Right after high school, I enrolled in a d.e. course at the local junior college (ok, I was a masochist). We used the Zill text, although not the boundary value problem edition. Needless to say, that book was a godsend b/c the instructor was horrible, so after awhile, I only showed up for class for exams, and self-studied on my own from that book. I recall that the book was fun and easy to understand.

Why is it good? It explains things in clear language. The proofs are laid out clearly. There are lots of example problems with solutions. This was critical in the portion of the book where he explains how to solve d.e.'s with variable coefficients. The book makes differential equations look interesting, which is important to capture readers. Zill also has a calc book, and mygoodness, that book was sort of repulsive b/c of the 70's style printing and the nasty brown colors. Looks are always a big thing, back then and now.

I'm not sure how applicable this text is for hard-core math majors, but definitely, if you are in engineering and don't require any weird esoteric understanding of the proofs that math people might need, this is text worth referring to. I can't comment on the BVP, though... However, it helped me to earn an A+ at Cal that first semester as a freshman, so he must be doing something right.

I've looked around for other books on differential equations, but this book is one of the best I've seen. Plenty of examples. The book covers the material thoroughly. For example, it does a great job with Laplace transforms...devoting more than 60 pages to it..while other books just skim over this interesting and important topic.

The last few chapters are an intro to partial differential equations, and their applications. They aren't intended as thorough coverage, but give a nice overview. I got interested and bought a book on partial differential equations afterwards.

Good book overall. Plenty of problems and solutions as well, so you can practice.

The book is clear and concise. Great examples, and nice problems. Although once the author goes over some material, in later chapters, he assumes you know it and doesn't go over the same steps again. Some people might find this a problem...but it really isn't if you proceed from one chapter to the next and don't skip around.

Also..I found more stuff in this book than in others. Fourier series are also treated, which some books leave out. In summary, a good book for those who are taking a class...or self study. Goes over material thoroughly. My lectures were horrible, and I did great in the class simply because this book did such a good job of explaining.

I purchased this book with the premise that Michael Mandel, being a senior business editor at Business Week, would have phenomenal insights about the growing uncertainty in our society. He presents a beautiful synopsis with excellent facts and figures. He summarizes that regardless of what an individual perceives, and an "idiosyncratic risk" group, or a "structural risk" group experiences (meaning termination notices or complete industry shut-down), the American economy will continue to grow.

Such factors include government policy, international trade, corporate restructuring, overseas manufacturing, improved education, entrepreneurs and other measurements such as health and insurance products. According to Mandel, the objective is to minimize risk in our society by improving our economic prospects, as a nation, in the global economy.

Unfortunately, this is where brilliance 'tumbles off the cliff.' As expected (determined from the deteriorating progression of the chapters), several of his examples are fatally flawed. Several of his forecasts are fundamentally in error along with inaccurate facts and figures, and I found myself in denial, desperately searching for his expert recommendations. I was even willing to accept a few cheap answers to all his carefully illustrated points!

For example, Mandel raves about how spectacular salaries in the future are tied to individuals choosing aspiring technology careers, yet he admits this career path is extremely unstable. He also states that the Wal-Marts and other 'mature' industries are stable but low-paying (relatively speaking to the following examples). First, since when does McDonalds, and now Boeing, have time and resources to be complacent and provide stability to its work force? Didn't Wal-Mart challenge the complacent industries? What about Airbus and the debate about subsidies for both aerospace firms? Which of the two 'risktakers' (high-paid unstable v low-paid stable) possess the better credit rating? Which group can afford the mortgage on the new house, the car payments, and the new computers?

Furthermore, what happens if a student, a 'risktaker' based on his conditions and tolerance of risk, obtains a significant amount of training and the industry disappears or the network established turns out not to guarantee employment because he or she went to a second-tier or third-tier school? Let's be honest about who gets anointed to the best jobs, regardless of talent! In other words, there is nothing stable in this economy. What if? What if? Cheap shot!

Also, Mandel's treatment of total quality management is alarming. He says "the problem is that the transferred responsibility under a TQM system increases pressure on workers and managers." Yeah, so where's the problem? That is a POSITIVE manifestation for improving accountability and instilling pride on the individual in the workplace!

I hope Mandel writes another book to wrap up PART 1, The High Risk Society, because I am convinced it will sell extremely well, and finally, he can provide us with his expert recommendations.

This guy really knows his stuff. The changing nature of business risks is something of value to every manager, regardless of level. I was really impressed with his predictions, especially that of the domestic steel industry collapse based on international markets.

The book discusses a variety of themes involving how today's economy requires that companies embrace risk to chase the rewards people want.

This book has more errors than should ever be allowed in a professional product. There are typo's in both text and examples. The CD does not contain the source code from the book and I vote this the worst source ever of any computer based information I have found to date. It has left me very unsure of the publishers (QUE) standards and I may never purchase another QUE book again. I simply do not trust them. Spend your hard earned money on a different choice

"Special Edition Using Java, Second Edition" is an excellent reference to JDK 1.0.2. However, today (April 15), only a month and a half after being billed as "Computer Programming Expert Editor's Recommended Book, 03/01/97", it is a dated reference and the cover claims of JDK 1.1 coverage fall short--they are preliminary and peripheral to primary Java programming topics. For example, there is no coverage of the major changes in the Java event model of JDK 1.1, which permeate almost every application. I recommend waiting for better JDK 1.1 coverage, hopefully in Joseph Weber's new version, "Special Edition Using Java 1.1" which has not yet been released, but for which Amazon is taking orders today

This book is nothing if not large. This was QUEs attempt to capture the entire spectrum of JAVA and make it easy to understand (a task that they accomplished) but then the standards changed again. This is still a great book for learning Java; but, you will have to move on to other resources for news on the updates