A good first read on ASP, this book explains the basic object model and structure very well.

Sadly, the index is noticably thin, which diminishes the work's very as reference material. On several occasions I simple couldn't find information that I knew I'd read before.

This reviewer hasn't read many other books on ASP, but is convinced there's something better out there.

I bought this book to get a good background in ASP before using Microsoft's Visual InterDev. This book is excellent, it has provided me with enough information to do whatever I want to with server side ASP script (with or without InterDev) It especially has excellent coverage of ADO (Active Dato Object) for database connections. and useful tips on server side security.

This book is the one you must have. The book assumes you have previous knowledge of VBScript. However, it is an excellent book both as a study material and as a reference. There are other books I have read on ASP, but none are as detailed as this. Good work Alex. - Manohar Kamath

I really liked Wraith: The Oblivion, i liked it because it wasa game of real introspection and of not many ways to detour the gameinto a munchkin dream, i liked it because you had to really understand yourself in order to be saved and because your worst enemy was you, i liked it because no other game has scared me silly with something so simple as the "Bang! you are dead" concept. But i also understand that of all the games in the White Wolf line it was the hardest to play. You could not fool your friends posing as a Vampire elder from Slovakia or a raging Werewolf howling for blood, you were alone on the other side surrounded by people who did not like the place a lot and their only pastime was to make your existence more miserable than theirs, you were raw material for coins, chains or armor. To conclude it was a nasty, gut wrenching game that you easilly abandoned playing because it was easier to say that it was boring than recognizing that you were afraidbecause it touched too many nerves to be comfortable. So the line ended in an apocalyptic climax; Charon, ruler of the underworld returns just when Stygia is about to fall to the forces of Oblivion. The Story begins in London where your Wraiths reap (help a poor sod who happens to be Charon reborn to die) the soul of Charon and have to take him to his kingdom all the way besieged by enemies who just want to end you all, when the characters arrive to the Capital, they have to fight against the thoughest badie i have ever seen in a White Wolf supplement, there is no misterious stranger to help you out of this, it is just your party against him and on that fight rests the future of the Underworld. After that comes an ending you would not believe. Is is worth the price? Yes, of course. On a single supplement you can see the direction the whole line of products was directed, and it was a great direction, i don't think any other game line had such a clear path made and at the same time so full of possibilities...Besides the adventure you get for the same price two guildbooks, they are like the Tradition, Clan, Kith, Tribe books that plague the White Wolf system. They are the Mnenoi and Ferrymen Guildbooks, they just wanted to wrap tight the whole thing and not leave a thing upturned I really liked the adventure though it had the feeling of being made in a hurry, they had too many things to say and too few space...Word of advise there, you really need experienced characters in order to survive, so if it is not the ending to your Wraith chronicle then you need to create ancient ghosts to play it safe.

This is how the world ends...sort of. For those that say White Wolf is in it only for money and not for the fans, let me say this: the material in Ends Of Empire could be sold as 4 seperate books, yet the company has decided to put all these loose ends in one place.

Ends of Empire is a bittersweet end to a really creative and unique game line. Name one other role-playing game where your character's death is only the beginning of his adventures. Although Richard Dansky is quite thankful to all those that worked on this book and the ones preceeding it, you can sense a bitter overtone in Afterward.

Still, despite the fact that the book is a testament to a good game being tossed out the window for business reasons, this is a good way to wrap up the world of Wraith: The Oblivion.

This may be the last Wriath book and if it is then the series is ending with one of the best sourcebooks ever written. Keep up the great work Bruce!

