This is a good book to get if you want to know what is involved with designing chips today using VHDL. It starts slowly, first establishing a taxonomy for the design process and very carefully defining its terms, then picks up as it moves into more depth. Combined with a good book dedicated to synthesis and a VHDL language reference (I recommend Chang for the former, Ashenden for the latter) you can come away with a very good understanding of VHDL and its uses.

Things that would have made it better are appendices with the NUMERIC_STD libraries and STD_LOGIC libraries detailed. A bit more depth in the synthesis area and some answers to at least some of the chapter questions in the back. Thus if you are teaching yourself VHDL as I am you will need to talk to a VHDL expert to verify your understanding.

With all that being said, I have no reservations recommending this book. You can probably skip chapters 1 & 2 if you are not a beginner and jump in at chapter 3. The use of comercially available FPGA design boards was a plus as well since I could "follow along" with the examples. Now if I could only find the student guide/lab book ...

For the new beginner or senior engineer in electronic field, learn this new knowlegde is essential.

This cassette presents a excellent variety of thought on the mysterious concept of soul mates. Deepak Chopra, Thomas Moore, Barbara De Angelis, John Gray and Erica Jong all contribute penetrating insights into love, the nature of relationships and how soul mates are manifest into our lives. These top contemporary thinkers provide deep thought provoking ideas into this often mystical area. I find myself discovering something new and moving each time I listen to this tape. A good one to further your spiritual growth.

I have had this book since 1991 and have read it now more than twice. As a current coach of a first grade rugby union side, I have found this book to be very helpful. It covers all aspects of the body, with sections on motivation, injuries and special problems to look out for in both young athletes and women athletes. It is not a rugby book, but covers all sports generally. It has some very good photos of specific injuries. I have used the section on motivation constantly. It has some good ideas on training methods as well as both post and pre injury training. Read and enjoy!

This introductory textbook of strategic studies covers four main themes: the enduring issues of strategy, the evolution of joint warfare, twentieth-century theories, and contemporary issues of grand strategy. The book is written from the perspective of 'Western security interests', but even so, studying strategy helps us to think clearly about the ways in which states and others use organised force for political ends.
The writers all refute technological determinism: new weapons - artillery in World War One, tanks in World War Two, guided missiles in the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, precision bombing and superior ground force technology in the Gulf War - were none of them unbeatable. They show that the basic principles of conducting land warfare have hardly changed in the last hundred years. Armies need to combine their arms, defend in depth, keep large reserves, use cover and concealment, and integrate movement and suppressive fire. In particular, Stephen Biddle shows that, contrary to many claims, the USAF air war in the Gulf did not destroy all the Iraqi armour. Possibly 4,100 armoured vehicles later fought the US ground forces, but they did not fight according to the basic principles, so they were beaten.
However, the editors err in dividing what they call '20th-century theories' - deterrence, arms control, terrorism and 'irregular warfare' (national liberation struggles) - from the 'contemporary issues' of technology, weapons of mass destruction, and humanitarian intervention. These are all still live issues. Further, the editors could have presented them in the livelier form of debates.
As with any collection of pieces by many hands, the quality is uneven, but generally the better essays are more grounded in the realities of 20th-century military history. The worse ones try to discuss, for instance, the causes of war in terms of biology or psychology. As a rule, strikingly individual expressions of one person's views, like Colin Gray's Modern Strategy, or Bernard Brodie's War and Politics, provoke more thought than compilation textbooks

Cordelia Gray, the brave and endearing young private investigator who made her debut in P.D. James' AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN, returns in the author's eighth whodunit, THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN. The title's from Webster, and it's a fitting one; the story literally reeks of the theater. Clarissa Lisle is a bitchy, fading actress determined to salvage her career as the star of an amateur production of Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi," staged in a restored Victorian theater on Courcy Island, just off the coast of Dorset. Lisle has been receiving mysterious poison-pen letters, death notes in the form of quotations from Shakespeare and Webster, and has hired Cordelia to discover their source. The castle on Courcy Island becomes the stage for a tense gathering of Clarissa's friends, relatives, and guests--each of whom, we learn, has excellent motive for killing the actress. When the death does inevitably occur, Cordelia finds herself left with a case of murder that she fully intends to--and does--unravel.

THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN may be the most stylish, lavishly mounted novel that James has written. It's an overflowing mixture of the elements of the detective/horror tale at its most clichéd--the closed circle of suspects in a Victorian castle on a small island serviced by a spooky, tight-lipped butler and his wife, a crypt filled with skulls, a collection of memorabilia from past murders, frightening knick-knacks in the shapes of human appendages...it's all gloriously entertaining, never for a minute even coming close to realism. And therein lies the fatal flaw of the novel.

P.D. James' novels are seldom been anything but realistic, but she seems to have broken the rule in THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN. The Gothic horror, portrayed in a darkly comic manner, clashes painfully with her finely drawn, introspective characters (except Clarissa Lisle, one of the few two-dimensional stereotypes who pop up in James' fiction) and flawlessly crafted prose. It's as if she's written two completely different novels, one a brilliant character study, the other a conventional ghost story, and meshed them together with little regard for the coherence of the result. Until now, James has done a marvelous job proving that the English mystery can make an extraordinarily fine mainstream novel; unfortunately, she's also shown that the magic combination can work only when her settings are serious and controlled. THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN is not serious. It's not too far from out-and-out comedy, and James' admirable but vain attempts to weave her fantastic set pieces and excessively necrophilic atmosphere into a profound work of fiction makes it even more funny.

Not that most readers will care. This is still an absorbing entertainment--substantial, cunningly plotted, and beautifully written. More discriminating readers will conclude that either THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN is a parody written by a skilled impersonator, or P.D. James has seen one Dracula movie too many.

I've recently read a good deal of Baroness James' work, and found much to admire if not a lot to like. While clearly and intelligently written, her works all too often come perilously close to sinking under their own High Moral Weight, and, I am afraid, are very nearly humorless. Adam Dalgliesh's gloom can get rather oppressive, and I was often moved to suggest that he get some Prozac.

The Skull Beneath The Skin, however, is the exception to the rule. Dalgliesh is nowhere in sight. James brings her other creation to the forefront, a woman named Cordelia Gray, last seen in James' An Unsuitable Job For A Woman. Cordelia runs her own detective agency, and at the start of the novel is hired to protect a neurotic actress from a series of poison-pen letters during an upcoming amateur theatrical production to take place on a secluded island.

James seems to be taking on the classic murder mystery, complete with despicable victim, exotic locale, small number of suspects each equipped with a motive, and finally, a rather bizarre murder weapon. The story moves swiftly and entertainingly, the characters live on the page, and if the denouement is rather unsatisfying, well, I think that is very much the point that James is making. Those classic whodunits are not about life, they are more about creating a puzzle for the reader to solve. James, however, wants to make us think about the realities of her situations, and to see her characters as living people, not just as cardboard types. In this book she James takes the genre out for a ride, and manages to have some good mean fun with it.

I first read "The Skull Beneath the Skin" eleven years ago and, after more than a few re-readings, have had to purchase a second copy. (Yes, it's that good!)

In the sequel to "An Unsuitable Job for a Woman" (which probably should be read first), Cordelia Gray is still struggling to maintain her detective agency. In some ways, she has attained a greater measure of independence (she now has her own flat and even has a couple of employees), but in some ways she is more self-doubting than ever (is finding lost pets really a worthy endeavor for a detective agency?).

"The Skull Beneath the Skin" probably isn't the best of P.D. James's works from a novelistic standpoint (her subsequent works, such as "A Taste for Death" and "A Certain Justice" explore deeper themes), but it remains my favorite of her books because the juxtaposition of country-house (well, Victorian castle) murder and Gothic horror is simply great entertainment. The characters are profoundly sympathetic and well-delineated, and the conclusion is both affecting and disturbing.

I also disagree with the negative review. This book is a good one, and the examples work fine. However, you must have the correct version of Excel (Excel 2000), and for some of the more advanced chapters, like data mapping, you need to have the full version of Excel installed. In a lot of schools and businesses, they install only the basics of Excel to save disk space, so you may need to get the rest of Excel installed from the original CDs in order for some stuff to work. In addition, some of the more advanced material is difficult stuff (especially VBA, chapter 7 and some items in chapter 8), and you may need a knowledgeable teacher to help you through it.

In the context of a class, this book works great. However, if you are trying to learn Excel from scratch on your own, you might do better starting with another, more basic, book, and then moving to this book once you've mastered the basics. This book gets very advanced very quickly.

