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Book reviews for "Johnson,_John_B.,_Jr." sorted by average review score:

Western Literature in a World Context, The Ancient World Through the Renaissance
Published in Paperback by Bedford/St. Martin's (1995)
Authors: Paul Davis, Gary Harrison, David M. Johnson, Patricia Clark Smith, and John F. Crawford
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Lots of great literature all in one place
This is a good collection of literature from the Enlightenment to the early 20th century. Some of the choices were wuite interesting such as Wuthering Heights as the example of the Victorian novel, (I, myself, would have chosen Jane Eyre), but all in all this is a well put-together collection. The biographical information before each author is also interesting and puts the works into context. This is amust-have for English majors and literature fanatics alike.


Professional Java Server Programming J2EE, 1.3 Edition
Published in Paperback by Wrox Press Inc (2001)
Authors: Subrahmanyam Allamaraju, Cedric Beust, Marc Wilcox, Sameer Tyagi, Rod Johnson, Gary Watson, Alan Williamson, John Davies, Ramesh Nagappan, and Andy Longshaw
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An excellent book for J2EE overview
This book is its complete but contains a concise compendium of all J2EE fundamentals and technologies. The material is easy to read and code is easy to follow. I have not seen any other book that covers all J2EE-based technologies in detail that this book covers. I have also put this book as a textbook for my J2EE course at UTA. This book gives a comprehensive coverage of all J2EE technologies, concepts, APIs and components. Each chapter in the book can be independently studied and read in any order which is one of the best selling points of this book. This book is an excellent introduction book to J2EE which also makes it a highly seeked textbook for J2EE courses. This is also an excellent hand-on book.

Good Reference
This book has it all. It talks about all the different Java technologies and provides enough detail to learn them thoroughly. Although there are some differences in the presentation due to different authors, every chapter is explained well. This book is a good reference due to its in depth discussions. Very ideal for java architects and senior developers who do design and architecture.

Good J2EE technical book
From time to time, I read many Java/J2EE books and on-line articles. What I like about this book is its complete but concise introduction of various J2EE topics. The content is easy to read and the code is easy to follow. (I am using Forte 3.0 CE, J2SE_1.3.1, J2EE_1.3 and J2EE Toolkit 2.1) After reading this book, not only will you know how to use each API but also obtain comprehensive coverage about J2EE components. Best of all, you can just focus on the chapter that is most important to you without the need to start from page 1. If you are getting started for J2EE server-side programming, seek no further. This is an excellent hand-on book. However, this book may not contain the real-life codes that you are looking for...


Physics
Published in Paperback by John Wiley & Sons (25 July, 1997)
Authors: John D. Cutnell and Kenneth W. Johnson
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Great Physics Starter Book
I found this to be an excellent book for those with a physics phobia. All theories are explained using simple mathematics thus making it easier to understand. There are several questions worked out with thorough explinations in every chapter and the text explains how each new idea is related to other concepts learned earlier in the book and/or chapter.

There are couple of weaknesses in this text that stand out in my mind. First, there is a section in each chapter that quizes you on conceptual questions but there are no answers in the back of the book making it difficult to be certian about your work. Second, the web page associated with this book is riddled with errors and is not much of a tool. In spite of these problems I would recomend it to someone just starting physics.

The best algebra-based physics text available.
While struggling with Giancoli's terrible book, I looked for a better textbook online, and found three other candidates. After buying them all and reviewing them, I returned all of them except for this one.

This is a great physics textbook for those preparing for the MCAT on their own, or for those in an algebra-based physics class. Compared to Giancoli's text, it is fantastic. Why?

1. Plenty of example problems while reading, fully explained in an intelligent and careful manner. Not two or three per chapter, but sometimes ten or more. Again, with exhaustive descriptions.

2. Clear, concise text that truly educates you as you read. Not a rehashed summary of familiar concepts, with important "givens" left out. Some text book authors are simply capable of writing text that teaches (Ege is a great example, for Organic Chemistry). Some should not be writing at all. To be good at physics problems, you first have to understand the concepts. Really understand them. This book explains them the way they need to be explained.

3. Excellent diagrams and tables. At first, I thought the ubiquitous graphics were just eye-candy, as they are (as always, refer to the worst example) in Giancoli's book. But every diagram is useful, and clearly explains a concept.

