This is the first volume in a collection of books on design criticism. The articles are pulled from sources like the Journal of the AIGA, Print, and EYE magazine. The topics range the "ugly aesthetic" to the state of design education. The articles are all decent none really stick out as undeserving of a place in this collection. Paul (IBM logo) Rand Contributes an interesting essay on what purpose logos really serve and Paula Scher talks about the way she runs her classes at SVA. The essays all provide some food for thought(even it the thought is " I'd like to smack this guy.")Buy it and keep it with you It's a good thing to have around while your waiting for a bus, a haircut, or a class to begin.

If you're a designer or visual communicator, this book is a must have for research, history, and critical insight. Throughful, provocative, and daring, Looking Closer gauges the role of design across social and cultural divides. Its articles are collected from magazines such as Graphis, Eye, Communication Arts, and the AIGA Journal. Furthermore, the book is cheaper than getting a subscription to those magazines!

A collection of essays from various magazines, designers and typographers provides the student with an unmissable reference guide. Excellent as it is not only an enjoyable, interesting read, but also fantastic for essay writing as it condenses a library of books into one small paperback. No student should be without this book!

The portable cards which constitute this 'book' are well-designed. They will assist any student who is taking undergraduate organic chemistry course prepare for revisions. Although that they lacked details in some respects, their coverage did embrace wide areas.
They are particularly useful in learning about the various nomenclature, as well as the physical and chemical properties of a functional group in a given homologous series.
"OrgoCards" impressed me with the way it handled those nucleophilic substitution reactions that members of Carbonyl group undergo. Despite its haphazard lessons on Acylation, its efforts on Alcohols, Aldehydes, Ketones, Esters, and Carboxylic acids are quite commendable.
This "OrgoCards: Organic Chemistry Review" should be seen either as a textbook complement, or a notebook alternative. I will suggest that you consider buying it if your lecturer is the type that is not enthusiastic about giving class-notes.

These Orgocards were extremely useful not only while studying for my organic chemistry course but especially for the MCAT.

I tried making my own flashcards but I found them immediately obsolete after I got Orgocards which contain the critical information in a very understandable and easy to read format. They were also really a critical part of my studying for the bio section of the MCAT since a lot of the detailed info from o-chem had become a bit fuzzy by that point.

A definite must buy.

I used it for studying the o-chem portion of the MCAT this summer. These cards are fantastic, full of details and great summaries and figures. It is too bad that it was not available a year ago when I was studying for the course. Highly recommended!

This book is a must have book, for those that want to do campaign s where you have mixed characters, or just want to give extra flavor to your stories. It about time White Wolf released a book to explain in cleaner detail, what really happened with the Tremere, what is all that brought them there, and how the Order of Hermes really feels about it. This is besides the point of making rules for the revenant, ghoul mages...

Using the framework of classic Greek drama for thefiction/metaplot parts, Cohen and DiPesa have put together the first compelling book of Mage's Revised Edition.

For some reason, even though he's listed on the cover, Mr. DiPesa gets no credit with Amazon. What is the deal with that?

It's a great book because of it's extensiveness.

Great tutorial that helped me get a A on my final ezam. Amust have to review important concepts and terms.

This softcovered text is an excellent compliment to Tintinalli's reference textbook. This text is also endorsed by ACEP. If you are a resident like me and you are preparing for the boards or if you are an EP practicing in a rural or general ER you will appreciate this book. It has all the in depth pediatric information that you would need without many of the ultra rare diseases that a dedicated pediatric EP needs to know. The set up of the text and it's sections/chapters should be familiar to anyone that owns Tintinalli. The chapters are easy to read and very well referenced. There are several well reproduced images to complement the text. There are no color plates, but the B+W images are adequate (x-rays etc). It would be nice and appropriate if the next edition would have color photos of pediatric rashes, but this is something that I suppose can be seen in many other sources. Nonetheless, a pediatric EM text should have this. The trauma and intoxication sections are particularly well done and provide information information not found in "adult" EM texts, like Rosen and Tintinalli. For the price, it is a very good investment.

The "Pediatric Emergency..." writen by Strange et al. (and
supported by the ACEP, what is not a minor fact) is a very
useful resource for the non-emergency pediatrician. The book
has a concise format and a practical approach for students,
interns, family and emergency phisicians. Very Good.

