If your mission is instruction, your companion should be the Mager Six Pack. Mager's approach to instruction is concise, practical, example-oriented, practice-centered, and mastery-certified. If you care about the learner and you care about effective training, this set of books will help you dispell the myths, end the wasted time, identify the problems, and find the solutions. No fancy words, no difficult concepts, no hidden agendas, and no advanced degrees are required. Just pay close attention to the common sense approaches Dr. Mager offers, and you will be a better instructional designer and your students will be more successful learners. Especially useful are the three core books on Analyzing Performance Problems, Preparing Instructional Objectives, and Measuring Instructional Results. These should be on every instructional designer's shelf.

Imagine a "6-pack" sitting on my desk untouched for almost three years! No, not beer, these are six Learning & Development books written by the L&D guru, Robert Mager. I had a formal Needs Analysis to conduct and needed a quick refresher (a shot of help). And not the swill that many training books provide that leave you parched, thirsting for more. I tapped into the 6-pack and cracked open the first book "Analyzing Performance Problems, or you Really Oughta Wanna" and began to drink in the information. I need models to follow and Mager provides actual flow charts with appropriate questions to ask. These helped guide me in formulating a Needs Analysis. (Truth be told, they worked pretty well with this metaphor too!)

In the end, I conducted the Needs Analysis and received feedback that the questions were "sober", "on target", and not at all "canned". These books provide genuine guidelines (not draft or lite versions) on creating needs analyses, learning objectives, and measurement tools. They are fun-to-read, easy to understand, and are full of real-life examples. Each volume is $19.95, and the cost for the "6-Pack" is $95. 1. Analyzing Performance Problems, or you Really Oughta Wanna 2. Developing an Attitude Toward Learning, or SMATs 'n' SMUTS 3. Preparing Instructional Objectives 4. Making Instruction Work 5. Measuring Instructional Results, or Got a Match? 6. Goal Analysis

If you are involved with training, course development, or performance improvement then this set is a MUST for you. Each book "reads" with the greatest of ease. The concepts and techniques are so simple, yet so POWERFUL! This set is truly an excellent investment for your personal development and growth. Buy it today. Trust me!

For nearly 16 years HJ argued for lower property taxes before proposition 13 became law in 1978; it was not a quick and easy task. Those who would work for any similar change may learn something from his story. From 1942 to 1991 about 25% of the Federal Defense budget was spent in California. This created a growing economy, even if it drained funds from the northeast states.

Since 1945 land prices and property taxes were booming in California. After his 1962 retirement, HJ began his involvement with the United Organization of Taxpayers. [A movement needs a cadre of dedicated workers.] It then affiliated with other organizations, and thousands of volunteers from all over the state. [The movement must be represented in all counties.] It is very important to have unity and loyalty to the group. [Fragmentation, petty quarrels, and demoralization should be avoided.] They experienced many defeats. [Expect to lose many battles before final victory.] Proposition 13 cut property taxes in half (p.9)! This set an example for the other states (p.10). It could never have been achieved without the Initiative & Referendum law in Calif. But an organization can pass around a petition and get tens of thousands of signatures. Even if it has no legal effect it will impress and scare elected officials. Calif. passed an initiative and referendum law in 1911, an extension to the right of petition. This allows the people to write a law and bypass corrupt state politicians. Without the right to petition, Proposition 13 would not have been passed.

Chapters One thru Seven tell of the work by this movement. 64,000 tax-exempt corporations and 18,000 charitable trusts paid no property taxes. Most of them were set up to get a tax break! Towns would raise assessments one year, then the tax rate the next (p.28). The enormous increases in property taxes priced young couples out of the market. And older people had lowered incomes.

