I like the way Deitel teaches. I always got much help from C, C++ and java from Deitels's How to Program series. But this one is not satifactoty. Even though this book's title is xml, contents about xml technoligies are not dealt with sufficiently. Some chapters contain the introduction to asp,cgi,perl and java. The introduction to those technologies are easy to get on internet and in other books. The authors should deal with core xml technologies.
The Deitel's series are of college-text- book-sytle.I guess xml is not for college course style. If you are new to xml from non programming experience or the other programming lanuguage. I recommend the XML in a nutshell by Rusy Harold.

I was about to give up on finding a book on Java and XML. I had already purchased two in the past that lacked real-life programming examples and seemed to be a regurgitation of formal XML specification. But then I did a search on Amazon.com and found this book. Just by knowing the author, I knew it was going to be a great book. I've used Deitel's "C: How to Program" as a classroom textbook and "Internet and World Wide Web: How to Program" as a professional reference.

I can't say enough about the book. Numerous professional quality applications and examples; programming tips; concise, well-written prose; exercises at the end of each chapter. The authors are great teachers, not just great programmers dumping their vast technical knowledge into a book. The only thing I wished they'd done was to broaden the discussion on XML Entities. I found myself referring to another text to get a handle on their use (but, maybe that's just me!). However, I was able to apply other examples and bits of applications write out the book and retrofit into a Java/XML program I was developing at work.

Best available XML book for integration, isn't that what XML is about anyway? I have read countless other books on XML, including: LEARNING XML (Peachpit Press), LEARN XML IN 24 HRS (SAMS), XML w/ ASP & VB and this book is by far the best. DEITEL continues it's great reputation for consistently publishing exceptional learning tools. Not only is XML syntax explained but the CD comes with learning tools to integrate BIZTALK/SOAP, XBRL, WML, VoiceXML, JavaServer Pages, SAX, WAI, and more! Without this book you might as well be John Ritter stumbling over a couch, trying to learn XML. Just don't practice XML, use it in all the latest languages and technologies. The future is here and DIETEL continues to bring us to speed.

A thorough, and unbiased inquiry, commissioned by congress, of the importance of cryptography to the information economy. Still highly useful, despite being increasingly dated.

This book, prepared by the Committee to Study National Cryptography Policy of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council, is essential reading for anybody concerned with the role of crytography in information security. Written by experts, it surveys the topic dispassionately, and makes wise recommendations. No technical knowledge is required to read it, so it is suitable for everyone from policymakers to techies.

It has two flaws, one minor and inevitable, the other more serious. The first stems from the fact that the National Research Council undertakes studies like this only at the request of the US government. The federal government is notorious for its belief that anything worth saying should be said in the dullest possible bureaucratese. I know the staff members who produced the actual text of this book; they are excellent writers, and did their best to make the book readable within the constraints imposed by government mindset, but it's still dull and tedious to read. Compared to the Federal Register, however, it's a model of expository clarity.

The second flaw is the very cursory treatment given to one of the most serious problems in using cryptography for information security. The great majority of civilian computers, and even some military computers, are vulnerable to a wide variety of viruses, worms and trojan horses, and in most cases the users and system administrators are unaware of how vulnerable they are.

Cryptography is completely useless as a protective mechanism if cleartext or keys can be retrieved and transmitted from an originating or destination computer by a program inserted by an attacker. Equally serious, if the attacker substitutes trojan horse code for the encipherment/decipherment techniques employed, the whole system is wide open. I regard this as the current greatest weakness in the use of cryptography for information security, except within certain parts of the military. I dn't have any good ideas at all about how to plug this weakness, but it deserves much more careful attention than it gets in this book. If you are responsible for any aspect of computer or communications security, think hard about this problem.

Excellent overview of social & organizational issues that affect use of encryption. Some of the material is becoming quickly dated, but the chapters on "Roles, Market & Infrastructure," "Crypto Primer," "Public Key Infrastructure," and "[Applicability of Encryption by] Industry" will be useful for years.

