but Heim is confusing in spots - pg 291 -"the testimony of the religions is essential for internal Christian life." Hmmmmm? I am sure Peter tells us that in Christ we have everything we need in order to have a thriving internal Christian life. Does Heim mean that until I study other religions my Christian life won't be all it can be? This is ludicrous.

As someone who has studied, written, and taught in the area of interreligious dialogue for the last decade, I judge Dr. Heim's most recent work of great significance. He offers a theological model that presents a way beyond the current exclusivist-inclusivist impasse in discussions about the relative truth of major world religions. The focus is on the goal or "end" of the various religions. While explicitly Christian in perspective, Dr. Heim's analysis presents non-Christian traditions in a manner that would be acceptable to their "insiders." While challenging for those without at least some academic theological background, the author's wonderful use of concrete examples should make the work accessible to a patient reader. This is a "must read" for those involved in interreligious dialogue, and for serious seekers with the requisite background. The author presents an exceptionally clear, nuanced description of the ultimate "destination(s)" possible in major world religious traditions. My hope is that his next work will be on "how to get there."

Pros:
Definitions and concepts are introduced one at a time most of the time. Glossary is provided. Answers in even number problems are provided. Review and Discussion Questions are provided with no answers, but they can be easily checked in the corresponding chapters. Included in Appendix D is a case study on a donut shop of small business finance.

Cons:
Useless Excel spreadsheets that come with CD. The authors include Excel tables used in each chapters. Many times figures are HARD TYPED, not derived from formulas. Some people may want to use the spreadsheets for their own needs, but this practice diminishes the point of using a spreadsheet. Some concepts are not clearly or completely explained such as future value of an ordinary annuity, and EOQ (basically formulas in chap 8). The derivations of formulas are not provided, which let the reader merely memorize and simply plug in values in the formula without understanding the context to use and the assumptions. "Entrepreneurial" contents are scarce considering the intent of the book, which barely distinguishes itself from other typical corporate finance books. I would like to see more real life case studies such as the one in Appendix D, so that material learned throughout chapters can be demonstrated in the context and in a coherent manner. Interdependences and relations of concepts should be explicitly iterated and be shown with visual aids.

Prerequisite:
Basic algebra at junior high school level, including power, logarithm and summation. No prior knowledge of finance is assumed.

Comment:
I would look elsewhere for a basic finance book with more of application and implementation tastes. This may -not be fair to the authors' intention, but hands-on modeling with spreadsheet is a better and more sophisticated approach to me. I recommend to read any introductory finance book that explains concepts and their interdependence very well, then move on to a spreadsheet modeling book for implementation such as Financial Modeling by Benninga, Practical Management Science by Winston and Albright, Excel 2000 Formulas by Walkenbach, and Financial Models Using Simulation and Optimization by Winston.

I use this text in a course I teach and I think it is a great basic primer. In explains in simple language the subjects that entrepreneurs must have a working knowledge of and many don't. If you are just out of undergrad business school, this may be too simple - but most entrepreneurs are 30+ and have been out of school for a while. This is a great, pragmatic tool for this group.

For those of us in college during the Gulf War, this is a must read book. It brought back a lot of memories for me, some I wish it hadn't. I enjoyed reading about Elliot's journey through school and all the influencing elements presented to him. Some of the characters really reminded me of some of my college housemates. It was fun.

This is an excellent novel for anyone who has ever tried to break out and away from destructive influences. I believe most readers will find something in this book that will take them to a place they may have forgotten. A place where, upon reflection, makes one ask, 'What the hell was I thinking?' A lot of those feelings were dredged up while I read this book. The protagonist in this book is constantly being pulled and stretched by those around him and by inner conflict. The author does a fine job of making those conflicts seem very real by placing the reader in the mind of the main character. This is an excellent first effort by Mr. Colety, and I look forward to his next offering.

This book is nicely crafted, with a simple story about a beautiful cat. I like it, but for some reason it did not capture my 6 yo's imagination or attention, despite her extreme interest in Egypt, pyramids, mummies, hieroglyphics and even deserts. My daughter thought the temple cat was a golden cat, in Egypt, and a sad cat. So she got the basic premise, but just hasn't been keen to read this, unlike other books that have captured her completely.

This is a wonderful book, and a great teaching tool. As a teacher, I am always looking for new ways to teach. This book was recommended by Crayola magazine on the subject of Ancient Egypt, so I checked it out at the library. I fell in love with the book because of the illustrations and original story line and will now buy this book. Most if not all of my students enjoy animals and they like that the main character is a cat who is worshipped and lives in her own temple cared for night and day by servants. It really was interesting to learn history through the eyes of an exalted feline. They enjoyed it immensely.

When a child loses someone close to her, she has a hard time saying goodbye. In this book, the main charcter loses her dog, Abby. She has a hard time saying goodbye to her beloved friend and companion. This is an excellent book to use to teach children, adolescents, and adults about death and dying- as well as the grieving process. By reading "Abby," one is able to better understand the normal process we as humans go through when someone we love dies.

Excellent resource to introduce children to the instruments ofthe orchestra. Particularly valuable when used in conjunction withthe tape.

The text in Ragged Bear is short and simple. It is about an old bear who is played with, but is not the favorite toy. Then, being left at the park one day gives him a new lease on life with someone who rightfully gives him the same kind of love that he had always given to others. This sweet story is accompanied by beautiful watercolor illustrations that bring out the most sensitive qualities of this book. The artwork alone is worth purchasing this book if you are a teddy bear lover who appreciates fine illustrations of teddy bears, but it is also an appropriate story for the youngest teddy bear lovers.