4. Student Solutions Manual. The most frustrating thing about physics seems to be the unavailability of solutions manuals to go with textbooks. Why this is so, for a field of study that relies so heavily on detailed explanations of problems, makes no sense to me. For all of the other sciences I've studied for preparation for medical school (including calculus), I've easily been able to get my hands on manuals detailing all problems and their solutions. In the realm of physics, though, there seems to exist an elitist attitude that only instructors should have these 'magic books', from which they will dole out a solution or two to desperate students. How colossaly stupid. This textbook is somewhat subject to this failing, in that the Student Solutions Manual contains answers to "selected" problems (roughly 21% per chapter). However, the fact that it has a solutions manual at all lifts it above the other offerings, especially -- you guessed it -- Giancoli's horrible book, which offers no manual to speak of (the "Study Guide" is a useless piece of garbage with no solved problems; don't buy it). In addition, though the solutions manual lacks all the answers, the ones it does have are well-explained and well-drawn, similar to what's in the text. Hopefully one day a physics textbook author will decide to stop treating students like monkeys and publish a great book that educates via giving as much information as possible, not rationing it. This is surely an antiquated practice whose time should end now.

For a fuller understanding of some of the concepts, I also recommend buying a calculus-based text to supplement this one. "Fundamentals of Physics" (same publisher -- Wiley) is a good (and popular) book. I like the 5th edition more than the 6th (it seems less cluttered), although the Student Solutions Manual for the 5th is out of print. If your calculus is rusty, there's hardly any in the first half of the book, and what is there is not complicated -- standard derivatives and integrals. It's a good book to have for gaining a very solid understanding of the concepts, although of a level above what's needed for the MCATs.

Finally, the best review book for MCAT physics is called just that: NOVAs "MCAT Physics". Schaum's outline for pre-Med physics is so lousy, it's amazing. What's even more amazing is how uneven the quality of education materials is. You really have to look around, unfortunately.

An excellent book for a particular audience
This is an excellent book for a high school level physics course or a less than rigorous Physics I course at the college level. It contains no math beyond algebra/trig. For a more rigorous treatment, the book to get is the Serway/Beichner text.


Beginning ASP.NET 1.0 with Visual Basic.NET
Published in Paperback by Wrox (2003)
Authors: Chris Goode, John Kauffman, Christopher L. Miller, Neil Raybould, Srinivasa Sivakumar, David Sussman, Ollie Cornes, Rob Birdwell, Matt Butler, and Gary Johnson
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Incomplete
Many wrox books are great, but this one was a disappointment. As an "classic ASP" developer I found the examples unhelpful and impractical, the information spread out, the request and response object - used constantly in classic ASP - were so poorly explained I still have no idea how they function in ASP.net. I am sure that ASP.NET has many important benefits that make it superior to Classic ASP, but after reading almost 600 pages (!) I feel I do not understand how to achieve the same result I can easily get in Classic ASP. Not recommended.

Good overall, but not complete.
I wanted to create a simple web application with this book that would allow for authenticated users to add content and allow non-authenticated users to simply view content. The book was perfect for setting up the the database connections, and web forms. The book fell on its face with security. The concepts were included and some examples were included, but there was no information about user roles when using forms based authentication. One feature I think most ASP.Net applications are going to have is authentication so I found it distressing that it was given such incomplete coverage. To get more information you need to look at one of two other Wrox books - Beginning Web Programming with Visual Basic.Net and Visual Studio.Net, or ASP.Net Security. The first book covers mostly the same information as this book, but goes into more detail on security. It too though is not complete. With the inclusion of about five more pages in this book it would have been complete from my viewpoint.

Good but shows the weaknesses of committee authorship
First of all, a good number of my undergraduates like this book as it introduces the bare bones required to get something up and running quite quickly. The downside of the book, from my persusal of it, is that it is less even than it could be, or perhaps should be. In many chapters (especially the crucial early ones) examples are often introduced and developed before their key constructs are properly explained. This is simply confusing to naive readers and highly irritating. For instance, the earliest ASP.net script uses "asp:label" without explaining the syntax or semantics for a another few dozen pages.

