This comprehensive 600 page book showed me in detail how to set up, operate, and manage a restaurant business. The author covers everything there is to know about the very risky business of running a restaurant.

As a caterer looking to open a restaurant I also found the book very helpful. I didn't need recipes or help in sales - I needed help in running the financial aspects of my business.The chpater on computers was very helpful as well.The book is very easy to read and understand. Complicated accounting subjects are simplified, easy to understand and ( almost) fun to apply.

The books nineteen chapters cover the entire process of a restaurant start-up and ongoing management.The companion CD rom which contains all the forms is worth the modest price of the book alone. I would highly recomend this book to anyone in the industry now or who wants to get started with sound financial planning. Also the extensive resource guide in the back of the book helped me locate a manufacturer I needed a part from - I will use this book often.

This comprehensive and massive 600 page new book will show you step-by-step how to set up, operate, and manage a financially successful foodservice operation. The author has left no stone unturned in explaining the risky business of running a restaurant. Operators in the non-commercial segment as well as caterers, and really anyone in the food service industry will find this book very useful.The books nineteen chapters cover the entire process of a restaurant start-up and ongoing management in an easy to understand way, pointing out methods to increase your chances of success, and showing how to avoid the many common mistakes that can doom a start-up. The new companion CD rom contains all the forms demonstrated in the book for easy use in a PDF format.There are literally hundreds of innovative ways demonstrated to streamline your restaurant business. Learn new ways to make the kitchen, bars, dining room, and front office run smoother and increase performance. Shut down waste, reduce costs, and increase profits.

Now in a completely revised and thoroughly updated third edition, The Restaurant Manager's Handbook: How To Set Up, Operate And Manage A Financially Successful Food Service Operation by Douglas Robert Brown is a solid, no-nonsense, all-encompassing curriculum to teaching oneself the basics of the restaurant business. An exhaustive compendium of step-by-step instructions, advice, checklists, legal issues, as well as encompassing an extensive listing of state restaurant associations (and so much more!) fill the pages of this "must-have" reference for anyone with a serious and dedicated interest in the dynamics of food service oriented small business ownership. A companion CD-ROM with printable versions of all the handy and useful sample forms is included.

Well, having read the trilogy in five parts over 50 times, I still believe it is the greatest book ever written.

Adams has an uncanny ability to draw the reader into the story, and almost, but not quite, fail to leave you totally confused. (Read through it again, you will eventuallt get it).

His characters are whacky, insane, funny and stupendously irritating at times, much like you and I. That's Adam's great strength, he makes you think that someone is normal, and then throws something like "his one head looked at the other and conferred".

So, read this trilogy, even if it's just to get the telephone numbers of the Pope and the KGB if you want to leave the planet.

The main character, Arthur Dent's interaction with most of the others is brilliant, even bordering on amazing, and Ford Prefect will leave you wanting to take a big towel and strangle him.

But don't take my word, read it yourself and see what the meaning of life is....

The book says it all, the man(Douglas Adams) is a writing genious. He tells you everything you wanted to know about "Life, the Universe and Everything" Did you ever wonder how life started on the planet earth? Dull name earth, but anyways, read the book and you will know. What is 42 and why do the mice want my brain? I do not know this but you will if you read this spectacular book. This is the best book ever written by mankind. You can easily base a philosophy by this book. Life begins to make so much sense after you rad this book. There is no better!!!

The interconnectedness of all things is to be appreciated in much the same way as this chaotic fiasco that begins with the destruction of an insignificant human's (Arthur Dent) home, and coincidentily the insignificant spec of a planet (Earth, because they stand in the way of societal forces which value the good of the many more than the freedom of the individual. Douglas Adams, through Arthur Dent, shows that this is not true. A very funny read! The video for the Hitchhiker's Guide is also exceptional.

This is the best SCI-FI book I've read so far. Its funny and really amazing. After reading it your concept of live, the universe and everything will change totally, you will never leave your tower or even your Sub Ehta Sense-O-Matic. Don't miss it or you will regret it. Mariano Luna :)

The increasingly inaccuratly named Hitchhiker's trilogy (5 books) is the absolute best series I've ever read. I love the characters, plots, and surprises that come in along the way. If you can't travel through time and space on your own, it's worth the time to hitchhike along with Douglas Adams on this wild ride. I recommend these books for everyone - I (obviously) think they're great!!!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy represents some of the most original, funny, spellbinding material that I've ever read. The first book contains the most creativity, but the least linearity because of the original format (radio shows). The second and third take off from there and create a crescendo of momentum that I wasn't able to put down (I quite literally read all 5 books within a few days time). The last couple of books might be the weakest, but that's mainly because they must follow such incredible prequels. I cannot overemphasize the entertainment that this series offers. The Hitchhiker's Guide represents a true genre-bursting collection. While at first glance these books might seem to appeal mainly to science fiction readers, they actually have very little in common with sci-fi and readers wishing for a sci-fi environment and story may not find what they expect. These books should appeal to any reader, but those old enough to recall some of the 1980's will especially be able to understand the author's period and setting.

