Related Subjects: Author Index Reviews Page 1 2
Book reviews for "Ford,_Lee" sorted by average review score:

The Book of WinZip
Published in Paperback by Publishers Group West (2001)
Author: Jerry Lee, Jr. Ford
Amazon base price: $10.47
List price: $14.95 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $4.47
Buy one from zShops for: $8.99
Average review score:

I didn't know WinZip could to that...
I have used WinZip for a number of years but I never knew that it could do 1/2 the stuff that this book points out. For example, WinZip can create files that can actually unzip themselves. It can also protect your ZIP files with passwords and even test file integrity to make sure your ZIP files are not corrupt. One thing I really like is that it turns out you can set up your anti-virus program to scan the contents of ZIP files to make sure that they do not contain any viruses before you open them. On top of that the author does a really good job of keeping things short and sweet and yet making sure that everything is explained as much as it needs to be. I'll give this one 2 thumbs up!

An invaluable guide to a popular, much-used program
Zip files can be easily opened and organized by those who understand the basics of managing them, and this covers the standard WinZip software which is usually used in the process. Beginners as well as those already familiar with WinZip will find Jerry Lee Ford's Book Of WinZip to be an invaluable guide to the program's useful, often hidden features; from file compression types and upgrading to modifying archives or printing a contents list. An invaluable guide to a popular, much-used program.

Nothing compressed about this book.
Ever have to send someone several files and rather than send them one at a time you want to send them as one complete file? You think that some sort of compression utility would be the answer but are not sure of which one. Well after 13 years and trying just about all of them I found WinZip to be the best and this book is an extremely helpful resource to making sure you are using WinZip to the maximum potential.

With only 160 pages you might think that everything you need to know couldn't possibly be in this book, think again. As the pages unfold you'll be amazed as to how much and how much detail is actually included.

With a starting point of the basics of WinZip you begin to find out what exactly can be done. Then comes the wizard, either the classic mode or the wizard mode to you the choice of how to handle the files you are working with.

From there you'll find out how to work with virus software, setting passwords and for those still in the DOS age you to have the option to work on the command line. The book has included a number of keyboard shortcuts that should make things easier for everyone.

I like the outline at the beginning of each chapter to let you know what is being covered. I also was pleasantly surprised and pleased with the step-by-step instructions with screen shots to help you along the easy. Overall this may be the one go to reference for all of the WinZip questions you have.


Absolute Beginner's Guide to Personal Firewalls
Published in Paperback by Que (24 October, 2001)
Author: Jerry Lee, Jr. Ford
Amazon base price: $17.49
List price: $24.99 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $0.80
Buy one from zShops for: $0.75
Average review score:

Excellent comparisons of HW firewalls vs. SW firewalls, and
This book prefaces itself in that its intended purpose is not to cover all types of firewalls (e.g.corporate), but just personal firewalls. There are some great dives into previously unanswered questions I had:

1. Would I run a SW firewall if my DSL router already says it has a firewall built-in (answer is yes for a home LAN or a DSP WAN connection, no for low-speed dial up...)

2. How do various SW products (McAfee, BlackIce, ZoneAlarm) compare.

3. How do various HW products compare (DSL modems vs. Cable modems).(From a security viewpoint, there is a clear winner--you'll have to buy the book to find out though or else if I told you Time-Warner would send out someone to unplug my cable in retaliation)

4. How do I test these things once I get them installed? This topic was worth the price of the book alone...he emphasizes doing both Before & After tests to verify that insecure connections just become changed to secure connections. How many people might just install the SW or HW & then wonder "Did it really work? "What's different now than before?")

Overall, more useful information than I ever expected to find in this little book!

Don't switch to Cable or DSL without this book!
If you have a high-speed always-on cable or DSL connection then you need a personal firewall to protect yourself and your computer or home network from Internet hackers. This book covers both hardware and software based personal firewalls, including ZoneAlarm, BlackICE Defender and McAfee. You'll also learn how to lock down Windows security and test your computer's defenses by using any of a number of free Internet scanning services. Best of all, with this book you don't have to be a security expert or even know what a personal firewall is to get started using one. Highly recommended reading!


The Films of Harrison Ford
Published in Paperback by Citadel Pr (1996)
Authors: Lee Pfeiffer and Michael Lewis
Amazon base price: $19.95
Used price: $3.95
Collectible price: $7.41
Buy one from zShops for: $12.86
Average review score:

Useful and entertaining...
This book is really useful, as it provides an easy reference to Harrison Ford's films and allows the reader to find the ones that are worth watching.

