The best kid/hacker (no, not the dudes who vanadlize) series i have ever seen! bruce ballan rocks!!

This is one of the best books that I have ever read. It is filled with action, has a great story line, and developes charactors really well. I would highly recomend it to anyone who is into hi-tech mysteries and internet stuff.

Jeremy

This series contains the best books you will ever read. I love them because they are all about kids on computers, like me! I just love this series and I recommend that you buy every single one because these are great, edge-of-seat books!!!

MP3's have become one of the hottest new things on the 'Net, to the delight of music lovers everywhere and most likely to the chagrin of the music industry. This book covers a wide variety of topics regarding MP3's, starting off with a brief description of how mp3's came to be, where to find and download mp3's, Internet radio stations, etc. The chapter on digital music and copyright law also contains useful information on just what it and is not legal with regards to having and/or downloading mp3's.

It also tells you what software and hardware is the best for playing mp3's and "ripping" your own mp3's. The descriptions of the software and hardware you can use are quite good. Next are three chapters describing in detail digital audio, along with MPEG audio. Then comes the section any mp3 "ripper" will be most interested in, ie converting music into mp3 form, by first converting it into a .wav format, then into mp3 and finally recording your own CD's.

The book's final chapters are a 'tutorial" on various mp3 software ripper programs like Audio Catalyst and Cool Edit. There's also some info about using WinAmp, which is one of the more popular mp3 players (and the one I use). There's also further information about related web sites, other books, even a glossary.

The future still looks bright for mp3. Not only is it a way for music lovers to download their favorite songs, it also is a way for new artists to "break through" by offering their music on various web sites in the form of mp3s.

This book offers quite a bit of good information about the MP3 phenemenon.

... This book by Bruce and Marty Fries covers THE FOREST and THE TREES - concerning all things about MP3 music technology - equally well! In other words, you will no longer be lost in THE FOREST about all things MP3 because of THE TREES! The authors cover the OVERVIEW (The Forest) of all things MP3 just as well as they cover all the minor DETAILS (The Trees). ... The authors make EXCELLENT teachers: they KNOW their subject well, and they know how to PRESENT it to you so that you NEVER get lost or feel left behind! The book is VERY well ORGANIZED. It is layed-out logically and flows from one chapter to the next in a natural and easy-to-follow way. Reading this book is NOT HARD, and because it is so easy to understand, you will learn faster!

... I can't say that I knew NOTHING about MP3 music and technology BEFORE I read this book, but after having read it I feel like I REALLY understand everything I need to know to make the right choices about how to record, play, and listen to music in the MP3 format. Most importantly, the authors do not only tell you ABOUT MP3 technology, they tell you HOW to use it, DO things with it, and WHERE to go on the world wide web to get more INFO on whatever you might be interested in concerning all things MP3. The book is packed to the gills on almost every page - cover-to-cover - with web site URL addresses where the reader can further their search for information about MP3 technology!

... The book is VERY thorough and detailed, with an easy-to-follow lay-out, easy-to-read text and design, and very helpful photographs and illustrations that make it almost impossible to NOT "get it"! After reading this book, if you don't know just about EVERYTHING concerning MP3, you just were not paying attention - because the authors have left NO STONE UNTURNED! ... The only regret I had was that they wrote the book (as they themselves confessed up-front!) for the IBM-compatible, PC crowd - and I am driving an APPLE iMac computer!!! ... I recently wrote to the authors about this, and they said that they are working right now on a revised edition that will have more information in the HOW TO SECTIONS for people using APPLE computers. This will be a welcome relief!

... Even so, there is a lot of helpful mention of places and products that concern the MAC CROWD (of which I'm one! : ), and they DO agree that the SOUNDJAM MP software by Cassidy & Greene "is one of the best for the Mac." (page 69). So, even if you're a Mac-man like me, you really can't go wrong reading this book because it covers all the bases. It's MORE than just an introduction. It's a great REFERENCE book to keep by your computer at all times - whether you're a consumer interested in LISTENING to MP3s or a musician who is interested in CREATING MP3s in order to upload onto musical web sites, over the Internet, on the world wide web so that ANYONE in the world can listen to and/or purchase one's music! ... My hat is off to the authors for a job well done! ALSO: this book is FUN to read! ..

