2 comments about G Is for Grand Canyon : An Arizona Alphabet (Alphabet Series).

1. As a former educator and current author, I really enjoyed this book. There is so much you can do with the 2 tiered writing style in teaching kids. This approach lets the book grow with your child. The pictures, by Katherine Larson, are filled with great details too. Sleeping Bear Press is doing a whole country's worth of these books and if they're as information packed as this one, they'll make great tools for learning.



2. This is a great book for any age. It is very informative and the illustrations are beautiful. We live in Arizona and is a great way to tach my daughter about her home state. Note: it is $10.99 at Costco.

1 comments about Introduction to Solid Modeling Using SolidWorks 2008 with SolidWorks Student Design Kit.

1. I'm always looking to save money. As a graduate of ITT, I'm trying to learn solidworks on my own. Many companies in the area are requiring SolidWorks experience. The only reason that I paid this much for a solidworks book, was to obtain a free copy of the SolidWorks Student design kit as is stated in the description. What a BIG SURPRISE I had when I learned that this is not true. YOU DO NOT GET A FREE COPY of the Solidworks Student Software. Someone should let you know.
   
   For 300 plus pages, the book is NOT worth the money. The book covers nothing in detail on how to apply Solidworks and provides little or no illustrations of SolidWorks. All of his illustrations show sketch I, CirPattern I, etc. vs. sketch 1, CirPattern 1. I question whether the author has ever taught a class on solidworks. The book is very poorly written and provides only the very basics in information. The drawing section does not address DimXpert, any tolerances, multi-part configurations / views, etc. THe assembly section does not address multi-configuration, in context parts, propterties, external references, etc., all of which I found some information from the SolidWorks tutorials.
   
   The author does a lot of assumptions. You can not learn on assumptions. There is no enclosed CD with instructions or models. He does more talking than teaching. I tried to contact the author to obtain information from the book, good luck in finding anyone that can help you...

5 comments about Half Life 2 Mods For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)).

1. Half Life 2 Mods for Dummies is a great beginners guide for modding the Half Life 2 game. While the book focuses mainly on mapping, you learn how to create maps, make custom textures for your map and how to finish and pack up your map to show the world. I bought this book to expand my knowledge of Half Life 2 modding and I did learn some new stuff. Half Life 2's Source is a very powerful engine: you can get started modding it using this book.



2. Half-Life 2 Mods for Dummies is a bit of a mixed bag. Much of the information contained within the book is available on the web for free, but there is something to be said for containing a solid amount of beginning information in one volume. It's also one of the few HL2 modding resources in print, and Guilfoyle has some genuinely solid tips and tricks for level building quickly. Still- I can't wholeheartedly recommend it to the entirely new modder as there are a number of critical typos and incorrect file paths. Buyer beware- make sure you know your general way around Valve's file trees before plunging into this book thinking it will guide you flawlessly.
   
   Guilfoyle does an admirable job of writing in a clear and concise manner. The book will tell you exactly what to do to build a basic level and give it some more advanced spit and polish, but that's also about all it does. "HL2 Mods for Dummies" rarely gets into the nuts and bolts of why certain functions do what they do. "Do this, then this, then this, and you'll end up with this..." is the modus operandi. A bit more information on why Valve's powerful editors do what they do would have been helpful.
   
   I don't mean to be too hard on what is a good beginning guide. If you don't want to spend days wading through the fragmented tutorials on the web, this is a fine place to start. The price is right and I'm tempted to give it four stars because of the cost and the singular place it occupies in print, but...



3. I just love this book. It explained things clearly and was just what I needed to start modding. I never made any mod before, so I was a complete noob to this subject. And if you want to benefit from this book, you better be a noob too. The book explains the very basics of modding, you will not learn modelling, programing nor you will work with 3rd party (yours) models and props. You will learn simple map creation and texturing (using half life 2 native textures). So, if you need to know how to start modding - this book will deliver. If you can make your own basic rooms but need to optimize them, this book is for you too. However, if you can make your own basic optimized room, there's not much for you in this book.



4. I want to warn anyone who wants to buy this book that it only covers mapping levels and has no advanced material other than using the compiling console for error detection. If you want complete coverage of the basics you can download the 3DBuzz.com video tutorials for HL2 mapping for free which will start you out with better quality examples and lead to some more advanced material. I was hoping this book would give a better overview of the advanced material you find in the 3DBuzz videos as well as other HL2 mapping video tutorials on the net, but it doesnt. As the other reviewers have said, it is an easy to understand book, but its simply redundant to all the online material that is freely available and doesnt go into the detail it should.



