Alright, that title was a bit harsh. I did like the book overall. I found Mr. Tamm's initial level of dissection vis-a-vis Crimson to be a bit much for my liking, and didn't really feel that the book 'took off' until it became a diary of his experiences at one of Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft seminars.

The personal interpretation of the Guitar Craft process described by Mr. Tamm is a much more interesting and enjoyable read than the cold discussion of theory that precedes it.

If you're interested in Robert Fripp, King Crimson, or Guitar Craft, then your time will not be wasted.

I pretty much agree with the other two reviews that are here: it's a good book with lots of detail about each KC album as well as Fripp's solo material. The chapters devoted to the author's Guitar Craft experiences are particularly interesting. There *is* a lot of musical "pedagogy", but you have to remember that book was originally begun as a dissertation. (Tamm ended up dropping the project at the time and instead wrote his dissertation on Brian Eno, published as "Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound". That book is also good, but is REALLY HEAVY on the pedagogy!)

Anyway, the Fripp book, while out of print, is well worth seeking out. If you can't find it, though, don't despair: Tamm has made the full text available on his .......

Overall I felt the book was fair in most conclusions regarding Fripp's career choices, musical directions, and mastery of his instrument. There seemed to be a few conflicts regarding his position as a fan or an author of a subject. The most disappointing slections were those that included the authors lack of appreciation for Adrian Belew's contributions to Fripp's more recent work and Belew's amazing diverse talents. Belew is more responsible for resurrecting Crimson and their fresh sound than anyone else. All serious Fripp fans should read this book. Next subject Mr. Tamm try an objective biography of Adrian Belew!

Extremely wordy, and immensely poetic. These are attibutes which would make for a great read were one reading an overely dramatic piece of fiction, but which when incorporated into factual writing merely reduce the credibility of the fact. This is, ofcourse, not to mention the reduction of the readability of the book, and the ability of the reader to follow what "the heck" he(Wolf) is trying to say! The first seven chapters are incredibly rough, and by the time one reaches the last chapters, one is left gasping for life.

From the outset Wolf forces the reader to conceptualize with bold metaphors the complex socio-economic forces that have created and destroyed the first market societies in Meso-America. For example, in his account of the pre Colombian development of the area, small markets had continued to form large, "centripetal galactic systems" like the ones around Teotihuacan, Cholula and the Peten until the centers somehow failed. At that point, the "centrifugal" forces allowed the "satellite systems" to slip away, becoming basic "planetary systems," that functioned in "regional isolation." However, then inevitably the process of specialization, the division of labor and the creation of surplus began building towards yet another cycle of cohesion. "In this way, galaxies," he concludes, "... yield to solar systems, until another key area can generate power for a new metabolic cycle of integration." The metaphorical approach is a useful introduction to the problem of diverse development within the area, but the individual examples of social integration and disintegration are not analyzed in any detail. The bibliography is good but in need of up dating.

No one could invent a history more interesting than the actual events in Mexico and Guatemala. Wolf tells the story in a comprehensive way and with great flourish. This is one of the best single volumes I know about the precolonial era and the conquest; the later chapters are less significant. The book does require a pretty high degree of literacy, but it is worth the effort.

The book has some good tips on getting your voice mail messages returned, but a great many of these tips involve deception. I don't need to read a book on how to come up with whopper stories-that comes easily for most people. While lying may get someone to return your calls-that is not the reason for your call. You want to build a relationship on a solid foundation-lying to clients does not work!

This book is packed with fun and creative ways for having people get back with you. I personally used some techniques and was surprised how effective they were.

If you're impressed with platitudes, by all means read this book. It's amazing how obvious some of the recommendations are. "Target profitable customers, and avoid unprofitable ones." "Form a consistent corporate strategy, and stick to it -- until, of course, the time comes to abandon it, and then abandon it." Wow. Deep stuff.

If the authors had spent more time explaining how to know when to change strategies, rather than focusing on hindsight, this book could have been powerful. It's a shame, really. Singh and Clemons have published much deeper research in strategy and MIS journals. Knowledge@Wharton is free to subscribe to, and quite interesting, but there's no need to pay for two-year-old stuff.

This is one of the best book on information-based strategies. Book does an excellent job in brining new and old economy together.

First the good news: This book's production values are high, its photos are interesting and its text offers some interesting commentary on many obscure political entities which non-specialists rarely encounter in popular surveys of Levantine archaeology... Alas, something very odd is also afoot here: There is virtually no mention of the ancient - and obviously pivotal - kingdoms of Israel, Judea and Samaria... or the fascinating presence of Jewish communities in the late Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods which followed. This is like writing a survey of Mesoamerica up through the first centuries following the Spanish conquest - and willfully ignoring the very existence of, say, the Olmec. It produces a totally fractured and falsified pseudo-historical impression in the minds of unsophisticated readers, and it throws the entire work onto the heap of propaganda, rather than admitting it into the library of Science. The authors' affiliations with several so-called "universities" in Egypt and Lebanon suggests the reason why modern conflicts and the continuing Arab rejection of their Israeli neighbor seem to have trickled down into the historical realm, but such falsification is still disreputable and unworthy of either the authors or the EU publisher. Shame! Shame!

This book is one of the great additions to the Levant section in any scholarly library. It is well researched and very well illustrated. This reviewer is impressed by the rigour and the excellence of the research that went into this work. Especially commendable is the total absence of any and all the Biblical mythology that seems to permeate more vulgar works that appeal to the pseudo-literate.

I ordered the book because I thought it would help identifybuildings in the New York skyline. The book lists and describesseveral buildings of interest but the accompanying pictures are sketches and do not allow for easy identification. It was a dissapointment and I am going to request a refund.

