I too purchased this book in the hopes of learning Photoshop, but I was very disappointed that the CD-ROM did not have some of the files that the book called for. I did get some of the files from Macmillan Technical Support,but now that I'm working in chapter 11, I again find that I am missing files. I can say with all honesty that I would not recommend this book.

I purchased this book because the accompnying CD claimed to have the full color images from many of the examples. This is great for a beginner like myself as it's very useful to be able to follow along with the instructions.

It's good that you can get many of the missing images at www.hayden.com, however there are still numerous mistakes in the book that can make life very difficult for the beginner.

For example, on page 116, when examining CMYK channels, figure 4.12 shows the RGB channels.

In another instance, while learning to load custom textures, the authors ask you to load a saved texture file. While texture files need to be loaded in .psd format, the authors supply only the .jpg. Thus a novice would need to understand that she needs to first save the .jpg as .psd, and then load the new texture. None of this is described.

Finally, there are numerous small omissions and oversights that make following the example more difficult. A complex program such as Photoshop can have many modes and parameters set. The frequent omission of small steps and parameters can make the examples hard to follow.

I've only made it through the first 7 chapters of this book, but I would have a hard time recommending it to anybody, particularly a new user.

Can you artisans recommend a quality book for beginners of Photoshop? Suggestions please.

This book includes few horror stories, which may interest you. The stories in here are not much of a horror story, but more of a suspense. As the scenes reveal you will be anticipating for the story to go on, but you will find youself saying, "HUH? " -at least that's what i did. sureley this isn't a story written by Stephen King. But for those who are interested in horror itself, try it. Who knows if you will have a different opinion than me.

I'm glad not to be alone in seeing the Harry Potter books as only an empty marketing success and Zipes is acute when he comments on the banality of "Americanized" culture continued today by media giants like Disney. But Zipes is guilty of the same mamby pamby moralism that he criticizes in others, if you've read his Oxford Book of Fairy Tales you'll find that it's an unimaginative collection of innocuous speech codes and flaky feminist paranoia which is tedious and boring. Much of the "homogeneity" he complains about in popular culture comes from the dictates of "least objectionable programming" which advertisers like and is not unlike the political correctness found in elite Western institutions, where Zipes hails from obviously. J.K. Rowlings caricatures are embarrassingly "diverse" as if from a from a sensitivity training pogram which good leftists like Zipes should respect after all. Zipes reiterates all the liberal platitudes which have become suburban marketing clichés. Although he doesn't exactly advocate body piercing or tattoos. Not yet anyway. In short it's difficult to see where Zipes complaints lie since corporate progressives are pretty much dictating his own taste.

In this collection of essays based on speeches and lectures, the author - an admirer of Adorno - poses questions that should concern parents and teachers everywhere: Who decides what is "appropriate" literature for children? How are children introduced to this literature, and what do they make of it?

The first four chapters of the book, peppered with the somewhat off-putting jargon of literary theory, deplore the vertical integration of publishing empires, the marketing of books in association with toys, games, gadgets, T-shirts, etc., which results in "cultural homogenization" of the children. Adults decide "what's good for children" and use literature, among other tools, to manipulate and control them.

In chapters 5-9, the discussion gains momentum by using concrete examples of literature written for children. Changing attitudes toward Grimms' Fairy Tales and the "Struwwelpeter" stories of Heinrich Hoffmann have spawned multiple translations, bowdlerizations, dramatizations and parodies. The author shows how the "sexist" content of most fairy tales (the hero is almost always a male) has triggered feminist re-interpretations. Finally, there is no "authentic" version of fairy tales; all of them, including the ones collected by the Brothers Grimm, have been "contaminated", i.e. adapted and collated from multiple sources.

The final chapter on the phenomenal success of the Harry Potter books seems to be the one most American readers have focused on. It stresses the stereotypical aspects of the stories and the commercial hype that attended their release, and, again, their sexist nature - one of the author's pet peeves.