For fans of Lovecraft? From what I've seen this has nothing to do with the Cthulhu Mythos. No Cthulhu, R'Lyeh, Nyarlathotep. I don't think you should have "psychic gumshoe" in horror stories. It sounds like something from the kid's section. If you want Mythos buy Lovecraft.

This is a great collection of stories. Recommended for not only fans of Carter and Lovecraft, But for people who want some good old fun action packed horror/adventure stories. I highly recommend this!!

Robert Price is a genius editor. Rather than having his eight writers created new stories of the late Lin Carter's hero in the exact same mold as the originator, he let them run loose with the character. The results are 8 marvelous adventures, each giving us
new and different approaches to Anton Zarnak' from action, to horro and even some comedy mixed-in. More anthologies should be this
fun.

Or worse. Well first of all she manages to add in at the end the usual whodunnit, with the criminal being the person most trusted. Then there is the whole being in love with the Lynx. I just didn't think that was realistic at all. We didn't even have the comfort of a happy ever after end. But I'm sure plenty of readers will disagree with me and think it was a fantastic story.

I purchased a copy of Shadow of the Lynx in England some 30 years ago. I really enjoyed reading it. Unfortunately I misplaced my copy. Years later I purchased a copy of it at a flea market in Australia. Unfortunately I was disapointed as this copy was the original version. The version I enjoyed was the rewritten version and is a far superior story than the original. I purchased a copy in Canada second hand and again it was the original version also. If you every chance upon the rewritten version and have read the original buy it as it is really worth the read.

I thought The Shadow of the Lynx was a very good book. It had me captivated the whole time and made me feel as though I was there.

I am someone who is deeply interested in and in agreement with the foundational principles behind what goes by the name of Feng Shui. And as much as I found this book helpful, I also tried to read it from the point of view of someone who might find the whole FS to be a bunch of BS. And I found it to be wanting in clearer explanations, even if only to explain why and how some of these things were beyond rational explanation.
This book IS about color theory and practice as espoused by the Black Hat Sect Tantric Buddhism (BTB) in organizing the environment - micro and macro. By now the interested reader ought to know something about the historical dimensions that shaped the BTB, especially including the Chinese input over the last 1,000 years or so. That said, I can say that this book is helpful only to those who are artistically inclined and/or familiar with, AND accepting of the logic behind Chinese cosmology and cultural symbolisms. Why?
Take for example, the part where the author mentions that the color white for fences is bad and red is best. She recommends a cure that can be had by tying 9 red ribbons to the fence. Okay, let us leave aside for the moment the issue of whether that is "true" or not, on whatever level. The fact that the author would make such a statement is bound to rub the average American reader the wrong way, which is indeed unfortunate.
The fact that the color white symbolizes death and purity (to the point of permitting no life) to the Chinese is no reason to write off the whole Western practice of investing the color white with other meanings, such as purity (as in chastity), honesty, cleanliness, and new beginning -- all hopeful and positive things.
This book, as good as it could be, makes the same mistake as some of the other bestsellers in assuming that every reader will (have to) simply accept the Chinese cosmology as universal truth. It is not clear why this oversight continues to occur, but it gives the uncomfortable impression that only a particular culture had access to the "real" truth of colors.
This sort of explanation right from the start would have been helpful to the reader: That the FIVE ELEMENTS merely represent the five MODES of Ch'i, and the names (that is, the elements) associated with them were chosen largely for easier memorization and visualization, and thus application to the visible material world, including medicine. They could just as well have been labeled A,B,C,D, and E. (The subatomic particles also have names that are there just for easier identification. Are electrons really electronic?) The names of the five modes don't really matter, but the manner of their interaction does. The reader should not accept the (pseudo) explanation that "metal 'produces' water because water condenses outside a copper pail filled with cold water", or that "fire 'produces' earth by way of ash". Nor should the reader reject it as "bad science" and forego the more interesting stuff behind the immensely complicated system of observation (as well as observances) in FS. The five elements structure is a mnemonic device before it is anything else but the author does not tell you this, and the disinterested reader is left to follow wide-eyed, marveling at the "awesome" wisdom of the Chinese; or to reject it without furthur ado as New Age mumbo-jumbo.