This latest in City & Co's useful series of "50 Best" books is one of its most entertaining. It is almost impossible to miss NY's skycrapers, due to their size. But we do not always take the time to consider them individually. Nash's text is very informative, if at times a little dry. The real delight of the book is Parker's illustrations. With a single smooth line he regularly captures not only the appearance but the soul of these majestic buildings. And his humorous drawing style more than makes up for any occasional overseriousness in Nash's prose. Together the two men make a fine team, and their book of these big buildings is itself a little gem. Buy one for a friend, a visitor, an ex-Manhattanite. And keep one for yourself

The author, whose nom de plume suggests an unusual zeal for bathing, was pretty much toasted on some hyperbole-inducing drug with this one. Anyone who thinks it takes a "quarterhorse of a man" to carry around a light antitank weapon can't have done all his research. They made them "light" so they wouldn't have to hire quarterhorses to cart 'em around. And I wasn't quite sure whether the hero was human or some supernatural alien who's omniscient tanjian eye, ki, tau-tau, or origamic whatzit seemed best directed at nasty people's trigger fingers. Throughout the book I kept wanting to say, "Geez, get over yourself." Skip this one and try something else.

He was pretty much toasted on some hyperbole- inducing drug with this one. Anyone who thinks it takes a "quarterhorse of a man" to carry around a light antitank weapon can't have done all his research. They made them "light" so they wouldn't have to hire quarterhorses to cart 'em around. And I wasn't quite sure whether the hero was human or some supernatural alien who's ominsicient tanjian eye, ki, tau-tau, or origamic whatzit seemed best directed at nasty people's fingers. Throughout the book I kept wanting to say, "Geez, get over yourself." Skip this one and try something else.

I love all the authors books due to the simple fact that they can consume hours of time, and after page 50 or so all the characters meld into one to be either honoured, killed or pleasured by our hero - the tanjian Nicholas.

I advise getting this on tape as it is even more fun, to get confused and have a good laugh at - especilly good for long journeys!!!

His other books are good as well esp. Ninja and Miko

Microsoft require you a score of 705 to pass the 70-73 exam, and this book cover 80% -- 90% material of the test. Which means if you read this book very thoughtfully, you will pass, however, if you want to get a score higer than 900, you'd better have more real world experience or to read other related books.

This book is very good organized and well written. Chap 4(connectivity), chap 5(Running Applications), and Chap 6(Monitoring and Optimization) are the most beautiful part of the book. Chap5 can truly help you understand how to run applications on NT, this chapter does a better job than the MOC(Microsoft Official Curriculum). This book also does a good job on explaining the ' File delete Child' conception(page 189).

This book has very little typos which are inevitable and acceptable. For example, in page 203, table 3.15, if you want to change permissions of a printer, you must have Full control permissions, however, table 3.15 shows that you only need have Mana! ge documents permission, not Full control permission.

Another example, in page 397, table 6.12, the stop icon and information icon are misplaced.

Very few questions offered in this book are not designed well(most of them are designed carefully). For example, in page 142, question no.1 and no.2 need to be re-designed more carefully.

In page 230, the answer to question 12 should be B, not A, be careful.

After all, this is a very good training guide, and it did help me to prepare for the 70-73 exam(passed with 980).

I'd like to recommend this book to you.

Rui-Di Chu (FREDDY)

PS: This is not the only book I use to prepare for the 70-73 exam. I attended the class, read MOC, and an Exam Guide from QUE.

This book offers an excellent review of the material you will need to know to pass the NT Workstation exam. However, it will not stand on it's own as a comprehensive study guide. Use it to reinforce what you have already learned through other books or classes. Then take the test.

The CD that comes with this book is very helpful if you don't have a lot of access to monkey with the actual operating system. Besides the usual test engine (which lets you review by specifying as few or many objective catagories as you care) it also has a "flash card" program that is very unique. I know opinions vary easily in certification book circles but I am finding the content and layout to be very accessable.

Less than half of this book really deals with what the title suggests. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 are the only things of value to someone already familiar with the UML. The previous chapters try to give the database designer an overview of using UML for all project aspects; however, this is done much more cleanly in other books like UML Distilled or Visual Modeling With Rational Rose 20XX and UML.

The authors also present things with assumptions made about how the organization is structured: separate application and database design teams. This slant requires that the reader translate what is written to their particular situation. A more useful book would have stated principles that can be applied to various organization structures with appropriate practices.

Also, there is no advice given as to how to actually implement any of these UML extensions for database design in the available tools. This makes the ideas presented hard to put in practice and makes the book much more theoretical than practical.

Bottom line, there is not enough unique information here for the book to stand on its own. It would be better to roll this information into texts like the ones I mentioned at the beginning, and also give examples using currently available tools.

Despite the previous reviews of this book I decided to read it and am glad that I did. The authors took me through a thorough yet easily understood path of both UML and database design. Not being an expert in UML, but having a background as a data analyst, I found the book useful to understand UML as it pertained to how I would use it. The callouts for database designers were very helpful and by following a consistent real-world example, I was able to understand how I would design my databases using the UML. I now understand that I don't have to know or even use the entire language to succeed, but only the parts that are relevant at the time I am designing and now I can be on the same page as my development team too.

I wanted a book that would show how to start using UML for data modeling. This did. I too liked the DB Designer sidebars and the detailed case study. I thought the case study "story" sections were a nice change of pace from most software books' straight technical style. (And I've see such stories happen on the job too often.) This book worked for me.

I was looking foward to reading and enjoying the early work of Robert Adams. The essay and photographs work very well together but the cover images are the only ones that are reproduced with any quality. If you compare the tonal range of the inside reproductions with the cover work you will be disappointed. I kept the book because I did enjoy the essay and I collect books by Robert Adams. Too bad the reproductions are so weak.