Besides the blurbs of reviews and general information on the movies, however, this book is made really interesting (and at times really funny too) because of the stories about the production experience for each of the movies that it includes as well. Seriously, it is hard to imagine, when viewing the finished products, the disasterous, strange, and hysterical events that occurred during the making of some of the films.

So, if you are a fan of Harrison Ford or are just a big movie fan who is especially interested in behind-the-scenes type information, this book is highly recommended. If you don't care for either of the above things, why are you looking here anyhow?

It was really, really informative!
This was one of THE best HF books I have read! (It's one of the ONLY ones!) Even if you hate HF you would like this book! It has many off-screen photos. It has SO many pictures! The only thing I can say is, READ IT!!!!!!


Upgrading to Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional: A Migration Guide for Windows 98 and Windows Nt Users
Published in Paperback by iUniverse.com (2000)
Author: Jerry Lee Ford Jr.
Amazon base price: $14.95
Used price: $11.95
Buy one from zShops for: $14.95
Average review score:

Everything that you need to step up to Windows 2000 Pro
Windows 2000 Professional marks a significant change from Windows 95, 98, Me and NT. Everything looks and feels different. Even familiar utilities and wizards are not where you expect them to be. This little book cuts straight to the chase, saving you time and reducing your learning curve as you make the change from your current operating system to Windows 2000 Professional! A must have for anyone that can't afford to waste their time.


Flying Tigers : Claire Chennault and the American Volunteer Group
Published in Unknown Binding by Smithsonian Institution Press ()
Author: Daniel Ford
Amazon base price: $
Used price: $9.90
Average review score:

Essential!
Briefly, I share the enthusiasm of prior reviewers for this book.

Without repeating them, I'd say what's most important about Ford's work is his weaving in information from the Japanese side, rare in any book on the Pacific war. And it's a delight for those of us who want good history as well as good reading. For instance, air battles are matched unit vs. unit and sometimes pilot vs. pilot.

Along the way, misinformation from prior writings on the AVG is settled. However, at least one prominent AVG veteran attacked the book and Ford himself in a number of magazine articles. But in my reading of this volume, I found no disrespect for the accomplishments of the original Flying Tigers.

This book is essential for understanding the 1941-42 CBI campaign and the AVG. More on this is in other reviews.

Thoroughly Researched, Compellingly Written
For all its detail and focus on purely factual data, FLYING TIGERS is an exhilarating ride. Its clinical tone is tempered by an impressive amount of insight into the multitudes of personalities involved with the AVG--often including the Japanese perspective. It's a sprawling book, with mountains of information on every page. This could easily have been a ponderous, heavy-handed account by a detached historian; instead, Ford uses effective language to turn the individual stipples of the story into a fascinating, gradated canvas. It's rare to encounter a work of such vividness by an author whose view is from after the fact, rather than from amid the period of history concerned. Recommended.

A first-rate combat history!
This a a great combat history, that treats the Flying Tigers as real men instead of cardboard heroes, and it gives the Japanese side of the story as well. Surprise! The Tigers didn't go into combat before Pearl Harbor. And they never met a Zero in combat.

Not so surprising, it looks like they overclaimed their victories by 150 percent or more, putting the Tigers in the usual range for western pilots in the early years of the war. (The Japanese were even more enthusiastic overclaimers!)

The Tigers pulled a triumph out of a losing campaign, and unlike other Allied air units they regularly out-fought the Nakajima Oscar fighter that was the Japanese Army's version of the Zero. This is a rousing book. Read it!


Practical Microsoft Windows Peer Networking
Published in Paperback by Que (15 March, 1999)
Author: Jerry Lee Ford Jr.
Amazon base price: $20.99
List price: $29.99 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $2.19
Buy one from zShops for: $11.57
Average review score:

Needs more work and addtions for new networks.
Microsoft has made a living out of inventing and re-inventing better and faster ways to network. Therefore computer book authors have to continually write and re-write books to keep up with the changes. Jerry Lee Ford has made a great attempt to give you peer networking simplified.

Ford takes this book and begins at the best place possible, what networks can do with hardware and software. His 580 plus page books breaks down the peer networking and simplifies some of the more complex issues associated with that type of environment.

Ford is good with his ability to show, in numerous pictures, what should happen when you make changes or configuration updates. Where he falls short is in the areas of review questions and an add-on cd with utilities.

Covering areas like printers, security, utilities, troubleshooting and others over peer networks like Windows for Workgroups, Windows 9X, Windows NT is a great start, but Ford needs to also include Windows 2000 in his next edition.