This is a good way to learn how to use excel if you have time to read and do all the exercise. I recommend this for beginner but not expert or novice because it lacks of technique that you should know.

I had to purchase this book for a class I took in college. Before I took the class, I used MS Excel every day for 3 years at my job. Within 2 weeks of using this thing, I more than doubled my knowledge of the program. It is fairly easy to use on your own for the first 2/3 of the book. The last 1/3 is pretty complex, however the average user will never need to do some of things in that section. I kept this book instead of selling it back to the bookstore, and still use it as a desktop reference. I highly reccomend it.

ITS DUMB, IT HAS NO INFO ON HOW TO USE PALACE STUFF OR ANY INFO... IT ONLY SAYS HOW PEOPLE ARE ON THE PALACE AND STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been using palace for numerous years,its a great program for people who are creative, but i had to delete it to update my hard drive, now i want to re-install it but i can't find where to download it, can anyone help me find it,or send me the program?thanks.

If you've just started using The Palace or if you've been using it for quite some time, get this book. It tells you everything you need to know about Palace, including helpful commands and a variety of other useful information.

My first review was based soley on appearance and strength. I know the KJV Bible and had not read through this particular version yet. But after owning it for some time, I have come across several spelling and gramatical errors in this KJV. In my humble opinion, it is unacceptable and just plain wrong to poorly edit such an important book. I reccomend staying away from this version...

I just got this Bible today and I really like it. It is small and compact and yet the print is very readable. One great thing is that it does not contain a bunch of index columns and authors' commentaries and their own ideas--it contains only the Holy Scriptures and this is what I have wanted. This is a great volume of scripture at an affordable price. I don't think this Bible should be limited to just the church pews as the title implies. This is a great volume to take anywhere(for travel, home devotions/Bible studies, etc.). Well done.

This book was never the best book for rotisserie veterans, especially because it went to press so early. But going to press early meant hitting the book stores before other roto books and baseball-starved rotisserians gobbled it up even though it had all the substance of cotton-candy.

The saving grace was that the writing was often fun and the player comments could be downright irreverant. Unfortunately once John Benson took control, the book lost all its fun but still retained its deficiencies. The numbers are meaningless, the analysis non-existent and the text mostly a warmed up serving of material that Benson publishes (and has published) elsewhere.

Unless you really need the official constitution of the Rotisserie Baseball League, leave this book on the shelf. If you want real analysis, good numbers and pithy comments, check out Alex Patton online!

This book started it all and I've always liked the witty writing. Even if you don't play Rotisserie baseball this is a book you'll enjoy while waiting for opening day. I've played Rotisserie for years. If you do play Rotisserie -- wow! It's all here and then some. What more do we need? This year's book is their best in years. It's very entertaining and informative. The player profiles are a combination of original analysis, and wit. A great surprise is the book also has a meaty piece by Bill James himself. James leads off the whole thing with his own perspective on Rotisserie Baseball and as ususal, James gives us something to ponder. Read James on Gary Templeton, the Alex Rodriguez of the 1980s who never reached his potential. James' comments are something to think about. Bill James, John Benson and Glen Waggoner and friends in one book is a summit. Pretty impressive. If you want to know the deep thinking in the game, Benson's stuff on how to play and win, is great. And, thankfully, they've put the player prices back where they belong, right next to the players. There's good stuff on minor leaguers and they even have bid results from early 1999 auctions so I don't have to wait for Baseball Weekly to print the LABR auction results to see what the bids are. I stayed up half the night reading it cover to cover. it. This is the best Rotisserie League Baseball book in years. The King is back! I can't wait for opening day.

When I started reading "Commanding Voices Of Blue And Grey" By Brian M. Thomson, I'll admit I wasn't exactly thrilled to read it, but after a while it started to grow on me. The book was kind of hard to read because it wasn't in a story format like I'm used to. This book didn't really have a main character through the whole book, and it was kind of like a textbook, except much more interesting. Brian M. Thomson did a terrific job turning the experiences of different people that served in the civil war into short story like scenes. This book had some good battle scenes and some very important people that turned the tide in the war. This book was extremely good about showing both sides of the story. This book helped me completely understand the civil war and it was also surprisingly good.