No comments about Bilingual Preschool: English-Spanish CD/book kit.

No comments about Wiley CPA Exam Review Impact Audios: Business Environment and Concepts.

5 comments about Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama.

1. I remembered listening to this production on NPR when I was a kid and now that my own children have discovered Star Wars I decided to share this version with them on a recent trip to visit grandma. We loved it! The Star Wars story is expanded and the writing and voice acting is so well done that it will keep the kids and adults entertained. Our trip seemed almost too short because we enjoyed listening so much.
   
   Don't waste money on a DVD player in the car. Stories like this one are much more entertaining and leave the special f/x to the imagination.



2. I have loved this since I was a kid. I only have it on tape (I'm old). Once you get used to the actors and once you stop trying to compare it to the movie, you will like it.
   
   The only scene I hate is the one where Vader is torturing Leia. It is laughable. Actually, you should listen to it because I guarantee you will laugh it is so poorly done.



3. The family loves to listen to various audio books while driving to Yellowstone, etc. We also listen while camping. This is an excellent audio that goes more into the characters. This will be one audio book we will listen to every year while camping. Need to purchase the other two books.



4. I have wanted to listen to this since it first came out but never could afford it until now. In listening to this I was not disappointed and as crazy as this sounds I liked it better than the movie. There is more detail to this version than you get in the movie or even in the book for that matter.
   
   In this version we find out how Leah got the plans to the Death Star before she is ever captured. We are treated to scenes of life on Alderan and Bail Organa tells Leah why they need Obi-Wan's help. We get to see Luke Skywalker flying through Beggar's Canyon - something only hinted at in the movie. Also - we get to find out what happens after the door closes when Princess Leah is interrogated by Vader. These are just a few examples of the extras you get from listening to this.
   
   This is an extremely well done dramatized radio broadcast version of A New Hope and if you can get past listening to another actor play to part of Han Solo or Princess Leah you should enjoy this greatly. Mark Hamil and Antony Daniels voices are featured - not to mention all of the sound effects that we know and love from the movies.



5. I love Star Wars, and I love audio dramas, so naturally I greatly enjoyed this CD set. The plot consisted of the content of the first Star Wars movie, but with a great amount of detail added and characters I wasn't familiar with before, making it much more than just a retelling of the film. It was fun and exciting and generally a great listening experience for this Star Wars fan. The acting wasn't always great but on the whole I'd recommend this item highly.

No comments about Wiley CPA Exam Review Impact Audios: Auditing and Attestation.

5 comments about Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.

1. Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R31VJP4YGWPG81 I would recommend this book for marketing students, marketers, managers and executives, and anyone considering an online marketing, or more specifically social media marketing, campaign.
   
   [...].



2. I was a little worried by the opening chapter or two that this book has dated as it's been on my wishlist for some time but I hadn't got around to reading it until this week.
   
   If you're part of Web Culture and in particular social media culture then the first parts of this book will be no surprise - in fact books like We Think, Crowdsourcing and Socialnomics are more vibrant and have fantastic, up to date examples.
   
   Keep on going though because it's Parts 2 & 3 of Groundswell that truly shine. They are technology agnostic but talk about ways you can engage your customers further through the groundswell (Bernhoff & Li's term for Social Media) and also determine which activities will be best suited for your customer based on on their social technographics profiles.
   
   From this you can then start to calculate ROI from your activities which will give you the ammunition you need to get a new project over the line with business colleagues who can't see how or what to do.
   
   Packed full of large scale, detailed case studies - many from Forrester's client base, this book is perfect for someone who needs good solid examples and plans to be able to effect business change.



3. I'm not a big fan of analysts .. specially Forrester and Gartner, since most of their analysis is fluff and you really need to sift through a lot of mud and dirt to get to the sliver of gold. This book has redeemed the lot.
   The book is extremely well written, with adequate detail in all sections, concepts well explained and case studies that reinforce the messages.
   
   What is ground swell (From a web dictionary) : an obvious change of public opinion or political sentiment that occurs without leadership or overt expression
   
   The book divides users as Creators (create content, publish blogs, create web pages, post videos, write articles, ), Critics (react to other peoples content, post ratings and reviews, edit wikis, comment in forums), Collectors (Use RSS feeds, Add tags to web pages and photos, vote on sites like digg), Joiners(participate in and maintain profiles on Social Networking sites), Spectators(consume content that other people produce- read articles, watch videos, listen to audio), Inactives (non participants)
   I see an overlap between categories. Creators, Critics as well as Joiners are involved in creating content. With social media really taking off more and more people now create content on facebook through their updates and notes and have moved away from maintaining blogs. I wouldn't be surprised if facebook allowed users to create blogs with a different set of privacy controls.
   