Super coverage of a big topic
Not surprisingly, the largest part of this book is devoted to Windows 2000. Ford's explicit coverage of it (unlike most everyone else he does NOT assume that you are already a whiz at NT just because you are investigating Windows 2000) has already given me the courage to tackle sticking a Win 2000 machine in a peer network consisting of Win 98 and Win 95 machines -- and successfully!

His coverage of Win 95 and Win 98 (and Win 98 SE) as a continuum is well justified, and nicely handled. He really highlights the small differences between the two where peer networking is concerned. It would have been easier to just treat them as separate OS, but he cut through the duplicate stuff and hit the differences. Good job!

The quibbles I had were tiny. For example, on page 43 a table is entitled "Coax Cable Types and Specifications" but Coax is not an accurate descriptor, since several of the cable types on the table are not coax at all but are twisted pair. On page 451, in the sidebar, he uses the word "hardware" where he means "hard disk" or "hard drive". I think it would be useful if he expanded on the 169.254.0.0 address range, telling us which addresses Win98SE assigns by default so that don't inadvertently hard-code the same addys on Win 95 machines on the same networks.

In other words, there just isn't very much wrong with this book!!

There is a lot of other good stuff: I particularly liked the way he summarized network troubleshooting. I can't imagine any way it could be more concise. I thought the appendices were excellent, every one of them, and potentially very useful. The final appendix, on HomePNA, will get outdated very quickly, but it is still a very substantial and helpful step off THAT particular cliff.

If you're involved in peer-to-peer networking in a Microsoft world, I can't think of a more useful book to have on your desk. Highly recommended!!

Finally a networking book anyone can understand
Practical Microsoft Windows Peer Networking is the best book on networking that I have read so far. Mr. Ford has a real gift for breaking complex tasks down into simle clear steps that anyone can follow. His coverage of Windows 2000 Professional and Windows 98 networking is very extensive and detailed. This is nicely complemented with coverage of every other major Microsoft operating system including Windows 95, Windows NT and Windows for Workgroups. I especially appreciate his coverage of TCP/IP and modem sharing.

I was struggeling with building my own home network before I began reading Mr. Ford's book. All I can say is that I wish I had read his book first because it would have saved me a lot of lost time and energy. I strongly recommend this book as required reading for anyone who plans to set up his or her own network.


Windows Shell Scripting and WSH Administrator's Guide
Published in Hardcover by Premier Press (15 November, 2001)
Author: Jerry Lee, Jr. Ford
Amazon base price: $39.99
Used price: $13.94
Buy one from zShops for: $14.85
Average review score:

Windows *shell* scripting? ROTFL
I wanted to give this book more than 3 stars, if only to show that the topic wasn't causing me to be prejudiced against it.

Really, I wanted to be able to sit down with book for half an hour and at least have an idea of what Windows shell scripting was about--but it wasn't easy to really wrap my mind around it even after flipping through the chapters, reading the first chapters, looking at the figures and tables, trying to get an idea of an organic framework for scripting.

Instead, I came away with two feelings:

1. Microsoft sure knows how to turn something relatively simple into something that's quite complicated. Shell scripting is pretty straightforward in *nix, and there aren't a ton of switches, buttons, and checkboxes involved with making them run. As far as I can tell, there is a fair amount of that to do with Windows scripts. So I really wouldn't want to have to use Windows shell scripting at all.

2. I wanted the author here to at least give me a sense of what can be done with scripts under Windows. He mentioned a CD with example code on it in the first pages, but there was no other indication of such a CD. So, that's bad editing. But, there also was no overall framework for example scripts throughout the book. I would have preferred to see more examples that build on each other more coherently. And I would have liked to see many of the lists of commands, functions, parameters, and what-have-you segregated from the rest of the text. They're distracting.

Overall, if you must have a book on WSH and Windows shell scripting, I suppose this one might be OK, but the Tim Hill book (which was published in 1998) seems to be, by far, the more popular book. It also seems to be the only other book on Windows scripting, but it also has an average rating of nearly 5 stars from over 30 reviewers, so you might want to check that one out.

A good book for the first time script developer
I found the book easy to understand. It has tons of examples and was written in a very friendly style. Coverage was split equally between Windows shell scripting and the Windows Script Host. The book might be a little less than heavy weight programmers are looking for but for the rest of us, its right on target. Thanks.......


Microsoft WSH and VBScript Programming for the Absolute Beginner
Published in Paperback by Premier Press (21 February, 2003)
Authors: Jerry Lee, Jr. Ford and Jerry Lee Ford Jr.
Amazon base price: $29.99
Used price: $20.84
Buy one from zShops for: $20.79
Average review score:

Not Bad
This book was a very easy read. I am a complete beginner when it comes to WSH and VBScripting. I found this book to be a great primer. The only questions the book left me with were the actual syntax of methods, properties, and built in functions. These are important areas, but I feel the book left me with a good overall understanding of the 2 topics. I am not sure I could write my own worth while script yet, but I could definitely read and understand a script already created. Only took 2 days of reading to complete this book and my interest was kept the whole time.