In his second major work, The Man Nobody Knows, author Bruce Barton portrays Jesus Christ as a salesman--not an ordinary salesman, but the world's greatest salesman--and exhorts
readers to profit by his example. Additionally, the story of the carpenter from Nazareth, Barton argues, is "the story of the founder of modern business (12).
Throughout the book, Barton paints Christ in a positive color. He disavows the "wicked falsehood that [Christ] never laughed" (23), from inference of the New Testament--the men who
became his disciples never would have been attracted to a man who demonstrated Miltonian characteristics. Further, Barton comments on Christ's leadership, as "only strong magnetic men
inspire great enthusiasm and build strong orginizations. Yet Jesus built the greatest orginization of all...He picked up twelve men from the bottom ranks of business and forged them into an orginization that conquered the world" (35-36). This act could have only been done by a supreme business executive, a man who knew how to persuade others, and was so passionate in his
rhetoric that men would be willing to give their lives for his cause. Hence, Christ was the greatest salesman of all.
Finally, through the use of scripture, Barton demonstrates Christ's ultimate leadership qualities during Christ's cruxifiction. As Christ was hanging on the cross, one of the thieves painfully asked that Christ remember him when Jesus returns to his kingdom. Barton believes this was Christ's greatest act of leadership, as "there have been leaders who could call forth enthusiasm when their fortunes ran high. But [Christ], when his enemies had done their worst, so bore himself that a crucifed felon looked into his dying eyes and saluted him as king" (220).
Written in 1925, The Man Nobody Knows was an immesensely popular book. With the post-World war I production levels becoming so high that consumers were unable to buy all the
products that industry produced, new markets had to be created. It was out of this climate that the advertising industry came of age. Barton, chairman of the board of the New York advertising
agency Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborne, saw Christ as the ultimate master of salesmanship. He hoped that his readers, in an age of wealth and extravagence, would reflect back upon Jesus, not as weak man, but a man of such strong physical and emotional characteristics that readers would "exclaim [Jesus] is a man nobody knows" (vii).
Bruce Barton's The Man Nobody Knows, is written in beautiful, sincere prose. Throughout the novel, Barton maintains a high quality of reverence for Christ, and his teachings.
Although Barton's primary audience are salesmen and businessmen, the book appeals to any reader, religious or atheist, businessman or farmer.
The Man Nobody Knows is a wonderful tool for examining Christ's life as a smiling, divine businessman. As the wheel of big business turns and men spend their lives striving to
make millions of dollars, Barton reminds us of one businessman who gave his life in comforting millions of souls.

a realistic look at the nature of Jesus based on the gospels written about him

This book gives a rare look at Jesus from the perspective of his humanity...it attempts to paint a picture of Jesus in the role of his favorite title for himself: "Son of Man"...

As an alternative reference text to Rockwood and Green's Fracture in Adults, this voluminous guide breaks down fracture management according to anatomical location and incorporates viable contemporary methods of fixation, with focus on the author's preferred method of surgical prep and exposure. As the second edition (1998), it encompasses many of the new techniques of fracture repair, but like many texts is not completely current on all topics once released. The chapters on preoperative evaluation and stabilization of the trauma patient are particularly good. The photographs and illustrations prove appropriate. Deficiences: pediatrics, tumor, and foot and ankle...but these topics can certainly be addressed with other texts such as Ogden's Skeletal Injury in the Child or Lovell and Winter's Pediatric Orthopaedics by Morrisy.

My program provided me with both Rockwood and Green as well as Browner and Jupiter's work and I consistently referenced Skeletal Trauma more frequently. It's more concise and provides the basics in an easy to understand format for the beginning orthopod. The pediatric edition is quick and easy to read but skimps on some important details and concepts that I feel are important for the neophyte, but the adult edition is above reproach. Highly recommended.

As an ortho resident, I have found this text to be very useful. It's easier and quicker to read than Rockwood & Green. Great for learning on the run while on call.

This is a terrific book filled with beautifully produced color images of hundreds of sports movie posters. It goes beyond the standard popular sports such as baseball, basketball and football. There are also sections on auto racing, soccer, tennis and much more. It covers posters from the 1910s right on through the 1990s. Most of the pictures are of one-sheets, but there are also examples of lobby cards, half-sheets, etc. Many of the posters are from movies I never even knew existed. This would make a great gift for movie poster collectors and sports memorabilia collectors alike.

Once again, Bruce has put out another great book of poster images! The pictures are all very well done. If you collect movie posters or just like to look at great images you'll love this book. It is full of the greats.