Unfortunately this is a bit of trend throughout the book and at the very least makes it frustrating. However, once you allow for this, (and it's a big allowance to make) the book is very handy.

It has bundles of scripts that anyone involved in web work will find interesting and useful. You can quibble with some of these (the login scripting for example) contra other books such as Professional ASP.NET, but I suspect this is a byproduct of committee authorship.

The book is clearly aimed at the learner so don't expect Enterprise quality insights into server management. Given the huge range of architectures and technologies available to the developer, producing any 'true' learner book is a considerable challenge. If you need a book for coursework alone, then this will probably meet most of your needs. If you earn your living with the .NET and its companions, then you need some supplementary texts.


The Galveston That Was (Sara and John Lindsey Series in the Arts and Humanities, No 5)
Published in Hardcover by Texas A&M University Press (1999)
Authors: Howard Barnstone, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ezra Stoller, James Johnson Sweeney, Peter H. Brink, and Houston Museum of Fine Arts
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Galveston that was
I expected to see pictures of Galveston as it was . This is a bunch of pictures of Galveston decayed.

Beautiful photos; fascinating history
The city of Galveston, Texas was a vibrant, prosperous port at the start of the 20th century, outstripping even New Orleans. Fine Victorian homes were built by prosperous merchants, many in grand style. The deadly hurricane of 1900 dealt the city a blow from which it never entirely recovered. But Galveston's economic slump had a silver lining -- as shown in "The Galveston That Was." There was no economic incentive to tear the old homes down; so scores of these remarkable Victorian homes survived, though many fell into disrepair. Howard Barnstone secured two superb photographers and wrote text for this beautiful book, which displays the faded glory of Galveston's Victorian architecture. The book's first edition inspired Galvestonians to restore many of these homes, and sparked a preservation revival there that lasts to this day. Always a beach destination, Galveston now draws visitors to the Texas coast for beautifully restored Victorian homes and historic business district, the Strand. The book's photographs are simply beautiful and the concise history of Galveston is intriguing.


Making the Most of the American Promise
Published in Paperback by Bedford/St. Martin's (1998)
Authors: Roark, John Moretta, Johnson, and David Wilcox
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The American Promise, Volumes 1 and 2
This book omits several important events in U. S. History up to 1865. But is sufficient for introductory classes in U. S. History. While it does a sufficient job as a survey source, it is not recommended for an in-depth study of any period in U. S. History. Further, Roark seems to emphasize some events that seem less important to U. S. History.

Very well written.
This book is very well written, quite long, though


Refrigeration & AC Technology
Published in Hardcover by Delmar Learning (18 October, 1999)
Authors: Bill Whitman, Bill Johnson, John Tomczyk, and William C. Whitman
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Be Aware!
The ISBN NO. below is the LAB MANUAL for the text advertised above. I think it is interesting and worth the time reading it, but it is not the theoretical treatment you may be interested in.

ISBN-0-8273-7038-5

great books
this book is helping me to gain the education i need to support my family thank you

the best
I am an hvac technician,and this book was more clearly written and logically written than any book in its field that i have read.(and I have read a lot of books}.
It is considered the bible of the hvac industry- highly recommended!


Juneteenth: A Novel
Published in Paperback by Vintage Books (13 June, 2000)
Authors: John F. Callahan, Ralph Waldo Ellison, and Charles Johnson
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Complex, brilliant, choppy, hard to read....
From over 2000 pages of manuscript, John Callahan, the literary executer of Ralph Ellison's estate has done his best to patch together what might have been Ellison's last great novel. Unfortunately while some of the prose is wild and beautiful in Ellison's way, the whole of this effort may leave the reader with a very choppy, unhinged body of work. The basis of the story is a good one, young white boy (Bliss) adopted and raised by big African American southern preacher (who is also something of a con - part and parcel), Alonzo Z. Hickman, boy becomes first a scam artist (in the guise of a movie maker) then a horribly racist US Senator (Allan Sunraider).... book begins when the then old preacher comes to Washington DC with a group of his more elderly churchgoers to visit with the Senator ('before it's too late") and is not allowed to see him. The group with the preacher are in the Senate Gallery days later when a young man near them stands up and peppers the Senator with bullets. The body of the book is a compilation of stream of consciousnesses, dialogues, monologues, conversations, and described situations during Bliss's/Sunraider's life. In Ellison style, much of the book is what is going on in the minds of the character(s) during given situations. So much is happening in this book - so much of what Ellison wanted us to understand, to draws parallels with, to see more 'racially' clearly... and I simply found it tedious to wade through. The extensive introduction written by Callahan at the beginning of the book, and the very interesting "notes" section at the end were a positive addition to helping me to more clearly 'hear' what was happening in the minds of these two men during the end of Bliss's life.

