I had the prior version as a textbook in the MBA course in Strategic Marketing. Very instructive and a good learning tool that shows the interaction between the strategic variables in your marketing plan.

Wow!What an excellent simulation!! Nerve recking! Can't sleep withourt seeing the results every day. Better than the class room teachings and bag full of articles and books. Tests your marketing knowledge to the ultimate limits. Best part of this simulation is that no one losses and no one wins but every one LEARNS AND A LOT . This simulation is an eye-opener to the so called market strategists. The team spirit is revitalised and real leaders emerge. I recommend to all serious marketing strategists.

This is a good book describing an excellent free scientific Matlab-like software package available for many computing platforms. It complements well the extensive on-line help of the software and the information available on the Web.

The first three chapters gives a condensed overview of the software. I found the description of the graphics capabilities particularly useful as a reference. The next two chapters describe the use of the software for linear algebra, polynomials, linking to C and FORTRAN, and more advanced aspects. The remaining chapters concern tools and applications mainly of a system oriented nature. The tools are generally of a very high quality and accuracy, but of course slower than in compiled languages.

The book would have been been even more useful if it included more information on how to customize the software and a more comprehensive index. Also, the linking to C and FORTRAN routines does not appear to be completely simple.

The group of men who wrote the constitution of the United States comprised the greatest collection of political geniuses the world has ever seen. With incredible insight into the weaknesses of human political structures, the checks and balances in the constitution provide a system of counterweights that make up a very stable government. While not generally considered among the leading tier of the founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin was present at the creation and made significant contributions.
In many ways he is also a model for the American ideal of the self-made man. He rose from poverty to become a writer, editor, publisher, inventor, scientist and diplomat. He charmed many of the leading figures of France so much that it entered the war of independence on the side of the colonies. Granted that there were many reasons for France to come to the aid of America in its war with Britain. However, it is quite possible that it would not have happened without the expert diplomacy of Franklin.
This book is the result of a search through his private correspondence. Therefore, it is a description of his personality as he communicates with friends, business and diplomatic colleagues; relatives and acquaintances. It appears that Franklin was quite a ladies man as well. There are hints that he had numerous affairs, although given the style of his letters, it is possible that his high degree of politeness could be mistaken for something deeper. The results depict a man very much of the world, one where life was slower and personal relationships were more significant.
It is unfortunate that political rivalries and geopolitical realities combined to lower his standing after the military victory that led to independence. Disputes arose with George Washington and John Adams that were no doubt political in origin. Franklin had both the domestic and international prestige to be considered presidential material, with only his advanced age as a hindrance.
The real problems were the geopolitical and geosocial realities. America was an offshoot of British culture, so once the severance was complete the natural affinity reasserted itself. Britain was also the supreme maritime power and America was a small nation consisting mostly of seacoast and the Canadian colony was on the northern border. Therefore, friendship with Britain was essential to the survival of the new nation. Franklin represented an alliance that was no longer critical, so as the political wind shifted, he found himself pushed aside. Until I read this book, I was unaware of the animosities that existed between Franklin and some of the other founders of the new nation.
Benjamin Franklin is the American model of the Renaissance man and his contributions to the success of the revolution are not to be underestimated. In reading the summaries of his personal correspondence, I found it clear that he is a person that you would have liked very much to converse with and would have considered yourself graced to have been his friend.

A lot of the information found in this book should have already been in the online documentation. The lack of documentation for data mining under sql server 2000 makes this book the only usefull reference out there. But overall, the book is poorly organised, badly written and requires a lot more in-dept information in order to put data mining into practical use.

You will find some information on DTS, but there are much better books out there on the topic. You will find some sample code for using DSO, but this topic is only touched upon and the code is NOT explained very well. The most important chapters were very thin (programming data mining and data mining queries). After reading the book, you will have an introduction to data mining, but you won't be able to use it effectively.

The examples in the book have no commercial value and are completely worthless. There is no CDROM that contains the data the author is using, and the sample data on the web is different to the data in the book. You will also have to start with chapter 8 (DTS) to load the sample data before you can follow the examples in the book.

I was really looking forward to get a copy of this book, but now that I have a copy, I am very dissapointed. The contents of this book shows that the author has no real world experience on the topic or is not willing to share it.

I have to agree with one of the previous reviewers when he said that given the absence of practically *ANY* documentation provided by Microsoft, this book is your only real source of information about Microsoft's data mining product.

I'm a big fan of OLAP amd data mining which made me better appreciate the time the author took to lay the groundwork for the discipline of data mining. Unlike a previous reviewer, I think that the author shares lots of real-world evperience which you can see by the way he bring up problems (which I have encountered myself) that occur when moving from raw data to a data mining model. He also catches some glitches and unreported features in the product for you and shows you how to work around them.