Bruce Hershenson offers yet another stunning example of movie poster art. As in all of his books, Bruce shows impeccable taste in selecting the finest sampling of Sports movie history dating back to the beginning of film spanning to current day. The only complaint with the book is that it is only 80 pages long when movie poster collectors and lovers like myself keep wishing for 800.

Horror Movie Posters is at once a beautiful book to browse and a fascinating chronicle of advertising art through the decades. Just a cursory look reveals how the graphic art evolved, from the incredible stone-lithography of the golden age (silents to late '30s) through the more garish '50s style to the photo-based designs so common today. As a collector of movie memorabilia, I have found this entire series an invaluable resource; one needn't be a collector to enjoy these books, however. Any film aficionado will treasure this volume. Highly recommended!

From the first few pages of LON CHANEY SR POSTERS you wont be able to put it down.The photo of Dracula and Frankenstein are worth the price of the whole book.The Thing half sheet, Or The fly six sheet would make any one want one in there collection. Book goes all the way up to the movie Scream.You cant go wrong

This review can easily apply to any of the books in the Bruce Hershenson edited series of film poster history. Hershenson rightly treats film graphics not just as pop culture artifacts but true works of art. His books are filled with a curator's eye for superior choice and reproduction, each poster in striking color and with a clarity of printing that rivals most any coffee table art book. Somewhere between advertising and illustration, film posters, like book jackets and record covers, inhabit that imaginative and atmospheric zone where one art reflects another. It's not just the history of film or the history of film design, it's a history of twentieth century Saturday afternoons and Saturday nights. How often we would go into the dark theatre armed only with the ideas and ideals of the posters outside, and then return to them afterward, perhaps with nodding affirmation or smirking disillusionment, but still a vision of what could be. This series of books should be subtitiled: THE FINE ART OF ANTICIPATION, for no matter if expectation was filled or emptied by the films behind them, their posters kept on shining.

I found this book to be very helpful in providing a frame of reference for understanding the Synoptic Gospels. The authors correctly point out that viewing the actions, teachings and events of an agrarian society from 2,000 years ago with our modern, industrial, individualistic point of view leaves a great deal of room for misunderstanding. However, I rate this book as 3 stars because of the structure. It is not really designed to be read cover to cover, because material is repeated over and over again, as similar events occur in Matthew, Mark & Luke. I think this work could be improved considerably if the authors made more liberal use of the academic convention of "c.f." I feel that it is serious reader abuse to ask one to read through a two-page exposition toward the end of the book that is a 90% literal repeat of an earlier section, in hopes of finding the one sentence that is new.

I enjoyed the book that, with its companion "on the gospel of John", form a source of "inside" information that otherwise I woudln't have access to. The book is structure according to a regular commentary with additional "notes" or "reading scenarious." Unfortunately, there are no footnotes; therefore, when they tell you abuot a particular custom of that time, there is no direct reference to a primary source. Therefore, you have to take their words for it. There is a bibliography, which can help a bit, but still you're left with no way to further a specific point.

Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh are members of The Context Group: Project on the Bible in its Cultural Environment, and this commentary is one of the finest fruits of their labor. The authors shed light on subtle aspects of ancient Middle East culture which go completely over our heads when we read the bible.

For instance, in ancient Palestine compliments were enviously aggressive. They implicitly accused a person of rising above others at their expense. Thus, when a man challenges Jesus by calling him a "good teacher" (Mk. 10:17/Mt. 19:16/Lk. 18:18), Jesus fends off the accusation with a counterquestion: "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone?" (Mk. 10:18/Mt. 19:17/Lk. 18:19). In the Middle East, honorable men did not defend themselves when challenged -- for that would only concede ground to their opponents -- instead, they counterattacked. In the Synoptic Gospels Jesus proves himself an honorable man time and time again. He never answers accusatory questions directly; he is always able to change the terms of a debate and shift its ground. In Mk. 11:27-33/Mt. 21:23-27/Lk. 20:1-8, a group of temple authorities confront Jesus and demand to know by what authority he made his prophetic demonstration in the temple. Jesus responds with a counterquestion and then ends up insulting them by refusing to reveal anything at all. In Mk. 12:13-17/Mt. 22:15-22/Lk. 20:20-26, a group of Herodians and Pharisees try snaring Jesus by getting him to admit having revolutionary sentiments about paying taxes. Jesus deflects their question by having them produce a coin for him, and then, holding it up for all to see, he shames them with a nasty counterquestion and tricks them into identifying themselves as idolaters before concluding with his well-known cryptic saying, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's". All of these examples show how honorable first-century Jews debated in public.

