The ultimate hypocrisy. Here's a book full of ideas lifted from analysts and magazines, written solely to cash in on a trend. Perkins thinks so little of his advice that he did not follow his own suggestions. His magazine, The Red Herring, is a textbook example of dotcom excesses, bloat and "what goes up must always go up" thinking. Long after publication of the first edition, he was blithely making the same foolish mistakes he warns against in his book. As a result, the magazine went through a series of layoffs and downsizings and continues to teeter on the brink of insolvency.

Tony Perkins is a master of getting invitations to events in Silicon Valley and sucking up to the insiders. But trust me, you do not want to waste your money on this cynical, hypocritical advice from someone who is a business failure.

I have to disagree with the reviewer from Mountain View. Maybe he's in the industry and therefore knows all the inside information that's to be found in this book, but for those of us who are just trying to figure out how best to manage our portfolios, this book is a must.

The Mountain View reviewer says that "much of the book consists of a rehash of familiar and/or obvious information." Well, that information is familiar now precisely because the first edition of Internet Bubble made it so. The Perkins brothers were the first to dissect the financial food chain that
exists between VCs and investment bankers. I read that first edition, and I'm glad I did. It saved me from losing my shirt.

Given their track record, and the fact that I'm still keeping some of my assets in stock, how could I not read the second edition?

As for the Doerr quote, I was frankly amazed to see it, because the Perkins certainly don't treat the guy with kid gloves in the book. Maybe Doerr was just being honest when he called Internet Bubble the best researched book on Silicon Vallley ever. I know I agree.

By Jamis MacNiven, Just the pancake guy
I run the lamest bookstore in the world. We have no books and I haven't necessarily read the one I'm reviewing. So what difference does that make? I'll probably outlast Amazon and no one paid any attention to my review of the Internet Bubble in 1999 (at least I didn't) so this is just perfect for our through-the-looking-glass-world of today. OK, maybe I had a peek at the galleys and I can say that The Revised Edition will be an even bigger success then its predecessor. Michael Perkins and his brother Tony are the ultimate insiders as founders of the Red Herring Magazine (the only magazine we carry). These guys simply ran the math and said, in the first edition, (I paraphrase) that we were living in a house of cards so flimsy that when a slight breeze came by the Internet stock market was going to come tumbling down and all the kings horses...
They provided a long list of stocks with the recommendation to sell immediately. I must admit that I was swept away but the promise of unearned riches so I ignored the warning and I was even all set to move my little gray-haired mother into some pretty snappy startups (I had all the hot tips). She was so old fashioned that she decided to buy certificates of deposit, a piece of a Hollywood movie and a trailer park in Santa Barbara. The CD's barely broke 4% and the trailer park moved up smartly but the movie (an embarrassing teen flick) has returned about 250%. And she hasn't even seen the movie! "Is an average net pretax of 140% good?" she asks with a straight face.
The Revised Edition summarizes our fall from grace but also shines light on many new areas of the business from which the next great thing will hopefully emerge.
In Silicon Valley we continue to demonstrate brilliance, toughness and an unquenchable optimism and this means we will learn from the past and keep on creating the future. You would do well to heed the Bubble books and when in doubt, listen to your mother.

The comments of the last reviewer really says it all. I bought this book expecting to get some good tips on locking down my NT environment. Instead the book is mostly theory. Not a complete waste, but not as useful as I hoped.

This is a really big book (almost 900 pages) so I assumed that it would include a good overall discussion of security (which it does) as well as an in depth series of recommendations on how to configure various parts of NT in order to secure it (which it really doesn't). If this book was titled Network Security, I think it would be worth 5 stars since it does a great job discussing that topic. Unfortunately, the authors chose to call it NT 4 Network Security which would lead the average reader to assume that there are going to be specific security tips for NT in it. The lack of specific instructions is disappointing. For example - the authors spend just two pages discussing the NT audit facility. I was really looking for in depth analysis and discussion on how to configure it based on your security needs. Other areas that are lacking are some of the registry settings one could make to close certain well known holes in NT 4. Bottom line - for a 900 page second edition there should be more specifics for NT if you are going to call it NT 4 Network Security.