Given that the BTB puts a lot of emphasis on YI (intention, will), and even in its meditation practices it encourages people to activate whatever religious symbolisms with which they feel most at home, it would only makes sense to assure the Western reader that the purpose of Feng Shui is to activate the energy (Ch'i) of one's environment in harmony with one's own psychic disposition, which would certainly include one's own traditional orientation and inculcation of values -- ethical and aesthetical.

This book, I think, can confuse as well as enlighten, depending on the reader's own level of intutional development. Those who are too uncritically enthusiastic about FS so as to accept everything written here, may end up with a mess of colors all over their house. If it's true that 'You can take a horse to the water but you can't make him drink', then it's also true that if you're the horse, you have to figure out just how thirsty you are, and for what.

All in all, this is a good book, but if you are trained to think critically, it may not be the best book out there for you....

The subject demands illustration and this book delivers--big time! Full of instructive (and beautiful) photography, complimented by thoughtful and useful text.

Lineage is not staying in one place all the time. Lineage is a line of living connections. New can be authentic. You may differentiate between old tradition and emerging tradition. Validity is not merely the province of antiquity. We build on what has gone before.

Lin Carter, Tolkien: A Look Behind the Lord of the Rings (Ballantine, 1969)
availability: out of print

Forget the title. Carter's book has about as much to do with Lord of the Rings as Silence of the Lambs actually has to do with lambs. They get mentioned now and again, but are really quite unnecessary to what's going on.

Carter's interesting little tome is actually more of an encapsulated history of fantasy literature up to the time of Tolkien-- the sources from which Tolkien got his ideas. LOTR serves as a convenient linchpin and a good jumping-off point, but Carter is truly in his own when he's discussing the Elder Edda or the epics of Homer and his contemporaries, and tracing how the stories got from the ancient texts into Tolkien's hands. It leaves behind a wealth of wonderful reading material for the interested fantasy reader to track down (assuming most of it can be found; Carter laments that many of the works of which he speaks have been lost to the ages), and this is its chief strength. As for weaknesses... well, there really aren't any. Carter spends too much time summing up LOTR when he could be telling us about Egyptian legends, and he makes a number of guesses about things in LOTR, since The Silmarillion hadn't been published yet (and for all its annoyances, The Silmarillion did answer a whole lot of questions about the First Age), but it's impossible to count that against Carter and still remain fair. I'd just liked to have seen more of the old stuff, and less of the new. ***

This book is a fascinating inquiry into the process of making of the greatest fantasy epic of our time. Along with the analyses of Middle Earth's different trends you will find a wealth of fantasy lore about other authors of the time and their works. This is an enchanting book that will make you see fantasy in a completely different light.

It may be difficult to diggest if your are not into Tolkien, and more specifically, if you are not a die-hard fan of The Lord of the Rings. But if you are a fan, not only you will find this book very informative, but you will devour it from cover to cover!

I bought this book and hope to learn something which I don't know. Very disappointed!!! About 30% of the materials written in the book (such as jokes, stories, a little history) is not really in relating to the subject of the book, which is tax land sale. 50% of the materials might be on the subject, however they are not very useful. At maximum, only 20% is useful information...

I thinks this book lacks any useful information. She covers the topics in a very superficial way and she does not provide any real depth. If I want to get into Tax Sales and I think that reading this book will help me to do it, I am wrong. I will know a little more about tax sales but not enough to get into this business. I would hope that somebody wrote a book with more in-depth information that really helped you to get started.

This book goes into great detail in describing ways to buy land. Unfortunately, this is no book for the novice. If you are looking for entry-level information on how to buy land cheaply you would do well to bypass this one and find something else. On the other hand, if you have some real estate savy this book will give you some real strategies to help you in your search.

I'm a fan of Conan, and unlike some others, I don't object fanatically to L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter's efforts to complete Howard's unfinished stories and outlines, and to expand the Conan stories into a twelve volume series...at least in principle. The De Camp and Carter stories written in posthumous collaboration with Howard are fine, in fact, but you must be wary of the full-length novels in the series that are not at least partially credited to Howard. There are three: Volume 6 (this one), Volume 11 (Conan of Aquilonia), and volume 12 (Conan of the Isles). While volume 12 is a passable read, the other two are dreadful pastiches, the worst volumes in the series.

