This book is a must have for students of all ages. It provides the URLs of some great sites for information on virtually any research topic. This book should be considered a major resource for any high school student with questions about their homework; it contains comprehensive, fact-filled pages of information. It can be used as a summary, a resource, a starting point to seek further information. Using a search engine to locate sites with content equivalent to those listed in this book would take days. I would recommend this book to the highest degree. It should be noted, however, that if you are looking for specific information (statistics, demographics, etc.) you might be better off with a good search engine.

Although this book is a little out of date, considering the Internet is ever-changing, this book gives young readers safe places to travel on the Internet. Found in it's pages are reviews of children's (and children-interested) websites, written by kids/teens.

I enjoyed all the references to different high quality web sites that I could go to and check out for myself. My goal is to sell products on the internet, and this book has helped me get good ideas so I don't reinvent the wheel as I'm developing my web site. Thanks

One night while searching Amazon for a scrumptious new political book to decorate my room with, I came across this one and it immediately caught my attention. While I tend to be drawn to the more arcane and iconoclastic regions of political philosophy, this book seemed to possess an alluring simplicity. I guess it reminded me of the kind of book I read in college -- a touch of nostalgia -- and always so much enjoyed. I imagine it is now safe to disclose that my economic and political science classes were the only ones I did not skip on a regular basis. Anything political or philosophical fascinates me -- spinning out philosophical ideas in my head and turning them over and over again is endless, bountiful pleasure.

Political philosophy is a large hunting ground, but the editors do a commendable job of breaking it down into its constituent elements. Since the subject matter is so broad the authors must apply a rather strict criterion of which thinkers and material to present. First, they aim to present ideas that have a certain continuity, ones that are perennial in nature and that all societies must confront. Second, they tend to select works that are rigorously logical and factual, so nothing in the way of mysticism or superstition. And finally, they seek to present ideas with a modern resonance, issues that have not been resolved over the ages. (So no commentary on slavery or how many Angels can dance on the head of a pin).

The editors think -- and I agree with them -- that it is best not to think of political philosophy as a single entity, but rather as a multi-layered synthesis comprising many building blocks that can be arranged in a variety of ways. To develop a thorough and systematic understanding of political philosophy it is important to scrutinize each building block in turn before placing them in any arrangement. The building blocks include human nature, the justification for the state, liberty and rights, economic justice, alternatives to liberalism, and progress and civilization. Introducing politico neophytes to political philosophy with a section on human nature is I think most fruitful since all the larger questions in political philosophy are at root questions about human nature. Are we greedy of altruistic? Are we cooperative or competitive? Does society shape our nature (as Owen thought) or does our nature shape and give rise to society (as Aristotle thought)? How fluid is gender? Is it rigid, a la Aristotle and Darwin or malleable, a la Alison Jaggar? Human nature is the real source of contention in political philosophy, while the other issues are derivative. While the editors do not emphasize the point to any large extent, I think it would not be uncharacteristically bold to suggest that most of the shifts in the political winds come on the heels of radically new ideas about human nature. The ideas that electrified Europe in the French Revolution and later in the Bolshevik Revolution had their origin in a radically new set of ideas about human nature that were essentially egalitarian, which is in sharp contrast to the aristocratic view of human nature of Aristotle and our Founding Fathers. Also, one point that the editors never make and one that might generate some confusion is that while most of political philosophy is normative i.e. it deals with value judgments, the subject of human nature is empirical. So while no amount of scientific tinkering and fact finding can tell you that majority rule is better than the rule of law or that Locke's labor justification for property-rights is absolute, it should be possible to frame a predictable and identifiable picture of human nature. This would go along way to resolving a great many political disputes.

While I'm tempted to say that this yet another dreary saga of modern man in search of a soul, I must sober up and admit that I've known David Fischer longer than I care to admit and can therfore say with all assurance that this book is a yummy read, especially when topped with worcestershire sauce and garnished with radishes. Anyone who has ever been inclined to indulge in "The Little League" experience will thrill to the concise prose and compelling graphics that so richly capture Mr. Fischer's "early years" in Weehawken and beyond. Don't wait another moment. Men, let your wallets plop out and women open your purses, because a man or a woman without this book is sufferin' from the worstest of curses.

I bought this book with the intention of learning more in depth use of actionscript with all of its wonders...Instead, I was bombarded with too much game design stuff. The table of contents was misleading and the focus of the book was useless for true web design.

There are many books out there for actionscript, I suggest any of the others.

This book is, along with Moock's Actionscript book for O'Reilly, the first really solid book covering programming in Flash 5. That includes good stuff on planning projects, code structuring, OOP, design, and XML much more in depth than any other Flash book I've seen. It is definately advanced, perhaps not to the point of some of the hardcore OOP coders on the Flash lists, but quite complex and more than enough to challenge most readers, which is good.

The projects are good and varied, and it seems like Friends of Ed has at last gotten someone to insure that coding styles are reasonably consistant throughout the book--other of their Flash books have been essentially collections of inconsistant and often incompatible articles. The usual suspects do show up (spaceship games and rotating 3D cubes), but presented with a level of detail and thoroughness totally absent in other books (short tutorial in matrix math anyone?)

The great chapters on Sound and XML are almost worth the price alone, but the standout chapter is called "Creativity in Practice" and covers invaluable stuff like: working in teams, interaction planning, prototyping, information architecture, even some usability. In other words, the stuff that professional designers do the 80% of the time they're not messing around with software. It's exciting to see these topics appear in what could have been just another coding book.