Chapter 8 is his autobiography. He was born and raised in Utah. His father was a carpenter who studied law and became a judge. HJ studied law at the University of Utah by day and worked at a mill by night. He taught boxing in college, and fought as a professional. HJ also played semipro baseball for a copper mill (p.209). He had a varied and interesting life as a newspaper publisher, and then as a manufacturer. Pages 256-7 tell of his legal experiences with the patent on radio push-button tuning; they lost out to big corporations due to high level political decisions. He was part of the group that ran an ad for a Congressional candidate - they decided on "the guy in the sailor suit" (p.263).

Chapter Nine lists his political ideas. He advocates elimination all property taxes, and using income taxes (ability to pay), sales taxes (with some exemptions), and "other forms of taxes". HJ would encourage more public participation in the public business of government. He recommends limiting the size of government to limit the power of politicians. Public schools should be overhauled to create a better product. HJ wants more personal savings to replace the Social Security system. He also wants the US to have the most powerful military in the world, but doesn't want foreign entanglements.

In this book, Howard Jarvis tells his story. Mainly, the book deals with the victorious anti-tax movement in California in the beginning of 70's, but Mr. Jarvis also shares much more of his rich life experience with us. Among other, we'll learn how Mr. Jarvis successfully fought the trade unions' sabotage during WWII. The different subjects are in approppriate proportions and presented in a very interesting style. Even though I'm rather ignorant and uninterested of US inner politics, I found the book really fascinating.

I have just one advice to the readers of this book. The idea of forcing the hated clique of parasite politicians and civil servants on their knees might seem very attractive to you. However, I read lately that both Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann got killed under mysterious circumstances shortly after their triumph with the tax proposal. I don't know if it's true or not, but my advice would still be to avoid confronting governments openly. (Read "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World" by Harry Browne to learn more about this subject.)

You have passed the CCNA exam and are ready to teach the class. You need training material. Finding the right instructor's guide has now become simplified through this manual.

Not written as a study but rather as a layout to cover each exam objective from the teacher's point of view, this book will make short work of the class while giving the students the necessary training material to pass the exam on the first try.

As the perfect companion to the All-In-One CCNA 2.0 Exam Guide, Larson gives the instructors tips and notes throughout the book to aide in the process.

The layout follows the All-In-One guide chapter by chapter, there is also review or assessment question at the end of each lesson.

Included in the pack is a cd-rom which contains ExamView Pro software that will allow you create a variety of test types, from written to web based and the software includes over 600 questions. Also there is PowerPoint slides for use during the classroom presentation.

Overall this package makes a great teaching tool and will now become part of the classes I teach.

This book is great for young kids that are interested in Dinosaurs and the world of paleontology. This is a must have book for any parent interested in a good story with a good facts to back it up!

This one is great. I bought it for the Nora Roberts, but ended up tracking down the sequels for Heather Graham's Dark Stranger as well. They are all complete novels not short stories. If you are a Nora Roberts fan, this is the same story that came out in paperback a while back. It was first published here (McGreggor story of Ian). I started reading Elizabeth Lowel after reading this as well. I normally don't go for historical, but these were nice.

BOB HAYES DOES A GREAT JOB TELLING OF HIS LIFE, TRACK AND FOOTBALL CAREER, HIS ADDICTION, LIFE IN PRISON, AND HIS RECOVERY. THIS IS STORY IS VERY HONEST, FASCINATING, AND TOTALLY INTERESTING. MORE OF TODAY'S ATHLETES SHOULD READ THIS OUTSTANDING STORY. THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST I HAVE READ. I SALUTE MR. HAYES AND HOPE HIS RECOVERY IS LONG AND HAPPY. THIS IS A MUST READ FOR ATHLETES WHO THINK MONEY AND FAME IS THE ANSWER TO HAPPINESS. IN FACT IT IS FOR ALL SPORTS FANS. READ IT.....

Charrette is a fantastic writer. He builds up the plot until it bursts with surprising plot twists and good characters

How much fun was that?! I havn't enjoyed a book that much since reading the field manual for my own brand spanking Mad Cat...
Though they could have done more with Zeta Battalion. Wasted their brilliance slightly...
Oh, by the way, anyone remember what Jamie Wolf's 'Mech was again?