The first 95% of the book is fantastic. Shatner can really tell a great story and this book provides a great deal of depth to Kirk's character. Like others I feel that if you have not read the first two installments in the series you may find the final installment difficult to follow. Also there are a lot of references to stories and characters from TOS and TNG (my favorite being Tryla Scott) that non-Trek fans may find confusing. Fans of Star Trek are in for a real treat because as I said earlier, Shartner is a great story teller. I hedge only because I found the end of the book to be very disappointing. The role of the Preservers is murky---the change is Tiberus is a bit hard to believe. But as a whole, Preserver is probably Shatner best work! So the ending may be weak but this book does do a pretty good job of wrapping up all the loose ends from the first two books.

I look forward to the next installment---the adventure continues.....

It doesn't happen often that a famous actor becomes a writer. Far from everybody who tries makes it over to the other shore. The majority drowns somewhere on its way. One of those few who made it is the actor William Shatner who was playing one of the most famous captains in history of humankind, James T. Kirk of Starship Enterprise. After his alter ego's death in the motion picture "Generations", Shatner simply rivived Kirk and created a bestselling novel series around the captain of the Enterprise. His first Kirk novel wasn't a hit, but "The Return", his second, is one of my favorite Trek novels so far. His first trilogy ended with an equally good story "Avenger". "Spectre" was the beginning of Shatner's second spactacular trilogy in which Kirk must face a threat from the mirror universe. "Preserver" is the last chapter in this trilogy.

The beginning of the book is quite dramatic: Teilani, Kirk's wife, is dying, and only Tiberius, the protagonist's evil counterpart from the mirror universe, can save her. In return for Tiberius' support, Kirk is ready to provide his worst enemy with data that would help him become almost invincible. After a few space-battles and fist-fights, Tiberius' plans are ruined by an almighty species called Preservers. Kirk, torn between a second family tragedy (something went wrong with his and Teilani's child) and his duty for the Federation, joins forces with Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-E (although the TNG crew doesn't behave the way it did during its TV and movie times, I was quite satisfied with its presence in the book; for once Picard & Co. weren't completely helpless and didn't depend on Kirk and his former crewmates as they did in other books by this author) to discover the reasons for the presence of the aliens and their role in the development of the Federation. And, last but not least, they must prevent the end of the universe, which a group of scientists has predicted.

I don't want to spoil the rest of the story, but I assure that it will be plenty of dramatic developments you'll be shocked of. Unfortunately we don't see enough of the Preservers who made the impossible possible during the history of the Federation (Kirk got his command of the original Enterprise through the influence of those mysterious aliens). Apart from the missing Preservers, the story has minor logical flaws, which is ironical because Shatner obviously respects the Vulcans and tries to stay as logical as possible. For once, I was fully satisfied with characterizations which rise above the usual level of Star Trek novels.

One of the best aspects of this book is the profound irony which Shatner uses to describe settings. He takes the universe of Star Trek seriously, but he notices its flaws as well and is courageos enough to criticize them in a funny way. Another advantage of "Preserver" is the atmosphere typical for Sci-Fi, which we don't get in most Trek novels. There are many stages to make the plot larger in scale and a lot of action you can get tired of from time to time. And this novel gives us some ideas to think about, a surprisingly rare phenomenon in Star Trek books.

Anyway, "Preserver" is a very good novel with a nice plot, interesting characters, humour, a portion of Vulcan logic and much more. There are some weak points, all rights, but they are only minor and don't really disturb while you are reading. And you should do it if you are a true Sci-Fi fan!

PS: If you haven't read the previous 2 books of the mirror universe trilogy, I would recommend to do it because otherwise you will have problems understanding the beginning of "Preserver".

Preserver is the third book(and conclusion) in William Shatner's latest Star Trek series. What I find most amazing is that William Shatner was able to blend all the different elements he had been building up since the beginning of the series into a cohesive story and ending. He manages to merge Jim Kirk's Star Trek with Picard's, and adds the mirror universe and Preservers into the mix as well. The story is action packed, and true to how the characters would be expected to react. But just a warning; this series should be read through in order, in a reasonable time frame. Otherwise, you will forget what an seemingly unimportant event and be confused by the next events. You truly have to pay attention. Other than that, this is and excellent novel.