While some of these arguments seem excessively gloomy, all of them deserve our thoughtful consideration.

While I admire Zipes work in general, I think he's missed the point about Harry Potter. Zipes remarks that Harry is a classic boy scout, a straight arrow (...). He complains that the novels follow a tedious and grating fairy tale formula (...). The only difference between Harry and anyone else, according to Zipes, is that Harry has a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead (178).

Zipes misses the point on the importance of the scar - the scar is the central metaphor of the series and the importance of scars and wounding says something about our culture's adoption of this particular hero.

This is possibly the most horrible book I have ever read. I finished it, just because I kept thinking that it might get better. This is the first book I read by this author, and I have to say that I will never read another one. Books that I think are really terrible are few and far between, but this one may be the absolute best of the worst.

I realize that this is not the first book in this series, but it is his first that I have read. Although it wasn't great, I'm not quite yet ready to write off the author completely. This particular book seems to be really low-key as far as creating a motive and building storylines. However, I thought it was an okay book if you want an easy, non-suspenseful read. I'll probably try and find the first in this series and start there and see how it goes.

Harry Kemelman's Rabbi David Small is once again gainfully employed! Following his earlier resignation in "The Day the Rabbi Resigned," Small is now teaching at Windermere College--a good, if not proper for him, academic setting. In "That Day the Rabbi Left Town," it seems, having run out of days of the week (remember, this series started with "Friday the Rabbi Slept Late," Kemelman has been creative with working in other diurnal references in his title. That aside, of course, the series has been a fun read. In this one, the death of an elderly colleague gets Rabbi Small into the heart of the action, as it were. Of course, in his new setting he quickly stumbles into all kinds of academic and campus politics, grudges, and jealousies, to say the least. This episode seems a bit different, however, as Kemelman goes didactic and spends a good third of the book giving us perhaps more background, history, and practices of his religion. Readers may find this a struggle, particularly if they are in a hurry to get into the real case! Once that occurs, however, Kemelman cruises.(Billyjhobbs@tyler.net)

"Change at Work"
Cappelli, Peter (1997). Change at Work. Oxford University Press. NY
Change at Work is a commissioned study by the Committee on New American Realities that uses available information in an attempt to understand changing employment practices, changing organizations, and evolving employment relationships. The issues discussed in the book are nationwide workplace trends that have important ramifications for employees, employers, and the U. S. economy.

Change at Work is definitely a scholarly work that must be read in manageable, small portions because of the poor linking of chapters and poor data presentation. Fortunately, the final and concluding chapter of this book makes some sense out of the previous six chapters.

The editor tells us that the book was outlined by the group of authors, then individual authors took responsibility for each chapter. The editor also says "the authors made extensive comments on each others chapters along the way." (14). I have no doubt that the authors made comments on each chapter. I only wish they had taken the time to focus these comments on the transition between and the linking of the chapters and the data presentation. A consistent chapter format that used a conclusion or summary section at the end of each chapter would have facilitated the transition and linking of the chapters. This type of section at the end of each chapter could have solidified the authors' conclusions after the data purge that occurs in each chapter. Each data source pertains to a different time period and means of data collection. Some sources use percentage, while others use raw numbers. The authors do a poor job of linking the data; hence, the net effect is confusion to the reader. The authors would have made the book easier to read by using more graphical representation and detailing the significant data necessary to support their arguments.

The one strength of this book is the editor's ability to bring most of the significant findings throughout the book into a logical concluding chapter that is easy to understand and flows quite well. Each of the previous chapters is referenced directly or implicitly as the editor makes sense out of the book.

The authors are definitely working on a timely topic that most people in industry can relate to. Personally, I started working for my current employer, a global consumer products company, a year or two after they went through a large downsizing period. Since employment, I have seen this trend continue in the supervisory level. This is in alignment with the authors data that shows the percentage of supervisory jobs eliminated doubling in four years. My company is not currently going through a large organized downsizing, but rather a slow downsizing through attrition and hiring fewer people. The flattening of my company, coupled with the implementation of high performance work systems has undoubtedly placed the results of doing business on the employees. The book dedicates an entire chapter to these work organizations and the responsibilities that they bring to the employees.