Although generally knowledgeable about computers, I was a total ignoramus when it came to digital audio -- until I read this book. I found it to be an excellent, extremely informative and highly-readable book that was hard to put down, and which I read cover-to-cover. If you're are a technophile, you'll enjoy the amount of detail it provides; if you're a technophobe, you'll appreciate the clear language and the invaluable recommendations of hardware and software. It's a book that isn't shy about including technical details but that remembers that the ultimate goal is the audio experience. I also enjoyed the free offer of about a hundred MP3 files.

I just got this one so I have not read the entire book. I have thumbed throught it a couple of times and read a bit here and there and this seems to be a very cool book. I am very interested in the Beatles Apple records history and this book plus the next one (I hope) on the solo years is very appealing to me. I like the format and the many great pictures. I do plan to get the two Capitol Records Spizer books asap. I recommend this book and can't wait to sit down and read through it. Sorry not much of a review. I plan to write one after I have gone through the book completely. Enjoy.

This is now the 4th time I've gushed over another of Bruce Spizer's books. As usual the Apple book is as complete as the VJ and Capitol books. Even though I own the majority of the singles pictured in this book, looking at them in print still gives me the excitement I experience when I look and hold the actual discs. plus I don't have to dig the originals out of the Beatle vault. Besides the cool graphics, The information is extremely interesting. Bruce covers all of the Apple artists and Apple releases up to and including the recent Beatles #1 recording. If you are a Beatles collector or just dig neat Beatles books, this is an excellent book to own.
BUY THE OTHER 3 AS WELL. Again well done Bruce.

There is not much more I can add to the other reviews here. Just buy this book now and it's companion being published sometime in March, 2004. It is aptly titled "The Solo Beatles on Apple Records".

This is a definitive Beatles book. I am so thankful for Mr. Bruce Spizer for coming up with such an excellent source of material, and handily placing it together into one magnificent hard-bound volume. The full-color illustrations are out-of-this-world! I never knew that so many different label and jacket variations ever existed before this. The very day that i purchased this book, I also purchased what I consider to be THE ultimate companion album; an imported CD by The Beatles, entitled "The V-J Story", which contains ALL sixteen original Beatles songs first issued on the V-J label. The good news is that ALL sixteen songs are in beautiful stereophonic sound (with the exceptions of "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You", which are only monophonic recordings electronically reprocessed into "fake" stereo). Nonetheless, this CD makes a perfect companion to Mr. Spizer's book. By all means, get this disc if you ever come across it.

This book is the best friend of anybody who is seriously interested in the Beatles' records on VeeJay. Even the most well informed fan will come away with tidbits of fresh information. The writing is sharp, clear and well organized and the work itself is nonpareil.

All in all, an excellent job. This one is a keeper. It gets two thumbs up, loud cheering and a hearty yeah, yeah, yeah!

When I got this book and held it in my hands for the first time, I thought I found the grail. I plowed through it in one evening and have found myself going back to it numerous times. I thought I knew plenty about the Vee Jay discs. Boy, was I wrong! One of the most misunderstood and overlooked areas regarding The Beatles is cleared up in one glorious volume. Rumors cleared up, complicated variations of a particular title explained, myths put to rest, this book raises the bar for all that follows.

Of all the many books I have read on Bruce Lee I think this biography is far and away the best. The previous reviewer reflected my thought exactly, that the author, Bruce Thomas, is "respectful but not caught up in hero worship". I would add that this is the only Bruce Lee book I have read that manages to walk that line. Bruce Thomas clearly has a personality and spirituality that is mature enough to have captured and integrated the essence of Bruce Lee. The biography is well-researched and detailed but this is more than a biography...it is a great book.