Malina and Rohrbaugh illumine the values of Galilean peasants as distinct from Judean Pharisees and other temple authorities. Consider the conflict related in Mk. 7:1-25, where a group of Pharisees demand that Jesus explain why his disciples eat with unwashed hands. Jesus, naturally, does not deign to explain this. Instead, he counterattacks with insults -- calling the Pharisees hypocrites -- and then escalates the conflict by showing them up with scripture citations, setting his own interpretation of the Torah against theirs. But the authors do provide an explanation: "Keeping purity laws was a near impossibility for peasant farmers, who did not have the required water for ritual baths, as well as for fishermen, who came in constant contact with dead fish, dead animals, and the like. It was also very difficult for people who traveled about, such as Jesus and his disciples. The religious tradition of the Galileans had adapted itself in significant measure to the realities of peasant life."

The commentary brings to life ancient Mediterranean values as contrasted with ours in the modern West. For instance, discovering identity was not a process of self-discovery like it is with us. Identity was provided by one's peers, not by oneself. When Jesus asks Peter, "Who do you say I am?", and Peter replies, "You are the messiah" (Mk. 8:29), most of us today think that Jesus knows who he is and is simply testing his disciples to see if they know. But the authors correctly refute this: "Since Jesus rejected his own honor by leaving his family and village and living as an itinerant exorcist-healer, he needs to find out what his status is both among the public and his followers." They provide him with his messianic identity. Only when public support has grown substantially will he finally be comfortable identifying himself as the messiah (as in Mk. 14:61-62). For now, he is terrified of the title, and he "sternly orders Peter not to tell anyone about it" (Mk. 8:30).

Malina and Rohrbaugh have described just about every behavioral cue and cultural script we could think of -- how ancient gossip networks functioned, why all rich people were considered thieves, the nature of patron-client relationships, etc. This book is a priceless tool, and it has already been used as a foundation for more comprehensive treatments of the historical Jesus. Be sure to buy it and the sequel, "Social Science Commentary on the Gospel of John".

Richard B. Wright has penned a novel that is written with poetic style and grace. Clara Callan centres on the two Callan sisters - Clara and Nora. Nora, the younger sister has set out for New York to advance her career as a radio performer. The subdued Clara, remains in Whitfield were she continues on as a school teacher. Both of the Callan parents have died and all that remain are Clara and Nora.

The novel is compromised of letters that are sent between the two sisters over the period of 4 years - 1934-1938. In between the letters, Clara keeps a journal that details her life in her small Ontario town. Through the journal entries and the letters, the reader will become part of the Callan sister's lives. Clara Callan will have the reader look beyond the ordinary to the complexity that makes life. Each sister will face numerous challenges and obstacles that strengthen their hold on themselves and each other.

Set at the time of the great depression and the onset of World War 2, Wright was able to make the 30's come alive. Aside from the pending war, he details the events of the time with such description and authority. The reader experiences the marvel that 'Gone With The Wind' incited and the fist color movie, 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'. We experience the telephone and the amazing birth of the Dionne Quints.

Richard B. Wright is truly a master of his craft. Clara Callan is a novel that is destined to reach further than just a Canadian audience.

Clara Callan, the protagonist of Wright's novel, is a small town spinster in the 1930s. She lives a reasonably comfortable life thanks to the inheritance of her father's house and a job as a local schoolteacher. Through her diary entries and exchanges of letters, mainly with her more glamorous younger sister Nora, Clara reveals herself to the reader. Wright has created a believable character that "grows on you" as her personality emerges little by little. Life's difficulties during the Depression years, in particular for a single woman in rural Southern Ontario become apparent through the description of daily events. However, a very dramatic personal incident and its aftermath force Clara to confront her new circumstances in a very direct manner. While she was accustomed to express her daily experiences and reflections in poems, events interfere and poetry becomes impossible. She recognizes "how suddenly a life can become misshapen, divided brutally into before and after a dire event." Her beliefs are challenged and so is her self-contained whole-ness as a person.

