In this book, one can learn that: The internet started as a Defense Department project in the 80's p. 120 The proper way to search for pager manufacturing in internet web search engines is just to mention "pager", and not worry at all about other key words or symbols. p. 124 That, according to an intelligence project, pager repair could be a great business. p.139 I was lead to believe by a book review that this book would give me a great deal of information about passive intelligence gathering. It does not live up to its promise, and lacks credibility for so many factual (1,1969 2, +pager +manufacture + industry +trends ) and analytical (3 I threw my cell phone away, and got another for free)errors. What a shame.

I work as a professional performing due diligence for VC firms and client companies in Seattle and Silicon Valley. I have been using many of the techniques for several years that enable me to rapidly assess business opportunities and develop turnaround strategies. I am also a member of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals.

What this book did was enable me to enhance my business process and better articulate this extremely difficult line of work. For example, the business process outlined on page 58 is crucial in that it identifies several "Stop" or check points with clients. Key in this type of consulting, especially where steps you take as a consultant may directly add risk to your client, it is important to know where to draw the line and involve them for a decision. The authors clarify where the key decision points are when it comes to going from passive to semi-active, to active intelligence gathering. Critical, as time is money to you. But! to the client, information - or exposure thereof also means risk that could become your liability.

Consultants in this field are in the knowledge business, and one of the most difficult things to do is get the client to place a value on knowledge or intelligence. The authors, through wit and excellent real-world examples, spell out some of the keys to getting paid!! (pp 67). Naturally, this would go over the head of the casual reader who has never practiced and is looking for a "cook book" approach to due diligence of new business opportunities (i.e. see above commentary from Bogota).

This book is a "how to" book in that the authors have taken the time to clarify and rank several research tools and locations that one might not normally be aware of. This comparison alone is worth the money, as anyone who has used the web for performing research would agree.

The real brilliance in this book is subtle. By connecting the examples, you learn how to ask questions and iden! tify with what is important in doing intelligence research.! Again, for anyone who has gone in circles with clients who "don't know what they don't know", or worse yet, don't know how to value knowledge - this is critical to delivering fast, and minimizing your exposure.

Frankly, the Bogota guy didn't get it and has probably never performed true business intelligence. I agree that the coverage of the Internet web search engines, which used the example of finding information on pagers, is old news. The chapter's purpose was to show how more advanced tools outside of the Internet, such as Nexis, are preferred substitutes. That point was clearly made. However, this example was only used among 10 pages of chapter 5 (which was taken up with images of why the web doesn't work). The other 257 pp of this book are the meat.

My hats off to the authors for delivering a humorous text based on real-world wisdom that cuts through a very gray area that is as difficult to perform, as it is to explain.

As an investment banking anaylst, one of my primary jobs is build financial models of the companies we evaluate. One of the most underrated and (in my view) more important element of my work comes when we perform due diligence and understand the soundness of the assumptions we build into our models. Most analysts (in my experience) are too infatuated with their sophisticated spreadsheets and believe the sheer complexity of their models can compensate for a lack of understanding of the fundamental business they are set to evaluate.

The book does an outstanding job of articulating, at every step, the importance of challenging one's assumptions and systematically gathering, synthesizing, and =analyzing= information that helps to dig through the colored lenses of wishful thinking or purely numerical analysis. The occasional injection of humor is quite welcome - in a world of stuffy self-important books on business, here's a piece of work that was written by people who love what they do, and are adept at making you better at what you do as well.

The content of the book was usually clear. However, there is no glossary at all, and the index is horrible. As a textbook, this is unacceptable. Trying to study from it was a nightmare.

With this book, the writers adapted there previous release ("Ecology : Individuals, Populations and Communities", third edition) for easily understanding of the matter. But they don't just adapted it, they rewrote it. They focused, for example, on problems that are still unresolved. It has been written for students in ecology but also for everyone who wants to learn more about populations, evolution and ecosystems. I hope it will lead to a better understanding of ecology...

I can appreciate the author's intent - to create a more comprehensive guide to the wildlife of a region that is sorely lacking in accesible information. It is a pioneering effort, and I am grateful that such guides are being attempted. But after reviewing the bird plates I became quite upset - this guide will lead to many misidentifications due to innacurate portrayals and information, as well as omissions. While I can understand the impossibility of covering all the living species in a large and diverse region, it would be nice if the ones chosen were depicted accurately, and reference was made to similar species occuring within other parts of the covered range. For just one example, plate 45 shows four species of Motmot as being the ame size and shape, when the Tody Motmot is HALF the size (and a very different shape) of the others. While this is indicated (in small print), anyone relying on the pictures could easily become confused. Beletsky list Howell's excellent "Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America" in his references, but he clearly should have been paying more attention! As to omissions, if an abbreviated list is desired in the interest of keeping this book accesible for the more casual enthusiast, it would have been far better to at least focus on the species most likely to be encountered. While some rarely seen species are included, many quite visible and common birds are left out! And how could Beletsky leave out the Boat-billed Heron? Not only is this species an icon amongst Mexican birds, but it is a favorite species for boat tour operators on both coasts to find for visitors! After seeing what the bird plates are like, how could I ever feel positive about identifying other wildlife using this book?
On the positive side, I will reiterate that I am glad that such books are being written. There is often no information available (in practical form) on tropical reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, etc. But I hope guides like this will get a whole lot better! Skimping on information for portability is not the answer. Accuracy should be far more important. In Beletsky's favor are the habitat photos, and coverage of ecotourism and conservation issues.