The BEST Battletech book that I've read to date. Started playing/reading Battletech in '93 and this was the first book and I've collected and read EVERY book.

It was hard to put this book down. It kept me on the edge of my seat all the way through. This quality of writing is what other writers should strive for!! Not set word limits by the publishers.

A long-time fan of Mark Twain, I had still managed to make it past my fortieth birthday never having read this book. But recently, when I needed something to read (you know the kind of days I am talking about), I stumbled across this book and set to laughing.

The story-telling is magnificent. Few writers can take the small things of daily life and make them breathe -- but Twain possessed that gift, and uses it well. How many others went West the same time he did, and never saw the gold dust, sunsets, and taverns the way he wrote them into our consciousness?

And yet, and yet... As much as I loved the stories he told, I see "Roughing It" as important in a different manner. Even when the truth is slightly embellished to make us, his readers (of whom he is always very much aware), laugh out loud, it still truly presents the era and place he put down in black and white. We can be so bombarded with romanticized movies about the gold rush and settlers heading West, that we lose sight of them as genuine people with the same faults and virtues we know in 2001.

But with Mark Twain's keen eye, our history -- our American history -- comes to life. And suddenly, we "get it", we comprehend that all that stuff we had to learn in high school was done by people, not daguerrotypes.

Twain's escapades in the West make fascinating reading. His encounters with the Mormons in Utah are particularly interesting. Anyone afflicted with Mormon missionaries on his or her doorstep ought to bring out a copy of this book and read aloud the chapter in which Twain discusses the absurd Book of Mormon. Nobody can match Twain in skewering foolishness and pomposity dressed up as religion.

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of travel logs, journals, reports, diaries, etc. that tell about the American West in the mid-nineteenth century. This book by Mark Twain, however, is both unique and one of the best. This is travel writing as it should be. Twain, traveling across the plains from Missouri to Nevada in the early 1860's, and spending seven years loafing about Nevada, California, and Hawaii, collected and compiled his experiences into this extraordinary book. One of the best things about Twain, of course, is his unique view on things. This tale is told in Twain's wry, humorous style, and is very enjoyable.

This book is not quite as pessimistic as Twain's other great travel writing, 'The Innocents Abroad,' but it does include some interesting and unorthodox views which often prove hilarious. Twain spends time as a gold and silver seeker, a speculator, a journalist, and a vagabond (as he himself puts it), and puts a unique spin on each of these occupations. As far as travel writing goes, this book is indispensable, and it also proves quite valuable (odd as it may seem) in any thorough study of frontier life in the American West.

It seems to me that everyone is happy with the book, but is it really that good? In my opinion it's far from perfect preparation guide for OCP exam. It's true that author covered *almost* all topics from OCP preparation guide, organization of the book is indeed good, questions at the end of each chapter and sample test at the end of the book are real gems. Even typographical errors are almost gone in this edition compared with author previous edition Oracle7 to 8 Upgrade (which was probably not proof read at all).

So, where is the problem? First I found layout of the book simply terrible, it really hurts readability of otherwise more or less well-written chapters. You'll probably need a set of markers at hand while reading to make clear distinction of key words, wrapped syntax and dense sections. Extensive usage of boldface and lack of white space in this book makes this even worse and as such worthless for any kind of reference in the future (ok, this last one is perhaps too much to expect from cram book, after all ;-).

When I prepared for upgrade exam from Oracle 7.3 to 8.0 I used Exam Cram study guide as my primary source of information, ILT Courseware as second and Oracle technical manuals for detailed explanations on particular topics as third source of information. This time around I think ILT courseware is better exam preparation resource than Exam Cram book Oracle8 to 8i Upgrade. ILT is certainly more readable (thanks to clear layout) and more comprehensive at the same time.

