This comprehensive and massive 600 page new book will show you step-by-step how to set up, operate, and manage a financially successful foodservice operation. The author has left no stone unturned in explaining the risky business of running a restaurant. Operators in the non-commercial segment as well as caterers, and really anyone in the food service industry will find this book very useful.The books nineteen chapters cover the entire process of a restaurant start-up and ongoing management in an easy to understand way, pointing out methods to increase your chances of success, and showing how to avoid the many common mistakes that can doom a start-up. The new companion CD rom contains all the forms demonstrated in the book for easy use in a PDF format.There are literally hundreds of innovative ways demonstrated to streamline your restaurant business. Learn new ways to make the kitchen, bars, dining room, and front office run smoother and increase performance. Shut down waste, reduce costs, and increase profits.

This comprehensive 600 page book showed me in detail how to set up, operate, and manage a restaurant business. The author covers everything there is to know about the very risky business of running a restaurant.

As a caterer looking to open a restaurant I also found the book very helpful. I didn't need recipes or help in sales - I needed help in running the financial aspects of my business.The chpater on computers was very helpful as well.The book is very easy to read and understand. Complicated accounting subjects are simplified, easy to understand and ( almost) fun to apply.

The books nineteen chapters cover the entire process of a restaurant start-up and ongoing management.The companion CD rom which contains all the forms is worth the modest price of the book alone. I would highly recomend this book to anyone in the industry now or who wants to get started with sound financial planning. Also the extensive resource guide in the back of the book helped me locate a manufacturer I needed a part from - I will use this book often.

Now in a completely revised and thoroughly updated third edition, The Restaurant Manager's Handbook: How To Set Up, Operate And Manage A Financially Successful Food Service Operation by Douglas Robert Brown is a solid, no-nonsense, all-encompassing curriculum to teaching oneself the basics of the restaurant business. An exhaustive compendium of step-by-step instructions, advice, checklists, legal issues, as well as encompassing an extensive listing of state restaurant associations (and so much more!) fill the pages of this "must-have" reference for anyone with a serious and dedicated interest in the dynamics of food service oriented small business ownership. A companion CD-ROM with printable versions of all the handy and useful sample forms is included.

It's a long way to go to find out the question that we already know the answer to (42) but it is well worth the journey. Along the way you will meet Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, God, dolphins, Zaphod Beeblebrox, many aliens, and the Babel Fish. You will also see the Earth destroyed (and rebuilt), characters die (and recover), and discover that the Earth is not just a big hunk of mud, but actually one big computer. Douglas Adams uses his British wit to weave a tale that never goes where you expect it too, but always makes sense. Once you read the first book you will be hooked to read the rest (which is good because you have to read all four in order to find the question to the answer of 42)

I read the book, and now I simply admire Douglas Adams. He is a genius, who adds humor to his ridiculously funny topics. Funny names, and mystery behind it all. What else can you say about a book where the main idea is digital watches???!!!!! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Some people say that pure genius is very close to insanity. Either Douglas Adams is a true genius or he smoked some serious stuff when he wrote the Hitchhiker's Guide. "One must have chaos in oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star" - Nietzsche. For me, the Hitchhiker's guide is the best escape from reality anybody can ask for. Travelling with Arthur Dent through different worlds makes you see our own world in a different light. It is almost inconceivable that somebody could consider the Earth to be "Mostly Harmless"! It makes you wonder what sort of galaxies they travel to. A great read - don't miss out on this one.

The increasingly inaccuratly named Hitchhiker's trilogy (5 books) is the absolute best series I've ever read. I love the characters, plots, and surprises that come in along the way. If you can't travel through time and space on your own, it's worth the time to hitchhike along with Douglas Adams on this wild ride. I recommend these books for everyone - I (obviously) think they're great!!!

This is the best SCI-FI book I've read so far. Its funny and really amazing. After reading it your concept of live, the universe and everything will change totally, you will never leave your tower or even your Sub Ehta Sense-O-Matic. Don't miss it or you will regret it. Mariano Luna :)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy represents some of the most original, funny, spellbinding material that I've ever read. The first book contains the most creativity, but the least linearity because of the original format (radio shows). The second and third take off from there and create a crescendo of momentum that I wasn't able to put down (I quite literally read all 5 books within a few days time). The last couple of books might be the weakest, but that's mainly because they must follow such incredible prequels. I cannot overemphasize the entertainment that this series offers. The Hitchhiker's Guide represents a true genre-bursting collection. While at first glance these books might seem to appeal mainly to science fiction readers, they actually have very little in common with sci-fi and readers wishing for a sci-fi environment and story may not find what they expect. These books should appeal to any reader, but those old enough to recall some of the 1980's will especially be able to understand the author's period and setting.