The story is about Conan donning pirate gear once again to hunt his old nemesis, but it's an episodic story--just a series of events poorly strung together. Conan is not a particularly profound character, and De Camp and Carter simply lack Howard's ability to make him interesting despite his basic shallowness. Without the contributions of Howard's fantastic vision, their efforts wear thin in a full-length book. Conan the Buccaneer doesn't cohere as a novel, and nothing in it stirs the imagination. You won't miss anything by skipping it, particularly since biographical summaries that appear at the start of each story in the series tell you what you need to know to continue. The next couple volumes are possibly the best in the series (Conan the Warrior, Conan the Usurper), in fact, so don't waste time in getting to them by reading this one.

Carter and de Camp do a good job of capturing the Robert Howard "feel" of the tale while making it a full length story. There's plenty of action and (as Carter says in the introduction)impossibly beautiful women. Fans of Conan comics will be happy to see the Cimmerian's Kushite comrade-at-arms Juma playing a part in this adventure.

The story takes place on the high seas and sweltering southern jungles, so it makes for a great read during the hot summer months - or maybe a good escape from a snowy winter weekend. The only complaint I have is the man eating tree they have Conan face off against. This is kinda lame, but I was having so much fun with this story that I really didn't mind. This book is worth reading if you can track it down.

Say what you will against a pastiche, but I like Conan novels. Howards will always be the best, but it is great to see his characters continue on.

de Camp and Carter have kept this Conan story nicely in the lifeline (actually tying it in to fill a gap in his history). While some parts of the story lost my interest, there were quite a few great scenes in the novel that made me forget that I wasn't actually reading a Howard novel.

If you are interested in reading past Howard's Conan stories, this is a good one in the pack.

Barron’s How to Prepare for the TOEIC Test has both positive and negative points, but the negatives outweigh the positives. First off, the positives. (...) You get six complete TOEIC practice tests and a fair number of practice exercises for each of the seven sections. All of these exercises somewhat approximate an actual ETS TOEIC test. In addition, the author gives explanatory answers to the practice tests and exercises. However, this is where the positives of Barron’s book end. On the negative side, the author’s analysis of the construction of the TOEIC is very confusing. For example, his presentation of the material in the listening comprehension sections is less than helpful. It attempts to mix all four sections together which, in my opinion, doesn’t work well. Peterson’s TOEIC Success presents this listening material in a much clearer manner. In addition, the author’s analysis of Parts 5 and 6 (grammar) of the reading section leaves much to be desired. Simply put, the grammar points reviewed in the Barron’s book are not an exact reflection of the grammar you will find an actual TOEIC test. I do feel that the author’s analysis of Part 7, the reading comprehension section, is the stronger than his analysis of Parts 1-6. For Part 7, he provides a useful “question type chart” and realistic TOEIC-style reading passages. However, even here, there are problems: The reading passages are on the short side and there is an overabundance of chart-type passages. Overall, Barron’s How to Prepare for the TOEIC Test is not terrible, but mostly confusing and unenlightening. Buy this book if you want a lot of practice tests, but not as a way of giving you a full understanding of the construction of the TOEIC exam.

The attractive thing about "How to Prepare for the Toeic Test : Test of English for International Communication" is that it's good value for money. You get six full TOEIC practice tests, as well as some mini-tests, and a full coverage of every section of the test. Unlike some other reviewers, I found the explanation section quite good and well-detailed, but most of my students have complained about the ease of the practice tests in comparison to the real TOEIC test -- this does not have to be a big problem. I teach a TOEIC preparation program at Cambridge International College in Melbourne, Australia, and, as a result of my students' feedback, I now use this book during the first and part of the second week into the course to drill my students for harder tests. By the time the students have finished the six practice tests in this book, they are ready to move to harder tests that reflect more the level of difficulty in the real TOEIC test. Some of the answers at the back of the book have errors in them, but no so many that you should be too concerned. Overall, it's a great tool for low-level to intermediate TOEIC students, or advanced students who want to start low and build up from there with other text books. It is a great teacher's tool, but it might be a little difficult for some students if used as a self-teaching book.