5. I recommend this book for any one that is new to making game mods, period! I was a n00b to modding, I didn't know how to properly put together a map. Now I consider my self a some what competent mapper!
   
   It pretty much spells it out for you, guides you step by step. Teaching you the absolute raw basics that is extremely important to know when level building with the Hammer Level Editor. like the proper map construction, optimization for getting the most out the Source(TM)Game Engine. Also it teaches you how to pack up your map and share it with the world, and how to make your own textures with photoshop. This book will give you a strong foundation to start out on.
   
   However I do not recommend this for the intermediate and the advanced. It really doesn't have much pass the basics. It doesn't go really deep into entities, no information on how to edit terrain, NPCs, ETC.

5 comments about AdvancED Flex Application Development: Building Rich Media X (Advanced).

1. This is a very basic introduction to Flex, and doesn't provide much into how it fits into web design as a whole!



2. This book is not all about FLEX it spends time covering the creation of RMX which is not what i wanted at all. The authors are idiots and don't focus mainly on flex. If you want to learn flex puchase something else. If you are interested in their (the authors) project and what they use in their project spend 42.00. WHAT A WAISTE!!



3. I have mixed feelings about this book which I got because it was one of the first to cover Flex 3.
   
   I think it is a bit weak on the pure Flex bit - I just can't see someone actually learning Flex out of it, though they will get a pretty good feel for what Flex does. It presents just enough information to explain their application, the RMX, no more. The coding examples are also somewhat hard to follow, with code being all over the place. Yes, it might be real-life production/business code but that doesn't mean that it is automatically great for teaching. Simpler, more illustrative, tighter code would have been better.
   
   On the other hand, the book does a much better job at presenting the big picture of a Flex website and how all the parts fit together, almost at a business/planning level. The wireframe chapters and how to integrate ads are great. Also, though I don't use PHP+Drupal, which they use as a backend, I definitely came away with a confirmation that Flex wasn't tied to particular backend server technologies. If you do use PHP and Drupal, you will get more value out of it for sure.
   
   All in all, a 3.5/5 book.



4. This is a great book to learn how to build Flex Rich Internet Application. It is easy to read and follow, and it also includes SEO omptimization techniques for higher ranking in SEO results. Highly recommended!



5. The only problem with this book is that it's not AdvancED as they claim in the title. It's aimed for beginners who never worked on a bigger projects before. The way the authors approached building of RMX application is pretty cool, and newbies will learn something from them. There isn't any depth in the book though, everything they touch upon, and they touch many many things, is pretty shallow. Be it Project Management, Action Script, Flex, MXML, Skinning, SEO, it's all pretty basic. But as I said, I recommend it to anyone who wants to start doing Flex apps professionally.

3 comments about Creative Code: Aesthetics + Computation.

1. Maeda is a certifiable genius, but his books have gone downhill since his first, "Design by Numbers." That book is an exceptional introduction to computational design, original, and elegant. His next, "Maeda at Media" took many hundreds of pages to sum up Maeda's years a the MIT Media Lab. It was something of an egotistical embarrassment. Maeda, then just in his mid-thirties, included pretty much every experiement and project he'd done to date. Even geniuses need editors.
   
   Now, in "Creative Code" we get a book not really different from the "New Masters of Flash" series that's now in (I think) its third edition. CC is a collection of case studies of work by some very smart people, and some essays about digital media, working methods, and so on. Much of it is great work and pretty. It's rendered pretty lifeless in a printed book, of course, so you'll want to track down this work online to actually check it out.
   
   How valuable will this be to you? Do you need another heavy, sexy design book? If you're really interested in this kind of work, you'll certainly already know about all of these designers, and probably about most of the peices included here. You've probably also read the designers' own blogs or web sites, so you'll know about their methods and interests in much more detail than you get here. (The description's statement that "little of this research has been seen outside the laboratory" is not true.) In that case, you get a book of pretty pictures that probably will sit on your shelf more than on your lap. If you're looking for code samples or detailed technical explanations, you'll be better off looking elsewhere.
   
   It's kind of a shame in the end. He's so talented, I want to see Maeda doing less surveying of the state of interaction design and more genuinely innovative and interesting things. In fact, I'll tell you what's needed: to finish the project he started in DBN, which is to really explain the concept of "coding elegance" (and the creativity behind it). There's a lot in all three books about the aesthetic appeal of well-written computer code, but there's not much about what specifically makes one algorithm more beautiful than another. This algorithmic elegance is really central to Maeda's work; he says that digital designers should appreciate both the coding and the visual/interactive design natures of the medium. The people represented in this book are the ones who'll be able to do that, but it hasn't happened yet.



