This is quite easily one of the best books I've ever read on the creation of public policy. Locher paints a full and colorful picture of the military reform efforts culminating in the Goldwater-Nichols Act. I never realized what a role the Beirut/Lebanon operations played in creating an atmosphere in which military reform began to be viewed as necessary, and I found both the strategy and actions used to push the legislation through the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1985-86 particularly fascinating. With regards to balancing personal insights and meticulous research, in my opinion "Victory on the Potomac" is unequalled, and I consider it one of the top prizes in my personal library. If your interests include public policy, successful reform attempts or the organization of the U.S. military, you will find this book to be an entertaining and informative treasure.

Jim Locher tells the fascinating story of how Congress forced the Pentagon to undergo major reform in the mid-1980s. Locher, who was a major participant in the process, tells the inside story of the Goldwater-Nichols reforms and really takes the gloves off. Locher is a careful researcher and skillful writer who demonstrates vividly the courage of Senators Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn, Congressman Bill Nichols, Admiral Bill Crowe and others. Locher highlights both the brilliance and the manipulative skills of Secretary of the Navy John Lehman in the debates and interactions between the Congress and the Pentagon. . My only criticism is that Locher is a bit too critical of Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger who did so much to build up the military during the early 1980s. Must reading for all who will work with or within the Pentagon or the Congress in the years ahead

in the 1950's, a book was published entitled "From Major Jordan's Diary". An officer in charge of the lend lease program to Russia, Major Jordan declared that he had evidence that FDR had provided the materials from the Manhattan Project for making a bomb to the Soviet union via Lend Lease shipments. For decades Major Jordan was ridiculed. Also during the 1950's, the Rosenburgs were executed for giving away these same atomic secrets to the Soviets. For decades this has been held to be true. However, in the early 1980's one James Roosevelt, the son of FDR, wrote a book about the events surrounding the Yalta Conference involving his father, Churchill and Stalin. In the events of this book, which James was a witness to, he writes an engrossing account of the "family matter" between FDR and Stalin in the back channels of this historic conference, which not only support the claims of Major Jordan, but also exonerates the Rosenburgs and devestatingly rewrites the history of the entire Cold War.

This is a great supplement for anyone playing a wizard, bard or sorceror. It is also a great supplement if you'd like to make Magic a more interesting part of your campaign.

The prestige classes are, for the most part, pretty good and the inclusion of whole organizations behind them amkes them even better. The Feats are also good even though there are similarities with feats in existing products (independent development by the looks of it). They are well thought out and balanced well enough to avoid being either worthless or indispensible.

The best parts of the book though are the extended rules for bardic performances and the magical traditions. The extended rules allow for bards performing in modes other than music (like dance or poetry) and there are also rules for allowing the quality of performance to influence the bard's effects. With the new rules bards are finally more than wizards who happen to play guitar (or lute).

The magical traditions are similar to those in Path of the Sword (also by FFG) and allow arcane characters to acquire some feat-like bonuses to skills and abilities at the cost of some experience points. The traditions are a great way to make your wizard different than the wizard next to you.

The true measure of a book like this is excitement. As a player, I'm excited about the new options available to my favorite wizard (as soon as I convince my GM to let us use them). As a GM, I'm definitely going to include the traditions, feats, and bard rules in my next campaign. Some of the prestige classes will make it too.

This book is a delightful edition to it's already popular series.It teaches great values and appreciation for all that God has given us,and enables children to understand it's teachings because it is written in simple language.This book would be an asset to any child's book shelf.This book teaches our children that God is around us everywhere,even when we make mistakes,God always loves us:It gives children a sense of security and reassurance to know that God loves them.It also tells that everything that God has given us is a gift,and that we need to care for the earth and all it's creatures.

Rainy Day Projects for Kids is an elaborate and creative work by Petra Boase. These projects will keep children occupied for hours at a time. It is unlikely they will complete many of them without your help, then again 10-12 year olds would easily complete some of them. The book is mostly for children 9-12, but I know a few "grown ups" who would not mind making some of these fun projects.

There is an easy to make jigsaw puzzle which utilizes wrapping paper and cardboard. The origami water bombs may be best made "outside," and the egg painting project would be perfect for Easter.

This book will appeal to a child's natural curiosity, creativity, and inclination towards just having fun. I also cannot imagine any parent buying this book and not wanting to help with the projects.

Some of the easier projects include a painted rock paper weight and a peanut butter pine cone with birdseed. More advanced projects include a miniature garden paradise and an "Air Football" (Soccer) floor game. This is pictured on the front cover on the upper left.

Amazingly, you can actually eat some of your projects. There are cookies, jolly orange gelatin boats, chocolate apples, pizza faces and potato porcupines. These would be great recipes to introduce children to cooking. Look for all the books by this author, they are sure to be winners. You will find plenty of ideas for the next birthday party.

I'm a big fan of Foxall's books, particularly his MCSD in a Nutshell book. This is an excellent introduction to Visual Basic .NET. Visual Basic .NET is a different beast from Visual Basic 6, and this book does a good job of teaching you the new way of doing things. I was a little afraid of getting a book that rehashes vb 6 material, but this book is clearly a ".NET" book. Highly recommended!

