This book is edited version of proceedings of the First world Congress on the Synthesis of science and religion held at Bombay, India. The question of synthesis is addressed by various people in this book: religious leaders like Dalai Lama, Karan Singh, Physicists like Charles H. Towens, E.C.G. Sudarshan, AI scientists like J.Weizenbaum. There are five papers which argue for the Bhaktivedanta approaches. The collections is organised in seven sections : The need for synthesis, Historical Perspectives, Search for the Pernnial, Physics and Beyond, Mind,Brain & Coonsciousness, Basis for unity of all religions and pathways to Synthesis. The major attraction in the collections is the set of interviews with Fritjof D. Capra, Eugene Wigner, Charles H. Towens, Rev. John B. Cobb,Jr. These interviews are very liviely and yet deals with serious themes. There is a panel discussion on physics and beyond with Dr. Raja Ramanna as chairman. One can say the physics and beyond section may be the pick of the collections. A good read for anyone interested in synthesis issues.

UNIX as a cammand line program is mostly like a dark night and this book for sure is like a bright star helps you find your way. It is so easy that a beginner can read and learn about UNIX and have fun running and palying with it. I give it 4 star because it sometimes has too much explaination about an easy issue and miss some more basic information which can help the reader get stronger with UNIX. It is still the only book teaches you and be sure won't waiste your time. It gives you confidence with UNIX. Another weekness of this book is some wrong commands or exercises that can be fixed in 3rd edition. The nice thing with this book is being a hands on book. Do not read this book in a library or away from your computer. Put it on your desk with your computer because for every pages in this book, you need to practice it. It will walk you through the Master of Masters.

This text is a wonderful way to actually learn how to do unix. It told me what to type, explained what was going on, and gave me enough repitition to actually master the skills. The author anticipated my questions and mistakes. In less that a week I have become quite solid -- I can not only use the commands, I can solve problems. The text is not a cook book. It is a guided examination that I used at the terminal. Although not a reference book, the command summaries at the ends of the chapters made finding answers easy. The mix of hands on guidance and detailed explanations of the underlying structure was perfect for us.

This book is seen as the essential learning tool around here. It guides us along without pain to the place where we are really quite confident and quite skilled. Clearly it must be used hands on -- at the terminal -- it gives instructions, then explanations in a way that knowledge and skills grow quickly. It is obvious that the authors know a lot about how people learn and how to support that learning.

Although not a reference book, command summaries are located at the ends of all chapters and the index is extensive allowing us to go back to look at a topic easily.

Can't understand why it isn't 5 stars from everyone. Lots of good concise reference books out there -- this one does not attempt to be that. This book is like a tutor, but costs a lot less.

to start, I am a crystal developer who is responsible for putting reports on our sales intranet, and I bought this book thinking it could help me with the new version of Crystal. To be fair, the book does a good job of showing you how to create simple reports. Unfortunately, it never moves far beyond that and is not really deserving of the title "complete reference".

Once you get through the basic material on report design, the chapters on distributing reports through the web, ASP, etc. are weak and the sections on other languages are worse-- the code examples are similiar to the projects that come with the product itself. And probably the worst part of it all, is a MAJOR chunk of the book refers to the previous versions of the product (including Crystal Enterprise 8.5, NOT 9) and outdated features with a disclaimer of "this hasn't been released yet, so here is the old stuff". Why would I buy a book with "version 9" on the cover, when it uses filler material from the previous version? It is a sad attempt to bulk up the page count and make you think you were getting something you are not. So in total, if I could rip the book in half, I would keep the first section and throw out the other half. It is still a good reference for report design, but not much else.

Crystal Reports has become the leading database report-writing tool. George Peck has become its leading evangelist. This book is the fourth and the best in his "Complete Reference" series. In previous editions he did a credible job of teaching us how to use Crystal's features to create nifty reports. While this edition has many of the same chapter titles, the content has been revised not only to reflect the new features in Version 9 but also to make the chapters easier to read. The concepts almost leap off the page.

Crystal Reports 9 is a major revision of the software product. There are multiple editions and many ways of implementing the results in an application and on the web. Peck addresses all these and provide a guide through the confusing array of choices. Most importantly, Peck provides an independent view of the offerings. He is not a cheerleader. His in-depth experience with the product in the real world is evident as he shows us alternative uses for the product and ways to implement it.

Most people will not read the book from cover to cover. Much like a dictionary, you will look for the topic of interest a read a section or a chapter. The book provides an index, a detailed table of contents and a summary table of contents to help.

The book is written in a direct person-to-person style. Peck suggests situations in which "you" may find yourself and then shows you how to find a solution. Peck's sense of humor shines through in many places. Most of the book is an easy read.

If you use Crystal Reports, you need this book.

I purchased this book as a reference. Fortunately, I had a separate training course for learning the Crystal application. And I now teach the product.

It's a good reference. I truly haven't had a question yet regarding basic or advanced procedures in the application that I couldn't find. But I would not recommend it for learning the application. It is dense.

I'm also disappointed that it is not very different from the CR 8.0 manual published by Crystal Decisions. The layout and procession of the book are virtually the same! It could have included more tutorials, too.

One thing that I would love for any CR reference/manual to include is a list and description of all the formulas in the system. To my knowledge, this does not exist anywhere, even in Crystal's own documentation.

PURCHASING RECOMMENDATION
If you need a solid reference and didn't purchase manuals with Crystal, this will work. If you need to learn the product, get something else.

I develop financial reporting applications for various companies using VB and VBA. Recently I have completed a financial reporting system completely within Access 2000 making extensive uses of Access's report objects.

Although the Access report object does its job well, it lacks a lot of power features, i.e., limited grouping capabilities, formula in text boxes is limited to a simply expression unless you make a call to UFD, then you would loss your object encapsulation, etc, The Data Report object is VB6 is still some what of a joke, but let not open this can of worms. Thus, I have chosen Crystals reports for my developing needs.

I find George Peck's Complete Reference series very helpful. The book has 800 pages to teach me every nuance of Crystal. This book does not teach me anything about VB coding nor does it contain a reference to the object model within the RDC or any of the other object models in Crystal. I didn't buy this book to learn how to code. The author noted in page 659 specifically that the book is not meant to teach you Visual Basic.

Overall, this book gets me up to speed quickly and it's a good reference source for my future needs. Personally, I don't find the crystal help files very helpful.

As a beginner, I have found this book to be very useful and it quickly has gotten me to the point that I need to be at. I can't confirm or deny that this is a complete reference, but I will say that if you're not comfortable with using Crystal Reports, at least start with this book more than any others. This is the one that actually gets your feel wet. As it does walk you through many basic things, it should probably have more of a beginner's title, or a tutorial title - The Complete Crystal Reports Learning Reference, something to that effect.