***** Wow! Looking at the cover of this new book from Illumination Arts is like standing at the base of a giant tree, tilting your head backward, and looking toward the heavens. The scope is powerful and compelling, and the colors are breath-taking.

This story is told from the perspective of an 800-year-old Douglas fir in the Pacific Rain Forest. The Tree tells of its history and the many things it has seen over its lifetime, as well as the wildlife it has seen and sheltered. Each illustration is so realistic that it feels possible to reach in and touch the rocks or to actually hear the babble of tumbling water, experence the flash of lightning, and tremble at the mighty roar of a bear. Children will also enjoy finding the many tiny surprises hidden within the pictures: A Butterfly, Dragonfly, Spotted Owl, Tree Frog, Mouse, Bald Eagle, Bark Beetle, and many others.

At the end of the story, there is an informative page about the Pacific Rain Forest that impressed me a great deal. After reading that page, I asked several children what country came to mind when they heard the words rain forests. Most of them mentioned Africa and one or two said South America. They envisioned a tropical climate with hot, humid jungles, big broadleaf plants, monkeys, and brightly colored birds. None of them knew that there was such a place as the Pacific Rain Forest right here in the United States. A temperate rain forest that is cool and wet, filled mostly with cone bearing trees, and stretches along the coast from Southern Oregon to the Gulf of Alaska.

I cannot say enough good things about The Tree. I highly recommend it as a book to be treasured and reread for years to come. It entertains the reader while teaching a love for nature's delicate balance and the urgency to act now in order to save our valuable forests from disappearing forever. Read it with a child and enjoy the light in his eyes as he searches its pages for each of the tiny surprises...

While recuperating from a back injury, Dana Lyons sat and played his guitar at the base of an ancient Douglas fir tree in the Pacific Northwest. Toward the end of his four-day rest, a strange thing happened: As Lyons puts it, gA fully formed song came flowing through me.h After playing the song for a local native tribal chief, the chief said he recognized the tune and explained how in his tradition each tree has its own song. The
Tree presents the song of that giant fir.

Thirty-two gorgeously illustrated 8.5-by-11-inch pages house the story. Each doublefold spread vibrantly depicts the Olympic Rain Forest in all its glory. Replete with spotted owls, timber wolves, blacktail deer, and one very scary grizzly bear, illustrator David Danioth puts readers smack dab in the middle of the forest with his spectacular artwork of airbrush, colored-pencil, and gouache depictions. In the story, bulldozers invade the forest, and the 800-year-old fir ponders its fate. Peaceful action ultimately saves the day when people encircle the trunk to prevent the treefs demise.

A beautiful book for children or adults of any age, The Tree boasts forewords by environmental activist and author Julia Butterfly Hill (who spent more than two years living in an ancient redwood) and renowned folk singer and songwriter Pete Seeger. A portion of the profits from the bookfs sale go to Hillfs Circle of Light Foundation and to the Jane Goodall Institute. The Tree sports an eye-catching cover illustration that gives a taste of the beauty to be found inside. The book will be a welcome addition to the childrenfs or environmental sections of your shop.

***** Wow! Looking at the cover of this new book from Illumination Arts is like standing at the base of a giant tree, tilting your head backward, and looking toward the heavens. The scope is powerful and compelling, and the colors are breath-taking.

This story is told from the perspective of an 800-year-old Douglas fir in the Pacific Rain Forest. The Tree tells of its history and the many things it has seen over its lifetime, as well as the wildlife it has seen and sheltered. Each illustration is so realistic that it feels possible to reach in and touch the rocks or to actually hear the babble of tumbling water, experence the flash of lightning, and tremble at the mighty roar of a bear. Children will also enjoy finding the many tiny surprises hidden within the pictures: A Butterfly, Dragonfly, Spotted Owl, Tree Frog, Mouse, Bald Eagle, Bark Beetle, and many others.

