I did not pick this book up to learn Director's 3D and imaging features with any particular project in mind. Rather, I wanted to understand what you can do with these tools and what their limitations might be. Mission accomplished.

However, the content is much deeper than a simple overview. The book's intent is to present enough of the math and physics behind 3D, and the color theory behind imaging to give the developer a deeper understanding, and therefore, a broader base for problem-solving. To this end, an awful lot of work and thought went into the content design. There are example movies for every covered feature, and the material in advanced chapters is arranged to build on previous concepts. There is also a great deal of non-tutorial information on the merits of various methods to accomplish the same thing, and on clever ways to use features that you may not have thought of.

In addition to the example movies there are several utility movies that are particularly useful. Macromedia did not provide much in the way of a visual interface to 3D Lingo, or imaging Lingo. The utility movies, such as the 3D shader/texture explorer and copyPixels image explorer let you adjust and see the interplay of hundreds of different parameter values in real time, on your own image or model. This is quite a timesaver and worth the cost of the book all by itself.

My one regret is that my hazy memory of high school math was not enough of a foundation to understand much of the math presented in the 3D sections. But there are books for that too.

This book may be the best for intermediate or advanced Director developers to expand their skills. James Newton has a knack for explaining things in such a clear and concise way, you barely notice how deeply he is taking you into the topic.

Surely one of the most complex tasks a programmer can take on is learning how to program 3-D environments. You barely learn the basics like worlds, objects, and textures before you have to face dauting tasks like understanding how to place and move things along three axes (x, y, and z). This is stuff that wasn't covered in your Euclidian geometry course, but Newton explains it so clearly that you find yourself nodding and thinking, "of course!" Other topics such as imaging Lingo and the Multi User Server are covered in equal depth, and with equal clarity.

This is not the book for a beginner, but you don't have to be a Lingo expert to get a lot out of it. If you understand the basics of programming in Director, you should have no problem understanding the book. Likewise, if you are an advanced, or even expert, programmer, there is such a wealth of detail and depth of coverage that you can't help learning all sorts of new techniques--and all in such a painless, easy-to-understand way.

The one essential book for Director users. The others are nice to have - this one is essential.

I found this book very enjoyable and it moved well, its not slow on the get go, I also liked the ending, very different from his other books, which usually end with the guy getting the girl in the end, this time they.... enuf said (: And I liked the mention of a New Zealander, Cheers Bova...:

This was a book I just happened to look at because it had a cool cover and decent premise, so I decided to give it a shot. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining and how fast-paced it was - the kind of book you can read in one sitting. In addition, the book has a good, surprising ending - I don't want to spoil it for you. Peackeepers is the kind of book that should be made into a movie - although maybe they should wait a while because, on the surface, the plot seems similar to the movie The Peacemaker with George Clooney and Nicole Kidman (although the Peacekeepers is a much better story, trust me). Either way, even though this isn't Bova' most popular book, it's worth checking out.

James Poling, both a practical theologian teaching in a seminary and a pastoral counselor who works with survivors of sexual abuse and perpetrators, has made an important pastoral theological contribution with his book The Abuse of Power. Drawing together process theology, psychoanalytic theory, and feminist and African-American sociology and theology Poling brings forward and interprets personal (often silenced) experiences of sexual violence. Through his own pastoral counseling experiences and his subsequent research, his consciousness has been raised about the influences of gender, race, and class on the perpetration of sexual violence, and this is the driving force of The Abuse of Power. He seeks to shed light on the reality of sexual violence in its most common occurrence in the lives of women and children, particularly in the home or with trusted adults. He examines theories of self, community, and God through the lenses of feminist and African-American theorists to expose oppressive gendered and raced biases, tentatively suggesting reasons for the predominance of male sexual violence against women vis-a-vis each of these areas. He is a practical theologian, and his theorizing is penultimately in the service of better ministry and God-talk (ultimately seeking a more just and humane world, visualized as a web of inter-related beings). Consequently, he makes liberatory suggestions of change in visions of self, community, and God that would work toward relational selves, loving communities, and images of a loving and just God -- suggestions that emerge from the experiences of survivors of sexual violence. Poling's book exemplifies his own definition of practical theology, which involves a "rhythm of practice and reflection," or theological reflection that emerges from actual ministry practices or experiences in the church -- in this case, survivors of sexual violence -- and is done in their service. Poling includes in the book a discussion of his own social location (white, male, privileged, with power), his own kind of conversion on these issues through his work with survivors and perpetrators, and ways he seeks to be accountable in terms of gender, race, and power. Moreover, he writes clearly about how this research influenced him to change the way he thinks about and does theology, yielding a new definition of practical theology that privileges "the unheard voices of personal and community life for the purpose of continual transformation of faith in the true God of love and power." This is an important book particularly for ministers, teachers, and pastoral counselors who seek to understand the prevalence of sexual violence, its influence, and new ways to think critically about it.

Chapter One: "Gender and Theology" Chapter Two: "Men's Issues in the Local Church: What Clergymen Have to Say" Chapter Three: "Hard Work, Hard Lovin', Hard Times, Hardly Worth It: Care of Working-Class Men" Chapter Four: "Love and Work Among African-American Men" Chapter Five: "The Men's Movement and Pastoral Care of African American Men" Chapter Six: "The Shaman Says...Womanist Reflection on Pastoral Care of African American Men" Chapter Seven: "Male Violence Against Women and Children"

Chapter Eight: "Pastoral Care of Gay Men" Chapter Nine: "Men and Women at Work: Fostering Collegial Relationships" Chapter Ten: "Men and Grief: The Hidden Sea of Tears Without Outlet"

This realtively short book is a good place to review accounting principles and terminology with excellent examples provided covering Balance sheets, income statements, cash flow reports, etc. This was used as a supplementary text in a course I just completed that was sponsered by a Society of Financial Analysts and used in conjunction with the other material provided by the instructor this book was quite helpful. I will continue to use it as reference. However if you are looking for detailed training in accounting this is NOT the book to choose.

While not a good source for those who have never taken an accounting course, this text is great for those who have taken an introductory course but need a concise refresher. As appropriately stated in the title, it is a review of the essentials of accounting.

I am a software engineer who needed to learn the basics of accounting in a hurry. If you know nothing about accounting, this book is for you. It is a small, thin (150pp) book that gives you 'just the facts' with simple real world examples (i.e. why is 7up an asset but Coca Cola is not?)

Unless you go to Haaaaarvaaard (I always forget how many A's to put), you are probably going to be a bit perplexed by the content of this book.

The cases go WAY beyond what is covered in the Chapters, and its up to the instructor to try to fill in the gaps (hopefully your instructor realizes this).

I have found myself referring to my textbook from my intro accounting course more often than this book itself in order to grasp the concepts at hand. Seriously, this book is a punishment to anyone who has to buy it for school. And its FREAKIN heavy to haul around across campus.

'Nough said.

I used this book for my MBA and found it to be lengthy and dense. One would be lost if he has no basic accounting knowledge. I spent more time looking up other books in the book shop for my revision.

It's not that bad as other reviews say it is, but it is definetely such a heavy book to carry around.

It seemed like an intriguing concept when I read the front and back covers; something like either a James Elroy novel or Sidney Kirkpatrick's excellent "A Cast of Killers." Instead, this story goes back and forth and beyond -- part mystery, part horror story, part apocryphal Hollywood tell-all, part semi-documentation of the dangers of all too-intense hero worship -- and at the end of it, there is no sense of WHICH genre it falls into, thus making it a very muddled and confusing read.

This songbook is not recommended by me. The chords are strange and they don't sound right, and most of the songs are rap anyway so they don't even have music.