No comments about Prince Henry the Navigator.

5 comments about Gardner's Guide to Colleges for Multimedia and Animation, Fourth Edition (Gardner's Guide series).

1. This book is simply a list of schools with contact information. It only has a short description of curriculum (which is not complete), a short section about facilities, and some other information about admissions and tuition. All this information can be obtained from the school's website and it will be more complete and up to date. If you want information on the best schools to go to for animation go the sites of the big F/X and animation companies like Pixar, Digital Domain, and Rythm + Hues. They have lists of schools that they frequently hire from. I was hoping for some more insight and recommendations for choosing a school based on what your field of interest is and where your talents lie. This book is worth about $5, simply because it can save some time in creating a list of possible schools. When you obtain that list or buy this book there is still a lot of research that you need to do, because this book provides very little additional information.



2. This book does an excellent job of outline the schools where one can receive an animation degree. I have used the book to find a college for studying animation. It is the only book of its kind on the market today. I have tried looking up animation schools on the Web and was confused by the various jargons that are used. Some colleges house their animation programs in various departments making it difficult for anyone to identify all the schools. It is great to have had this book. Five Stars all the way and it is well worth the money if time is important to you.



3. Don't bother. The internet is better.
   I purchased this book expecting to get some useful information about 3D animation colleges (since I'm planning to finish getting my BFA soon). While the book does do a decent job in covering tution costs, fees, etc. It lacks in giving the reader useful information about the actual courses offered and what that school's particular cirriculum covers. The book was also missing several (established) art schools that I have located doing my own research on the internet. This book provides nothing more than what a simple search on the internet can provide through such sites as (name)list of schools. A very disappointing book.



4. his book is really a time saver. I got to see the facts on animation schools in BLACK and WHITE. This is a reliable source. It is great to see the TUITION of various schools and be able to compare this information. But the true value of this book is the equipment section. I was able to screen out CG schools from Design and film schools. And apply to the ones that relate to me. This is a Great Reference.



5. This book is well worth the money. Good reference book.

No comments about Computer Graphics: Programming in OpenGL for Visual Communication.

5 comments about The Web Page Design Cookbook: All the Ingredients You Need to Create 5-Star Web Pages.

1. This book boasted that it was for everyone from beginner to advanced. I found this to be completely untrue. I have a limited knowledge of html and was totally unimpressed. The CD also claims to have hundreds of templates. I found the templates boring.



2. This book is an excellent choice for individuals hell-bent on implementing a website. It details the elements of website creation in a clear, cookbook fashion. Those looking for advice or information on the process one goes through in successfully developing and implementing an e-commerce website need to look elsewhere. Anyone wishing further information regarding this book, or small business websites in particular, should feel free to email me at Robert@rpdesign.com - Robert Davidson



3. I'm not a web developer or designer by any stretch of the imagination, but I do a lot of HTML page development and maintenance, with some light javascript programming thrown in on my own web site. I started in January 2000 with an account for a personal page, Notepad.exe and a quick reference card. I learned basic HTML in the process, but also created an eyesore. As my technical skills evolved the ugliness of my creation remained the same. I swallowed my pride and got this book. It was one of the best purchases I ever made.

   For a total beginner this is a good first book because it steps you through creating your first page, then adding features and using advanced HTML as you progress. For someone who is already proficient with HTML and has developed a few pages, you may find something useful in the advanced techniques and will certainly receive an education in good web page design. Some of the highlights of the authors' approach to design are in the examples. The accompanying CD ROM has every example in HTML format so you can see how they will display in your particular browser brand and version, and you can look at the code and play with it to see how your changes will display. This alone is a real time saver, and it makes this book all the more useful.

   If you are a technical writer the examples for web pages that provide how-to procedures, troubleshooting procedures, on-line lessons and survey forms reflect good page design and the example files on the CD ROM can be immediately used as templates.