At the end of the story, there is an informative page about the Pacific Rain Forest that impressed me a great deal. After reading that page, I asked several children what country came to mind when they heard the words rain forests. Most of them mentioned Africa and one or two said South America. They envisioned a tropical climate with hot, humid jungles, big broadleaf plants, monkeys, and brightly colored birds. None of them knew that there was such a place as the Pacific Rain Forest right here in the United States. A temperate rain forest that is cool and wet, filled mostly with cone bearing trees, and stretches along the coast from Southern Oregon to the Gulf of Alaska.

I cannot say enough good things about The Tree. I highly recommend it as a book to be treasured and reread for years to come. It entertains the reader while teaching a love for nature's delicate balance and the urgency to act now in order to save our valuable forests from disappearing forever. Read it with a child and enjoy the light in his eyes as he searches its pages for each of the tiny surprises...

This book serves me well as an IT project trainee with no engineering background. I find this book wonderful as it covers a wide range of IT terms and concepts in a simplified (at least understandable to me) and structured way. Low from the types of wires (like copper wire and glass fibres) and transmission media (such as infrared and laser) and then layer 1 hardware, up the layers IP/TCP, sockets, DNS, technologies of FTP, CGI, Java, and lands on network security. It is not that technical in nature but explains the concepts and how each item works. It really helps me much in conceptual nature. So if you are an IT starter like me and looking for an elementary widely-covered book, I do recommend this for you.

This is an excellent book on understanding networking and the internet. I can't praise this book enough. You must have this as a reference.

Excellent book for beginners. Great book for undergraduate and MBA courses.

Okay, so I say that this is the best way to read The Hobbit. And I am dead serious.

I know that annotated books can be difficult to navigate, filled with useless, pointless, or just plain boring information, and can be grossly oversized. That is not the case here.

So - here's the scoop.

The original story is very nicely presented, with all original illustrations in color when possible, and in black and white elsewhere. The type is nice and clear, very easy to read. (Many cheaper editions are also rather hard on the eyes. Check the print before you buy, folks!)

The illustrations are printed very clearly, and with very good notes on what they are.

And then the annotations - useful, engaging, and very well done. You will WANT to read these. We discover how the book was written, and what was changed between editions. (There were many changes made so that The Hobbit would conform more easily to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.) There are fascinating tidbits about Tolkien's life and the experiences that made their way into the story.

The forward tells about the writing of the novel, and the appedices give additional details about the text.

There are also many illustrations from other editions of the book. These are varied, from thought-provoking to not-provoking.

And the book is not too big. Some editions are simply too big to be read, but this book is reasonably sized so that you can actually READ IT! In fact, I have not read any other edition of The Hobbit for years, since the original annotated version came out.

The new edition is very much worthwhile. Enjoy!

This version of the Hobbit is a pleasure to long-time fans but will also serve new readers well. Anderson released the original "Annotated Hobbit" years ago but this new format with the annotations in the column most often directly next to the orginal book text is supurb.

Included are Hobbit illustrations around the word, a rich addition, but the real joy of this book is learning background and details about The Hobbit, author J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord Of The Rings. At times the footnotes are scholarly and at other times they are amusing gems.

Anderson has compared all of Tolkien's revisions and has researched the 'whys' 'hows' and 'whens' that helps reveal to reader the meaning of the text and the personality of the author.

My favorites are anecdotes about Tolkien's personal life that involve his family and personal history. They are facinating and at times touching.

WIthout rambling on too much, I can confidently recommend this version of "The Hobbit" as the best available.

This newly published, annotated version of THE HOBBIT is excellent for fans of the book. It may be TMI ("too much information") for the first-time reader. The text of THE HOBBIT settles in the center of the book while Doug Anderson's notations appear in the outer margins. At times it's a bit busy - but there's always fascinating reading! Tolkien fans are sure to get excited over this one.

Doug Anderson includes lots of sources in his notes. He quotes Tolkien's own letters, other fairy tales and legends that may have inspired Tolkien, as well as previous versions of the section he's noting. The Gollum section ("Riddles in the Dark") is interesting. Tolkien did some tinkering with the original Gollum story as its follow-up (LORD OF THE RINGS) was taking shape. Seems that George Lucas is not the only person who's revised previously released work! Tolkien was his predecessor.