Clara's personal story is embedded in the realities of the mid-thirties where unemployment is rife and poverty spreading. Although at the periphery of the main thrust of the book, Wright alludes to the emerging pre-war anxieties. He touches on the contrasts between city and rural living, utilizing Clara's reluctance to accept such innovations as the telephone, as an example. Yet, the regular Saturday trips to Toronto, perceived by her as a necessary escape from the village, lead to a new, important phase in her personal development, giving her also a new taste of independence. She visits her sister in New York, although in rather difficult time in her life. Cleverly, Wright lets her visit pre-war Italy as a third party to her sister's vacation. It allows the author to add impressions of the growing political conflicts in Europe as a backdrop without losing the focus of the story.

The counterweight to Clara is Nora, who could not bear small-town Ontario and leaves for New York to "make it in radio". She becomes successful as a radio voice in daytime "soaps" and her personal life seems to take on some aspects of a soap opera itself. Nora is privileged in finding a solid rock in a glamorous female friend, Evelyn, while her on and off affairs are far less successful. Clara, always concerned about her sister and her superficial lifestyle, attempts to remain the firm family base for her sister, but her own life story places her more and more on a shaky ground. She finds advice and empathy through her correspondence with Evelyn.

Clara Callan is a very engaging story indeed. Wright successfully places himself into the mind of a woman: Clara's personality quietly and gently takes hold of the reader as one follows her in the exploration of the multifaceted realities of her time and place.

I never realized how often I would use this book in my studies of florida's ecosystems until I purchased it. It is an extremely thourough "all-in-one" botanical description of the state that appears to benefit those roughly familiar with our flora. My only wish is that more complete descriptions and illustrations were given for each species i.e. "A Flora of Tropical Florida" and "Flora of the Bahama Archipelago". These enhancements would no doubt increase the cost of the book though and at its price it is still affordable. For its completeness though once again there is no equal and I consider it a necesity.

This book is a series of keys to identify all Florida vascular plants from ferns to sunflowers; from the temperate to the tropical. Although mainly for a more serious botanist, the keys seem to home in to the main non-technical characters for field identification. This brevity is perhaps a problem when plant material is limited. There are no illustrations except a map of Florida counties (and one plant picture below the title). A synopsis of the flora is given (covers 3,834 species of which 1,180 are introduced and 155 endemics). A glossary will assist the laymen and the forgetful with terminology.

Good features:

1. Taxonomy/nomenclature appears to be open to the recent revisions that were unfortunately not accepted by more conservative authors such as Cronquist (e.g. Eupatorium is treated as several genera here).

2. Explicitly states whether the plant is native, endemic, or introduced, and where in Florida (no maps, but a complete atlas available online.

3. All in one very portable volume for reasonable price; pages sturdy with legible sized print.

4. The book includes endemic species (e.g. Boltonia apalachicolensis) which were new discoveries since Clewell (1985) wrote the guide to the panhandle region.

The main complaints that I have (beside not being in Florida to test it out) are:

1. Families arranged by Englar/Prantl system and not shown in page header, hindering search for families (although genera are arranged alphabetically).

2. Aloe vera is listed in Agavaceae but doesn't appear in the key to genera.

3. No descriptions (but will be in future work according to author) END

I agree with many of the reviewers below that this book was helpful and often interesting. It gives a readable orientation to one of the most important movements in the software industry today, and the editors have been fortunate to gather together so many contributors who obviously know whereof they speak. In particular, the editors' Introduction, Eric Raymond's "Brief History of Hackerdom," Richard Stallman's account of GNU and FSF, Bruce Perens's discussion of Open Source, and Tim O'Reilly's essay on "Infoware" were informative and thought-provoking.

