I was also interested in the material related to Y2K but found there was nothing included of any value. The Y2K 'checklist' had, I believe, two items - barely qualifying itself as a 'list'.

I also quickly came across typos, which is a serious concern for me with books which are dealing with technical subjects. I confess that I did not spend long with the book before deciding to return it, so I do not have more detail.

I find it worth pointing out that Edward Hills, just like James White, was a five-point Calvinist.

This book set new lows for circular argumentation. It becomes apparent that Hills wants it both ways. For example, both Hills and Grove call Westcott and Hort naturalistic critics or even heretics; but the VERY version they love, the KJV, was "preserved" (according to Hills at least) by unbelieving Masoretic Jews who crucified Jesus Christ!! He also fails to mention that the first person known to have a complete Byzantine text was the early church heretic, Asterius (this is cited by Dr. Maurice Robinson, a majority text advocate, in his 1991 "Introduction To the Majority Text"). Hills invents two concepts, one called "consistently Christian textual criticism" and the other one called "the logic of faith." His textual criticism view is to start with his conclusion - the KJV - and work backwards to reach his initial conclusion by developing his own form of criticism based on what will support the KJV and his preconceived notions. He argues that the MAJORITY of Greek manuscripts determines the readings. But in obvious places like I John 5:7 and Colossians 1:14 where the overwhelming majority supports NEW versions, Hills reverts to circular argumentation. He also does not interact with an unpleasant truth; that there are MORE Latin manuscripts (those that back the newer versions, more or less) than Greek manuscripts. Therefore, if majority rules - as Hills claimed - then he wasted his time writing the book.

The final double standard becomes evident when Hills tries to argue that Byzantine "readings" in the papyri (the oldest manuscripts) "prove" the Byzantine text was around early but dismisses the entire papyri - which would back up the new versions - as being corrupt and causing "maximum uncertainty." The book is a textbook for how an Ivy League educated scholar who was fired from the University of Chicago can make his case by appealing to selective evidence. When finished, read White's devastating rebuttal and you will certainly be convinced that Hills may have an earned Ph.D. but that doesn't make his opinions or research reliable.

White is a consultant on the New American Standard update and his ministry of Alpha and Omega ministries is based upon Revelation 1:8 - which despite some claims IS in the new versions.

Dr. Hills properly makes a distinction between neutral or naturalistic textual criticism and believing textual analysis. As was seen some time ago in the Creation/Evolution debate, the premises one accepts are critical and often determine the conclusions drawn from the evidence. Those who believe by faith that the Genesis account is accurate view with suspicion the constantly changing arguments of modern science. In similar fashion, those who begin by accepting by faith God's promise to preserve His Word should reject a neutral, naturalistic (even scientific) method of New Testament textual criticism. We must begin by believing God ("he that cometh to God must believe that He is." Hebrews). If not, we begin in unbelief and cannot find Truth.

Many believers, even fundamentalists, are strangely uniformed about this vital topic. If unbelievers are allowed to rewrite the text of God's Word using naturalistic methods, the authority of the Bible will be undermined. Fortunately, through the work of Hills and others, God continues to keep his promise to preserve His Word. For a thorough discussion of the methods of textual criticism see Wilber N. Pickering's "The Identity of the New Testament Text."

This book will strengthen your faith in God's Word, and will give you the information and arguments needed to answer the critics.

I enjoyed the book and found it useful for someone with limited knowledge of this time period. Not very detailed with but a good overview of events.

As a Y2K professional, I had high hopes for this book - it was the first 'mass market' book that I had run across regarding the Year 2000 dilema. After reading nearly 100 pages of little but potential horror stories for January 1, 2000, I had no more Y2K project management insight than I could get (for free) from Peter DeJager's home page, www.year2000.com. I was, however, siezed by the urge to immediately clean out all of my bank accounts and hunker down in a remote wilderness cabin with a manual can opener (no damn computer chips in an electric can opener standing between me and my spagettio's) and my Y2K compliant shotgun.

"Solving the Year 2000 Problem" presents a plethora of fodder for marketing presentations. Anyone in the Y2K seminar business should be buying caseloads of this book and passing them out as freebies to potential clients. But don't be tempted to buy this book on the basis of constructing a Y2K project. It doesn't quite cut the mustard in that regard.

I would recommend the following book as a primer for Y2K project management:

"The Year 2000 Software Crisis: Challenge of the Century", by Wm. M. Ulrich and Ian S. Hayes, published by Yourden Press Computing Series.

The book included is just over 350 pages, and it covers the 70-058 exam objectives very well. Each topic like topologies, media, OSI model, hardware and others is accurate and detailed. The author spent a number of hours in making sure you have the right information.

The book also includes a cd-rom with a CBT package worth over $225.00. As if that wasn't enough to make this a great deal also included in another CD-rom with a Cyber classroom. This cd covers 8 separate but essential course.

The Cyber Classroom is multimedia based so a sound card is highly recommended. The installation was simple and easy and worked on a 95, 98, NT 4 and 2000 workstation without any major problems. Overall you can spend a fortune now in training or give this package a try, I think you'll be very happy with the results.

For an example of just how bad the C++ is...

Keogh creates a "student" class that inherits from a class called "course." A student is a kind of a course? You would properly be able to use a student wherever a course was needed? This is one of the most common and blatant misuses of inheritance in any OO language, and the author exploits it to its fullest "potential" in this work. Similarly bad "logic" is used throughout the entire book. From a look at the TOC of the second edition, I can say that perhaps the author recognized some of the fatal flaws in this "work" and at least added a discussion of a copy constructor, exceptions and more "things you gotta know" if you're going to program using C++.

The author's "oversight" of anything representative of real C++ continues into chapter "Storing an Array of Objects on the Heap." As a C++ programmer, you might think that he really is talking about storing an array of Objects (not primative data types) on the heap using new and delete AND certainly NOT calloc/malloc and free! Looking further into it, we find that he is really using a standard C function call to calloc() to zerio initialize a char pointer then uses another standard C function call gets() to fill the memory at the address of the char pointer. Of course, this is just fine for C, but where is the new operator?! If you're really going to title a book using "C++," one might think that there would actually be something relevant to the way things are actually done in C++ and not just a rehashing of C. The absurd use of the mentioned chapter title suggests C++ and the contents further mislead by containing absolutely NO C++ at all! None! De Nada! In fact, the #include directives use only standard C library functions!

You wouldn't think that an example of The Bubble Sort would be found in a C++ "programmer's notebook." Perhaps a discussion of iterators and algorithms...but, like the rest of the C-specific content of this book, you'll also find a Linked List and NOT a std::list. Even though copyrighted in 1997, there is no excuse for such poor C++ coverage and the coverage that you do get is just plain wrong.

Each area of C++ is concisely explained with examples on e next page. Great for QUICK references. HOWEVER, its filled with minor spelling errors.... this can be quite disappointing, but hey, its not that bad. What area of C++ is explained? Just the usual stuff, but nothing to do with library definitions, but more on e basic stuff like arrays, enums, OO and others.

Definitely a SHORT and QUICK reference book, but for such a thin book compared to the other massive volumes of C++ programming books out there... you might want to look else where. This book is definitely for BEGINNERS ONLY. But the minor errors might cause some confusion.....so watch out.