When one comes across a biography purporting to be about the late, great Bruce Lee, one must ask oneself: "why is the author writing a book on this man?". If you conclude that he has something to gain, say, by revising a history of which he was a part, then you should probably steer clear of such a book. Thankfully, the author Bruce Thomas was not a part of Bruce Lee's life and so he has no vested interest in rewriting this now-legendary past. Rather, in his book, Thomas tells us a little about each important phase of Lee's life: his boyhood in Hong Kong, streetfightin' teenage years, emigration to Seattle, development of his evolving art and philosophy of Jeet Kune Do, struggles breaking into the film business, and eventual mass recognition and appeal as an international celebrity. The book also chronicles Lee's last days, shedding light on his recent out of character behavior (drug abuse, adultery) with brief but insightful speculation regarding what could have killed him. Unlike other books, in Fighting Spirit, Thomas is very respectful of Bruce's memory, yet he does not get caught up in hero worship. The facts are presented as is, with the implicit assumption that the reader is intelligent enough to make what he or she will of them without any embellishment whatsoever on the author's part. This is, to my mind, the best biography in publication on Bruce Lee.

Very detailed, very insightful, most interesting of all the books on Bruce Lee's life. A must-read for anyone who wants to know (or know more) about Bruce Lee.

I have to agree that larson's calculus is a very comprehensive calculus text. It includes a lot of material and applications.

If you are going to selfstudy calculus, i have some advices:
1 Not every section is necessary. Some sections are mainly about applications in mechanical engineerings(actually, most applications). If you are not interested in ME, just skip them.

2 Don't go too fast. If you don't have time, just skip some sections of the end of each chapters. Especially at the end of the book. Chapter 14 is quite confusing. Read them slowly, understand piece by piece.

If you are a math major, particularly pure math, this is not a book for you. You need a book that talks more about theory.

After one confusing (first) semester of calculus using Thomas' Early Transcendentals, my school's math department switched to this text for second semester. Thank goodness! This text is much more clear, with examples that take you through the important steps of the problems. Sometimes the text will leave out a step in the example, but usually it's something from trig or pre-calc. The use of graphics in the examples are very helpful as well; the important theorems are boxed/highlighted, as are useful tips to solving the problems.

The exercise problems at the end of each section are never huge surprises. As for their difficulty, they tend to start out easy and end with the more challenging word problems. When I was confused or frustrated, it helped to go back and re-read the examples. The Thomas text's examples were extremely difficult (for us non-MIT level math students) and unrelated/inconsistent with the exercises.

The editing of Larson's text is fantastic, because there are relatively few errors (whereas Thomas' was full of them). And I especially liked the photographs and brief biographies of the famous mathematicians sprinkled throughout each chapter, because they humanize this mysterious and feared subject.

I'd say that this book made calculus less scary and much more manageable. I still had to study really hard to ace the class, but at least it wasn't because the book was overly confusing.

This is the only book I recommend to someone learning calc for the first time.

Larson's approach is practical, logical, thorough, and most importantly, CLEAR!!!!

My beagle looks EXACTLY like Poky. I have never seen an artist's version of a more adorable dog than Poky. His adventures are always sweet and brighten up my day. I loved these books when I was about three and my mom and dad read them to me. I still love them even though I am older. I wish they were more widely available. It is REALLY important to teach kids to love and respect animals. After school every day I volunteer at an animal rescue shelter with my older brother and his girlfriend. The things I have seen and heard break my heart and bring all three of us to tears. Hopefully if more kids grow up learning about how to treat animals and reading books like this that show animals as sweet, adorable, and VERY REAL the next group of older kids and adults will not be so cruel towards our best friends, the four legged ones.

The poky Little Puppy was my favorite as a child. I found that my nephews and neice loved it. It teaches why it is important to obey your parents.

When I was a child I absolutely LOVED this book. My grandma tells met hat she used to read it to me atleast 5 times a day...and she soon memorized the whole book and would have been able to recite it too me if only i didnt have to see the pictures. I remember loving this book as a child and I saved my copy to read to my children when I have them. I definately recommend this book for your child.

