: 1889 and associated articles in GDW's Challenge magazine.

That quibble coupled with an over-abundance of advertising for other Heliograph projects, serve as annoying distractions to an otherwise excellent volume. That all said, I am looking forward to volume #4.

I would not recommend this book for pianists at least if they are looking for the piano part and a companion CD. The sheet music does not include that is actually played by the piano (the comping) and the play-along CD should remove the piano not the saxophone. Good book for flute, violin though

As a guitaist who has always admired the playing of Bob Mintzer, this book was very useful in getting under my fingers some of the language that has made mintzer very enjoyable for me to listen to. Also, (other guitarists take note) it is very good sight reading practice material for guitar especially. Some of the passages are not easy to finger on guitar when reading for the first time and therefore it is a great exercise. I recommend getting this book and sight reading through the whole thing first (up to tempo with the CD on if you can handle it! with a metronome if you sight read those fast tempi yet) and then later going back and actually studying the whole thing extensively and deeply. I think this is a valuable resource.

I play those etudes almost every day and I'm satiscfacted. My hands move better and I understood some Coltrane's substitution. I recommend it.