That said, it should be noted that the Amazon reviewer above gets it wrong when she writes that the book gives a "fascinating look at the raging debate." In fact, *nothing* about Open Source is debated in this book, which is a major disappointment. As the reviewer from Princeton below notes, the goodness of everything Open Source and the badness of everything Microsoft seems to be a given for many of the writers. At the risk of criticizing the book for not being something its creators didn't intend, I think it would be greatly improved with the addition of a wider range of viewpoints and even a dissenting voice or two. (There are a number of essays that could give place to some alternate content: Eric Raymond's second essay, "The Revenge of the Hackers," leans heavily toward the self-congratulatory, as does the Netscape cheerleaders' "Story of Mozilla." And Larry Wall's "Diligence, Patience, and Humility" seems to have been included not on its own merits but on the author's reputation as the Perl Deity.)

A final wish is for the book to address a broader range of readers. As a longtime computer user but a relatively new programmer, with no formal business training, I found many of the essays to rely heavily on the jargon of hackers and MBAs. More editorial control here, in addition to a broader range of content, would make this book seem less like preaching to the choir and more effective at spreading the Open Source gospel.

Open Sources is a collection of essays by people who have been involved in a prominent way in what is being called "the open source revolution." The authors are all very bright people with good intentions and diverse viewpoints; this makes for interesting reading. However, I had a problem with the introduction. In fact, I hated it. It attempts to couch the issue of free vs. non-free software in religious terms: in the bad old days, free software only came from universities or other government-funded research. Then, a few companies saw the light and began to open-source their software; currently the industry is divided between these companies (the saved) and the rest of the companies (the damned) who will spiral into oblivion due to their proprietary selfishness. I thought the presence of this sort of rhetoric in the introduction, which sets the tone for the rest of the book, was particularly unfortunate.

The essays in Open Sources are a mixed bag. Kirk McKusick's history of Berkeley UNIX is great, as is Michael Tiemann's history of Cygnus Solutions, RMS's article about the GNU project, and Bruce Perens' article about licensing issues. Also, I really enjoyed the transcript of the infamous 1992 flame war between Linus and Andy Tanenbaum about the merits of Linux vs. Minix. On the other hand, Paul Vixie's article about software engineering is pretty random, Larry Wall's article does not seem to have a point at all, and Eric Raymond's

second article and Tom Paquin's account of the open-sourcing of Netscape are too self-serving to be useful.

Overall, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. However, the year that has passed since its publication has exposed some of the more outlandish predictions made by its contributors (Eric Raymond said that Windows 2000 would either be canceled or be a complete disaster). My guess is that Open Sources is not destined to become a classic. Rather, in a few years it will be viewed as an interesting but somewhat naive period piece.

This is a good idea on O'Reilly's part to try to document the history and goals of the Open Source movement, which had roots in several college campuses and research labs in the '70s and '80s, and became news in the late '90s with the popularity of Linux, Apache, and the decision of Netscape to open its browser source. The best introductory piece, however, is probably Eric Raymond's "Cathedral and the Bazaar" which is not in this book(O'Reilly publishes it separately, but it's available free on the Web and short enough to be read in one sitting). As for this collection, I liked Robert Young's business case for distributing open source - his story of how Red Hat was launched reminds me of the Compaq tale of "three guys in a restaurant". The Apache article is also quite good, and Linus Torvalds offers a brief but interesting (and characteristically opinionated) article about how Linux evolved technically. There's also a good article discussing the various open source licenses (BSD, GPL, Netscape, etc) and what they do and don't restrict.

Others I was less impressed with. Stallman's article is predictable and self-serving. He explains how he evolved his software-as-gift philosophy but doesn't come close to terms with how the software industry can support substantial employment if all source is given away. There's yet another history of the different branches of BSD Unix. There's a breathtaking inside account of the launch of Mozilla which ends with the fancy Silicon Valley party when development has finally gotten underway. The low point is Larry Wall's "essay", which is a frankly ridiculous waste of time and print.

Although this is a mixed bag, there's enough reference material and interesting points of view to keep the book around.