I was looking for real life business communication skills and some context on a subject that is important to today's global communications environment. I found "Common Sense Communication" and am sorry I bought it! A flimsy book of one liners more appropriate for children just developing social habbits in the first grade. No thoughts on cultural contexts or business cultures. Just a poor, poor example of a real book.

I know Jeffrey Benjamin and I have attended his workshops. He is passionate, focused, and committed. I read what he writes.

We are creatures of habit! Good habits and bad habits! It's easy to fall into bad habits as we inherently seek pleasure and void pain. It's not so easy to establish good habits. It takes some attention, and I use the Common Sense Communication - Real Life Habits for Success - as a daily reference, generally opening the book and reading whatever page appears! It provides food for thought - bread for the head! It works!

This is an excellent, easy to follow book that has quick and simple ways to communicate better. I find it to be a great source of information to help me communicate more effectively on a personal and professional level. The quotes are great too.

This isn't a review. I'm looking for help. Anybody order this book? The one I need for a course at Florida State has this description:

Personal Financial Planning by Lawrence J. Gitman & Michael D. Joehnk (Note: This shrink-wrapped package should include worksheets to accompany the Personal Financial Planning textbook as well as a computer diskette.) ISBN: 0-03-028076-1 (Eighth Edition - 1999) Published by Dryden Press (a subsidiary of Harcourt Brace)

The Amazon.com description doesn't say if it includes the goodies. Anybody know?

E-mail me at mark_n_tam@yahoo.com

Thanks

I bought this book for a non-credit Financial Planning class at Florida State. I didn't stick with the class, but I'm keeping the book. It seems to cover just about everything anyone except a financial professional could ever need to know about the financial planning process. If there's a downside to the book, it's that it reads like a textbook; HOWEVER, that's what it is. AND, being a GOOD textbook, the writing is clear and understandable.

Anyone who would order this book should know that I received an e-mail today (February 24) from the instructor of the intro class at Florida State, making reference to a ninth edition. The instructor did not specifically mention this book by name. However, since [Amazon.com] is showing the eighth edition as of February 24, it may be safe to assume that this is the book the instructor was referring to.

I had to purchase this book for a university course I once took (several editions earlier). This book is a great resource for taking you through the personal financial planning process. This book may seem a bit intimidating but if you want personal financial success, it is worth going through the book. It will take you step by step on how to achieve your financial success. This is the best textbook I have ever purchased.

Simplistic and without real scholarship, one wonders why this is the book that people chose for any kind of language enhancment of the joys of that most subtle and lovely of langauges.

"America ganef!" my Grandma would exclaim upon encountering a pleasant surprise. (See JOY page 115.) That's my reaction seeing this old friend renewed, broader, more current and more liberal in its Jewish scope, and more lively and attractive because of the illustrations and layout. Yet it is still the warm, friendly, funny book I remember from nearly 30 years ago.

Somehow the New Joys of Yiddish has more meaning for me now that nearly all those family members I remember using Yiddish often - some relying on it almost entirely, others just when they used a forceful, colorful, close-to-the heart expression (which was very often) - are gone. The book evokes memories of those good people to whom we owe so much - if only for having had the wisdom to select this country for us and our children.

The book is like a warm and witty friend whose conversation brightens your home and is rarely pedantic. (At a couple of places, such as his seven page exposition on the messiah, he does go on too long.)

Two types of people will find this book enjoyable: those who read the original edition and those who didn't.

So to the Rosten family and Larry Bush - mazal tov!

I RECENTLY TRIED TO 'GET THROUGH' VOLUME 1 OF LAWRENCES SHORT STORIES. I LOVE HIS WRITING. IT'S BEAUTIFUL AND FILLED WITH WILD SENSUAL IMAGES. HOWEVER, WHEN I FINISH EACH STORY, I WONDER: SO WHAT??? WHAT WAS THAT ALL ABOUT??? EACH STORY SEEMS TO BE SIMPLY A SLICE OF LIFE, MANY DEALING WITH MAN/WOMAN RELATIONSHIPS. BUT AT THE END OF EACH, I DID NOT FEEL THAT I HAD LEARNED OR GAINED ANYTHING FROM THE READING. ALSO, MOST DID NOT HOLD MY ATTENTION - EXCEPT FOR THE BEAUTIFUL USE OF LANGUAGE AND SENSE IMAGERY.

Honestly, I've never been an avid reader of DH Lawrence. This is not to say, I dislike him as a writer. Not true. The literature that I have read by him, most I've found interesting and good. It had been a while since I read any DH, until I picked up SELECTED SHORT STORIES. I picked it up primarily for the story "The Prussian Officer." I wasn't disappointed with the short story at all. It's quite a homoerotic story about a Captain and his subordinate, telling of DH and his other work in many ways. The story is compelling, yet tragic, which I liked. The other stories that followed didn't quite compare. I found the other's dry and verbose (especially "Daughters of the Vicar"). I'd recommend this collection just for the "The Prussian Officer."