   The only thing that detracts from this book is that it's woefully out of date. Some of the tools provided on the CD ROM are ancient, as are the discussions on various desktop operating systems. For example, Windows 95 was not even on the market when this book went to press and the authors' discussion on network issues were educated guesses. Now the network facilities built into desktop operating systems are so transparent that this section of the book can be safely ignored. However, we also live in a world where HTML has evolved to version 4, cascading style sheets are used on many sites (not to mention Macromedia Flash, Active Server Pages, more sophisticated java and javascript, etc.), rendering a lot of the technical aspects of this book quaint. On the other hand, that might not be such a bad thing since the best web pages are simple and more focused on design instead of a bunch of technical razzle-dazzle. But, I would love to see this book updated to reflect contemporary tools and techniques for web page design because I like the way the authors' impart their knowledge. This book would make an excellent text for a web design 101 class, and is one of the best for those of us who play around with this stuff. I'm subtracting a star because the book sorely needs to be updated, but am still giving it my highest recommendation.




4. If you're new to HTML, don't buy this book. Instead, buy "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating an HTML Web Page" by Paul McFedries. If you're familiar with HTML and are looking for something new under the sun, don't buy this book either. I don't have any recommendations for that type of book as I am still searching.



5. I'm not sure this book ever had "all the ingredients you need to create 5-star web pages". This book is getting old now, and only covers basic HTML, so it's certainly lacking something in today's world of JavaScript, Flash, DHTML and CSS.

   What it does have, and what keeps me from discarding it in favour of newer and more comprehensive HTML and page-design guides is its sensible advice on web site design. It's one of the few books with "web" and "design" in the title which actually covers web site design issues! It urges readers to think in terms of simple sites with useful content, and consider how the information might be used by people from all over the world as well as the usual issues of download speed and browser compatibility. If you follow its advice you might actually get a few more customers from outside the USA.

   Probably not worth buying these days, but borrow it from a friend or check it out of the library if you do see it

No comments about Haiti In Pictures (Visual Geography. Second Series).

No comments about Gesture Generation By Imitation: From Human Behavior To Computer Character Animation.

5 comments about AJAX and Flash Development with OpenLaszlo: A Tutorial (A Tutorial series).

1. The online documentation for openlaszo is very good, especially the interactive examples, where you can try out what you just learnt. I spent quite some time reading tutorials and writing some of my own laszlo code.
   
   The reason I bought this book, is because I expected to get a deeper understanding on openlaszlo, and an easier to follow description of more advanced concepts, than the one provided on the online documentation.
   
   I got the book about an hour ago, I browsed thru it, but I have to say I am disappointed: off the 300+ pages about a half are API's, which you can get online easily. The page numbers on the Table of contents are messed up: All references from Chap 11 thru the index are page 197 ! (Please next time: somebody look at the table of contents before printing the book !
   
   If you did not look into openlaszo yet, and you are just interested in how you can make great looking UI's using open source technologies, I still think this book is worth reading, but if you already spend a fair amount reading thru the online docu, this book is probably not for you.
   
   Actually, the book says it is a tutorial .. probably I just need to wait for a reference book, so I still give it three stars.



2. I ordered this book using 2nd day shipping. I need to evaluate whether openlaszlo is a replacement for flex. I am not expecting a lot except that I can get a little bit more than the online documentation.
   
   The books is just a reprint of online documentation. Each chapter just reprints the tag/attributes/methods. The examples the author gives are so simple that they don't teach me anything more than the documentation.
   
   Then finally comes the last chapter that teaches how to integrate google map. The author thanks to Manabu Togawa for allowing him to reprint it on the book. He did just reprint the code and didn't give any explanation of the code.
   
   The only thing intuitive I found in this book is the appendix A: Introduction to XML and appendix B:Introduction to JavaScript. If you don't know these two, you may want to buy this book?
   
   I doubt that author has done anything in OpenLaszlo himself.



3. The online documentation for Laszlo is pretty good, and has the advantage of interactive examples. But there are a huge number of tricks and undocumented details that can be very frustrating to figure out. My hope was that this book would help in those areas. Unfortunately this was not the case.
   