a good but frustrating read
As with any other unfinished work (The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Garden of Eden, etc.) it is difficult to read this without wondering what it might have been if Ellison had finished it. On the downside, there is much here that needs explanation and fleshing out. There are interesting nods in certain directions that leave the reader longing for more. And there is the inevitable feeling that a much richer story lies just beneath the surface. However, there are rich passages of prose in this book which are a welcome addition to Ellison's body of work. The concept, the plot, and the route taken to get there is full of rewards along the way. "Juneteenth" is a sketch of something that could have been truly magnificent, but is still nevertheless a fascinating look into the mind of one of America's greatest writers.

Not Finished, but Neither Is the Fight Against Racism
Much of the attention surrounding this posthumously compiled and titled novel Juneteenth, has focused on it's unfinished nature. True, in many spots the prose is difficult and plot trasitions are hard to follow. However, Ellison's mastery of the language and his awareness of race relations in the US, make this novel, though unfinished, a poignant follow up to Invisible Man. Ellison, via Callhoun's splicing, delves into the possibilities for equality among races, and the hope that one day we might all, black and white, be led out of the bonds of slavery and into a glorious promised land. Unfortunately, in Ellisons rendering, that Moses is sick and dying, and desperately in need of remembering who he is and where he came from. The end of the novel, although it may be abrupt and full of more questions than answers, might actually be closer to the truth than Ellison might have hoped to achieve. It leaves us as readers to ponder who we are and what we think the outcome might be (infact the last of his notes suggests this kind of relationship of this novel to his redaers). Is racisim truly an eternal bond that we shall never be free of? As in the novel, the answer is up to you.


Excel 2000 VBA : Programmers Reference
Published in Paperback by Wrox (1999)
Authors: John Green, Stephen Bullen, Felipe Martins, and Brian Johnson
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All the reference detail I needed - and example code too!
I have been writing Excel-based VBA applications for years and always struggled to find a good reference for various functions, properties, and objects. I recently moved up from Excel 97 to Excel 2000 and was struggling. I had continued to use my old Excel 5.0 references because I had trouble finding newer ones that contained substabtial information. Some of my old VBA code wasn't working in Excel 2000 (VBA has been enhanced considerably since Excel 5.0)so I was stuck. I found this book listed at Amazon.com and ordered it as a trial. If you're an Excel 2000 user who writes a lot of VBA code, this book is the reference I recommend. There are some reviews here that complain about the format of this book not matching other Wrox publications and being harder to use. That may be true - I haven't used other Wrox publications - but I found everything I needed and a few extras in here. It's not the only Excel 2000 VBA reference I have on my shelf - check out Microsoft Excel 2000 Power Programming with VBA by John Walkenbach and SAMS Teach Yourself Excel 2000 Programming in 21 Days by Matthew Harris - they're both good references as well.

Excelent Value
Many programmers are not satisfied that their programs work, but they also want to know if the techniques they employ are the most efficient, or if there is a better means of doing something. For those readers who want to make use of Excels sophisticated object model this is a great book to learn how to do it best. Just about every programming technique I have needed has been covered, allowing me to develop Excel applications written with efficient code that is FAST.

John Green seems to stay one step ahead by pre-empting any questions the reader has, and all the points he covers are backed up with code. Often the author will give several alternative approaches to solving a particular task programmatically, and also explain which approach is more effective / efficient and why.

Although some explanation of basic programming techniques are covered in the "Primer in Excel VBA" chapter, this book is probably best suited to readers who have some programming background (although you don't have to be a pro either).

