I read about halfway through this book, and then I gave up. I read James' "Turn of the Screw," and "Daisy Miller" in high school, and I remember liking the former and thinking the latter was just okay. (I know, I know, it's a major classic by one of America's most celebrated writers, but just because something has merit doesn't mean I like it better.) One of my all time favorite books was James' "Washington Square." It's hard for me to believe that the same man wrote "Square" and "Maisie." This book is only for MAJOR Henry James enthusiasts.

I don't regret having read this book, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't already into Henry James. The style is hard to understand, apparently because it was dictated, and the subject matter is even more obscure. I don't think Henry James had much experience with children: even assuming that Maisie is twisted by her strange situation, she doesn't talk like any child I know or can imagine. Weird moral undercurrents and jealousy take up most, if not all, of the novel. I wouldn't take claims of this book's modernity too seriously - it's more on the byzantine side. Read The Europeans instead: so much more fun!

I think this is the most modern of Henry James' stories. Young Maisie's parents divorce and then seem to spend their lives using her to get a teach other, until they develop other interests. Sadly, the story resonates today - immature, self-centered parents and the children that they create. Henry James' insight into the life of such a child is brilliant.

I bought this book expecting a real debate between the three views mentioned, namely, Young Earth Creation, Old Earth Creation, and Theistic Evolution. The reason I found it disappointing is for two main reasons. None of the contributors really talk about the evidences for their position, but instead ramble on about their philosophy of science. Van Till spends most of his time trying to convince people to call his perspective the "fully-gifted creation perspective" instead of theistic evolution. To me, it really was just playing with words in order to avoid the negative Christian response to evolution. Does Van Till believe in Darwinian evolution or not? He says he does, so why not Theistic evolution? His view, as he expresses it, is really Deism, although he protests that it isn't. Read what he says and decide for yourself. My other major complaint with the book was that instead of the proponent of each view responding to the other two views, the responses were made by a third party "panel". I found this to be extremely unsatisfying.
The book wasn't totally without merit, and all three perspectives had some good things to say - but it got lost in a lot of wordiness about "words" which really took away from the book as a whole.

This book consists of essays by proponents of each of the three views (Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, and Theistic Evolution) and commentaries by practitioners of four disciplines: Biblical studies, theology, philosophy, and science. The entire discussion is concluded by summaries by Philip Johnson, an advocate of intelligent design, and Richard Bube, an advocate of theistic evolution.

The result is only partially successful. I am particularly impressed with the essays by Paul Nelson and John Mark Reynolds (Young Earth Creationism) and Howard J. Van Till (Theistic Evolution). Both give lucid and reasoned presentations of their views. I was pleasantly surprised to see Nelson and Reynolds, neither of whom I have read before, forego some of the more common but already discredited scientific arguments for a young Earth. Van Till presents a well thought-out and challenging integration of science and theology.

I am very disappointed by the commentaries, however. My first complaint is that the commentators sometimes seem unwilling to critique the essays primarily within their own expertises. For instance, John Jefferson Davis spends much of his space discussing the fossil record. On the one hand, none of the other commentators talk about this important piece of evidence. On the other hand, I wish the editors could have found someone other than a theologian to do this.

My second, more serious complaint is that each of the four commentators speaks entirely from an Old Earth Creationist perspective. In fact, Walter Bradley (who is supposed to provide criticism from a scientific perspective) uses the space allotted for commentary on the Old Earth Creationist perspective to attack the positions later presented in the Theistic Evolution essay. The reader is deprived of any scientific critique of the Old Earth Creationist view and instead finds a philosophical objection to a view not even presented yet. I find that entirely inappropriate.