   As others have mentioned, this book is just a rewrite of the online reference manual, and not a very good one at that. In most cases the online docs are more complete and easier to follow. The "A Tutorial" subtitle is not accurate, as the book is almost entirely reference material. Only the two pretty good appendixes on XML and JavaScript basics are anything resembling a tutorial.
   
   Unfortunately, errors in the book make it more of a liability than an advantage to own this book. The inaccurate contents, index, and typesetting errors are mostly just annoying, but it is shocking a publisher would let such blantant errors get through. Far more problematic for a professional programmer are the errors in the content. We thought we had actually found some valuable information in the book regarding working with data, that was not in the online documentation. After wasting a day of programming, we discovered the reason the feature wasn't in the online docs is that it was never in Laszlo to start with.
   
   I strongly recommend sticking with the online documentation, user forums, etc. and not bother with this book.



4. First off, this book wasn't put together well at all. What I mean by that is the index and Table of Contents page numbers rarely match. How this got past the publishers is beyond me but it makes this book really difficult to use as a reference. I bought this book in hopes for more of a tutorial than what was available online but alas it's mostly a reiteration and provides very little value. If you can get over the fact that the page numbers don't match the TOC and index then it's a decent reference but really no better than the docs that come in the openlaszlo.war and at least those links work ;).



5. What I am looking for is how openlaszlo integrated with Ajax.
   
   And ajax is in the title of this book.
   
   But after I got the book, it just metioned what is ajax (I know that very well) . There is nothing about AJAX in openLaszlo( I am eager to know).
   
   What in it is all about the tag description from openlaszlo.
   
   I felt that I was misleaded and lied by the auther.

1 comments about Linear Algebra: An Introduction Using Mathematica.

1. This is a modern interpretation of Linear Algebra that effectively uses Mathematica to illustrate concepts and bring them to life. At the same time, rigor and theory are not sacrificed in any way. In fact, detailed yet easy-to-read proofs are ubiquitous, and are almost always accompanied by examples using the software.

   The book comes full circle in the finale with an exposition of the SVD. In the process, it brings together concepts described throughout the book.

   In summary: As a working professional in computer imaging, I enjoy this book as my standard linear algebra text. It is a thematic book that really drives the point home, truly giving worth to the suggestion that the SVD should be called the fundamental theorem of linear algebra.

5 comments about Fireworks MX Fundamentals.

1. The book takes a different approach to integrating graphics, animation, and the web. Easy to read literature with tons of
   visual aids.



2. This book was very informative and gave me a good foundation to build from. The book includes many exercises with the necessary files available on the CD that's included. A trial version of Fireworks MX is also included on the CD which would save download time if you didn't have a copy.

   I feel the order of the chapters and information presented could have been better organized. There are a couple of spots where the author refers to topics as though you should be familiar with the subject that hadn't been discussed. However once she covered the topic later in the book I felt comfortable with the topic and tools.

   This is a good book for the beginner.




3. in the H.O.T. tutorial style. I bought this book on the recommendation of Garo Green. He and Abigail authored Dreamweaver MX Hands-On-Training. They did a great job with the layout of the lessons as well as never assuming that you knew what they are talking about.

   I find Fireworks MX Fundamentals lacking in the wording of the instructions as well as the lack of visual reference as you go through each numbered lesson. I have already put the book down out of frustration and currently looking around for another book on learning Fireworks MX. Maybe it is just me that I got spoiled by the format of H.O.T. books. I think Abagail should redo this book but through Lynda.com...I bet it would be 10x better. If you are self taught, this book might fall beneath your expectations.




4. I read and fully enjoyed Dreamweaver MX HOT and got through it in 2 days flat not a problem. Got this as it is by the same author and the same cannot be said for this title. The examples are flawed in a good number of cases....procedures are missed out and many examples just don't work (try the masking a bitmap with text which they even supplied a full example for on the CD and following to the letter the text dissapears) I am a qualified lecturer in the implementation of software and this book has done nothing but frustrate me



5. I really loved this book because it was fun and interesting and it taught me exactly what I wanted to know. I thought the writing was clear and so were the examples. Do more!

No comments about M Is for Mexico (World Alphabets).