This is a very emotional story told by an 800-year-old Douglas fir tree in the Pacific rain forest. The Tree tells of his life in the forest and the wonders that he has experienced over his long lifetime. Lyons lives in the Pacific Northwest, and camps and hikes in the rain forests there. He was inspired by the ancient trees there, and may have been told the story by the Tree itself.

The stunning, full color, two page illustrations are a visual feast. Each illustration is richly detailed with new treasures to be seen each time you look at it.

Over 800 years, the Tree has survived the wind, fire and snow, and seen the wonder of a young owl learning how to fly, the yearly return of the salmon, and the great glaciers melting. He hears bulldozers coming and wonders if it is his time to die...but then children come and circle his trunk and save him from destruction.

Information for parents and teachers about the Pacific rain forest and the story of the Tree are included in the back of the book. A portion of the proceeds of the book will be donated to the Jane Goodall Foundation and the Circle of Life Foundation that fosters conservation and social solutions.

This is a marvelous book to enjoy with children, to be treasured and read again and again, and to inspire children to fully appreciate the wonders of nature.

***** Wow! Looking at the cover of this new book from Illumination Arts is like standing at the base of a giant tree, tilting your head backward, and looking toward the heavens. The scope is powerful and compelling, and the colors are breath-taking.

This story is told from the perspective of an 800-year-old Douglas fir in the Pacific Rain Forest. The Tree tells of its history and the many things it has seen over its lifetime, as well as the wildlife it has seen and sheltered. Each illustration is so realistic that it feels possible to reach in and touch the rocks or to actually hear the babble of tumbling water, experence the flash of lightning, and tremble at the mighty roar of a bear. Children will also enjoy finding the many tiny surprises hidden within the pictures: A Butterfly, Dragonfly, Spotted Owl, Tree Frog, Mouse, Bald Eagle, Bark Beetle, and many others.

At the end of the story, there is an informative page about the Pacific Rain Forest that impressed me a great deal. After reading that page, I asked several children what country came to mind when they heard the words rain forests. Most of them mentioned Africa and one or two said South America. They envisioned a tropical climate with hot, humid jungles, big broadleaf plants, monkeys, and brightly colored birds. None of them knew that there was such a place as the Pacific Rain Forest right here in the United States. A temperate rain forest that is cool and wet, filled mostly with cone bearing trees, and stretches along the coast from Southern Oregon to the Gulf of Alaska.

I cannot say enough good things about The Tree. I highly recommend it as a book to be treasured and reread for years to come. It entertains the reader while teaching a love for nature's delicate balance and the urgency to act now in order to save our valuable forests from disappearing forever. Read it with a child and enjoy the light in his eyes as he searches its pages for each of the tiny surprises...

While recuperating from a back injury, Dana Lyons sat and played his guitar at the base of an ancient Douglas fir tree in the Pacific Northwest. Toward the end of his four-day rest, a strange thing happened: As Lyons puts it, gA fully formed song came flowing through me.h After playing the song for a local native tribal chief, the chief said he recognized the tune and explained how in his tradition each tree has its own song. The
Tree presents the song of that giant fir.

Thirty-two gorgeously illustrated 8.5-by-11-inch pages house the story. Each doublefold spread vibrantly depicts the Olympic Rain Forest in all its glory. Replete with spotted owls, timber wolves, blacktail deer, and one very scary grizzly bear, illustrator David Danioth puts readers smack dab in the middle of the forest with his spectacular artwork of airbrush, colored-pencil, and gouache depictions. In the story, bulldozers invade the forest, and the 800-year-old fir ponders its fate. Peaceful action ultimately saves the day when people encircle the trunk to prevent the treefs demise.

A beautiful book for children or adults of any age, The Tree boasts forewords by environmental activist and author Julia Butterfly Hill (who spent more than two years living in an ancient redwood) and renowned folk singer and songwriter Pete Seeger. A portion of the profits from the bookfs sale go to Hillfs Circle of Light Foundation and to the Jane Goodall Institute. The Tree sports an eye-catching cover illustration that gives a taste of the beauty to be found inside. The book will be a welcome addition to the childrenfs or environmental sections of your shop.