As a brief introduction to the thinking in the three perspectives on creation and evolution, the primary essays in this book are very good. They each present some of the strengths and weaknesses of their own positions. These are not explored fully, but each essay is well referenced for further reading. The commentaries could have benefited by a better selection of commentators, however.

i've read in the field of creation-evolution for nearly 30 years now, from the _genesis flood_ to _darwin's dangerous idea_. that certainly doesn't make me an expert, only a concerned layman. this book is addressed by christian's to christian's, not that anyone outside of that community won't get a great deal out of the discussion only that the emotional desire/impetus to seek answers pushes christian's with a high view of scripture to try to reconcile the two biggies in their lives: science looking at general revelation and theology looking at scriptures. if you're not part of this community it is much easier just to ask "so what?" and not to understand why this is such a personal topic.

this is a first book, that is suitable for educated people to delve into a topic where many of the other books in this field/topic presume a background in either science or theology, or where the books are so stridently biased as to be "preaching to the choir" and put off 'newbies' with their presentation.

the issues are presented well enough that i think if someone finishes the book they will have a reasonable idea of what the problems are and where the different parts are most concerned in the discussion. it is not a scientific or theologically based book but rather philosophic. it presents concerns from each viewpoint, thus showing relative priorities in what each person discusses first and critisies as lacking emphasis in the other viewpoints. this is one value in a debate type of format, it can leave you with a prioritized idea of what people find important in the issues.

one problem however with this debate framework is that each person reading the book who already have committments to issues or positions tend to cheer for their side and boo down the opposing sides. this is evident from the reviews posted here, the young earth creation team is not the big names in the field, so it looks like in suffers from lack of heroes. nay, the two philosophers defend the position well given the page constraints they faced.

there is one issue running through the book i wished everyone had addressed in a more explicit matter, that is the difference in accepting the functional materialism of science versus the uncritical acceptance of a materialist world and life view of scientism. there is much confusion between the two, you can see it in much YEC criticism, in this book as well, of both progressive creationism and theistic evolution. naturalism is the idea that what we see is what we get, no god's behind the curtain, no skyhooks to come down and rescue us. there must be a distinction between how science uses this idea as a working hypothesis, as a functional means to an end, versus how a philosophy uses it as an axiom. of the 3 viewpoints, only vantil talks to the separation of the two. the YEC's fault the other two positions as if they accepted the materialism/naturalism as a deep committment in their systems. which as christian's is simply unacceptable from the beginning.

i liked the book. i think if you need a place to start it supplies one. however if you are already committed to a position you would be better off served by jumping straight to one of the major works in each viewpoint. and interact with that author without the polemics that form the debate structure of the book.

This book is just a copy of JMS tutorials from java site and has examples which are written using jmq which is no longer available as it has now become part of iPlanet group and they have broken compatibility (Interfaces have been changed) Not the worst book but certainly worst wrox book i have ever read

This book covers a lot of ground about JMS. However, the problem is that it is written by many authors, which results in repetition of some subject, bad structure of the book and more pages than necessary for explaining the subjects.

The first 5 chapters are on 250 pages and cover the basic about JMS, but I think "Java Message Service" by Monson-Haefel does a better job here. However, I appreciate that there are sequence diagrams in the first chapter that shows basic design patterns for MOM-based applications. The next two chapters is code example that shows how to use JMS from a web application and from EJBs. I'm not too found about this kind of lengthy code examples.

The chapter about JMS and Clustering is very technical, but still only scratches the surface. This is a subject that needs an own book to be covered completely. The next chapter called "Distributed Logging Using JMS" is again a lengthy code example, but a very useful one!

Chapter 10 is about XML Messaging with some XML code example. I think this chapter, like some of the other chapters as well, covers too little to be of some real value and too much for just being an overview. Chapter 11 is about Mobile Applications and the criticism against this chapter is the same as the chapter about XML.

All and all this is a book that covers a lot of subjects related to JMS, but it does it in a boring and verbose way.