I have several Windows NT security related books on my bookshelf. I find most of these lacking in one respect or another; that is why I have several of them. A friend introduced me to NT 4 Network Security. I borrowed her copy to read over the weekend and was so impressed I ordered my own copy before the weekend was out. The book is not only thorough and detailed, but it is fun to read. The authors explained a lot of network security terms that other books did not. They set aside important points in text boxes called "Reality check" and "Policies". They shared a tremendous amount of experience from not only the network administrator's perspective, but also the hacker's perspective. The real-world experiences alone made the book worth twice its price. After my first weekend reading this book, I came away with a 'hitlist' of over 20 items to check and secure on my own network. Even if you have previously read another networking or Windows NT security book, this book will been enlightening and entertaining. I'm glad these guys are on our side.

This book never comes close to presenting istself as a stand alone subject for learning java. Especially not in 21 days or 100 days, I would challange if it could be done in a year. This book is poorly written with enormous amount of errors , not just in the text but in the program listing themselves. I doubt if this book was proof read or even if any of the programs where written and carried out to the extreme to see if they really worked. While this book covers a lot of topics there are poor to no examples on any of the material that is covered.

This book alone with the second edition is being used for a subject class for a college level course. The second edition is not as bad as the first , tho , what are the odds of the same program appearing in both books and in different formats and yet neither one will run when you get done. Well you just have to present them to the instructor and ask him to give it a go . oh! it wont run . maybe we ought to throw out the books. Heres an idea lets get hold of the auther , you mean they wont answer there email. WOW , and to think we buy this junk and nobody ever sits down and looks it over. Simply amazing. so if you are interested in java , i know two books at least to stay away from.

i have a library of several books that i use for reference, and i could not at this time recommend one. If there is someone out there who has some great degree of results let me know . It could also help others.

If i had to choose one it would be the " complete reference of java by Naughton / Schildt ". while not the best it does answer a lot of questions.

learing java you need to really be exposed to layouts ,events networking and windows. this book falls short on all accounts.

yes i am still working on java , i like the langauge and will learn it one way or another .

so happy programming to one and all.

do drop me a line

I tried learning Java from this book and failed. Perhaps I shouldn't blame the book but rather my lack of previous experience with object-oriented programming. In any case, this book did not cover object-oriented design sufficiently or clearly enough for it to click. If you already have this background, perhaps this book would be of more use, but if you are trying to learn Java and have never taken C++, Pascal, or any other object-oriented language, I would look for another book.

This is the best book I've read on Java. It covers the whole language, not just a piece, and covers the all important toolkits such as AWT. The true test of a book that teaches a programming language is this - can you program in the language after reading the book and working through its exercises? This book passes the acid test with flying colors. After working through this book, you will be a productive Java programmer

The book was not very well written, and why he felt the need to devote 70 pages describing in copious detail all 30 of the Dow stocks is beyond me. However, his 30 year zero-coupon analysis does have something going for it, and the inflation rate is a good predictor for a change in asset allocation.

I think the ideas in this book are absolutely crucial to investors, but I'm dissappointed by its inconsistencies & omissions. There is no concrete demonstration of how O'Higgins arrived at such spectacular returns, for example, in a particular year, by investing in zero-coupon bonds. 24% annual return is awesome, but it would be nice to see an example of how this would happen in a particular year, some hard data for the novice investor to see (not just total annual returns, year by year). Especially someone (like me) who knows virtually nothing about bonds are finds it hard to beleive that this "safe" investment could provide an 80% return in _one year_. He does not go through even one example to illustrate the process of allocation of his portfolio, so there are some details that I have not figured out after several readings. He also suggests in his section about stocks that he will later explain how to invest in small-caps, since they outperform blue-chips over time, but he never does, at least not in _this_ book! (Maybe this book was pieced together from sections of his old book, Beating the Dow?) I am deeply suspicious that no one edited this book as a whole work, that it was a cut-and-paste job with some new chapters on bonds.