Also interesting are the many black and white illustrations that Anderson includes, many from foreign editions of THE HOBBIT. Some of the art is hilarious, as it does not resemble Tolkien's characters at all! There is a nice color section of illustrations in the center of the book.

THE ANNOTATED HOBBIT is a handsome, interesting book to own if you're a fan of Bilbo and his adventures with the dwarves (or dwarfs? That's covered in the book as well!)

Depicting an artist's descent in to hell, Barlowe's Inferno is a richly stunning masterpiece. This hell is not a simple pit of torment, not limited to one religions preconcieved notions, and definitely not a place you would want to be. Everything about it screams of human suffering as the souls of the damned are cruely ground down in to the very stuff hell is made of. One of the other reviewers mentions that the depictions lack sympathy for the souls of the damned, but indeed how can you have sympathy for the souls able to wonder when every brick of the behemoth structures surrounding them is itself a soul, when the very dirt is constructed of souls so old and torn they have become agonized fragments of dust. From the Demons Major and Minor with their regal stances and manor bearing witness to their once grace filled state, to the lesser demons completely alien and yet frighteningly recognizable, to the bricks that stare at you with their sorrowful imprisoned eyes, this book is simply captivating.

Barlowe seems to have drawn his visions of hell directly from some deep, primordial ancient memory within us. His illustrations are haunting beyond measure, and seem to resonate with a subconcious picture of what many of us must think the hell of religion and legend must be like. His illustration style departs from his work on Expedition and his other earlier work. His style in Inferno has an ephemeral quality, leaving the distinct impression that there is still something just beyond the edge of perception, beyond the ink on the page. The text makes a perfect accompaniment, providing palpable texture to this world of Barlowe's. As dark as the subject matter is, this is a beautiful book and should definitely be in your libary.

Very highly recommended... but be certain all your lights are on when you open this beautiful but disturbing book.

Although Barlowe's searing INFERNO imagery is rendered in a somewhat less photographic, more "painterly" style than his earlier books I have, it's dead-on target for depicting this eternally skin-crawling, hyper-grotesque netherworld. Helpfully described by a sort of narrative text, the twisted inhabitants of Barlowe's raging nightmarescapes purposefully go about their unending torments with skull-shredding focus: their horrors make bizarre sense.

I first went through this visually and spiritually cacophonous, masterful work on Christmas day. What contrast: listening to carols about angels from Heaven, while staring at demon-shrieking souls in Hell.

Final note; don't miss the deliciously caustic JUSTITIA OMNIBUS at the bottom of page 2.

Barlowe grabbed my attention decades ago with his aliens book, but since that he moved on. Expedition is amazing, a masterpiece as it goes against most established cliche's and chauvinisms about how alien life is supposed to be. Barlowe puts a lot of though in his designs and the result truly fascinating. The guy can't write though.
When leafing through the D-IV book, set aside your preconceptions about alien worlds and let it sink in. Surely, real alien life will be even stranger, but the stuff in this book is already transcendental for 99% of earthlings. Barlowe scrutinously studies his own preconceptions, exorcizes them and dreams up weird alternatives.
Good news he's busy with a sequel, and I bet that's gonna be even better. Let's hope he get's someone else to write the explanatory sidebars.

Barlowe has created a detailed world full of amazing flora and fauna! The incredible art work in the book is amazing and will let your imagination fly! The only two things that would top this book would be a sequal or a movie!

I'm a fan of science fiction, but before reading this book, hadn't been too exposed to sci-fi art. Barlowe is a gifted host in the fantastic world of science fiction art. I read this book over a period of three or four days, and couldn't wait to get back to it. The pictures are amazing, and the story is gripping. Barlowe is an incredible artist and storyteller, and I hope to see more of his work in the future! Highly recommended.

While Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture, Volume 2 (POSA2) describes network and concurrency patterns, i.e. what infrastructure for networked applications you should provide before starting development of functional layer; this book is about the concrete implementation of above patterns as ACE Frameworks and how to apply ACE to build you own networked application. At the same time it is self-contained and if you do not have a chance to look at POSA2, this book will provide you with necessary knowledge of main network design patterns.
It covers the core ACE frameworks - Reactor, Service Configuration, Task, Acceptor-Connector, Proactor, and Streams- in great detail.
The book is well organized in form of "design pattern" - "chapter-per-framework" - with each framework overview, component description, example step-by-step how to use it, and summary. It makes the book easy to read and clear to understand. Sidebars focus your attention on tips and very important details of implementation. They can save time even for ACE developers, releasing them from digging through the ACE source code. So if you need a book "Inside ACE", you already got it. In my opinion, this book is all what you need to build real scalable network applications. Moreover, instead of thinking how to resolve platform-depended technical problems, such books force you to think what patterns suit the best for each particular case and what kind of networked pattern-oriented applications you could build more.

