This book has more errors than should ever be allowed in a professional product. There are typo's in both text and examples. The CD does not contain the source code from the book and I vote this the worst source ever of any computer based information I have found to date. It has left me very unsure of the publishers (QUE) standards and I may never purchase another QUE book again. I simply do not trust them. Spend your hard earned money on a different choice

"Special Edition Using Java, Second Edition" is an excellent reference to JDK 1.0.2. However, today (April 15), only a month and a half after being billed as "Computer Programming Expert Editor's Recommended Book, 03/01/97", it is a dated reference and the cover claims of JDK 1.1 coverage fall short--they are preliminary and peripheral to primary Java programming topics. For example, there is no coverage of the major changes in the Java event model of JDK 1.1, which permeate almost every application. I recommend waiting for better JDK 1.1 coverage, hopefully in Joseph Weber's new version, "Special Edition Using Java 1.1" which has not yet been released, but for which Amazon is taking orders today

This book is nothing if not large. This was QUEs attempt to capture the entire spectrum of JAVA and make it easy to understand (a task that they accomplished) but then the standards changed again. This is still a great book for learning Java; but, you will have to move on to other resources for news on the updates

I had the 6th edition of this book as the primary text book in my ME design class. It certainly has a wealth of data and formulae for design, but I found its explainations and examples very vague -- particularly if you're coming to it for the first time, or even the second or third time. In fact I frequently found myself confused by information I already knew well before reading this text. If you just need a formula, this is certainly a great reference. If you really need to know how that formula is applied or how to approach the problem, I'd look elsewhere. I also agree with a previous writer: the fatigue section is particularly lacking.

This book is not a reference on all the topics it mentions, but it will give you the fundamentals you will need most often. I have often come to this book after looking through more "advanced" texts and have been amazed by its simple treatment. This book, along with a design handbook is a must have for any mechanical engineer. Also as another reviewer mentioned, it comes in real handy when checking FE analyses. Because most of the text gives formulas, checking your mesh becomes very easy. But this is not a "one-stop" design book. You will need your basic texts on solid mechanics, engineering materials, and a good design handbook. (I use Rothbart, but you could use Marks')

This is a "must keep" book for any undergraduate level engineer. I've been out of school 6 years and still find myself frequently turning to this book to answer a design question. Often an excellent reference point for complicated FEA problems; get the back of the envelope answer in about twenty minutes and verify your model before too much computing time has been wasted.

This is a cheap book with lots and lots of sample exam questions, but many, way too many errors -- dozens! Wrong answers. Answers that contradict the text on its own pages earlier in the book, and repeated questions on the same topic (at least once with two different answers!) And explanatory text on the various exam topics is nearly non-existent at times and very erratic in its depth of coverage.

This book is a good starting point for the newly revised Windows 95 (70-064) exam. I just took it and scored 857 (minimum passing score is 632). The book goes into detail on topics that are heavily covered on the exam (networking with NT and NetWare, printing, system policies), and this makes it a great place to start studying. However, the 95 exam is full of nitpicky questions that are NOT covered in this book; you need additional sources to be completely prepared. In addition to buying this book, I'd recommend downloading the Win95 Resource Kit from Microsoft's Web site and spending some time going through it, especially troubleshooting. Also search the web for "70-064" to turn up helpful links. This is one of the hardest exams in the MCSE sequence, but if you use these sources you should be in good shape.

.... to pass the Win95 exam. This book is like all others in this series: Each test objective is examined in a seperate section while numerous fairly difficult questions test your knowledge. In addition, there are hands on exercises to reinforce the material. There are no pretty pictures here but this obviously helps keep the price at a very reasonable $25.00. The other recommended references would be the win95 resource kit and your hands on experience. A highly recommended book.

I was excited to finally find a book which really addresses the gaping holes of NT-out-of-the-box-security especially in an Internet environment. I pitty the company who's NT sysadmin has to read this book to get up to scratch. There's nothing in this book you can't find on the net in much more detail. Edwards has a very pleasant writing style, but to really cover this topic his book would need 5000 pages.

I read a lot of hype surrounding this book prior to its release. I was really looking forward to reading it and to answering most of my remaining NT questions as was promised on the web page. I got the book when it first came out and I have had it over a year now.

The book has solid basic information but does not convey the detail that was promised. NT has some real problem areas; some of these were not addressed. Making excessively positive comments in NT's regard (when they are frequently unwarranted) makes it *appear* as though Mr. Edwards hopes to ingratiate himself to Microsoft, thereby eliciting their support. However, it does little to win the respect of those who will ultimately rely on his work: his readers. We all know that there are problems in this OS and chatting it up while ignoring specific problem areas communicates (albeit unintentionally) a lack of concern for the integrity of security, its most essential building block.

It has been said that this book contains nothing that cannot be found, readily, in any number of places but the truth is, few technical books do. The job of the author is to compile that information and make it useable and relevant. This book's saving grace is that the information is all in one place and easy to access. I think it is a solid read for medium risk networks.

Again though, it does not contain the depth of information that is necessary to adequately maintain the integrity of a corporate network requiring maximum security (though few will use NT for this mission anyway). It has most of the components but does not paint the full picture.

Mr. Edwards gets to a subject of particular interest and you are expecting him to expand on it and enlighten you then suddenly you get a couple of references and are told to go elsewhere, or worse, he just stops. It may be okay to take this approach in HOWTOs and cribs, etc. but at $50.00 a pop, people want more...and they deserve more.

I appreciated the pointers and I think I learned much by tracking down the answers to my remaining questions but I bought this book as a productivity tool, and it was billed to be the ideal reference. I still had much additional research to complete, after reading it several times, which was not addressed or referred to in the book. The book did not save me as much time as it could have and should have.

Mark is clearly a knowledgeable individual. If you have followed his work at all, you know this. He has carved a niche for himself on the web and in other places. I have a lot of respect for most of his work, including this book.

However, I hope he will take another crack at this one and create a work that focuses on Maximum Security, addresses all of the necessary issues and is worthy of his abilities, the picture on the front of the book and the $50.00 I paid for it.

I am not a security expert, but I find it hard to fault this book. There are simply tons of information in it. I have had a lot of fun implementing what I've read.

The best part of this book is that it shows you how to hack into your own networks. That seems to me to be the only way to really learn security.

Joseph T. Robinson had an interesting career, being elected to Congress in 1902, elected Governor of Arkansas in 1912, in 1913 elected by the Legislature to succeed Jeff Davis (who is the subject of a really outstanding biography: The Wild Ass of the Ozarks: Jeff Davis and the Wocial Basis of Southern Politics, by Raymond Arsenault), and served in the Senate till his sudden death on July 14, 1937, having been the vice-presidential candidate on Al Smith's ticket in 1928. While the early chapters of this book, telling of Robinson's early years and his rise in Arkansas politics are interesting, the account of his Senate years is pedestrian and uninterestingly written. The author has a superficial grasp of the times in which Robinson lived, and while the book is well-footnoted and has a good bibliography, the book is actually a published thesis and was a disappointment to me. I have read a lot of senatorial biographies and must rate this one of the poorer ones.

This book provides a useful methodology to help translate vision into action. While I can't call this book the definitive guide to strategic planning, it is one of the sources I refer to when conducting strategic planning sessions with my clients. - Adam Lefton (adamleft@webspan.net)