Some information he provides like pieces of a puzzle and later uses, expecting the reader to put the pieces together. An example is the use of the change in the price of gold as an indicator of inflation, about which one of the earlier reviews complained.

Rather than taking on faith many of his derivations, I think I'm going to have to do some more research before I follow this strategy. That's my main gripe -- there is still work for me to do after reading this book, to confirm the annual percentages and cumulative returns that he claims. I am, however, convinced by this book of the value of bonds in an investment portfolio, and of the importance of contrarianism when it comes to investing.

This is one of the few stock market books from the 1990s that will be read and appreciated many years from now. While silly stuff like "Dow 36,000" & Harry Dent quickly withers away, O'Higgins advice gains credibility every day in this apparently multi-year bear market. Several web sites (beartopia dot com & others) mention this book. Perhaps the book's title should have substituted "zero coupon bonds" for the word "bonds." Do look up the authors corrected list of investment steps here at Amazon, however, do not let the slightly sloppy editing deter you from learning this powerful investment advice. The more knowledgable one is of the market, the more one appreciates O'Higgins and his two works. This book's advice works in bull and bear markets.

and it was from that point that I really did finish reading this book.

The book deals with our recalcitrant hero, Harris, a small time hood that escapes from New York to, believe it or not, Cuernavaca, to go into hiding from some other small time hoods that he had cheated out of sufficient money for him to enjoy 500 dollar prostitutes.

And, oh well, that want the story is mostly about to decide whether the mexican, and some Califonia girls that Harris beds are actually prostitutes or just whores that enjoy the attention.

Although the book was interesting I can't really say that it was all that erotic though the author certainly did do some study of the strange and wonderfull in Mexico.

So if you are expecting eroticism, dont buy the book, if you are expecting lots of great sex, dont buy the book, if you ecpection an in depth look at the Mexican culture, dont buy the book .... otherwise .. well .. nuff said OK

I was looking through this in a bookstore to see if it would be a good recommendation for a friend wanting to learn java. Save your money. Lemay turns simple concepts into convoluted blather. There are better books with fewer errors.

1. This book contains too many erors. most examples do not work. 2. It has NO JAVA 1.1 in it. 3.How it got published is a mystery. Anyone wants to learn JAVA needs to look elsewhere. this one SUCKS! To Laura (the author) Do this world a favor,write about things you really know and write less. T.I.A

Wow this is really beginning to piss me off. I see all these different editions of java books by Laura Lemay with tiny little differences. This book is called Java 1.1 Interactive Course but in the middle it mentions that the current version of the jdk is 1.0.2! The only part where it talks about java 1.1 is near the end and thats just a small summary. (Wow its exactly the same as teach yourself java in 21 days with a few new chapters and sessions and chapters instead of days. This is not a very good book for learning java because it contains no exercises. This is like reading a book on math with no exercises! It does try to cover everything about java but it fails to explain it in a clear manner and does not go into detail. Look elsewhere for really learning java but look here if you want some CEUS.

This is a modern erotic story where our heroine, licentious (...) that she is, ties up with a wealthy man and his wife and secretary into an escapade that, unfortunatlely becomes muddled in the middle of the book ....

I was Ok until abt the middle of the book when our heroine, Katherin, flies to a Pacific island with her supposed mystery man to meet up with his very sexually liberated wife Miranda .... after that the story seemed to completely fall appart for me ...

Yes the sex is hot in this book that is why it rates 1 star .... also ... seems to me that the publisher or someone goofed because the back cover of the book, and the ed review talks about some girl named 'Anna' ... troed has hard a sI could to fnd an Anna in the book ... I also think the person that did the ed review also only read the first half of the book and then got the name wrong ... LOL

I guess Ill just have to put this book 'Dark Games ' into a dark corner ....

Please note that the Michael C. Perkins who co-authored 'The Internet Bubble' and 'A Cool Billion' is NOT the same one who wrote this particular book.