2. I read 7 times in a row this book to analyse it in depth. It is fun and very exciting to read as you go through dozen of highly interesting projects. My analysis of this book brought me to the conclusion that it also contains a vision, a powerfull secret message. It convinced me we are builders of a new era, a "renaissance" of human knowledge and activities with computational technologies.
   Within a friendly package, i got intimately convinced by the faithfull project of John Maeda, and I'm now driving my research having in mind the many accessible yet visionary projects i have seen in this book. I'm applying to MIT Media Lab and i want to change the world, with my vision.



3. The book is carefully, beautifully designed, it really shines in your bookshelf. Nevertheless, i found it to be lacking more thoughts, ideas - something to fill the void, to make the images meaningful. It fails to inspire, to make you ask questions, to expose the deeper structures and ideas behind the artwork. That's a big "sin" so to say, since maeda is well known for having interesting things to say.
   
   Without real text i think it's just a beautiful book, no more and no less than that. Great for snobs, or for having in your living room...

1 comments about Adobe Flash CS3 Professional: Video Training Book.

1. If you are familiar with Lynda.com and her training videos, you will be glad to know that she has teamed with Peachpit Press to release a compilation of some of those great videos as an "interactive book". Adobe Flash CS3 Professional: Video Training Book by Rich Shupe is one of the first releases of this new venture for Lynda.com and Peachpit. Included in this new way to learn are training videos which explain the basics of Flash CS3, accompanying exercise files and a reference guide. If you have read any of the Hands-on Training books from Lynda.com, you have a good idea of what to expect. However with this interactive book, the emphasis is more on the training videos than the written material. These videos are in QuickTimeR format and do not require any other software.
   
   The reference guide isn't to be dismissed however. It acts as a written outline of the material covered in the videos. For each video lesson, the book lists the keyboard shortcuts covered and the exercise files used to follow along with the author. It also lists each major step in the lesson and gives the corresponding location for that step on the video's timeline.
   
   Rich Shupe covers the basics of Flash CS3 in easy-to-understand lessons for the Flash novice and teaches most of what the beginner will need to work in Flash CS3 without ActionScript. His tutorials follow the same outline as most beginner-level Flash books. Beginning with how to start a new project and customize the workspace, he takes the reader step-by-step through to publishing Flash to the web.
   
   After an introduction to the workspace, you learn to use the drawing tools including the Pencil, Line, Brush and Pen. You will also learn to draw Bezier curves and work with shapes. He moves on to setting colors for the stroke, fill and gradients and explains how to edit a basic gradient in the Color Panel and with the Gradient Transform Tool.
   
   Finally, you are ready to get into Flash interactivity and animation. Shupe discusses the three types of symbols, the Library Panel and the part each plays in building a Flash movie. He gives a good demonstration of the difference between editing symbols and editing instances of symbols. This is a difficult concept for the beginner and I was glad to see that it was included.
   
   If you are not using ActionScript in your Flash movie, the Flash Timeline is where the action is. Shupe tours the Timeline and then you are ready to tween text, graphics and gradients. One example included in this topic is a simple text motion tween. He also discusses how to use shape hints for better control of shape tweening. He then moves on to creating animation with filters.
   
   This interactive book is not meant to teach ActionScript but Shupe covers a few basic concepts such as variables, methods, Script Assist and the Actions Panel. However, he relies on the built-in components such as the UIScrollBar and UILoader to add interactivity to Flash. Finally, he touches on adding sound and video to your Flash movie and publishing to the web.
   
   This new type of book does not cover Flash basics as thoroughly as most books. However, it is a great way for the beginner to become familiar with Flash via a visual presentation before tackling the written word.
   
   Rich Shupe is a professor at the New York's School of Visual Arts. He is a technical writer for DevX.com and Adobe and the author of several books.

5 comments about Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 Classroom in a Book.

1. I guess I knew more about Photoshop Elements than I thought, because this book was too basic for me. It was very easy to follow, and did have accurate information - it was just all stuff I already knew.



2. I would recomend this book to anyone using Photoshop. It teaches through logical steps and really makes learning easy.