This is an excellent book on understanding networking and the internet. I can't praise this book enough. You must have this as a reference.

What this book provides: --- This book explains the concepts of networking very clearly. You should be able to walk away from this book with the fundamentals on a variety of networking subjects. If you are looking for a book to give you an excellent introduction to networking, this is it.

What this book does not provide: --- This book will not make you an expert in any one subject. If you want to know everything that there is to know about routers, for example, then this is not the right book for you. END

This is the best book to read for people who want to start into the world of computer networks, but may not come from a computer science background. If you've got a good background in CS, or are already familiar with computer/math theory, go get Andrew Tanenbaum's 'Computer Networks', as Comers book will probably not hold enough technical details for you.

This book does not require much rigorous/mathematical thinking to read through and gives a great introduction to many networking topics. (a quick example of this is how Comer mentions the CRC computing techniques only to a certain, friendly level while Tanenbaum's book jumps right into the explicit details of doing the computations by hand!!!)

In his over-all progression from the physical, data transmitting wires of a network to software application's that use networks, Comer covers a good chunk of what networks are and how they work without losing you in detail's involving lot's of 0's and 1's. :) And if after reading this book you're still hungry for more knowledge on what you'll then know to be Computer Networks, then go read Tanenbaum's book.

Okay, so I say that this is the best way to read The Hobbit. And I am dead serious.

I know that annotated books can be difficult to navigate, filled with useless, pointless, or just plain boring information, and can be grossly oversized. That is not the case here.

So - here's the scoop.

The original story is very nicely presented, with all original illustrations in color when possible, and in black and white elsewhere. The type is nice and clear, very easy to read. (Many cheaper editions are also rather hard on the eyes. Check the print before you buy, folks!)

The illustrations are printed very clearly, and with very good notes on what they are.

And then the annotations - useful, engaging, and very well done. You will WANT to read these. We discover how the book was written, and what was changed between editions. (There were many changes made so that The Hobbit would conform more easily to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.) There are fascinating tidbits about Tolkien's life and the experiences that made their way into the story.

The forward tells about the writing of the novel, and the appedices give additional details about the text.

There are also many illustrations from other editions of the book. These are varied, from thought-provoking to not-provoking.

And the book is not too big. Some editions are simply too big to be read, but this book is reasonably sized so that you can actually READ IT! In fact, I have not read any other edition of The Hobbit for years, since the original annotated version came out.

The new edition is very much worthwhile. Enjoy!

This version of the Hobbit is a pleasure to long-time fans but will also serve new readers well. Anderson released the original "Annotated Hobbit" years ago but this new format with the annotations in the column most often directly next to the orginal book text is supurb.

Included are Hobbit illustrations around the word, a rich addition, but the real joy of this book is learning background and details about The Hobbit, author J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord Of The Rings. At times the footnotes are scholarly and at other times they are amusing gems.

Anderson has compared all of Tolkien's revisions and has researched the 'whys' 'hows' and 'whens' that helps reveal to reader the meaning of the text and the personality of the author.

My favorites are anecdotes about Tolkien's personal life that involve his family and personal history. They are facinating and at times touching.

WIthout rambling on too much, I can confidently recommend this version of "The Hobbit" as the best available.

This newly published, annotated version of THE HOBBIT is excellent for fans of the book. It may be TMI ("too much information") for the first-time reader. The text of THE HOBBIT settles in the center of the book while Doug Anderson's notations appear in the outer margins. At times it's a bit busy - but there's always fascinating reading! Tolkien fans are sure to get excited over this one.

Doug Anderson includes lots of sources in his notes. He quotes Tolkien's own letters, other fairy tales and legends that may have inspired Tolkien, as well as previous versions of the section he's noting. The Gollum section ("Riddles in the Dark") is interesting. Tolkien did some tinkering with the original Gollum story as its follow-up (LORD OF THE RINGS) was taking shape. Seems that George Lucas is not the only person who's revised previously released work! Tolkien was his predecessor.

Also interesting are the many black and white illustrations that Anderson includes, many from foreign editions of THE HOBBIT. Some of the art is hilarious, as it does not resemble Tolkien's characters at all! There is a nice color section of illustrations in the center of the book.

THE ANNOTATED HOBBIT is a handsome, interesting book to own if you're a fan of Bilbo and his adventures with the dwarves (or dwarfs? That's covered in the book as well!)

Very highly recommended... but be certain all your lights are on when you open this beautiful but disturbing book.