The Folger Library series are your best Shakespeare source. They specialize in Shakespeares' greatest plays and are quality books that are perfect companion and translator to Shakespeare. It is loaded with page after page of translation from the Old English expressions that are no longer in use to our modern talk, and pictures as well as historic background information on th Elizabethan era and Shakespeares' life. Hamlet is without question Shakespeare's greatest tragedy, remaining in our theatrical culture to this very day. It has become a conversation piece for English professors, dramatists and screen actors (Mel Gibson tackled the role in 1991) and even psychologists, who claim that Hamlet had the Oedipal complex, especially when they read the scene in which Hamlet is in his mother's bedroom. What makes Hamlet so great ? Why does this old play still come alive when performed on the stage in the hands of the right actors ?

Shakespeare, believe it or not, was a people's person and knew about the human condition perhaps more than anyone in his day. Hamlet deals principally with obscession for revenge. Hamlet is a prince whose father has been murdered under the evil conspiracy from his uncle Claudius and even the support of his mother, Queen Gertrude. Depressed, wearing black all the time, and very much as solitary as any "Goth" would be in our day, Hamlet laments his situation, until his father's ghost appears and urges him to avenge his death. The mystery still remains, is this ghost real ? Is it, as many in Elizabetheans thought, a demon in disguise ? Or is it simply a figment of Hamlet's own emotions and desire for revenge. At any rate, Hamlet's father appears twice and Hamlet spends most of the play planning his revenge. His most striking line that reveals this consuming need is "The play's the thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king!".

Pretending to be mad, he scorns even the love of the woman he genuinely loves, Ophelia, whose mind is shattered and heart is broken and who has an impressive mad scene. The deaths of Hamlet's friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, are also in Hamle'ts hands and a consequence of his revenge. The famous soliloquy in the play, is of course, "To be or not to be", taken on by such great actors as Lawrence Olivier and Orson Welles. Hamlet muses on the brevity of life and the suffering which can only cease through death, as he holds a skull and is evidently suicidal. Finally, the last scenes are the most dramatic. Hamlet duels with Laertes, Ophelia's brother, and with Claudius himself. The deaths of the main cast, including the Queen, goes to show how tragic the human desire for greed and revenge is.

This is Shakespeare's finest tragedy, and quality drama, best seen in a live stage performance, but that also works as a film. As for this book, as I said before, this is the Hamlet to have. You will become more acquianted with Hamlet and Shakespeare even more than taking a year's course with a teacher. This book itself is the teacher.

A tragedy by William Shakespeare, written around 1599-1601. Before the play opens, the king of Denmark has been murdered by his brother, Claudius, who has taken the throne and married the queen, Gertrude. The ghost of the dead king visits his son, Prince Hamlet, and urges him to avenge the murder. Hamlet, tormented by this revelation, appears to be mad and cruelly rejects Ophelia whom he loved. Using a troupe of visiting players to act out his father's death, the prince prompts Claudius to expose his own guilt. Hamlet then kills Ophelia's father Polonius in mistake for Claudius, and Claudius tries but fails to have Hamlet killed. Ophelia drowns herself in grief, and her brother Laertes fights a duel with Hamlet.

Hamlet's dilemma is often seen as typical of those whose thoughtful nature prevents quick and decisive action.

Hamlet contains several fine examples of soliloquy, such as " To be or not to be" and Hamlet's earlier speech lamenting his mother's hasty remarriage and Claudius' reign which opens "O! that this too too solid flesh would melt". Much quoted lined "Neither a borrower nor a lender be", "Something is rotten in the stste of Denmark", "Brevity is the soul of wit", "To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;" The lady doth protest too much, methinks," and "Alas, poor Yorick". Arguably Shakespeare's finest play and one that can be read again and again.

If you could read only one thing in your lifetime Hamlet should be that one thing. It is Shakespeare's best work by far, and within its pages is more meaning than you could find within the pages of an entire library full of books, or plays as the case may be. A mere review, a couple words, cannot do Hamlet justice. At times I realize that the language of Shakespeare can be difficult that is why I recommend the Folger version because it helps to make the images expressed by Shakespeare's characters clear to the reader, and allows them to get their own deep personal meaning from Hamlet, Shakespeare's greatest work, with out being bogged down in trying to decipher and interpret his antiquarian English. Don't just listen to what I say, or read what I write, read the play on your own outside the cumbersome restraints of a classroom and see for yourself what I mean.