   The book is dated though. A lot of information from 2007 is not really relevant in 2010. As an example: For activity participaton Twitter usage was at the bottom Ranked 24. Today it could very well be No 2 and definitely in the top 5.
   
   Another shortfall is that Brand Monitoring tools are not covered in detail. This is really important considering that the voices that monitor/measure community sentiment offer a qualitative analysis which is very different from the standard quantitative analysis tools (Google Analytics, Omniture etc). Am extremely curious as to how these tools operate, what kind of insights they offer. Tools/Agencies mentioned in the book : Nielsen buzzmetrics, TNS Cymfony, Isobar (carat), me2revolution, BzzAgent, BazaarVoice(Rating Systems), Umbria(Brand Monitoring.
   
   If you plan to start a community or already have one and are looking for direction or a better understanding of how communities can be made more potent, you should read this book.



4. This book was recommended by a friend. He and I work at the same company and we are struggling to integrate our efforts into the groundswell. I think this was a great basic book for managers at all levels. An easy read that uses real world examples and is backed up by just enough data to justify concepts.
   
   What I really liked is the breakout and logical flow of topics by chapters and subchapters. I'm an engineer, left brain kind of guy and this worked well for me. The transition between chapters was a little basic, but it worked.
   
   The key message is independent of technology, which is nice. Having just read a short article in US Airways about customer service (or lack of it) in today's business enviroment, we (businesses) must listen to our customers AND we cannot control all content/feedback in today's world.
   
   I highly recommend this book as an important read.



5. The first 62 pages make the whole book. It starts very informative and tech-marketing oriented, then it becomes a list of like case studies and it end's up more like soap opera... such as the authors' break up. And, I never really managed to understand "groundswell" as a new concept.
   
   If you want to understand digital media as it's viewed by the new generation of consumers, I recommend "The Young and the Digital" by S. Craig Watkins and "Wikinomics" by Tapscott and Williams. These two books offer in-depth analysis and complex discussion on Social Networking.

No comments about Discover Music.

No comments about Wiley CPA Exam Review Impact Audios: Financial Accounting and Reporting.

5 comments about The Scarecrow.

1. Remember the movie from the 90s staring America's sweetheart Sandra Bullock called The Net and the movie called Unlawful Entry where in both movies the villian is a computer genius and freezed all teh heroeses' accounts and credit cards and all that? Well the same thing happens in this book FIFTEEN years later!! This book might be fun for senior citizens who never use a computer and think EMAIl will steal there soul. If you, like the chareacters int his book think "Googling" is some strange and magical event like in Harry Potter, then you will be fascinated by this crap.



2. I had fairly high hopes after all the glowing media reviews & seeing it make Amazon's Best of 2009. The bad guy is a credible hacker type, and Connelly seems to know his way around techspeak and the vulnerabilities of the Internet, as well as the downward spiral of print news media. Then the Huh? moments start. The two ostensibly intelligent leads start doing incredibly dumb things, despite what they know about the bad guy & his methods, apparently because that's the only way to advance the plot. An FBI agent is kicked out for misuse of government funds, and is magically restored to her prior position in the course of two days. (I work for the Feds, & I can tell you this would never, EVER happen, however big a break on a case an ex-agent unearthed. Some SSA at the Bureau would take all the credit, and leave them high & dry). A functioning 'throwaway' cell phone in an underground bunker, or the middle of the Nevada desert? I don't think so. And so on. If you're not prone to asking questions about why characters do what they do, and aren't bothered if it makes no sense given the prior setup, go for it. But I have to say I just couldn't buy it. Amazon got suckered on this one. Go for 'The Lincoln Lawyer' instead.



3. Weak, by the numbers follow up to the vastly superior The Poet. Where The Poet had thrills and surprises, The Scarecrow is utterly predictable once you get past the first 100 pages. Where the relationship with the FBI agent worked in The Poet, here it felt as if it were inserted to satisfy a focus group.



4. Michael Connelly is probably my favorite author for crime novels and has been for many years. He stays in that position because unlike many of my other favorite authors, he has overcome "the wall" and brought himself back to close to his old form in his latest novels. While Sanford, Robinson, Crais, Flynn, Grisham, have begun to fade, Connelly proves that he still has it.
   