I am an ESL teacher using this book with students in Japan. I most like the large number of sample questions, including several full-length tests and accompanying CD's. One problem, though, is that Loughheed's explanations are difficult for even my advanced-level non-native speakers to understand. However, they are very helpful to me as a teacher in explaining how to solve problems. What I do is review his explanations myself before class, then use them as a tool to help teach things to my students as they work through the sample problems. The test section does not include a table giving a model TOEIC score. I wrote the author about this, and he said a conversion chart would be included in the next edition. He also kindly sent me a conversion chart.
Overall, it was a useful book and I will continue using it with future students.

Qiu Jin's book on the Lin Biao incident is an intriguing look behind the scenes of one of communist China's remaining mysteries. Why did Lin turn on Mao? What role did his subordinates play? What effect did it have on China? Some of these questions are not answered, but others are. Most interesting in this book is the role of Lin's family, including his ambitious son and strong wife. The reader with a sense of Chinese history will see that the intrigues of Communist China did not differ much from Imperial China. Jin does a great job and illustrating this. Although she does say some things that are troubling, such as calling Mao "compassionate," overall her treatment of the subject is valuable for the insider perspective that she brings to the subject. I wholeheartedly recommend this book. I hope Jin follows up in the future.

The mists that surround the Lin Biao incident have not been completely cleared even in the increasingly open Chinese society. Scholars who have tried to tackle this issue have run into the roadblocks of the CCP, keeping them from garnering valuable insight into the matter. However, Dr. Jin has succeeded where others have failed. The daughter of Wu Faxian, one of Lin Biao's trusted generals, Jin not only sheds new light into the Lin Biao incident but also illuminates the lives and court intrigues of those around Biao. The reader will quickly see that the ancient intrigues that surrounded the dynastic struggles of Old China did not pass away with the Qing dynasty but were alive and well in the era of Mao Zedong, particularly during the Cultural Revolution. Using a mixture of primary resources and personal interviews Jin weaves a masterful tale of just how and why Lin Biao fell from Mao's grace and ultimately died in a mysterious plane crash. We learn of the role of Lin's children and his wife, a subject that few scholars have devoted as much effort to uncovering. Jin's closeness to some of the major players in the incident in no way affects her objectivity, but gives the entire affair a new dimension. She examines the incident with the careful lens of a historian, piecing together the factual with the circumstantial. This book belongs on the shelves of every China scholar, and those who are interested in the fascinating stories of these men and women, many of whom rose from peasants to the pinnacle of power within the "new" China.

Having read a number of the books available on this topic, and studied modern Chinese history extensively, I can say that this is one of the best books for a reader with interest in either the "Incident" specifically, or with more general interest in the high-level intrigues in China during the Cultural Revolution.

One of the many joys of this book is Jin's broad use of sources to achieve a tight and focused view of her topic. Dr. Jin has successfully captured the elements that are necessary to tell how Lin became Mao's successor, and then how he fell from grace just as Peng Dehuai and Liu Shaoqi did before him. But she has delved deep, drawing from hundreds of diverse elements such as personal interviews with her father (one of Lin's generals) and other involved persons, to the official documents of the Chinese Communist Party and the trial of the "Gang of Four." This reach has enabled her to carefully reconstruct not only the narrow time frame of the "Incident," but also the intrigues and power struggles at the highest level of government that enabled the Cultural Revolution to engulf the entire nation.

In doing so, Jin has not only drawn a clear picture of Lin Biao, but also of Mao Zedong. Mao emerges as a complicated human in her portrait; he is ruthless in his paranoid persecutions, but also compassionate towards the peasants of China (but, as is clear from the book, this compassion is not towards individual peasants, but towards the peasant class as a whole). It is a compelling, human portrait that emerges, and one that dovetails nicely with recent scholarship on Mao in his later years.

Finally, Dr. Jin extensively uses Western ideas of historiography and political psychology. She artfully blends traditional Chinese analysis and values with the latest Western trends. The analysis of this slice of Chinese history that results is unique in the study of modern China.