3. Generally, all Adobe Classrooms in a Book are the best of their class, and this Elements 3.0 book is no exception. If you haven't upgraded to Elements 4.0, you need this book to help you get the most from your software. The lessons are easy to follow and really teach this program well.



4. The main recommendation I have for elements 3 is that it will install on W2k or w98se. Elements 4 is a better version and the version I use. But it only runs on XP. I think XP stands for Extra Problems, not Extra Performance. I would rather run Elements 4 on W2k. I think it is peculiar that Photoshop CS2 will install and run on W2k or XP, but Elements 4 will not run on both platforms.



5. I really learned a lot with 3.0 for over year until I was ready for an advantage. I now own 6.0 and it goes smooth -- thanks to 3.0! Never regret to own 3.0.

1 comments about Digital Photography Visual Quick Tips.

1. Visual Quick Tips is definitely is on my "don't leave home without it" list. It is an essential part of anyone's photo bag. For the beginner to expert, Visual Quick Tips stimulates your creativity, reminds you of solutions, and increases the "dynamic range" of your thinking! It is like having a professional photographer readily available as a mentor whispering in your ear "Try this". Easy to read, easy to find your topic, it concisely gives you the answer on how to get a WOW picture.
   I have a library of photography "how-to" books, but this one, on two, pages, taught me more about depth of field and assessing the shooting conditions then all of them combined! Sometimes you need a book not to just give you the answers, but to help you ask the questions that will let you take better pictures.
   Just when I thought it covered everything, I got to the back chapters on organizing, printing and creative ways of sharing photos! This is one book that will be well used! And the best part is its size is so easy to slip into a pocket or small camera case. I highly recommend it to all digital photographers! I know you will enjoy it. Joyce Carmel

1 comments about P Is For Palmetto: A South Carolina Alphabet Edition 1. (Discover America State By State. Alphabet Series).

1. This is a beautifully illustrated book and a lot of fun to read, but I was disappointed in the coverage of the state. Most of the alphabet is about the coast and especially Charleston. There is one letter about the entire upstate of South Carolina and a couple about Columbia.

5 comments about SolidWorks 2007 Tutorial.

1. I`m a Mechanical Design Engineer by profession. I have over 20 years in the CAD industry primarily with AutoCAD, SDRC, and Pro/E, and the last three years using SolidWorks. SolidWorks, by far is the most intuitive 3D CAD package out there today!
   
   A few years ago, I decided to leave industry, and I now teach at a mid size college in Texas. I teach four freshmen sections of SolidWorks, along with evening and weekend SolidWorks classes.
   
   I, like many instructors who are teaching a software class review numerous books, for potential classroom text and lecture notes. Last year, my local VAR recommended the SolidWorks Tutorial book by Planchard & Planchard. The book provides an excellent foundation in a timely step-by-step procedure with numerous illustrations to clearly enforce the chapter desire outcomes and objectives.
   
   The book is suited well for a classroom / learning environment. It is also great as a self learning tool either for a student or an adult. The material is clearly presented, in a very logical manner. It starts with the SolidWorks Interface, moves to 2D sketches, and then progresses to 3D features: Extruded Boss/Base, Extruded Cut, Extruded Revolved, Loft, Swept, etc. The features are then applied to build parts, assemblies, and drawings.
   
   Part, assembly, and drawing fundamentals and foundations are addressed. This is a great book for the beginner in SolidWorks.



2. This is a great step-by-step book for the SolidWorks user who is a beginner. I've been using SolidWorks for approximately three months. The book provides a solid foundation and a straight forward logical procedure to follow. The enclosed CD-ROM is priceless. The CD provides a solid foundation to learn the fundamentals of SolidWorks. Read, watch, learn, and do. Great book.



3. Im new to Solidworks, and after going through the book, I feel pretty comfortable using the software. In the exercises the book covers, you build various parts and sub-assemblies. At the end of the book, you put it all together and end up with the assembly shown on the cover of the book. So basically, you'll be able to do that when you're done with the tutorial. Nice book, I only wish it covered Importing from AutoCAD. It completely ignores the subject. Other than that, I was happy with it.



4. SRES:
   
   It is a book what do not can buy in any librery.
   
   It have four examples very good explain.
   
   I am wraiting with the autores looking for have this book in spanish and meabe i can be co-autor.
   
   Tranquilino Acosta



5. I like the book, but I wish not all of the versions of this book are the same because this same book written in 2005-2008 have the same exact projects with only small changes for the version. I do think it is a good book to get students prepared for larger scaled projects.