The book is actually very complete considering that the data mining product put out by Microsoft is promising, but extremely rudimentary. It provides only two basic data mining algorithms and gives a very clumsy way to try to add other algorithms. Thankfully, the author discusses techniques and pitfalls of mining numerical data and even shows you how to use SQL Server 2000 to perform a regression analysis for that purpose.

I would have given this book five stars except for two points :

1: The mushroom database is a good illustration of the use of the decision tree algorithm, but I think it may have been good to include a more business-oriented example that would bring data mining closer to it's intended purpose.

2: I was a little disappointed not to see any explanation as to how to add your own algorithms to the data mining product. Even if doing so requires C++ experience, it would have been perfectly fine to include it in a separate chapter or in an appendix. I don't know why the author chose not to include it.

Byond that, I would definitely recommend this book if you need to use MS data mining. The book is well written, and considering the infancy of the product, it's also very complete. Besides, you have no other real resource out there!

I found this book to the most helpful resource on MS data mining out there today. I was afraid I'd find a rehash of the Microsoft help files, but was pleasantly surprised to find lots of new, original information. There's lot's of dicussion of process as well as step-by-step instructions on the use of the data mining product. Very good explanations as to the use of DSO and DTS to create models and to query them.

Relationship investing sounds good, its based on fellings, comfort and a sense of security that may (or may not) be justified. Its closely related to selling fear as the basis for an investment program. "Its dangerous out there, you need help and I'm the guy who provides the security blanket that you and your family need. I'm your investment doctor, I'll bring the ship home. I won't let you down, I'm your best friend and I really care about Margret and Billy." This "feel-good" philosophy works for some. And for the investment manager, the only way he keeps score is based on the total dollars under management or what he does for himself. People don't fire their "best friends" no matter how bad the results. Performance is an issue that relationship managers avoid and in this way they turn the relationship upside down: their interests are placed ahead of the client's.

Performance, however, is the only thing that really counts. Mutual funds get measured every day and the performance results are made public via a number of sources. Ranking versus a peer group and/or the market makes the investment process transparent, there is no place to hide. Reaching goals and objectives are brought out into the open for analysis. Like any other business, good managers get rewarded, the others are fired. In contrast, back-slapping, brandy sipping, cigar smoke cluttered, class-ring, closed-door meetings puts the investment process under the fog of feel-good. Its a trust department investment style right out of the 1940s. How well do these class-tie managers build wealth in a market that provides 10% annualy and seldom produces two down years in a row? Long -term investors are always winners but relationship managers can't admit that. How well have these guys done in the second-half of the 1990s when average annual gains were extraordinary? Don't bother to ask, they won't provide the performance numbers. That's because they got beaten severely by a simple S&P 500 index fund with a miniscule management fee compared to their outsized "relationship" fees. Relationship managers don't care about performance because they sold fear and low expectations to their clints who are typically satisified, even very happy, with not losing money even if only over a relatively short period of time. This is a winning program for the manager and a losing program for the investor.

Bring my investment results out into the open where I can analyze how the manager is doing and keep his feet to the fire. If he does well, then he becomes my family's best friend. If not, then I'll change managers as quickly as I would quit a lousy doctor or incompetent auto mechanic. Managing money is a business, not a tea-party social event. I pay for results, I don't (over)pay for friendships or relationships...I never mix my goals and objectives.

If you have no clue how to select someone to handle your money well this is a good book to turn to for advice. It also provides advice on investing by yourself but it strongest in helping the reader find the right fit with a professional.

Didier Eribon's conversations with Claude Levi-Strauss, the father of Structural Anthropology and one of the leading intellectuals of 20th century France, are enlightening and occasionally entertaining. You get an immediate feel for Levi-Strauss's personality... and for his Gallic flair for words and ability to damn with faint praise. (His comment about how Sartre was a great mind... and proof that even great minds can talk nonsense ... comes to mind immediately).

As an interviewer, Eribon has obviously done his homework: he is familiar not only with Levi-Strauss's work but with the various reactions to same, positive and negative. He is able to quote names and dates (at times much to Levi-Strauss's chagrin...) and is conversant both in the language of Structuralism and Anthropology. He also manages to elicit many gems from Levi-Strauss, including some discussions of his early interactions with various Surrealists.

This is not an essential addition to a Levi-Strauss collection: if you want an introduction to his thought and work, you'd probably be better off reading his volumes on Mythology or his *Structural Anthropology.* If you already know something about the man ... or if you're interested in 20th century French intellectuals (and who isn't) ... you'll enjoy this book. I'd file this one under "nice to have" rather than "must have."