I expect that with introduction of JMS and Message Driven Beans which are based on this technology we will see very big movement towards implementing various application scenarious based on JMS. This book definitely could help you to decide what should be taken in account. I also like chapter on Clustering and Scalability - each enterprise (and you as developer for this enterprise) should think about this during design stage. List of various JMS providers (SonicMQ, IBM MQ Series, FioranoMQ, WebLogic) and implemented by them features could also be helpful.

am I supposed to do with a fony Tarot application. I toatlly agree with the previous reviews. TO much hassel. I am getting into some flash application development, for which I got the taste after working my way through Friends of Ed's Dynamic Content Studion, which, by the way, is an EXCELLENT book....

but this....c'mon

As Flash might finally emerge from experimental eye-catching gimmick to become the next generation front end for high commercial, dynamic web applications, this book really sets the wrong tone (explaining more about Tarot than XML does not match the book's title, right?).

Although writing the first four chapters must have been fun for the authors - for us, the readers, its just painful. Long and rather vague, XML is described from many angles without getting on a level where you really would know where to start in a practical sense. So when you really have to know about XML, or just need some reference, this book is most probably not for you.

Chapter 5, trying to compensate for the lengthy introduction, finally presents the XML object in warp speed. (If you are new to the subject, statements like "it would be so much easier if objects could be made directly from objects instead of having to remember its class" are more confusing than helpful, reflect bad style and do not really sell the idea behind object oriented programming).

Chapters 6 to 10 are not that bad when showing how XML shuffles the tarot cards. Still it might be too cloudy for beginners as the authors just lack focus.

The Rest of the book (XML Sockets, Perl Scripting, mySQL, PHP) gives you some ideas for the next books to buy, but definitively offer nothing you can start to do real business with.

In a nutshell: When having read this book you will know what XML is on a high level and how you deal with it once it sits within your flash movie. But this is not what XML was primarily made for.
When having read this book you still will not have much of a clue from where you will get interesting, business relevant XML data and how to make your flash application talk to the professional world of high end, high paid real world applications. Neither is there much help about dealing with end to end responsibilities. (test, debug, tune end to end transactions from Flash front-end, via web- and application servers down to databases and vice versa).

For my taste this book still remains with the classic, design oriented flash programmer rather than to finally extend Flash's scope into the realm of serious application development. The book's focus is ways too much on how XML is used internally within flash, rather than to make XML do what it was designed for: standardized communication across new and existing systems and new (web) services. Otherwise you might really ask yourself, what all the fuzz about XML really is.

As I have already said: do not polish your Porsch in your garage, take it out , learn to drive and experience the real world!

last week I bought the book , and till now it looks SO gerat

We recently traveled through Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia and found this guidebook practically useless and certainly frustrating--definitely not worth its weight. We have used other LPs in the past and found them to be at least adequate but this one doesn't even rate that well. It lacked many important details--such as the time/distances between many points, availability of various transportation options and routes, decent maps--the list goes on and on. Even though prices change often and currencies fluctuate, even a vague idea of prices (is it $10 or $100??) would have been quite useful to help us plan better. Although we ran into many people all 'armed' with the LP, they all had the same complaints.

This book is an adequate guide but it needs improvement in several areas. I used this book during Janurary and February of 2000 when I traveled through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. Last year I used the Lonley Planet-India and found it was much better than Southeast Asia. Here are the weaknesses. 1. The numbers of the locations on the maps should be used in the text describing the location. This would grealy improve you ability to plan your day or route. 2. Maps should be improved. I would be willing to spend a few dollars more for better maps. 3. Hotel, restaurant, etc. names are not printed in bold type. This makes it more difficult to use. 4. It would be very helpful to grade the sites with a priority to reduce the time one spends reading fine print and get on with seeing the country. When I return to this part of the world next winter I will try to find additional books to correct these weaknesses.