Topics that I found incomplete or with missing explanation in this book are: LogMiner (incomplete description of V$ views), LOBS (temporary LOBS...), DBMS_REPAIR, FGAC (data dictionary views?), Constraint Changes in Oracle8i and last but not least, chapter on Resource Manager is a clear example of how NOT to present new feature in study guide.

You should also be careful while reading and answering the questions because some statements (answers) are wrong, for example false statement introduced in Oracle7.3 to 8 Upgrade book that makes you believe that partitioning of bitmap indexes was not possible in Oracle8 is still here, wrong definition of normalized / denormalized dimensions and unclear definition of prefixed index are also examples of possible misunderstanding of the topics.

So, the question is should you buy this book if you already have ILT? Don't forget that the main objective of Exam Cram books is to help you pass the exam (not necessarily help you to really *learn* something), I'm sure this book will deliver that promise. Those of you without ILT don't have much choice, Mr. Freeman book is still the best OCP 8 to 8i study guide on the market. Good luck!

With this book and experience as my preparation, I just passed the 8i upgrade exam with plenty of room to spare. The average question on the real exam is actually easier than those found in this guide. Just as I discovered with the Oracle8 Networking Exam Cram text, I scored 10% higher on the one that counted.

There were no fill-in-the-blank questions on the real exam this morning. But knowing the material well enough to successfully deal with that type of testing will enable you to navigate through multiple-answer / multiple-choice format without a problem. I do not fault the authors for this variance; Oracle most likely changed the format (or much less likely, fill-in-the-blank questions still exist, but were not randomly selected for my test).

There were many typographical errors that prevent me from giving this work 5 stars. It seems like search and replace was used overzealously (e.g., "Cer1tification").

So when will Exam Cram be releasing a book for the "8i to 9i Upgrade"? ...

I found this book to be an excellent upgrade guide with just the right emphasys on the new features and still maintains good integration with general Oracle theory. Easy to read and few errors.
One warning, expect the real exam to be much more difficult than the book's questions.
I read this guide three times and passed the exam with 80%.

I read previous version of this book. It's a wonderful book with an excellent Reading Section. Its Toefl essay section is all that one need to write a good essay. Prior to reading its section, I scored 3.0 on TWE and after it- 5.0. So, it teaches you how to write essay even if you didn't write american essay before. The listening section is also full and very comprehensive. SO, if you have a patience and read it, you'll improve your score greatly, but no more than 560-80, if you don't use another listening sources as radio and TV. However, grammar section is not very strong. Among many books I read, I found useful only Barron's grammar. Cambridge's grammar is understandable only if you read Barron's before. Otherwise,you'll find it a bit difficult. But it has a good quiz for each grammar lesson(Barron's quiz is very simple and don't give you an assurance in your knowledge). I would recommend this book for everyone who want to score high together with Barron's grammar. Actually, I scored 610. So, decide it by yourself, but allow at least 3 months for whole book review.

1) The best Essay section. After doing all excercises you will able to map out a very good essay within 30 minutes. I had Kaplan, Princenton, Cliff's, Barrons, and Delta, but this essay section is much much better. Any one who would like to have good score for essay needs the book.
2) Grammar section does not reflect real exam. Make no sense to practice problems you won't meet on the test. There is a lot of junk information which has never been used on the test. I took the test twice so did friends of mine. Remarkably enough, ETS and authors of the book have different perspective for English grammar. Problems heavily emphasized in the book will most likely completely ignored on an actual exam.
3) Reading section is very good.
4) Listening comprehension is good, particularly in terms of phrasal verbs and idioms.
5) There are 7 full lenght tests on the CD Rom.
For more practice with real full scale computer tests I can recommend you to buy Delta's Key for Toefl Tests (10 tests) or Cliff's (6 tests). In addition, Cliff's has very useful grammar section.

If you long to get higher score on the TOEFL, you should have this book. It explains grammar, structure and listening section of the test. The practice tests of the book are really helpful.