D.H. Lawrence was a superb short story writer, and The Rocking Horse Winner is perhaps one of the greatest short stories ever written. The only other short story that is its equal is The Bet by Anton Chekhov. I would say more but that would be spoiling it for you. Let it suffice to say that Lawrence is now a much overlooked writer, however, his message of how modern industry is destroying all that is vital and natural in mankind is as poignant today as when he first wrote about it almost 100 years ago! So what's new?

The self-styled "H.R.H. Prince Michael" claims a descent from "Bonnie Prince Charlie Stewart", the young pretender. Fact is that Bonnie Prince Charlie married Louise of Stolberg. He did recognize an illegitimate daughter, Charlotte, who may or may not be an ancestress of Michael. However, Michael claims that he also descends from a "Prince" born to Marguere de Lussan, and he claims that she had married Bonnie Prince Charlie. This marriage never took place and Charles Stewart never recognized a child by this woman.
To make his claim to royal descent even more ridiculous, Michael has added the completely fake genealogy of the Holy Blood, Holy Grail book to his book, thus claiming descent through the Guises and the Merovingians from Jesus Christ himself! This claim is completely absurd.

However, if you do not mind about historic accuracy, the book is quite pleasantly written and it is clear that the author loves Scotland. Besides the silly genealogy stuff, it contains a series of biografies of Scottish Kings.

As a Scots from Scotland, born & bred on the right side of the borders, this book became within 3 weeks of publication a bestseller (number 2 in Scotland, 7 in UK) and has seen a public awareness of a new alternative to party politics in the up coming and new Scotland. For those die hard pro-Hanoverian (or Windsor as most people know them today), I am glad to say that 'your time is up'. People, in Scotland, are already campaigning for the return of their lawful Royal House in a big way. There are many things which have been said by two particular reviewers, namely all rather negative. However, HRH Prince Michael of Albany is the legal, recognised head of the Royal House of Stewart, a title which has been mentioned on his British Passports since 1986. His claim has never been denied by the authorities in Great Britain and was, in matter of fact, confirmed by the British Home Office on 24-04-91. There are contemporary archives (British State) proving that Charles Edward's progeny, Edward James Stuart of Stuarton and Albany, survived into the 19th & 20th centuries. The book is extremely well researched, drawing from european archives and explains in details what happened to the family while surviving in exile. While passionate, it is focused. The Prince's understanding of Scottish history, for one born in Belgium, is superb and his political analysis second to none. This man, when he becomes King of Scots (notice when, not if), will prove to be what Scotland has been needing all along. A representative of the people, for the people. For all who are truly interested, not merely in the past of Scotland but in her future, read this book and learn. And no matter what some rather poorly misguided individuals may tell you, think Scotland, sing Scotland and support the Royal House of Stewart.

If only this book had been available when I was a schoolboy (post war) and had been taught as our history. Scotland will gain strength from knowing that her true Prince is back to fight for her freedom. This is a Royal House believing in 'Service to the people'. A movement has now been organised around the Prince and Scottish politicians are finally taking note of what visions Prince Michael has for Scotland. I attended one of his lecture (the hall was full, people stood for lack of chairs) and it was the best evening I have had for a long time. The house of Stewart has NEVER died out. If you believe it has, you are a fool. It is alive, kicking, it is modern, relevant, politically aware and ready to make waves. It will also bring Scottish Independence quicker than we think. Scottish businesses are linking with him in an attempt to be more fully and more efficiently represented. It is a breath of fresh air which Scotland has craved for these past many years. It is the most exciting read the end of this century has had to offer. From Scotland to Scots the world over.

Agree with the "pretty but shallow" assessment below. On a recent trip to the Abacos, found it completely useless without map coordinates. There must be a market out there for dive guides without maps or GPS coordinates (people who don't actually want to dive? the clairvoyant?) but...

There's some good things about this book: in typical Lonely Planet style you've got great general travel information for the area (which if I really wanted, I'd buy a general travel book).

It does also cover a large number of sites - though is still far from comprehensive.

And it has some nice additional information occasionally through the book.

Two main peeves though. And they're killers:

- Each description is a paragraph, or two at most. You can't tell me very much about a dive site in so few words.

- There are no maps / diagrams for specific dive sites (just area overview maps) - a dive guide fails totally without these.

It's a pretty book, but to be any use you need to include maps and more detail per site (if this was done it could be forgiven for not being totally comprehensive).

In short, it's nice, but it's no use as a tool for researching a dive holiday.

What'S further is I now own two of these (Red Sea and Bahamas) - I certainly will not buy another.

I've just used the new dive guide by Lonely Planet on my recent dive trip to the Bahamas (Eleuthera). It was an excellent resource - solid dive site descriptions of 108 sites, which were organized by dive region. For someone not familiar with the Bahamas prior to going there, I found the book an invaluable tool for helping me plan where to go.The sidebars were entertaining to read as well (and useful), and the color photos are pretty inspiring too. Recommended highly!

Well i found it an interesting book but the thing is that it should also be in eastern economy eddition also.

