I am sure buried somewhere within this massive text is something really useful about COM. But, I couldn't find it. Mostly its just a bunch of dated material rehashed and renamed. Inside COM and Essential COM show the obviously flaws in this book.

My favorite COM book.

This book is about code. Each page presents or discusses code samples. Each paragraph focuses on one topic and covers it concisely. It is refreshing in a world of excessive prose.

Warning: this book approaches COM as Petzold approaches Windows, at the very base level. It is a good book on fundamentals but won't teach you that much about CComObject, for example. Fine with me, fundamentals are important.

This book gives provides good hands-on examples of writing ActiveX (OLE) controls. It focuses on OLE, covering COM from the OLE perspective. Lots of examples with good explanations. Platt offers some refreshingly practical information about ActiveX control development. He seems to have lots of real-world experience with the technology. The organization of the book is somewhat quirky. It is built around the example code.

This is an abyssally written, horribly researched, inaccurate, unorganized babble of idle gossip about some truly great artists and writers. The author should not attempt to write about things beyond his limited ken. What a travesty that a publisher would agree to print such garbage!

As shallow look at some shallow men, specialy Platt Lynes. Only Paul Cadmus seems to have some reedeming qualities, and he is portrayed as undersexed and remote. I am glad I did not know any of these men.

My sole reason for acquiring this book was to learn more of the very private-seeming artist Paul Cadmus and to uderstand how he and Lincoln Kirstein came to be inlaws. As a result of the focus on George Platt Lynes, I will pursue more of his work as well. This narrative/history clarifies the various Cadmus paintings featuring Platt Lynes, Monroe Wheeler, and Glenway Westcott plus additional models. Personally, their sexual orientation is of no interest to me. Their art and contributions to art are indisputable. I enjoyed Mr. Leddick's presentation, which was fun and breezy. I look forward to locating Platt Lynes exhibitions and hope to view original Cadmus paintings before long. As for Jared French, imagine my surprise to discover a painting of his at the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, NY. Not once was there a single mention that any of these gentlemen might be fans of baseball, but you just never know, do you.

Bill Platt details and analyzes the tensions between Black Americans and Latinos. He covers a range of controversies from Miami, to New York, to Los Angeles. He argues why the two minority groups need to get along better. I have two major problems with this text. First, it overlooks the many instances in which blacks and browns get along quite well. I am an African-American and I think that the majority of us would say that we get along better with Latinos than we do with whites or Asians. Particularly in this age, many minority programs have to be split between blacks and Latinos (thus the proliferation of made-up words like "Af-Lat", "Blatino", "Blackano", etc.), thus forcing the two groups to see eye to eye. Further, I think the book is written in a simplistic style that borders on insulting the reader. I love the topic, but I was a little disappointed by the book.