It's long been a rule of Trek fiction that only the TV shows and movies (except STV) are canon, but when you've read a lot of Trek, and then read Avenger, you find yourself saying "What a minute... what about "Federation" and "Time for Yesterday"?" Shatner/Reeves-Stevens does a decent job with humor (the EMH scenes were great) and tying story lines together, but the book was a disappointment after Ashes of Eden and The Return (which was how Kirk should have gone out). And Jim still lives. And lives... Where's Scotty? Does the Shatner/Doohan feud continue through fiction? If barely breathing McCoy can still show up...Well, there's two more books coming. Who knows? Maybe Khan will show up? Kirk v. Borg Queen? The mind boggles.

After reading the fantastic 'The Return' I was eager to devour another great visit from the literary world of William Shatner...and when 'Avenger' came out, I figured I had found my 'fix'. Unfortunately it was a few steps on the ladder below 'The Ashes of Eden' AND 'The Return' in the way of entertainment. I found it interesting indeed, and like another reviewer mentioned, I had to outright laugh when Kirk came on more physically able than Riker, smarter than Data and you could see the behind-the-scenes rivalry Shatner has with Picard because he out-thinks him at virtually EVERY turn, practically making him look stupid by comparison. It was these particular parts that I not only found overblown, but outright ridiculous.

Now with that said, I STILL enjoyed the book...WHY? you might ask? Well unlike some people who read books and tear them to shreds, I understand that I am NOT supposed to take a science fiction novel seriously. C'mon, it's Star Trek for heavens sake! Kirk doesn't really exist, and neither does ANY Trek character, so therefore I understand that no matter HOW contrived the plot may be, it was written for me to enjoy, and that I did, very much (not as much as his first two Trek books, or the subsequent follow-ups, though). Shatners collaboration with arguably the BEST Trek authors in existence (Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens') pays off for the most part, but despite a lightning fast plot and fun gadgets galore, its the plot itself that brings 'Avenger' down a notch or two. I find it a bit hard to swallow that the United Federation of Planets, with the combined resources of a slew of planets and preparations, that overpopulation could sneak up on them without a tremendous plan designed to correct it in place decades before it could become a problem...but if I suspend that belief because as I said earlier the book was written for FUN, it was a fairly fun read altogether. Now Shatner's follow-up ('Star Trek: Spectre' and 'Dark Victory') are actually MUCH better overall...and I very much look forward to reading 'Preserver'...but I can't say whether or not I'll wait for the paperback...

For any of lover of Star Trek The Original Series or The Next Generation this would be an excellent book to read. I love both and let me tell you I've read it at least 3 times and it's still as good!

Shatner did a wonderful job of blending the two generations. The reuniting of Kirk, Spock,and McCoy was done so well you would have guessed that no time had passed between the friends. Plus, by the end of the story I was sure that Picard and Kirk were going to see more of each other in the future.

This was an excellent follow-up to "The Return" and I hope that Shatner wries another to tie up loose ends and with the way this guy writes... I'm sure he'll come up with a few more ideas. If you haven't had a chance to read this book yet and You like Star Trek I strongly recommend this excellent book.

"Dark Victory" is the second, but weakest novel in William Shatner's Mirror Universe trilogy. Solid enough for true believers, the book lacks the punch shown in the first and third volumes. It makes good airport reading material, but you probably won't lose sleep staying up late because you can't put it down, unlike the other two novels in the series which are riveting works.

Basically, the reader follows James T. Kirk through the recovery of his injuries from book one, "Spectre", which was an excellent book. The other main theme is the wedding of Kirk and his beloved Teilani. Frankly, Shatner may have wanted to pay tribute to love and humanize Kirk, but it just doesn't work. The bigger than life Federation hero doesn't play so well with such a weakness in his middle-to-old ages. Don't kid us, Kirk is a ladies man, period. In this aspect, Kirk's Mirror Universe counterpart Tiberius plays better than the original protagonist.

