lack of character depth and overall setting. tone is that of a dated t.v. sitcom- light-hearted but short on wit. gratuitous title for a humdrum detective mystery. a mix of murder and mirth that doesn't jell.

It's got a really complex mystery, but it's not suspenseful, and the story definitely has some unneeded elements to it, but it does have some real charm and some amazing twists that really do fit together very well. Summed up: Pretty Good detective story.

This is the first Alo Nudger Mystery I have read and I enjoyed it immensely. Alo is a realistic character and not the usual slick detective. Its an easy read, but holds your interest. Although its not too difficult to figure out, it does have a few suprises. I'll be looking for more books by this author.

I bought this book because no others were avalable in Australia and I regreted it. It was poorly designed and structured. The concepts are not clearly explained. After reading half of the book, all I've learn are a few commands and menu ... What I need is understanding the operating system at least at the basic level, not just "if you want to do this, type this at the command line then press Enter ..."

Last year I was a beginner on the topic of AS/400 and I bought this book, because it was the only AS/400 book I could find in Denmark. What I need was a exact description, telling me precisely what to do, when I had to do something on the AS/400. I could use the book for that, because I didn't want to read manuals or take a course in computer operations systems. The book has only 490 pages, not 600 pages!

This is not a "page-turner" but I like it and use it everyday as a quick reference when I forget fundamental commands etc. It is a good, easily read and researched book. As a practical guide, it's much easier to reference than IBM's guides. Information is presented logically and indexed nicely. This book puts a lot of basics at your fingertips and since I was a "rusty" administrator, it has become handy as a refresher.

I was terribly disappointed with this, and consider it a complete and total waste of time and money. It is ostensibly comprised of freeware and shareware Access utilities, demos, and samples collected from the Internet, BBs, online services, etc. Unfortunately, however, no effort was made to note which work for Access 1, which for Access 2, which for Access 95, which for Access 97, etc. So you have to unzip and invoke each one to learn that most are for Access 1 or 2 and won't even work with later versions.

It would seem like a much better idea to instead try the free trial memberships at AOL, Compuserve, etc, and download the freeware and shareware utilities from their extensive Access libraries (where you can easily see which are for Access 1 and which for Access 97), do the same at web sites and online services, etc. In the end, you'll have the latest and most bug free versions, and will save a lot of time and money.

I gave this one star because that was the lowest rating available. I really think it deserves a minus, though. It wouldn't have been all that difficult for the authors to have at least noted the date on which each version was released, or, preferably, the latest version of Access it was known to work with.

This book was originally issued in 1995; the second edition slightly updated in 1997. In 1995 the "Internet" was not easily available. The purpose of the book was to make available, in one place, the wealth of freeware and shareware functions then available for Access. Many were necessary to correct omissions in Access versions of the time, and those routines can still be used and modified now in current versions. For every program included, the author is clearly identified, with mail address, telephone and/or email contact information, and all consented to be published in this book/CD. Most programs and source code in this book/CD do still work with Access 2000.

Basic Essentials Cross-Country Skiing appears to be geared towards the beginner skier and someone with a limited understanding of the sport. If this is the goal, the book succeeds quite well. This is not 'basic essentials for advanced cross-country skiing.' Accomplished skiers may find the technique more inexact than basic.

This book is ideal for the average beginner to stuff in their back-pack on a weekend ski outing.

This is a compilation of theoretically important c3 Sicilian games through 1994. Most of the games are unannotated making it of marginal use to us club players. I did like the little asterisks next to key games that Donaldson offers as a c3 repertoire (largely based on the games of c3 exponent GM Sermek). It did help me cobble together some ideas to use over-the-board.

The first need I had for information from my Haynes Ford Ranger manual was to locate a fuse in my 1999 Ranger XLT. The fuse diagram is wrong. No corrections are available at the Haynes website.

I'm thinking about buying this book because I own a 2000 Ford Ranger, code-named J97, built in Thailand for sale throughout the world except North America.
Could it be that Mr Gow found the manual inaccurate because the US Ranger is a totally different vehicle from the Mazda-based Ranger that the rest of us use?

I love the clan books. But they made a mistake letting this author do any of the books. Tremere book was the worst of the Clan books, and now they're letting him write this trilogy? I admit I didn't finish the book, but that's because I just couldn't make it. I moved on to Lasombra, and enjoying it much, much more.

This book has plenty of words, but none about the clan Tremere. Which is sad, considering it's such an interesting clan. This book read more like a 3rd rate detective book. Snore.

The book moves on from where the Clan Novel: Tremere left. I do agree with many of the other reviewers, Eric Griffin has a hot topic but lacks a decent story. I have to admit it is slightly better than the Clan Novel: Tremere mainly because you actually see some Tremere magic this time, very little of it. The author keeps describing the areas, emotions and objects but leaves the reader lost because of the lack of a plot. Personally, I must admit I also hate the style the book was written in which a chapter focuses on one scene and then the next on another and the one after returns to the previous scene. That style added irritation more than mystry to the already plot lacking book.

It is a shame to give this book a "Professional" title - it is rudimental in every sense. I can't even call it a rehash of the manual, because MS documentation is much deeper.
Book is un-inspiring and wriiten in a very bad language.
In general, I see Wrox sliding down on my scale, while Microsoft Press shining. Just try to compare this "Professional" book with Charles Petzold's "Programming Windows with C#"!

Ill-conceived and rushed into print

Wrox sure knows how to put together a beautiful looking book: the dazzling red color of the book cover contrasting with the bright yellow, shadowed titling shows that someone has done their homework on how to attract a reader to a book shelved alongside dozens of other similarly-titled books. Open up one of their books and you'll find a beautiful layout with gorgeous typography employing carefully chosen fonts for the various types of information being conveyed. Their books are chock-full of professional looking diagrams, tables, and screenshots that just suck the beholder into thinking that this must be some excellent book.