The book describes the changes and brings supporting data, but the authors do not give any significant conclusions or forecasts and does not present the data in a way that the reader can draw his or her own conclusions. The lack of conclusions or forecasts and the poor linking of the chapters leave the experienced reader, someone who has been through downsizing and is involved in high performance work groups, no better off than he or she was before.

Change at Work is a must read for high-school students, college students, and those seeking careers in management. Cappelli has a no nonsense approach with detailing those issues impacting our careers, the work environment, and the future. For those wondering if a technical or college education is worthwhile, Cappelli gives you good reasons for furthering your education. Cappelli and his co-authors do an outstanding job detailing those issues and circumstances faced by today's workers and managers of all business, i.e., corporate America, government agencies and other nonprofit entities, and the smallest of ma-and-pa companies. Cappelli does not offer good solutions for any of the issues he raises in this work. Unfortunately for professionals and management already in the work force, Change at Work offers no new knowledge.

Change at Work is based on a study, commissioned by the National Planning Association's Committee on New American Realities (NAR), to evaluate and comprehend changing employment/organizational practices. The study also looked at the impacts of such changes on the employees of the companies reviewed - particularly the skills and adaptation needed to weather this storm. Change at Work is divided into six chapters, each individually authored by NAR committee members. Consequently, one of the main problems with the book is that it does not flow particularly well. The central theme of Change at Work is that the traditional methods of managing employees and developing skilled workers inside companies are eroding, leaving a new employment relationship in which the attachment between employees and employers has declined. Jobs demand more of their workers but offer them less, and these workers now bear more of the risks of doing business through reduced job security and contingent pay (pay based on performance). In addition, what Peter Cappelli calls the "traditional work arrangements," where companies developed skilled employees and worked to keep them, are quickly disappearing. Pressure on the companies for better performance is being applied from foreign competitors and investors and is causing these companies to explore restructuring to cut out "fat." This "fat" has often been interpreted to mean the companies' employees, who have found themselves to be the unfortunate victims of the now famous concept called "downsizing." The strengths of Change at Work are in the chapters contributed by Cappelli. In addition, the book contains an interesting and thorough variety of data, surveys, and other references, although some may not like their breadth or loose assembly. Unfortunately, Change at Work balances its strengths with several weaknesses. The book claims it is the result of a study, but it is actually more of a history lesson with limited background. It is also not particularly useful as a management tool, and may not even be considered interesting by most managers or employees. The book lacks a solid conclusion to the theme, with the exception that employee/employer relationships will become worse before they improve. Change at Work provides several other useless conclusions as well. Examples include the findings that employees need more skills in the new system (which begs the question-at what point throughout business evolution have employees never needed new skills?); managing these issues will be an enormous challenge; and change at work will continue. Big surprises. The variety of data sources and timeframes simply tossed together leaves the reader hoping that the authors will use them to point to some obvious conclusion or develop their own, but in the last paragraph they resign and state they are divided. The currently strong economy and low unemployment rate, albeit temporary, has given employees an opportunity to strike back in the form of being more selective, demanding better compensation packages, etc. We should not ignore the benefits of corporate restructuring as mentioned in Change at Work. Restructuring has given organizations much more flexibility in accomplishing their goals, has empowered employees, and has given them the autonomy that the traditional model could not.

Rabbi Small wants to start a new career before it's too late, and sets his sights on teaching. Meanwhile, an unpopular man gets himself killed in what looks like a drunk driving accident, and the Rabbi takes a detour in his career planning to assist the police.

Kemelman is often not my cup of tea, but can occasionally create a book that I really enjoy reading. This one wandered too far afield and had a curious stilted tone in many places. Start with a different book if you want to get to know Rabbi Small.