Although Barlowe's searing INFERNO imagery is rendered in a somewhat less photographic, more "painterly" style than his earlier books I have, it's dead-on target for depicting this eternally skin-crawling, hyper-grotesque netherworld. Helpfully described by a sort of narrative text, the twisted inhabitants of Barlowe's raging nightmarescapes purposefully go about their unending torments with skull-shredding focus: their horrors make bizarre sense.

I first went through this visually and spiritually cacophonous, masterful work on Christmas day. What contrast: listening to carols about angels from Heaven, while staring at demon-shrieking souls in Hell.

Final note; don't miss the deliciously caustic JUSTITIA OMNIBUS at the bottom of page 2.

Barlowe seems to have drawn his visions of hell directly from some deep, primordial ancient memory within us. His illustrations are haunting beyond measure, and seem to resonate with a subconcious picture of what many of us must think the hell of religion and legend must be like. His illustration style departs from his work on Expedition and his other earlier work. His style in Inferno has an ephemeral quality, leaving the distinct impression that there is still something just beyond the edge of perception, beyond the ink on the page. The text makes a perfect accompaniment, providing palpable texture to this world of Barlowe's. As dark as the subject matter is, this is a beautiful book and should definitely be in your libary.

Depicting an artist's descent in to hell, Barlowe's Inferno is a richly stunning masterpiece. This hell is not a simple pit of torment, not limited to one religions preconcieved notions, and definitely not a place you would want to be. Everything about it screams of human suffering as the souls of the damned are cruely ground down in to the very stuff hell is made of. One of the other reviewers mentions that the depictions lack sympathy for the souls of the damned, but indeed how can you have sympathy for the souls able to wonder when every brick of the behemoth structures surrounding them is itself a soul, when the very dirt is constructed of souls so old and torn they have become agonized fragments of dust. From the Demons Major and Minor with their regal stances and manor bearing witness to their once grace filled state, to the lesser demons completely alien and yet frighteningly recognizable, to the bricks that stare at you with their sorrowful imprisoned eyes, this book is simply captivating.

Barlowe grabbed my attention decades ago with his aliens book, but since that he moved on. Expedition is amazing, a masterpiece as it goes against most established cliche's and chauvinisms about how alien life is supposed to be. Barlowe puts a lot of though in his designs and the result truly fascinating. The guy can't write though.
When leafing through the D-IV book, set aside your preconceptions about alien worlds and let it sink in. Surely, real alien life will be even stranger, but the stuff in this book is already transcendental for 99% of earthlings. Barlowe scrutinously studies his own preconceptions, exorcizes them and dreams up weird alternatives.
Good news he's busy with a sequel, and I bet that's gonna be even better. Let's hope he get's someone else to write the explanatory sidebars.

Barlowe has created a detailed world full of amazing flora and fauna! The incredible art work in the book is amazing and will let your imagination fly! The only two things that would top this book would be a sequal or a movie!

I'm a fan of science fiction, but before reading this book, hadn't been too exposed to sci-fi art. Barlowe is a gifted host in the fantastic world of science fiction art. I read this book over a period of three or four days, and couldn't wait to get back to it. The pictures are amazing, and the story is gripping. Barlowe is an incredible artist and storyteller, and I hope to see more of his work in the future! Highly recommended.

Writing networked applications using modern operating
systems and languages looks like it should be easy, but it
is emphatically not. The na‹ve designer of networked
applications will encounter a thicket of problems including
lack of portability, distributed performance bottlenecks,
maintaining correctness during shutdown, and managing
recovery from partial failures.

"C++ Network Programming, Volume 2, Systematic Reuse with
ACE and Frameworks" by Douglas Schmidt and Stephen Huston

provides some powerful help in the design and implementation
of networked applications. This help comes in the form of
several frameworks.

A few words about the definition of "framework." The first
step up from writing applications that interface directly
with operating systems is to insert object-oriented wrappers
between the application and lower level services. These
wrappers are classes that encapsulate the low level,
functionally specified, services such as operating systems

and protocol stacks. This first step was taken in the
predecessor volume to the present book, "C++ Network
Programming, Volume 1: Mastering Complexity with ACE and
Patterns", by the same authors, where a collection of
wrappers, called the ACE wrappers, is provided that not only
raises the level of the application interface from
functional to object-oriented, but also provides portability
at the same time.

For example, consider an application that directly uses
sockets. This application would depend on the syntax and
functional details of that operating system's s operating
system's socket implementation. By inserting the ACE
wrappers, the application acquires an object interface to
socket capabilities, and in addition becomes portable across
a large number of compilers, operating systems, and
communication protocols.

But a set of wrapper classes does not solve the networked
application designer's problems, any more than a pile of
bricks is a house.