I have hunted whitetails in Minnesota for over twenty seasons with less than average success. This easy to read text gave me the confidence and tips than helped me bag my first large whitetail buck. I prefer to hunt "the big woods" alone. From this book I learned how big bucks differ in their behavior from other deer. It helped me understand what is happening in the field and what signs to look for. I now see and hear more deer than I used to. My hunting is more enjoyable (and successful) than ever before. The book is the standard re-read every year before the opener. I strongly recommend it!

Growing up in a deer hunting family, my father taught me not only how to "think" like a deer, but how to practice the art of hunting in such a manner as to assure maximum enjoyment of the entire hunting adventure. Such things as planning the hunt, selecting and maintaining the proper equipment, getting your body and mind into the right condition. As I read Bruce Nelson's Hunting Big Whitetails I often stopped to reflect on how completely this fine fellow enjoys and celebrates the experience of being a hunter. I've never read a book that deals more completely--and in such detail--with every aspect of the nature of Whitetail deer, how they behave in various types of cover and terrain, and, most importantly, how you as a hunter can enrich your experience by these understandings. Bruce brings to the hunting experience not only a great deal of expertise and skill, but also an ethic that reflects the kind of values we in the hunting community want to preserve and portray. My Dad loved the book and so did I. No wonder all the reviews scored it five stars. A must on the shelf of any serious hunter. A great gift for a hunting buddy.

'Hunting Big Whitetails' is a contemporary book that easily matches the quality of the 'Greats'. It's readily in the same league shared by fewer than a dozen other classic hunting books of the past century and a half. The author shares with his readers many fascinating storys of hunts and techniques. Do, these techniques work? Well, all you have to do is briefly 'thumb' through the book and you will see the greatest photographic collection of the largest whitetail deer ever published between two covers of one book. The written word, in every respect, matches the record-class photos. In short, it's a great book, destined to become a 'classic' and is a 'must have' for any hunter.

Compared to most guitar instruction books for beginners, this one is easily five stars, but against the bar it sets for itself, it's a four star book: well-done and quite helpful, yet flawed enough to be a little irritating.

Three-quarters of the book is basically an encyclopedia of chords, but not in the useless manner of so many "chord dictionaries". Arnold presents chord forms that can be played anywhere along the lowest 2 strings of the guitar. All chords are in their root position. A wonderful surprise is that he includes not only illustrations of the chords but also their notation in written music, so from the beginning, you are exposed to proper notation--whether you use it right away or not is up to you. I have no complaints about the amount of chord forms he includes--often several options for each chord. He has you practice them "cycle five," a good way to learn the chords and the fretboard for 3 of the strings. Arnold includes small essays on how chords are formed, how to read music, and, later, on reharmonization theory, but I don't imagine these essays would neccessarily be clear to every reader. They are better than usual, though.

While there is a mass of information in the book and the suggested exercises are helpful, I do wish he would have included something about the "system" of chord formations. I shouldn't have put that in quotes--there actually is a system to it. If he would have explained some of what is explored in Bill Edwards' (highly recommended) Fretboard Logic, the chord formations would not have a tendency to seem random and overwhelming. I found myself going through the book thinking "ok that's a C form, an E form..." and so on (you'll understand that if you read Edwards' book; furthermore, the Volume 2 of Arnold's Chord Workbook series might be rendered uneccessary, as the inverted chords are merely all or part of the "next" chord form in line. Anyway.) An explicit mention of what notes are represented in each chord form--like if it is the 1, 3, or b7--would have been helpful, too.

Bruce Arnold has authored a rather large series of books that might make you think he's in it for the money. But I think he's sincere, and a good teacher. He's got a website where you can download helpful video and audio files, and even ask him questions! Those are points in his favour, but this book is still lacking. The "Music Theory Workbook" that goes with this is helpful, but not as helpful as combining this with Edwards' Fretboard Logic SE: Vol. 1 and 2. If I hadn't have worked my way through the Edwards book, I would have found this book a little overwhelming--but take note that Fretboard Logic is incomplete without a book like this just as much!

Bruce Arnold is an accomplished jazz guitarist and educator. I reviewed three of his instruction books: 1st Steps for a Beginning Guitarist; Chord Workbook for Guitar; and Music Theory Workbook for Guitar.