I won't dock it a star, but one qualm is that it doesn't come with a CD (again contrary to Kevin's review below). You have to download about 80Megs of files from the publishers site. Come on guys, if there's no CD at least knock a few bucks off the price. And even at high-speeds, that 80Meg download is kind of a pain.

Friends of Ed has been publishing great books on Macromedia Flash consistently in the recent months, and this one actually has some fundamental coverage like concept design and project structure then moved on to advance topics such as XML integration, Generator, etc. Basically a little bit of everything starting from the intermediate level Flash developers can use. My only complaints is the black and white printing, and no CD-Roms, but all the source files can be download from Friends of Ed's web site. Keep up the good work FOE!

There is an inherent weakness in any book that lists internet sites, it is outdated before it hits the shelves. Netguide understands that weakness and has tried to keep it to a minimum by also providing full support at their website. With that handicap in mind, Netguide is a very helpful guide through the nuances of cyberspace.

I am reading "Pilgrim Among the Shadows" by Boris Pahor (Orlando, FL, 1995, Harcourt Brace & Co.), a translation by Michael Biggins from the Slovenian of "Nekropola." It appears to be the only work by Pahor to have been translated into English.

Pahor's experience was in Natzweiler -- and later in Dachau. He tells the
grisly tale of how Italy persecuted the speakers of Slovenian and
Serbo-Croatian in the areas it annaxed after World War I and expanded into after the outbreak of World War II. For Pahor, a Triestino Jew barred from speaking his own language and whose main memories are of gravestones on which the names were italianized and of the main Slovenian library in Trieste being burned to the ground by blackshirted fascists, Natzweiler (he does not explain why he ended in that camp high in the Vosges mountains of France) proved that the ties among "Yugoslavs" were strong despite the signs of breakup after the death of Tito.

This is a literary memoir -- awfully hard to read with constant flashbacks
from present to past and back again -- that does flesh out some horrors.
For example, the hot water in the showers at Natzweiler came from boilers placed above the crematorium ovens (something I did not find in
Buchenwald).

Peculiarly, Pahor hardly mentions his own Jewishness.

This book deserves a one-time run through for its interesting information, however, after the first perusal, it probably won't be taken off the shelf again. My best suggestion is to find a copy of it (or of a similar text) in the library

Some of the reviews below make me wonder if we are all talking about the same book, and if so, if some of the reviewers actually read it. Apparently either you like this book or you REALLY hate it, and I find the intensity of some reviewers' dislike rather puzzling. Did they think a $12.95 book was going to show them how to hack into the Pentagon's computers or something?

The book gives a decent basic picture of Web privacy/security issues & information and provides a good basic toolkit of sites & resources in a concise and to-the-point format. It lists many sites with useful functions and services I had no idea even existed. Oh, and the jokes about Macs and "Independence Day" were pretty darn funny too.

Yes, you can find some of the contents by using various free search engines, etc.; however, I'm willing to pay $12.95 to have someone find the sites and organize them for me so I can spend more time AT the websites rathe! r than searching for them. If the information in this book is so easy to find, perhaps the critics will write their own books about web search strategies for the rest of us.

On the negative side, for $12.95 this book had a bit too much blank empty space on each page. The "hip hacker" or "cloak and dagger spy" attitude/theme of the book was also annoying. And yes, the authors could do a better job of pointing out which sites' services are not free--but hey, they never said that only free sites were listed either.

In spite of these annoyances, average Internet users and aspiring hackers should still find this book interesting and useful.

It is nice to have all of the resources in the book collected into one place. It is true that you can find almost all of the information on the net, and some of it is pretty basic, but to have it summerized in one spot is nice. There are also a lot of sites you wouldn't want to miss. This book gets straight to the point and covers a lot of ground, but does not elaborate much and leaves this to the pages it points to. The advanced net user will probably be left with a feeling that something is missing.

BotGuide - The Internet's Hottest Tools that Work the Web For You, written by Michael Wolff and Peter Rutten, with Ben Greenman, lists hundreds of research and automated tools that can perform a variety of very helpful tasks. However, pages 231 through 235 offers readers...some descriptions and links to online porn sites...

An otherwise good book was ruined by the inclusion of 4 1/2 pages of so-called adult services. It's unfortunate that Harper Collins Publishing would allow such content to be featured in a book I otherwise had high marks for. It wouldn't have hurt sales the least bit to have left the stuff out. I could not and would not recommend this book to others!

It's amazing what a short passage of time can do to a once promising technology. In '99 when this book was written bots were hot. Now in '02 the fad has passed, and like most best wishes the promise was not realized. This book is a testament to the hopes and desires we had for agents, bots, and "look ma no-hands info gathering".

Many of the companies, products and services listed in the book have tanked, some I hated to see go, others left the scene none-to-soon, some are hanging on by their fingernails, but there are a few like Travelocity that have hung in there and become real brands, although we don't know of them as bots.

The problem I had with the book was that it considered almost any site that had some level of personalization or "web service" as a bot, and bots they're not.

All-in-all I enjoyed the guide because the creators spiced it up with humor and interest in their topic. They obviously enjoyed their assignment. I for one would pay for a new or updated version of the BotGuide because there are so many new tools that would fit and could stand the attention. It wouldn't hurt me if they would had an ongoing online way to cull out the dot.carcases that didn't make it.