Simply, a terrific wildlife guide and the best of its kind for Mexico. Chapters provided detailed information (with photos!) of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals found in southern Mexico. Recommeneded for any serious student of biology or dedicated eco traveler.

It seems Mr Duriez has also written a "Handbook" (the In-Print Encyclopedia) on C.S. Lewis. I don't know the quality of that work, but I do of this, and I mean to tell you about it. It might be good, but I would be wary of it, because this volume promises similar things but does not deliver its high promises. Instead, it offers SOME information, but nothing comprehensive.

The best counsel I can give unto you is to stay away from this book. There's a reason it's out of print people. It's only an average work, not even amounting to 300 pages. It's crossed reference, and in the end, feels like the work of someone wanting to cash in on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. There's much better works (such as Karen Wynn Fonstad, Paul H. Kocher, and David Day) on the literary creations of Tolkien. This book, calling itself comprehensive, is hardly that. This is the subtitle to make others look and buy - but withhold yourself on the hope that this is a first class volume. Its not. Its not a terrible volume, but neither is to an excellent volume. It's average, and for those who really want to get into the works of Tolkien, I would suggest to have this on your shelves along others, for different perspectives. But it's only use is that. On its own, no. With the money you were going to buy this, I'd recommend the much more interesting LETTERS OF J.R.R. Tolkien. If you are looking for something on Lewis' Narnia, go with Paul F. Ford's Companion to Narnia - a first-class reference work (the revised version). That's what a reference work is supposed to be like people, not this average affair.

Mike London

This book is good for somebody new to Tolkien. There are some more complete handbooks/encyclopedias for Tolkien's writings out there, but I think that a newbie might find them overwhelming.

This book is firmly focused on the Lord of the Rings trilogy, drawing information from Tolkien's other books only if it provides useful background to people or events in the Rings trilogy. For instance, there is background on an ancient marriage between a human man (Beren) and an elf woman (Luthien)that sets the stage for the romance between Aragorn and Arwen. My understanding is that Tolkien's other writings contain many other stories, characters, and settings that are not necessary for the understanding of the Rings trilogy.

The Rings movie was my introduction to Tolkien. Since then, I have read the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit. I fully expect that as I continue to read Tolkien and continue to be fascinated by the world he created that I will buy a more complete handbook. But for now, this is a good source of information.

There are far too many typos (source codes, etc) in this book to recommend it to anyone. Bet the author wrote this book with one of those devices.

The credentials of the lead author are top notch. The book covers a variety of topics that will be important to developing for wireless Symbian devices.

The examples in the book are Fun. These include XBomb (a game), "The Little Black Book", The DiceMachine, Whist, and more.

Published in England. Nicely done. Lots of illustrations. Text is very interesting. The only problem is: it is too short. You can read it completely in under 10 minutes. They should have included more kings and queens and more detail on the ones they did include. Its billed as being a children's book, but the names of some of the kings and queens were difficult for me and I have a master's degree.

From the historical roots of management to the management styles of today, this book focuses on the managerial side of the manufacturing environment. It gives a good overview of different management styles and case studies that support each of the styles offered. It is not an in-depth book on management, it just provides management foundations. It is definitely a good book for an introductory course on manufacturing management.

The quality of the speakers in this collection varied. Some, like those by Fred Friendly and Tom Brokaw, were interesting and thought-provoking but the decline in talent from lecture to lecture was obvious - the last one was by conservative ideologue and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, defending sleeze (sp?) on TV. The editors also did a poor job - all they had to do was transcribe some speeches. The fact that they wound up with spelling and grammatical errors just goes to show how quickly this work was thrown together. My advice - read the offerings by Wicker, Chancellor, Friendly and Brokaw and skip the rest.

Having been interested in cost accounting for several years this book was the answer to my prayers. Not only does it give in depth explanations, but it also brings accountancy to life with relevant data examples. This book really is a must read for anyone who wants to be someone in the accountancy proffession.

This book does not cover the Spider