Sigh...if only the cosmetics reflected the contents. I know people who buy almost every Wrox book published, yet who express their disappointment time and time again because of a host of shortcomings common to so many of them. Talk about finding the sizzle irresistible regardless of the quality of the meat! "Professional Windows Forms" is a perfect example of a wonderful looking Wrox book that is just plain annoying when you get down into it. The book is supposed to teach you how to program with Windows Forms in the .NET platform (standard thick-client Windows programs). The book does cover all the bases, you can't fault it for that: there is a really good introductory chapter on the .NET framework itself, a fair overview of Visual Studio.NET, a good chapter on event handling (critical for Windows programming), how to connect controls with data from a database (something new with .NET), all the standard Windows controls (buttons, lists, trees, toolbars, menus, whatever), dialogs (modal vs. non-modal) and standard windows, common dialogs, GDI+, a chapter on debugging Windows Forms, even a chapter on localization (internationalization.) The book has all the usual Wrox shortcomings: a host of typos and misspellings, half the examples don't work, the source on the web site does not match the source in the book, sometimes the bugs are in the web site source, sometimes in the book, often in both, class and procedure names differ between the web site source and the book's printed source (so searches often fail), there is inconsistency in the presentation of material from chapter to chapter (because in this case there are eight different authors, which is actually below average for the "Professional" series Wrox books), and there is a lack of focus on the topics presented. There are a couple of extremely elementary chapters that seem completely out of place in a "Professional" series book: "Inheritance and Other Important New Language Features," and an insultingly elementary chapter on interface design (what's a button for, etc.). There are also some topics that may be interesting in themselves but are only marginally related to Windows Forms, such as "Components and Reports." This book is more like a grab-bag than simply Windows Forms. It even touches (but JUST touches) on building web pages with ASP.NET.

All that aside, the thing that I find most annoying about this book is the language mix used to teach the Windows Forms .NET classes. Three fourths of the examples in this book are in VB.NET, the rest in C#. Personally, I don't think any book purporting to instruct us about .NET classes should be using VB.NET, because the prolix and convoluted syntax of this horribly ugly language stands in the way of us clearly seeing what is going on with the .NET classes themselves, the actual topic under discussion. C# has far superior didactic power for this purpose, since it is concise and clean and lets the workings of the classes shine through transparently. A case could be made for saying that the only .NET books that should have VB.NET code in them are books whose main purpose is to teach VB.NET (it will be a detriment to the industry if this language catches on, but that is another story). But to mix VB.NET and C# in the same book, where there is not a total duplication of code for both languages (as some .NET books do), well this is simply egregious. Up to now, all serious Windows programmers, to whom presumably this book is addressed, have used either C with the Win32 SDK or C++ with MFC (or ATL). The natural language for this book's audience is C#, not VB.NET. To burden this audience with VB.NET for exposing the Windows Forms classes is an affront. Then to tease us with a little C# in an occasional chapter, especially when follow-on chapters later in the book are then presented in VB.NET, is a terrible frustration and road block for learning the actual topic at hand. Why cover up the meat with this mess of a language when it is so much more natural to expose it in C#? What was Wrox thinking? Especially nitty-gritty code like illustrating GDI+ you'd want to look as clean as possible, but they chose to write this intense chapter in the muck of VB.NET!!! Oh, how I wished I'd waited for "Programming Windows with C#" by Charles Petzold, which only just now came out. Unfortunately, "Professional Windows Forms" was the only game in town at the time I bought it and I did not look at it close enough before I brought it home and started getting into it, being suckered into it by its wonderful cover and smart typography. Oh, the price we sometimes have to pay for being early adapters!

With practically every book on .NET focusing (screaming ?) on Web Services and ASP.NET, this book is a welcome addition to those like me who write classic applications .. this book has been written wrox-style, with several code samples and a logical progression of content .. since this book has been published before VS.NET release, one can run into minor problems in running the code with the release version of vs.net.. but if you are brave enough to venture into VS.NET, then you should be brave enough to modify and compile them in the release version. Each new control in the toolbox has been discussed in the context of a project .. inheritance has been covered well with good samples .. chapter on components/reports is very new and helpful as these are new to the toolset of the .net programmer .. a comprehensive chapter on deployment will come in handy for those of us who deal with deployment as well ..case study at the end of the book is right-on-target in putting windows forms piece of the .NET into action .. since the title does not refer to either vb.net or c#.net, the code samples and discussions are both in vb.net and c#.net ..

again, with all the hoo-ha about web services and asp.net, classic applications are renegated to the back-burner .. but after one installs vs.net and tries to write their first "hello world" program, one will have to start with windows-forms to warm up to vs.net .. this book provides a good foundation for warming-up to vs.net .. could not give a 5-star rating since security issues are not covered

This is the worst math textbook I have ever seen. The paltry examples do not help the student very much. This text book is over-priced and a complete joke. If you want to be confused about differential equations then this is the book for you. As for me, I burnt my copy. I hope the professors enjoy themselves.

This book sucks as mathemagically as it gets. Somebody up at the math department, please think of the children and adopt something better.

A very comprehensive and straigth forward book for introductory purpose. The book has the rigth balance of rigorism and usefull practical examples and exerises. I certainly will recommend the book.

I purchased this book because I needed to figure out a problem with the heater on my 96 Ranger. This book proved to be of very little help.

There was only one diagram of the heater system with virtually no detail (page 3-9 diagram 3.11). The problem is with the heater vacuum system. This area is not even mentioned in this book.

So for me, this book was of virtually no value. Hopefully, I can come back in the future and say that I was able to use this book to fix a problem. However, I will probably have traded in my truck first.