This book is a helpful book for programmers who are prety deeply in depth in vb3. although this book is a decent book it also is old considering vb6 is out and soon vb7&8 will also be out. but if you want to test out vb3 i woyuld recomend this book to you.

I'm currently a 2L and last year, I used a plethora of study aids. I found this book to be the most helpful for Torts class. The book explains the history behind the subjects and then what the substantive law is. It lays everything out very logically and is organized in a way that makes sense as well. While it doesn't have any comprehensive case summaries, if you truly want to understand the law of torts, you can't go wrong with this book.

I've sorely missed Travis McGee and was excited to learn of Mr. Knief's protagonist, John Caine. I will read his other books because it is comforting to meet this pseudo/reincarnated Travis. Unfortunately, many of the situations are way too familiar. In the Deep Blue Goodbye, (John D. McDonald) Travis has his final battle on the water, in a storm, finds his girlfried with a bump on her head, grabs the gems, kills the bad guy,swims home,refuses to answer questions and later attends his girlfriend's funeral. Guess what? Ditto for Mr. Caine. If I gave too much away here for those of you who have not yet read the book, I'm sorry. It's still a good read but if you want the "real McCoy" read John D. McDonald's Travis McGee Series. Any of them!

It seems that many thriller readers are looking for a new hero to replace Travis McGee. I never read the McGee novels, but I have been looking for a new series hero and I think I've found the right one. It isn't Lee Child's Jack Reacher, although Reacher is pretty good. It certainly isn't Michael Stone's Streeter, a failed effort at noir/pulp fiction. It is Charles Knief's John Caine. Now, this book does have a couple of flaws but, hey! This ain't higher criticism here. Based on the reviews I've seen, we are all looking for a series character we wouldn't mind having a beer (Chardonnay for Caine, thank you very much) with, someone whose deeds are noble if messy, someone to entertain and maybe feed our fantasies.

John Caine is such a man and Diamond Head is such a book. The writing is good, the characters are fun and believeable and the plot is reasonable. Caine is a loner, not particularly by choice. He has suffered one great loss and will suffer another one before this one is over. The way he deals with other people who come into his life is of greater interest that his feats of derring-do and adds a human dimension that is so lacking in other hero types. I thought the ending was quite good. Not all happy, but no loose ends - except maybe Caine himself. An action hero has to have conflict, generally with the authorities. The laundry list of charges that were almost brought against him seemed a silly way of making the conflict, but at least someone had read the law of piracy and no charges were brought. Piracy! There was real action on the seas, lots of fun, some suspense, bits of nonsense, some sadness. In short, enough to make you wish you were running with Caine than riding the Metro. Enjoy!

Charles Knief's series featuring Hawaiian private investigator John Caine is often compared to John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series, and there are certainly some common points of reference. Both are knights errant with slightly tarnished armor, men of honor who live in a world in which honor is more frequently scorned than praised. Both live simple lives on boats in interesting environments. Both have seen more pain in their lives than they want to remember, yet are still always willing to help out a friend or someone in need.

Charles Knief did a good job writing his first mystery. He's created an interesting, likeable character to build his series upon. I particularly like the Hawaiian setting of "Diamond Head," finding it to be a nice change from the usual locales. The only area in which I found this book lacking was in some of the plotting, which dragged a bit at times, even though it's a short book. It's a good story, but it would have been better if it had been wound a little tighter.

The Travis McGee series has long been one of my favorites and will always hold a special place in my heart. MacDonald captured some magic when he created McGee and Meyer and the "Busted Flush." His death left a hole in the mystery genre that no one can fill. Charles Knief and his creation John Caine, although not able to erase that void, do a good job of reminding the reader what a good mystery -- and a good man -- are.

This book was very disappointing. Too much of the book is just a transcription of chatter on miscellaneous baseball-related subjects from an e-mail listserve or stuff available on AOL. The book is hardly worth reading even if you overlook the fact that the recycled material is a ripoff.

I really enjoyed reading this book, even though I read it after the '98 season instead of after the '97 season. It's like reading discussions in news:rec.sport.baseball but at a higher level (sometimes). Bill James doesn't contribute very much, unfortunately; he does surprisingly conclude that Tony Gwynn was the '97 NL MVP (instead of Mike Piazza). My favorite pieces were the articles by Zminda on the SABR Convention and his summary of the broadcasts of the '52 World Series, Olkin on pitch counts in the year 1920, and Henzler on after-effects of pitch counts.

I have always enjoyed reading Bill James' books, articles, and essays...even when I do not agree with them. He was one of the first, and remains the best, irreverent observers of the game. Many of the stats taken for granted today were really created by James. Since he stopped doing his annual "Baseball Abstract" a few years ago, I have always purchased his works and have yet to be disappointed. The fact that there are other intelligent and provocative writers in this book only makes it better. It's like sitting around the hot stove in February talking baseball.

In a rush to be the 'first' with a VB5 book, Waite Group seems to have skipped the proof reading step. The text is liberally sprinkled with typos, VB4 info, and just plain errors. The quizes could be a useful tool, but often the answers in the key are wrong. The online course is a good idea except I found that that quizes and grading were not consistent with what was in the printed text. I have not worked with the CD, but apparently there are some inconsistencies there too. One redeeming feature is the E-Mail newsgroup where problems are resolved or rationalized by the authors and publisher. If you are a knowledgable programmer, preferably with VB experience AND you enjoy debugging, you will enjoy this book. If you are a novice or unfamilar with VB, you will be frustrated no end. I give this book an 8 or 9 for intention and a 2 or 3 for execution. Since 'The road to Hell is paved with good intentions', I give this book a rating of 3! I have no financial interest in this or any other VB5 book

Written for the beginning OOP programmer, this book is well-paced and logically organized, and also attractively designed. Most of the program code is bug-free, but there are admittedly a sprinkling of errors that will cause some of the examples to either not work or to not work as advertised. However, that is at most a minor shortcoming, and can actually be helpful to learning how to debug code that someone else has written. True beginners will have more trouble with this aspect than those who have at least some OOP or procedural programming experience. True beginners will also be more dismayed by these occasional bugs, while those with experience in other languages will recognize bugs as a fact of life. Although some of the projects in the book are rather silly and designed for the sole purpose of teaching the use of particular controls or commands, most have at least some tangential real-world applicability and can be used as springboards for designing larger applications

I used this book to get started with VB after not having been involved in programming since the bad old Fortran days and punch cards in college. I would recommend this book for anyone getting started, as it is a good reference, provides a structured curriculum and has a good companion CD. I also found the Learning Zone web site to be valuable for keeping me going.

That said, I am also in violent agreement with others who have commented on the plethora of errors in the code examples, left over VB4 terminology, wrong quiz answers and disconects here and there. I have gone through several other introductory VB books including Peter Wrights and VB for Dummies. I still found VB 5 Interactive to be a much better learning experience and reference guide. I find that I can quickly find and get up to speed on a subject after a review of the subject at hand. I hope a serious effort was made to clean things up for those who are starting with the VB6 version.