The Wrong Man is a gripping and provocative look at the sensational murder trial(s)of Sam Sheppard. While in high school in the 70's, I member first reading about the case in F. Lee Bailey's book 'The Defense Never Rests'. Neff's book takes you behind the headlines of this infamous case and moves forward from the day of the crime and through the various incarnations of the case in the state and federal courts. He looks in depth at the participants and suspects in one of the century's greatest 'unsolved murders.' This case is a clear example of a man and a family destroyed by politicians and the press. These folks refused to let the facts get in the way of a good story. Sheppard's life and reputation were lost because the case was tried in the newspapers and television, instead of the court room. Oddly enough, through three trials in a 'search for truth' justice was never served. It is ironic that Neff's objective review of the case as a journalist and a 'member of the press' may be the closest the Sheppard family ever gets to finding the truth and obtaining justice. This is not simply a regurgitation of the headlines but a probing anatomy of an infamous crime and what happens when a 'good story' over takes the facts, a community, and our system of justice. It also shows why our freedoms guaranteed by the constitution (including the freedom of the press) must be jealously guarded against all who would take them away. I could not put the book down once I started reading it and strongly recommend it to any one who enjoys the true crime genre or reading law related novels. Here, the facts are stranger (and more interesting) than any fiction one could invent.

Just like you, as a developer I'm always needing to learn new lanquages and technologies. In order to keep up, I'm always buying and reading (or buying and throwing sometimes) tech books. This is the first tech book I've ever read cover to cover. And after doing so, I find myself wishing the Rolla-Guys could write on all lanquages.

The book progresses at a perfect pace for beginners and is organized smartly for experienced programmers to skip around. As I mentioned I read it cover to cover though. There wasn't any useless information to skip over. Every topic was real world applicable and exciting to learn. I also didn't find any errors in the code (of the code I tried).

Companion this book with Beginning ASP Databases(Wrox) to learn everything necessary for any very large ASP projects. Now that I started more "in-depth" books on ASP I can fully appreciate the solid foundation "ASP 3.0 in 21 Days" built.

The authors Scott Mitchell and James Atkinson definitley deserve high praise for working on this book. These guys KNEW what they were talking about. Coming from a background with Java and JSP (with a little VBScript), I was expecting to take a while learning ASP. WOW WAS I WRONG! These guys did an amazing job preparing this book. I was able to breeze right through the book with ease. Everything was short and to the point. They didn't bother you with explaining what every single letter in the code does and why they have what they have etc etc. I can't say it enough...GREAT JOB GUYS! (I bet you hear this all the time)

From start to end, these guys explained the material well. They didn't bother the reader with detail and over extensive code analyzation. The examples were clear and to the point. There was no extra fluff that some of the other books that I've seen have.

The authors covered the basics, from VBScript to ASP development (without Databases and with them).

I can see why everybody loves this book, BECAUSE IT'S GREAT.

Don't just go on what I'm saying, look at the other reviewers. They will definitley agree with me.

This is the best ASP book using VbScript for people who wants to learn to develop data driven web site with ASP/Vbscript, the second good book for beginner is Beginning ASP 3.0 from Wrox press. I did go through 20 ASP books in the current market and conclude this. This ASP book from Sam will walk you through the details which is good enough on using IIS 5.0 and PWS and all the other asp book is not as clear and as get to the point like this. THe VbScript section is detail and clear enough to build a solid foundation of VbScript that is very important for further development. You can be a very outstanding professional ASP/Vbscript instructor for using this book to teach the beginner as it covers all the critical staff for starting to learn this technology in such a well orgainzed manner. I am waiting for the new release asp.net form the same authors.

The book is excellent for beginners who have never seen an IDE before. The author uses the term C# where he should use the term "Visual Studio .NET" instead. C# is a programming language. For instance, the second chapter is titled "Navigating C#" but he really talks about navigating the IDE. I suspect a search-replace of C# to VB.NET you could convert it into a VB.NET book.
(of course with a bit more than that).

I was looking for a book to quickly learn the LANGUAGE C#, not a study of Visual Studio .NET, which takes all of about 1 hour or less for an experienced software developer to learn. If the title were changed to "Teach Yourself Visual Studio.NET in 24 hours", I'd give it 5 stars.

Bottom line, if you are a C++ or Java software engineer who wants to come up to speed on C#, this is not the book for you.

The book was helpful in starting me on the path to writing in C#. It was easy to understand unlike other books on programming I have read and had examples and projects that were doable by me not just those who wrote it. It did take me longer than 24 hours to finish but was worth it.

I came to C# in 24 hours with a background in programming and management of the software development process. The book is easy to read, is well organized with helpful exercises for each hour (chapter). It contains essential information about the language that is missing from the core reference works. I will keep it on my bookshelf for ready reference.

I asked James Foxall a few questions via email and he answered them promptly and with excellent care.

I have been doing computer programming from six years. I have been most of the time a windows and GUI guy. But lately I have been using Unix extensively.I bought this book 8 months back and I cant thank the authors and SAMs enough for this great book.

The title might sound silly, but the essence is 'Unix in 24, one hour sessions'. Unix can be very intimidating for a beginner. You dont even know what to learn. In my case, this book helped a lot.

Highlight of this book is its chapter on vi editor. It is the best example and tutorial on vi I have ever seen. As you go through vi features along with the author, you will get a sense of purpose and orientation for each and every command in vi. The first chapter tells us the history of unix and different flavours of unix. From there the every important feature is explained in simple, concise manner. Telnet, ftp, c shell, basic shell programming, file ownership and permissions etc are explained very well.

The only draw back is a missing command reference. The book has a quick one page command reference at the beginning of the book, which you can tear out. But for a regular programmer, this is not enough. For reference, I have supplemented this book with 'Unix Complete'.

Anyway, at [price] this book is all worth it. This book is going to be with be forever.

This book is awesome. I started a new job where I needed to use Unix and had very little usage prior. I was given this book and started reading it...within a week I was using Unix like an old pro. This book possibly helped secure my job.

I knew no UNIX when I got this book. It was so helpful in getting me started in the UNIX world that I never had to graduate to the O'Reilly books after reading it. Instead the use of man pages and google was enough to supplement this book when I needed to do more serious stuff. (I often find searching for stuff on google to be the quickest way to debug difficult problems!)

So if you need to get started in the world of UNIX, get this book!