Volume 1 explored the traps and pitfalls of developing efficient and portable client/server applications. It took a first principles approach to explaining how C++ could be used to encapsulate the lower level OS primitives to create classes that are simpler to use, less error prone, and cross-platform. In contrast, Volume 2 takes us one level higher in abstraction and presents a number of tried and true patterns for developing robust, cross-platform distributed applications. The authors provide a clear explanation of the consequences of different design choices for threading and event demultiplexing on the design, implementation, and performance of a distributed application. An example, a distributed logging server, is followed throughout the book to help explore the consequences of the different strategies on the example server. The mixture of well-explained concepts and example code give the reader a real appreciation for complexity of building such systems, and the patterns, and frameworks that can be used to manage this complexity.

To say this is just for users of the ACE framework would be wrong. The concepts are not ACE specific; rather they represent man-years in best practices of building distributed systems. However, if you are an ACE user, this will clearly explain some of the higher-level patterns and how/why they came to be.

C++ Network Programming, volume 2, continues in the tradition
of volume 1, of doing an excellent job of explaining how to
program robust network software in C++ using the ACE framework.

The book is well-structured, and easy to read. Each section explains:

- the general concepts associated with a specific network programming
topic, for example reactive event loops, or asynchronous I/O
- the underlying operating system API's associated with each topic, for
example, for reactive event loops, the Unix select()
or the Windows WaitForMultipleObjects() calls
- the underlying design patterns for properly using these facilities,
such as the Reactor, Proactor, Service Configurator
- and the accompanying C++ class in ACE for using this design pattern

The text and code examples are very clear and easy to follow.
I particularly like the technique of using sidebars throughout the
text, which draws your attention to particularly interesting
nuggets of information.

My favorite parts of this book were the parts which covered in depth three
of the most core concepts in the ACE framework:
- the Reactor (reactive event loops),
- the Proactor (using asynchronous I/O for dispatching events),
- the ACE_Task (using concurrency/multithreading efficiently in an
object-oriented fashion)

Understanding these core concepts is essential for building
high-performance middleware and networked software. These concepts

were used extensively by Schmidt, when his team used ACE to build
The ACE ORB (TAO), a C++ CORBA implementation, so this book
will help with understanding some of the internal implementation
details of TAO.

For new users of ACE, this book is a good introduction, alongside volume 1.
For experienced users of ACE, this book is an excellent
refresher, and concisely explains many core ACE concepts, accompanied
with illustrative examples. This book will make an
excellent addition to the bookshelf of anyone serious
about C++ network programming.

This was one of my favorite books when I was a kid just starting out to read Science Fiction. It's sort of like one of those "real" nature books with drawings, habitats, and biological information, but it's all about aliens from major Science Fiction authors. You figure the authors of this book have got to have a lot of information to put something like this together. For those of a puerile nature (or those who read a lot of Niven's rishartha), they even have some alien species' mating habits. In the middle there is a scale diagram of all of the aliens' sizes which was my first exposure to the wonderful world of the metric system. Buy it, read it, in will enrich your Science Fiction library

What a great book! Barlowe is a wonderful painter of aliens. I have been looking for this book for years, ever since I saw it in a science magazine. Some of the best illustrations in the book are those of the "Cryer", the "Old One", the "Pnume", the "Medusan", the "Sirian", and the "Overlords". The only problem with this book is that the pictures make you want to read the books they are from, and 99% of these books are out-of-print! Urghhhhhh!!!!

_Wayne Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials_ is my 12 year old son/fantasy/scfi fanatic's favorite book. It is dog-eared from so much love, reading, studying and attention. This is no kid's book, though--these are the wunderkind's Wayne Barlowe's illustrations that have appeared in many famous scfi books. Each alien has a full bio-ethnographic description, bring each to life.