Henry Ford and the Jews
Published in Hardcover by Stein & Day Pub (1980)
Author: Albert Lee
Amazon base price: $12.95
Used price: $52.53
Collectible price: $52.94
Buy one from zShops for: $49.95
Average review score:

A suicide of the great character
The great founder of the world's automotive industry, genius of American enterprise. This one man contributed more to humanity than millions of Zion followers who are determined to attack anyone who dares to study their methodology. Henry Ford conducted a scientific research in the field of history and practices of this powerful ethno-religious group and shared this with the American public in the book called "The International Jew". If you, the reader, ignore him, that perhaps would cost you more than him.

an interesting and short read
An excellent guide to Henry Ford's anti-Semitic ties and conduct, including (possibly) financing Hitler. And short too-you can read it in a few hours.

The best part of the book had nothing to do with anti-Semitism: an account of a libel trial in which Ford fought an accusation that he was "ignorant" but in doing so proved his ignorance. For example, when asked about the American Revolution, he said "I recall something like that happened in 1812." I find it reassuring to know that today's teenagers aren't the only people ignorant about history.


TechTV's Guide to Home Networking, Broadband and Wireless
Published in Paperback by TechTV (06 July, 2002)
Author: Jerry Lee Ford Jr.
Amazon base price: $17.49
List price: $24.99 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $3.60
Buy one from zShops for: $2.29
Average review score:

Cant give it more stars
I would like to give this book 4 stars or maybe even 5. I love tech tv and watch regularly, however note that the book isnt written by any of the familair staff like chris prillo, Leo Laporte, Patrick or any of the other well know gurus of tech. Hopwever because of it's association with tech tv you may expect a certain level of quality... does it deliver? Well, yes AND no.

Pros: The book is well written and is pretty comprehensive. It includes a TCP/IP primer which is great and a lot of good information and a well formated comprehensive exploration of netowrking as it applies to the home user. It keeps it simple enough that you wont be inundated with techno-dribble that will hurt your head, yet it tries to explore things as comprehensively as possible, not leaving out crucial details and making sure to put in advanced information for the curious as well as those who may need such info for trouble shooting. So the book is both practical and educational in nature. It's simple enough and practical enough to qualify as a how-to book, but it includes enough detail, and is well written enough to qualify as a great book for knowledge seekers, true geeks, advanced users, and those who like to know it all.

Cons: Regretfully, I cant give this more than 3 stars. I thought about a 4 star rating, but it went against my conscience. Why? Misprints, mistakes, typos, and other problems. Let me take this moment to warn you now:

WARNING: Facts in this book are sometimes questionable and it contains many misprints and typos. Verify all specific information elsewhere before relying on what it tells you.

Let me elaborate. Im almost through chapter 1 (not very far into the book), and have already run across a number of erroneous information, facts that are wrong, and typos! Let me give an example. Table 2.1 on page 40 has a list of IEEE Networking standards. It lists fast ethernet (100mbps-100BaseT) as being 802.u. WRONG! The correct answer is 802.3u... they left out the 3! This may seem minor, but when you are in a networking class and almost use this misinformation in class, you look dumb. And this isnt an isolated incident, there are a number of other typos, misprints and some paragraphs where a sentence coompletely contradict the preceding sentence - making for very akward situations.

What all this adds up to is it forces you to question any individual fact in the book for it's validity. For instance they claim 802.11b functions on a 2.45GHz frequency, and I have only ever heard of it as being 2.4GHz even. At first I thought they were being specific whereas other sources and the rest of the industry just rounded off (I was like "oh, so it's actually two point four FIVE GHz to be exact?!"). But after these little errors and misprints I am more inclined to believe this is simply a mistake on the part of the author. Subsequently, I now have little faith in the information provided by the book... and it's too bad.

You may still want to buy this book. It's a very good book, just make sure you check the facts before memorizing them. And if you just want a how-to book or a primer into the networking world at home, then this is still a pretty good choice. But dont use this as a refrence material or for a class, and dont rely 100% on the validity of specifics of the information inside. Because of the errors, 3 stars is the most I can give in good conscience. Come on Que Publishing and TechTv, do a better job editing and double checking your facts!! We expect more form you!


Related Subjects: Author Index Reviews Page 1 2

Reviews are from readers at Amazon.com. To add a review, follow the Amazon buy link above.