I also listened to an incredible jazz music album he provided for my listening pleasure. As a player, he is awesome. As a writer of instruction manuals, he is very good for the more advanced student. I compared his books with the Mel Bay series, which I use for my students (and on which I learned). His go into much more depth than those I'm accustomed to. Ideally, I would introduce his material after a couple of months.

I am eager to see some of the other books he has in his series of over thirty instructional manuals. I believe depth is the best term to describe what this educator has to offer. He takes on some of the more difficult aspects for guitarists and digs deeply into the subject material. I would have killed to have manuals like these when I was in college.

Ive been playing guitar for two years now, with no lessons but flexible fingers and a love of music. I recently (like a week ago) purchased this book and found it immediately helpful. One of the better routes a beginner should take to becoming a good guitarist is learning the basic chords that most songs imploy. This book does that using "cycle 5" which is an ingenius way to teach chords. I've learned tons of ways to play all 12 chromatic notes in 3 days! The progressions of chords at the end of the book are great also, they help you to get a feel for what notes work with what notes etc... I had no musical "insight" before this book (probably like most of you out there) but this book really walks you through the basics of music on the guitar. Be patience and practice, practice, practice! For more info check just out Mr. Arnold's websites: "muse-eek.com & arnoldjazz.com" peace!

One could make the defeat of Vecna the focus of 2 or 3 campaigns; the 3 adventures that star Vecna (Vecna Lives!, Vecna Reborn, and Die, Vecna, Die!)are certainly not for the faint of heart or low of level. Die, Vecna, Die! is an epic adventure that falls just a bit short due to the fact it seems a bit too pre-programmed, leading the adventurers by the nose at times. It does bring the story arc for Vecna closer to a conclusion, but relies too heavily on plot contrivances that negate some of what has come before in the other Vecna adventures, such as the revelation that the Sword of Kas that we've seen in Vecna Lives! is a replica, not the original, or that, oh, by the way, there IS a way for the Sword to defeat Vecna. This module also suffers in comparison to Vecna Lives!, which managed to evoke a truly terrifying atmosphere. However, this is a fine adventure well worth checking out.

The last book of 2nd edition...Your characters determine how it will all end. Adventure that begins in Greyhawk then takes you to Ravenloft and ends up in Sigil!! In Greyhawk, the adventurers find out that the god Iuz is starting trouble. Several small scirmishes and a wonderful story. In Ravenloft, the adventurers find themselves in a strange city, and they realizenot everything is as it seems!!! I wont ruin it, but I will add this: if Vecna breaks out, Ravenloft could be destroyed! In Sigil, your characters do battle with a god and if, if they survive...They might receive a blessing from the Lady herself. The creators of this module left enough room to play with as far as tweaking this or that, but over all, there is so much information about every little room, dungeon, NPC that even a new dungeon master would have no problems. I DM'd this module with four other players (Green Dragon Mage-constructed from the council of wyrms), a psionisist (Human male-uh, until he put on a girdle of feminity-haha), Minotaur warrior and a Paladine(Yes, the Paladine and Dragon got along very well, but that's what makes the role play). Any how, the charcters were all around 7the level and the game lasted 5 fridays, each friday lasting around 8 hrs!!! It was one of the funnest games I have DM'd since....Dragon Mountain!! Die Vecna, Die is an adventure not for the faint of heart...Oh, did I mention that half of the party died? I wont say who for fear of intimidating other players (Dark Smile)

As the final module for 2nd edition D&D, I think this is a classic. It's the first Greyhawk storyline I've run in over 10 years, but well worth it. I like to have a sense of continuity and cohesiveness in my campaigns, and although Ravenloft got a little play in my games I never really liked it. This module gives me the chance to essentially blow it away but maintain it's relevance to my ongoing campaign (now at to 19 years)!

The module also served as a nice sendoff to the realms of Greyhawk, Ravenloft, and Planescape, none of which will be officially supported by WotC once 3rd Edition D&D arrives. It's a killer of a module, one that will be difficult for DMs to handle and players to survive, but the ending is extrememly satisfying. I highly recommend this module!