No comments about Repair Your Home In No Time.

No comments about 007 Travel Kit.

No comments about Toyota Corona and Mark II 4 Cyl 69-74 (Owners Workshop Manuals Ser No 230).

No comments about Norma Vally's Bathroom Fix-Ups: More than 50 Projects for Every Skill Level.

No comments about Honda Xr 75 Dirt Bikes Owners Workshop Manual.

No comments about Builts Ins Storage Spacemaking.

1 comments about The Owner-builder Workshop Dvds.

1. Disappointed. I bought this DVD set expecting information on owner-BUILDER issues (like a "this auld house"...how to put up roof trusses with one person...etc), but it is about three-hours of "home video"-quality taping of one seminar in Utah on how to be an owner-CONTRACTOR...in Utah. They mention their book a lot; and throw candy rewards to their audience who chant Pavlovian mnemonics and complete math calculations...on calculators. Hymns sung about the miracle of spreadsheets for budgeting and comparing bids...to an audience which did not look like they owned computers.
   
   Poor production quality. Sound cut in and out. Speakers kept talking away from the hand-held microphone, or, put the microphone down! Picture bobbed around like bad hand-held for first fifteen minutes of first disc. Abrupt cuts in and out of conversations, topics, speakers. You couldn't see anything they wrote on the whiteboard. Dark room. Their overhead projections were barely visible; occasionally there are graphics super-imposed over the real-time seminar with some of the information being discussed.
   
   They spent five-ten minutes on one disc discussing how they negotiated the price of the video camera (being used to record the seminar), batteries and film, and how this was example about how to negotiate with the contractors and vendors to get good equipment at lower prices, and took special pains to credit the people filming the seminar.
   
   The last disc included a bunch of Utah vendor presentations and their purported discounts for the seminar attendees. I'm tempted to call up vendors and "mention" the seminar to see if I could get the discounts.
   
   If you still want to buy, don't try to watch (think Blair Witch Project).

1 comments about Phone Book, 2E.

1. This book was delivered on Tuesday. I sent it back on Wednesday.

   An examination of this book quickly reveals that it is a total waste of money for anyone who wants to do anything with a modern telephone system. The book was originally published in 1986. Even though this is a "revised second edition", it appears that little has changed in 11 years except a little text and the product photographs. For example, equipment that I have owned for over ten years is described as "just coming on to the market". Standard items such as fax machines, computers and punch-down blocks are not mentioned at all. Modems are mentioned, but only with reference to speeds that were obsolete ten years ago.

   I am shocked that a business unit of Bell Atlantic (Howard W. Sams & Co.) would publish a technical book about the telephone system that is so horribly out of date. My intent in purchasing the book was to get up-to-date information on wiring my house with Category 3 or 5 unshielded twisted pair cable, which has been the recommended practice since 1991. That type of cable is not even mentioned. The cable types and installation practices described have long been considered marginal even for single-line voice telephones. For anyone that has two or more phone lines - or who wants to use a computer at more than 19.2k bits per second - the information in this book is totally obsolete.

No comments about Stopping Drips and Replacing Faucets (Fix-It Maps).

No comments about Historical Home Designs.