There are key characters and underlying foreshadowing that lend importance to the trilogy as a whole, and the writing partners put words on paper rather nicely. These elements make the book worth the effort, but it is honestly not their best work. As so often happens, writers planning out trilogies just don't have enough juice to make it last three full books. In this case, it is "Dark Victory" that suffers as opposed to the excellent bookends that surround it in the series.

I rate this work at a moderate 3.00 out of 5.00 stars, for good style and a great job with ongoing continuity. You have to read "Dark Victory" to bridge "Spectre" to "Preserver" (book three), both of which are terrific pieces of Star Trek fiction.

Like his previous Star Trek novels, William Shatner continues his plain, good storytelling in "Dark Victory" -- part of the "Mirror Universe" trilogy. The story is interesting and keeps moving fairly rapidly. There is even a mystery "murder" of sorts. Of course, the centerpiece of the whole thing is Kirk confronting his own dark side in confronting his mirror universe counterpart, and the ending definitely leaves you wanting more! The only negative thing I would say about this book and Shatner's writing in general is that he tends to go for the absolute, most melodramatic storyline possible. He also (no surprise here) tends to focus on the Kirk character to the detriment of other character developement. I should expect this, of course, in a book with Kirk as the central character and written by the man who played him for years, but it still would have been nice to develop other characters (e.g. Picard, Geordi, etc.) and their mirror counterparts as well. Nevertheless, I like the way he blends characters for all the series and makes it coherent and I will definitely be looking for part 3!

Arguably the best of the 6 ST books. Taken from the original Star trek TV series episode MIRROR MIRROR, Kirk's double - twin has not been defeated by spock as we hoped. "Spock is logical and the mirror universe is illogical. If I know my Spocks, he'll..." well he didn't. The Kirk Twin is now Emperor Tiberius (ET) and he has enslaved humans and Vulcan alike.

ET has left home and found a way to our universe and has bad things planned for the federation. Only kirk can stop him. But kirk has a lot of friends to help. Shatner has two Spocks, McCoy and Scotty, and Picard & crew to help. But how do we know which Picard is a mirror or not?

This is the second book of the second trilogy (5th of the double trilogy) written by Shatner and friends for the star trek galaxy. I had long been disappointed in ST books, because they often read as if throw together. Shatner's ST is clearly the best that ST has to offer. If started with ASHES OF EDEN which turned into a trilogy, with the second book being THE RETURN. So, you want to kill off James T. Kirk huh? If you haven't read at least SPECTRE, you will want to because it starts this story arch. The story doesn't end with this book, and continues with PRESERVER. This is great sci-fi and great ST stuff.
Some have called DV the weakest of the trilogy which can happen to the middle book for a series, because things end "up in the air". But for shear entertainment this was a lot of fun to read. You have to read PRESERVER for the ending. Do it. Shatner is a great story teller.

Since I am now boycotting Star Wars NJO with the killing of Anakin, I truly hope that the Star Trek people will do a better job giving us more high quality books that are fun to read. Shatner is great. But I recently read the Dominion War 4 book set and was disappointed. I read these for the familiar characters and especially like what Shatner has done, reviving kirk and putting him with TNG characters.

I guess I expected that a platform independent standard such as XML would have been better expained using a platform independent language such as java. For the unix/java engineers out there....this book contains much useful information and don't get me wrong, I learned a lot. The question is, would I have learned as much or possibly more if I didn't have to put up with 90% of the code examples written in VBScript? Many examples require Internet Explorer. Content was up-to-date and informative but somewhat repetative (12 authors).

The book covers too many topics and just few are developed in deep while others are superficially introduced because not yet standardized at the time of print. The book claims it covers the following topics: XML, XSLT, DOM, DTD, SOAP, XLink, XPointer, XPath, WAP, WML...and more; but just XML, Schemas, DTDs and SOAP could almost fit the book's size.

Chapters don't follow a very logic thread and it doesn't deal enough with very relevant subjects. Wrox probably planned to make this book the XML bible but I think they are far from the target.