   Putting Team Bosch aside for this novel and bringing out Team McEvoy/Wallings, Connelly shows his depth of field and penchant for attempting something a little different. Having read a total clunker just before The Scarecrow, I was simply blown away by the first 150 pages. Connelly was on his game and it showed. The writing was crisp, the characters were vivid and bringing back Jack McEvoy from The Poet was a terrific idea. Connelly really knows his way around the newsroom and the opening storyline was excellent - Jack gets canned after a high profile career to make way for a young, budding beauty by the name of Angela Cook. I was captivated from the start. From there it settles into a fast paced serial chase and never lets up.
   
   Why the 4 star instead of 5 star, then? Well, I can't go into detail without giving up too much of the story, but it will suffice to say that Connelly puts a little too much faith in the coincidence or artistic license - in this reader's opinion. At one point, Connelly even mentions some of the "luck" in order to let the reader know that it might be a little too much. But it's not out of the realm of the possible, so I'll let it slide to some degree. Also, as the chase concludes, there are a couple of open ended issues that I didn't care for.
   
   However, that said, this is a terrific book and one that will keep the reader flying through the pages.



5. I read a book by another author where it was obvious he just discovered flying by private jet. The book seemed to be a vehicle for showing that he knew the life-style and the lingo to the point where it was a throw-away. Connelly does the same thing here with what must be new-found knowledge of data protection environments. Then, he beats it to death. It got very tedious very fast. The entire book was shallow and trite. In fact, the book reads like a plot for a movie for teenagers.
   
   Definitely not even close to his prior work.

5 comments about SPSS 16.0 Student Version for Windows.

1. I guarantee you will be surprised by what this package doesn't do. No repeated measures. No multivariate ANOVA. No, it does not say anything to that effect on the back of the box, which I read carefully before I bought it. Graduate students probably need the "Graduate Pack" which is twice as much, or need to work in their computer lab at school. Otherwise, if you know what statistics you need to run, check the internet to see if this version will allow you to do it.



2. My copy of Spss16 worked like a charm on my laptop computer with Windows XP. Others from class are having major problems with Vista.



3. I have to have this software for a class, so it's not something I really wanted to buy but was needed. Fast shipping. I ordered over the weekend and got it Monday afternoon in time for class.



4. I ordered the SPSS Student Version 16.0. Instead I received the SPSS Graduate Pack 16.0. If you are not going to send the right item please indicate. I still do not know the difference and the student version is no longer available. This is too expensive to be sending back and forth and I need the item for next semester.



5. What can I say about SPSS that has not already been said. The product speaks for itself. If you are working on a thesis or dissertation using SPSS is imperative.

5 comments about The Last Lecture CD.

1. Great book. Does not offer any unique advice per se, but reinforces the belief that living without regrets is the only way to go, and helps you get your priorities straight. Pausch is able to enjoy whatever time he has left because he can check pretty much every one of his childhood dreams off the list. That's what I took away from it anyway, though I'm sure there are plenty more lessons to be learned from his story depending on where you are in life.



2. This book came in excellent condition and way before it's expected delivery date. I was very impressed and pleased with the purchase and seller.



3. Good Product, not expensive, good condition and excellent content, this book is really cool, I advised almost all my friends to read it.



4. In this book, Randy Pausch has given his readers an extraordinary perspective of the emotional journey he and his wife traveled together after receiving his terminal diagnosis. He showed all us his true courage as well as the things in life that truly matter.



5. I really enjoyed the insights shared by Randy. I thought about Randy's proverbs on better living and found them to be pragmatic and appealed to my common sense and rationale. However, I think the reason Randy's lectures were so impactful is because of his heart and emtional sincerity of impactful experience he remembered: find and marrying his wife, the birth of his first son, the wisdom of his father and the pursuit of his dreams, the achievements and expectations he set for his students, and his desire to find meaning and purpose for his children in the future. I liked listening to Randy and found the stories heart warming and real. Randy is a nerd, but a cool nerd. Randy has a strong following of loyal patrons, facility, and friends; but what makes him cool is his excitement about accomplishment, building his dreams, and his relationships with his children - family - and friends. Randy seems like a good guy. I hope you enjoy listening to his last lecture. I did and found myself hurrying to my car to listen each of the 5 cds.