Frameworks, which are the subject of the present book, are
the next step up in power from wrappers. A framework is an
integrated set of classes into which application designers
plug code that is unique to their applications. The
frameworks described in the present book handle a large part
of the difficulty inherent in network programming, leaving
application designers to deal primary with their
applications' local functionality.

For example, one of the frameworks described in the book is
the Acceptor-Connector Framework. This framework relieves
the user of dealing with the numerous tricky details
inherent in the conceptually simple process of connecting
clients with servers, such as address formats, protocols,
initialization, and message queue locking.

Readers should be aware that the present book is not a
general-purpose text on network programming using C++; this
book is a focused exposition of the ACE frameworks. Readers
will be most comfortable reading this book if they are
already familiar with software design and architecture
patterns, including those described in "Pattern-Oriented
Software Architecture: Patterns for Concurrent and Networked
Objects, Volume 2" by Douglas Schmidt et al, and in the
famous Gang of Four book: "Design Patterns: Elements of
Reusable Object-Oriented Software" by Eric Gamma et al.

The large amount of code that implements the wrappers of
volume 1 and the frameworks of volume 2 is available for
download for free. This code is in wide use today.

Designers of networked applications, when offered a large
pile of code that purports to do a lot of what needs to be
done, must trade off the anticipated saving in design and
implementation time against the anticipated time to
understand what the offered code is intended to do and what
it actually does. This tradeoff can lead a reasonable
designer to ignore existing code in favor of hand-writing an
entire application. In the case of the ACE wrappers and
frameworks, as documented and explained by the two books
mentioned here, combined with the open-source nature of the
implementing code and its widespread employment in real
applications, make the result of this tradeoff pretty clear:
read the books, use the code.

This book is loaded with practical no-nonsense real-world design philosophies and pattern techniques. As an experienced designer and developer of networking applications, I really appreciate the powerful paradigms available in ACE, and this text does a great job of describing how they work and how to effectively use them while building on the foundations presented in Volume 1.

This book has definitely helped me in getting my head around the Reactor, Acceptor/Connector and Task patterns, since these are the patterns that I most actively use in ACE. It has also exposed me to several other patterns that I haven't had a chance to use yet.

If you're doing network programming in C++, and aren't using ACE, it's well worth looking into. The reoccurring patterns used in designing and implementing networked applications are all contained in the ACE framework -- and as a huge bonus -- platform independence (support for most popular operating systems) is built in with ACE's wrapper facades. Also, the ACE open-source community is actively enhancing and improving the framework, so it just keeps getting better and better.

The challenge with any good framework, is learning how to harness what's provided in it. C++ Network Programming Volume 2 goes a long way towards that end and both it and Volume 1 are essential for any developer serious about using the ACE framework.

As in the ACE toolkit itself, C++NPv2 builds on the work described in volume 1 with a focus on the more powerful and (in my opinion) more interesting aspects of ACE...the frameworks that make developing network applications a pleasure.

Although the book recommends that you be familiar with the underlying patterns before delving into the details, I think that anybody who has experience developing network applications will be able to fully grasp the power of these frameworks without necessarily having knowledge of the patterns.

The areas of the book I found most useful were the description of the ACE Reactor framework (Ch 3), Reactor implementations (Ch 4), the description of the ACE Task framework (Ch 6) and the description of the ACE Streams framework (Ch 9).

Use of UML sequence diagrams made it easier to understand the interaction between application and framework code. However, I think more space could have been devoted to the class diagrams to give a clearer picture of the relationship between application and framework classes.

I also found the highlighting of common techniques in sidebars to be very informative.

The only complaint I have is that this book wasn't available in January 2001 ;-(

This is a wonderful book with detailed pictures and descriptions of aliens light and dark,good and evil, cruel and kind, and large and small. It has vibrant illustrations that grab the eye, and descriptions that send the mind and imagination to worlds millions of light years away. You will not find these alien faces anywhere else but in this book. I would recommend it to any science fiction lover who can get their hands on it.

I first read this book when I was 10, and it freaked me out. It was one of the major reasons I began reading science fiction. This book can be reread endlessly without losing an ounce of wonder, for Barlowe's representations of alien anatomy are truly inspired. I constantly recommend this to my friends, and they are never disappointed, even the ones who can't stand sci-fi. Unfortunately, his paintings are much more interesting than some of the books they're taken from.

The premise of this book is: The authors have taken various characters from various science fiction works and have visualy recreated them and write about some of their culture from what is in the books. This is one of the best Science Fiction art books I've ever read!!! and if you've read some of the books that these aliens are recreated from it's even better!!!! Colorful pictures, explanations, and even a couple of pages showing the comparative sizes of each of the aliens!!!!