I travelled through Thailand, Philippines and Hong Kong using this book. I initially bought this book with weight in mind. I did not want to carry three more LPs along with the other country books (LP Taiwan, Japan). Although much of the information needed to survive was written in the book, it certainly did lack the detailed maps and background information needed to have a care-free journey. SOmetime it certainly was a struggle , especially in Thailand. The Thailand Section prices were extremely outdated. Even in the height on the "asian economic flu", I had to triple the prices listed. The Hong Kong section was adequate, but HK is an efficient and easily travelled city. Of the three, I found the Philippine section the best, but some of the hotel quality ratings are out dated. Please do not stay at the Hotel Mercedes in Cebu!

I'm extremely disappointed to have to give this rating. All of the Sybex MCSE book that I have read have been great. This book is missing a LOT of information. For example, there are several questions in the back of each chapter that ask questions that were not discussed, or have answers with data that is nowhere to be found.

The content is terribly disorganized with two sections on DHCP, for example, repeating themselves. Just about every topic provides incomplete information. Errors, typographical and question answers, are everywhere! Two words in a row, misspellings, mislabeled end of chapter answers. ACK!

This really is an awful book; HUGE disappointment. Stay away from this brick.

This book disappointed me. I have used Sybex books in the past to study for my Windows NT exams with pretty good results. This book seems to gloss over some very important concepts, at the same time telling you that you need to understand them for the test. If you know your stuff, it is not all that bad, but this is definitely not for a beginner. The questions at the end of the chapters sometimes don't refer to anything you would have learned from reading the chapter.

Not sure what the previous reviewer was looking for but this book is excellent in its organization and coverage of all of the exam objectives. I found its organization logically better than the Sybex Study Guide for 70-240. Coverage of exam objectives is short and to the point. If you already understand Windows 2000 thoroughly or have completed the Sybex Study Guide then you will find the Exam Notes most effective. I used this text and the Study Guide with a little bit of dabbling into the Resource Kit and I passed the exam. Highly recommended.

I bought this book because the photographs were beautiful and I wanted to learn more about this incredable animal. I was gravely disappointed for I not only found the captions didn't describe the photo but they were boring. It was as though someone cut statements from the text and tossed them in a hat then, picked each photo and caption randomly. I didn't find the text much better. I wanted facts to learn about moose but the author never seemed to commit himself. He prefaced statements with "apparently" or "evidently" or "it seems". I've learned more watching moose out my window than I did from this book.

Great book, well written, with pages of breathtaking colorful pictures. This book is very easy to read and will fullfill every curiosity you have about the moose. It should be a must for every library.

Totally dissapointed in the book. 53 pages devoted to the history of drafting. What I expected and needed was a step by step explanation in user freindly terms of the functions of the CAD system. The book ( since I bought it in Canadian dollars) is way over priced for the content even if it is a hard cover copy. Sorry to slam it but it did not suit my needs.

I really found this book useful. The biggest plus for me is the extensive diagrams that make it a great reference, as well as a great step by step publication.
Definately recommended.

The phrases in this book work well and the phoenetic spelling isn't horrible, I just found it difficult to quickly find what I wanted to say. I found the two page "essential phrases" list in the back of my other travel guides more useful because you didn't have to flip a bunch of pages to get what you need. I was on a brief trip to Europe, this book may be more useful for longer trips.

This book is very useful to me because I travel to Europe every year and when I go there, it's difficult to get around the airports or the country itself. This little phrasebook has helped me to communicate with the other people in the countries I go to.

don't buy this book 'cause the 70-216 has a defective CD in it and the publisher won't replace it 'cause they haven't made a working version yet and if you lost your receipt and not send your copy to them, they won't send you the working version when it done.

also this is what i got from the support of the publisher:

"Thanks for the inquiry. We apologize for the installation problems with the E-Book programs on the Sybex Interface of the CD. This unfortunate error wasn't discovered until after the CD had been sent to the CD replicator."

I bought Sybex MCSA Core few months ago and after reading each book only once I passed all my certifications. I didn't have nay problems with defective CD's and recomend these books for anyone interested in getting certified in the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system.