My one criticism is directed more at Wrox Press than John Green, and is the reason I have only given four stars not five. As has been already mentioned in other reviews, the index is very poor, and is little more than an extended Table Of Contents - a trait in common with other Wrox books I have read. Finding that "golden nugget" in this is a gold mine of information is very time consuming. For example, trying to find the section on the EVALUATE or CALLER methods from the index won't yield much success unless you already know that they are covered in "Chapter Three: The Application Object Model" - this is what you look up in the index - crazy! Finding other entries in the index is just impossible since they are not there.

My suggestion is buy this book, but as you read it through for the first time, use a highlighter on any points that you think may be of significant interest.

Excellent Programmer's reference for professionals
As a professional VBA programmer, I found this book to be an excellent reference. Although I use Excel 97, many of the programming concepts are the same as for Excel 2000. Each chapter maps well onto real-world issues that are likely to come up in an intensive programming environment. A good example of this is the chapter on International issues: I have recently been involved in developing a system installed in several countries across Europe, where the users previously had to switch to UK settings in order for the system to work. The book is not intended as a 'learn to program' guide, a genre which is too heavily catered for already, rather as a programmer's reference laid out in such a way as to find solutions to real-world problems quickly.


The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes: Volume 7, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
Published in Paperback by Cambridge Univ Pr (Pap Txt) (1978)
Authors: John Maynard Keynes, Elizabeth Johnson, and Donald Moggridge
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Hard reading - you have been warned!
Keynes had a great economics mind, but little talent explaing it. The book is very hard to read due to convulated, odd grammer and very long, complicated sentences Keynes uses. The challange is understanding the language, rather than the ideas.

A typical sentence/paragraph from the book:

"The fact that two incommensurable collections of miscellaneous objects cannot in themselves provide the material for a quantitive analysis need not, of course, prevent us from making approximate statistical comparisons, depending on some broad element of judgement rather than strict calculation, which may posses significance and validty within certain limits.

Sure.

This is the first book in years I gave up reading in the middle.
Until someone rewrites the book for humans - avoid!

Difficult to read, but influential
Keynes, for better or worse, must be counted the most important economist of the 20th century. This is his most influential work, and no person who desires a basic education in economics should be unaware of its contents. Unfortunately, it is at times almost incomprehensible. Particularly maddening is Keynes' penchant for merely dismissing competing theories with which he disagrees without discussing why he disagrees. I found this suspicious since Keynes was brilliant - it couldn't possibly be because he didn't understand those other theories. I suspect he understood them all too well and recognized their threat to his own work.

Plowing through this book will pay off, but you may not enjoy it. The reader should be advised, however, that according to Keynes' good friend (and opposing theorist) Frederich Hayek, shortly before his death Keynes told Hayek he disavowed this book in general. Hayek's account can be read in "Hayek on Hayek."

A genius work, also a classic.
Undoubtedly, Lord Keynes's this book is very influential, not only to economics thought, but to the world economy. A genius's work is always tough because too many ideas and concepts are filled in only a few sentences, and there is no expeption with Lord Keynes's this book (Economist Paul Samuelson also called this book a genius's work).
Lord Keynes is a member of Cambrige School of Classical School in the early twentith century. Professor A. C. Pigou, Alfred Marshall were his teachers, and William Jevons, Francis Edgeworth, J. Robinson and Frank Ramsey were his colleague and friends. Surrounded with so good an academic environment and endowed with his own talent (Also heavily influenced by philosopher Moore), Keynes is the most important and influential economist in the 20 century. In his thought, economist should not only sit there and work out mathematical problems, but go outside and do something. Economist should not only just observe the "Storm" appear and pass by but find solutions to overcome the economic problems for the nation and people. Some people disagree so much with Keynes's economic thought that they thought Keynes was a criminal of the concept of "Gonvernment inteferes people". I think they miss something and I'm sure that the miss will be reduced if they know exactly what kind of person Lord Keynes was and exactly what the core concept of his economic thought is.
Anyway, this book is just like what Paul Samuelson ever expressed, you'll get something (maybe very many things) from this classic. If you read it carefully, maybe you will get something different from the macroeconomics textbook and those chapters which are about Keynesian thoery in that textbook. You will be stunned with Keynes's mind, his way of watching things, his thinking, etc.. This book requires very good logic and a mind of willing to think.
"In the long run we are all dead." True, go read this book and seize the concepts of the most important economist in the twentieth century.


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