A passable attempt to discuss Kant's fascination (and ultimately unrequited love) of the exact sciences. The author, however, fails to grasp certain elementary features of mathematics and physics (eg: Newton's laws of motion) that Kant engages and as such misunderstands a lot of Kant's misunderstandings. It also overlooks some of the most grevious errors on Kant's part, notably his postulation of a repulsive force, which should suggest a lack of understanding on Kant's part vis-a-vis Newtonian mechanics. I don't understand this incredible oversight.

The book's description on the back cover doesn't even match the content nor does the CD-ROM. It looks and reads like a thrown together blob of stuff ... can someone tell me where to find the durn spreadsheet widget .. its mentioned on the back cover but not in the index, the table of contents nor on the CD-ROM....

I don't recommend purchase lightly. I've been wearing out its pages for two weeks now, with occasional bouts of furrowed brows and impatient snorting. I've come, though, to a conclusion in which I'm confident: if you're a Tcl user, you should invest in *Tcl/Tk Tools*.

Why? Because you'll use it, and use it well. Almost everyone involved in Tcl has questions (so how do I really compile a Tcl script? How much does it take to do drag-and-drop and tool tips? Are the RDBMS extensions current with vendor features? ...) answered here. Simplify your life by putting these 650+ pages on your shelf.

What is *Tcl/Tk Tools*? It's a collection of descriptions of different popular extensions to Tcl and Tk. While lead author Harrison gives the impression they're written by "the extension authors themselves", there are a few exceptions to this pattern. The book is not written as a tutorial or introduction to Tcl, sagely pointing to John Ousterhout and Brent Welch's books for that role (although I've been thinking of experimenting with putting *Tcl/Tk Tools* in the hands of novices, to see what would happen. I suspect they'd survive in good shape).

*Tcl/Tk Tools* isn't exhaustive. It doesn't include several of my favorite extensions, including Scotty, NeoWebScript, stooop, tclMsql, the PlusPatches, ... It doesn't matter. If you care about only *one* of the extensions described here, you'll do well to have your own copy.

Harrison and his co-authors do a good job of hitting the target of telling "Here's the philosophy behind this package, and here are some examples of how to use it effectively" that he lays out in the Preface. While it's easy to move from one chapter to another, it's not at the expense of the authors and their personalities. D. Richard Hipp's thoughtful precision and De Clarke's care in engineering effective solutions come through, as do the assurance and lucidity those in the Tcl community expect of Don Libes. Less successful is the forward look that Harrison intended, toward "the plans the extension authors had for future enhancements and extensions." I assume this was in part a casualty of the realities of the publishing cycle; certainly many of the chapters appear to have been finished before the appearance a year ago of 7.6's betas.

Two unglamorous aspects of the book multiply its value: the index is sound (that's saying a lot for me; I have high standards in indexing), and Harrison's Chapter 17 on what he calls "Configuration Management" lays out much valuable wisdom that newcomers need to learn. Reading the latter is painful: it has all the important, tedious subjects ("Combining Extensions ...", command-line munging, ...) one wants--but without mention of Win* or loadable libraries! These frailties are inevitable when broadcasting on dead trees, of course. What's disappointing is that *Tcl/Tk Tools* doesn't go farther in joining the Internet Age: although a two-page Appendix lauds news:comp.lang.tcl and lists the FAQs and nine URLs (some of which have already moved, of course), and individual authors take it on themselves to provide appropriate references,
* it's not apparent that there is any page where Harrison and/or O'Reilly maintain errata, updates, new examples, funny animal GIFs, or any of the other resources readers might be expected to exploit--I couldn't find one at the URL the Preface gave, nor elsewhere at www.ora.com;
* some authors supply no e-mail addresses;
* some authors give references ("look in the archives") that will be inscrutable for those not already in the know; and
* there is wide variation in the quality of information authors give about extension prospects, bug lists (a particular sore point with me), mailing lists, and so on.
Understand, please, that I'm not labeling these moral faults; as on every project, the good engineering comes in deciding where to make the cuts, and what definite values to deliver. I personally look forward to seeing books that build a more dynamic relationship with online sources, and am simply noting that *Tcl/Tk Tools* doesn't achieve that standard.

The quality of production is high, higher even than the elevated expectations I have of O'Reilly. Typos, mistakes in word choice, and code errors seem to sum to around zero to five per chapter. Screen shots are judicious and illuminating, rather than gratuitously space-filling. The CD-ROM (with binaries for indeterminate but predictable releases of Solaris and Linux) does the little I asked of it.

Summary: whether you're a full-time Tcl-er or a greenhorn, you'll profit from having *Tcl/Tk Tools* at hand. Whenever you're in a pinch, there's a fair chance the Index and/or Table of Contents will quickly lead you to a useful datum. During more contemplative moments, you'll want to read the chapters in a connected fashion, and the accuracy and insight of the authors will make you glad that you do.

This was the first book I read on Tcl/TK (a mistake), but it was nonetheless helpful. I do refer it often. I particularly found the introduction to Expect useful.