The XML declarative language, with its adaptability and expressive power, is continuing to become the language of choice for reporting and classifying information. XML is a formal grammar that captures the syntactic features of a document type definition, and its properties, syntax, and applications are discussed effectively in this book. It covers XML as formalized by the W3C and the authors show how to use XML in Web-based and database applications. Readers who have developed applications in HTML will probably view XML as somewhat more abstract, since the visual representation of the content of a document is not emphasized in XML. Readers are expected to have a background in HTML, JavaScript, Java, and ASP in order to read the book. Although XML can be learned by reading the W3C specifications, these documents are frequently difficult reading, and this book makes the learning of XML much easier than reading these specifications. They include the W3C specifications for XML 1.0 in an appendix to the book for the interested reader. The book is a little dated, since the W3C has been updating XML specs since the time of publication (especially with regard to schemas), but there is a 2nd edition coming out soon.

In Chapter 1, XML is introduced as a mark-up language and its inherent extensibility emphasized. This is followed by a detailed treatment of XML syntax in the next chapter, with emphasis placed on the hierarchical nature of XML. The authors do include a discussion of Processing Instructions (PIs) for users who want to use XML in this fashion.

Document Type Definitions (DTD) are the subject of Chapter 3, where the authors communicate effectively how DTDs formal grammar is used to specify the structure and permissible values of XML documents. The formal DTD structure is discussed, and the principles behind writing DTDs are effectively outlined. They also discuss the problems with using DTDs.

Data modeling with XML is discussed in the next chapter, with information modeling via static and dynamic models treated in detail, and the authors carefully distinguish these two approaches. The actual designing of XML documents is given a nice overview as well as the role of schemas in XML. This is followed in Chapter 6 by a discussion of the (tree-based) Document Object Model, which overviews how XML documents can be accessed by various programs. Some helpful examples are given on how the DOM can be used to create an XML document programmatically. An alternative way of processing an XML document is discussed in the next chapter on the (event-based) SAX interface. The authors outline in detail the benefits of using SAX rather than DOM. In Appendix B the reader will find the Internet Explorer 5.0 XML DOM 1.0 W3C specifications. In addition, in Appendix C, the specification for the SAX 1.0 interface is given.

The shortcomings of DTD are addressed in terms of XML Schemas and namespaces in chapter 7. Since this book was published, XML Schemas have reached W3C recommendation status as of Nov 2000. The authors give a good overview of namespaces and schemas, with helpful examples. This is followed in chapter 8 by a discussion of how to link and query into XML documents using the XML information set, XLink, XPath, XPointer, XML Fragment Interchange, with XLST covered in the next chapter. For database applications, the authors outline the differences between relational databases and XML documents. A very detailed treatment of how XLST transforms the source document is given, and the authors compare XLS and DOM transformations. An Internet Explorer XSL reference is included in one of the appendices of the book.

More details on the relationship between databases and XML is the subject of chapter 10, wherein the authors show how to store XML and how data can be communicated between different servers using XML. The issues involved when moving data from RDBMS to OODBMS or from Oracle to Sybase, are discussed by the authors. This is followed by an interesting discussion on how to use XML as a distributed component model for server-to-server communications via XML-Remote Procedure Call and Simple Object Access Protocol.

E-commerce applications are discussed in the next chapter, with EDI and its improvement via XML. The business markup language cXML , which allows business to business electronic commerce transactions across the Internet, is also treated in detail.

The authors then finally discuss how to render XML documents more readable and pleasing for the viewer in the next chapter using the style languages CSS and XSL. The discussion is really interesting, for the authors dig a little deeper into the foundations of style languages. The discussion of style languages as rule-based languages is particularly illuminating.

The next chapter is very interesting and its inclusion is actually very surprising, namely a discussion of the Wireless Application Protocol. The authors give an introduction to the Wireless Markup Language and WMLScript. The book ends with four useful chapters on case studies for data duality, distributed applications, a book catalog information service, and SOAP.

There are many applications of XML in many different areas, such as CellML (proprietary) used in cell biology, CML (Chemical Markup Language) for molecular chemistry, IML (Instrument Markup Language) for control of laboratory equipment, BSML (Bioinformatic Sequence Markup Language) for gene sequencing, and MathML for formatting of mathematical equations. I find XML an extremely powerful approach to information reporting and I am currently developing a package called NMML (Network Modeling Markup Language) for use in reporting results in simulation and mathematical modeling of networks, and FMML (Financial Modeling Markup Language) for use in reporting results in the modeling of financial instruments. This book, along with the W3C specifications, has been a tremendous help in the development of these applications.