I have no idea how this book managed a 4-star rating up to this point. They must have been looking at a different book or I and just crazy.

Potentially this book would be a good one ( concepts are explained ok ) but the tutorials/examples are full of errors and many of the files it references in the tutorials don't exist ..... at least that I have been able to find. I don't even know if the download files are still available ..... not that they are worth the time it takes to download them ( downloads only go through chapter 7 anyway ).

Additionally, I have tried to contact the publisher, author, and new publisher ( Apress apparently has purchased FriendsofED ) for help and received precisely nothing in return ..... not even a "we will look into it and get back with you" message.

I was hoping the FriendsofED titles might be a good source of textbooks for the classes I teach but will probably never use one of their titles again because of this experience with them. It's to the point that I have considered reimbursing everyone of my students who have bought this book because it's so poor.

Very frustrated and disappointed to say the least.

The book approaches using Premiere from the vantage point of following a whole project from start to finish through its production process using the software. Along the way it explains a lot of basic concepts and also delves into a number of specific how-to-do-it details and even advanced techniques for cool effects. It will take you through your first few projects with most of the techniques you will need fairly quickly. For someone like me who used a much earlier version of Premiere and then wanted to "jump" into the latest interface quickly and understand what to do in specific areas, this book was very good. But if you want ALL of the information you can possibly get on Editing in Premiere or any other single aspect, this book is not detailed enough. Also, the page numbers in the table of contents and the index are out of sync with the actual numbers on the pages. Its as if the ToC started counting about twenty pages farther on than the printer numbered the pages, so somewhere in the editing/publishing they lost a bit of control of this book, but everything was still findable with a bit of patience.

This book gave me the conceptual tools I needed to make sense of the Adobe Premier manual. The manual is chock full of the technical info that allows you to use all the features that Premiere offers, but Revolutionary Premiere 6 tells you which choice makes sense and why. In addition, it gives you the big picture on digital filmmaking techniques that can make the difference between making a film that looks amateurish and one that gets your message across. I knew within the first five minutes that this book would give me an understanding of the dynamics of filmmaking, while giving me specific advice on how to make Adobe Premiere do what I want it to do. Great job.

This is a revised version of answers to GMAT AWA questions. However, the authors failed to add the latest questions and the content is almost the same as the second edition. I felt so disappointed at it. I don't recommend anyone who had the previous edition to buy it.

Very simply, this book is for two kinds of people: 1. People for whom English are not their first language or 2. People who don't read OR write formal documents in their workplace. The trick to the essay questions is pretty straightforward. Rather than reading essays that "worked", a person is better off reading the op/ed page in the New York Times and/or practicing what I would call the 5-paragraph rule. I used this (made-up) rule to get a 6 on the essay section with no preparation; (the essay is scored 1-6, 6 being the highest). Basically, the exam states a very simple statement, either ridiculously agreeable or ridiculously disagreeable. All you have to do is say why you agree/disagree with the statement. So what you can do is break it up as follows: paragraph 1 - State your opinions very clearly, e.g. I agree with this statement because of reason 1, reason 2 and reason 3. Paragraph 2 - Support reason 1, reason 1 makes sense because blah blah blah. Paragraph 3, same as the second paragraph. Paragraph 4 - optional, you don't need 3 reasons. I had 3 for one essay on 2 for the other. Paragraph 5 - wrap it up by re-iterating your reasons for agreeing/disagreeing with the statement, e.g. In conclusion, I agree with this statement because of reason 1, reason 2 etc. Voila! Practice this method with a couple of incredibly simple statements. It's more of how you structure the essays than the content. Remember that one of the two graders is a computer. Here is a practice statement: 1. Women were given the right to vote in the latter half of the 20th century. The presidents from this time period have caused more mass destruction than from the first half of the century. Thus, women should not have the right to vote. (Yes, some of the statements are this stupid.)

Hey, let's face it--who is going to read 150 GMAT essays? Not me, maybe not you, maybe only a GMAT essay scorer. Most people can do fine with the samples included in the Official GMAT book or with the review included in other books.

Furthermore, most schools don't really care too much about your GMAT essay score--they care most about your Verbal and Quantitative scores. Most of the schools that really care about your writing ability will look at your answers to the essay questions in the MBA application.

However, if you are the kind of person who really, really *loves* to study as much as possible for a test, this book is good, *and*, it is the only book on the market with this many sample GMAT essays.

All the essays are well-written and they would receive high scores on the GMAT. This book is good for people who learn from examples or for people who really have no idea what to write. Non-native speakers of English should take a look at this book if they feel like their writing style is not similar to the English writing style.

In short, this book is full of examples and is good for people who are not sure of what to write. Since GMAT has said that all essays will come from these topics, studying this book is good for people who are nervous about their essay scores.

Poor Editing. Full of printing errors in the practice tests

I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, I appreciated the concise and to-the-point style. I found it easier to brush up on my quantitative and verbal skills with this book than with other GMAT books. If you are short on time then this book would be a good choice. However, the sheer volume of errors really bugged the hell out of me. Most of them are stupid editing errors (occurring on virtually every page), but I also found some critical errors with the practice questions. The massive number of mistakes detracted from my ability to study effectively because I was always second-guessing the book. I found this to be an unforgiveable sin for a test prep book and so I only give two stars instead of four.

I highly recommend this book. Small in price and page length, but packed with practical skill-building materials that don't insult the reader's intelligence. Explanations for practice questions are the most thorough of any GMAT book I've seen. Kudos! What I liked best is that the author provides online support for the book. (Why don't more authors do this?) At the end of each lesson the reader is referred to online materials (at the author's web site) that supplement the lesson. Cool!