3 comments about Macromedia Flash MX 2004: A Beginner's Guide.

1. This is only an average book, if you are absolutely new to Flash. The reason I say this is because I am fairly okay with Flash, meaning I can make simple animations, modify other's, but am no pro at one. I know that this book is for beginner's, but I think that doing things in a more 'hands-on' fashion would teach you far better than reading how to make animations from a book. It would be better if you purchased Flash reference books instead, so if you ever needed help, THEN you go to find the answer. Also, you could just visit sites such as www.flashkit.com to find your answers or post on their forums.



2. I found this book to be easy to use and fairly comprehensive for a beginner's book. It is comprised of fourteen separate modules teaching new skillsets in Flash MX 2004. It was well-written and direct in its explanation of location and use of the different parts of the Flash interface, which really cuts down on the frustration level for newbies. Compared to some other books that took things a little too slow, I found this book got me up to speed in one weekend, which is how long it took me to go through it cover to cover and do all the exercises. I was already familiar with Photoshop; the drawing tools in Flash, along with using Layers, is similar. I think this book is ideal for any Web professional to quickly and efficiently get up to an intermediate level of competence in Flash MX in a short period of time.



3. This book makes you familiar with flash interface , tweening etc.Till there you will find it helpful but his section on AS is worth skipping.Not only its too theoretic , it is buggy like chap 13 projet , the event handler for the button was forgotten.After reading AS section don't think you can handle real life code probs ...this section vaguely makes you familiar with whats AS,its codes etc..You need a book dedicated to AS if you want to do something serious with it.

No comments about Linear Algebra and Linear Operators in Engineering: with Applications in Mathematica (Process Systems Engineering).

5 comments about The Inventor Mentor: Programming Object-Oriented 3D Graphics with Open Inventor, Release 2 (OpenGL).

1. I teach a five week course using this book. Students praise the material as being comprehensible, easy to understand, and creative. After each chapter the student should be able to perform certain open inventor tasks. I assign daily programming variations drived from the book. The accumulative effect is to have a student capable of maintain or developing applications in Open Inventor. The logical extension of the programming language is to develop using SGI tools or TGS tools. I think the Inventor Mentor book is one of the most prized Open Inventor books on the market. I adhere to the book when teaching Open Inventor exclusively. The Open Inventor book sheds a new light on the next five weeks which moves into VRML and Java. Interestingly, the mechanizms for controling nodes in the scene graph using Java are very similar to Open Inventor Node manipulation.



2. This book gives a good overview of how to use Open Inventor to depict three-dimensional objects and scenes. To my knowledge, this is the only introductory book on Open Inventor. Since there are no tutorial books on Open Inventor, this is where many people start when they want to use the language.

   This book describes the capabilities and features of Open Inventor and gives brief examples, often with code. By the end of the book, you have a good idea of what Open Inventor can do and what parts of the language you would use for each feature. Unfortunately, many of the descriptions leave much to be desired. The book does not go into detail on how to use any feature. Many descriptions are given a light, cursory treatment.

   If your goal is to start programming in Open Inventor, you will find many omissions. You will need to compensate for this by writing test cases and experimental code. You will also need to purchase The Open Inventor C++ Reference Manual, which will fill in many of the gaps in this book.

   If, however, your goal is to get an understanding of what Open Inventor is, this book is perfect.




3. I've concluded that I like the Inventor Mentor Book. I've used the book to teach open inventor to Senior University students. I worked with students to demonstrate a comprehensive set of programs viewable at WSU Virtual Worlds. WSU Virtual Worlds illustrates a more comprehensive code explaination. If you have questions on concepts in the book, email me. Heres what we were able to accomplish: Cylinder in trackball with Examiner Widget, Orthographic Camera and explainations of Perspective Camera, Space station w/ Camera and Point Light, Space station w/ Copper Material, Space station w/ Text, Grids (callbacks to OpenGL Code), applying Texture maps, B-Spline, using the Elapsed-Time Engine, Two Time Counters, Keyboard Events (this was very challenging to learn), Sensors, Draggers, nurb surface figure (cool technology), Walking Figure, skeleton and nurb surface skin (the best subject of the book: node kits), Examiner Widget, Water Molecule with Draggers and Timer Sensors.



4. I find that the general concepts presented in this book are still valid, even several years after its publication. Most of the commercial graphics software out there follows similar programming architectures and this book covers these fairly well.

   However, you need to read the Open Inventor Toolmaker book to extend your Open Inventor Library distribution by adding more nodes/actions/engines, it also gives a much more in depth understanding. The real power of this library is that you can extend it fairly easily.

   For the reference manual book for detailed specs about functions or callback methods, they are all available in the online manual pages now which are distributed freely by SGI since August of 2000.




5. Open Inventor is a C++ object oriented 3D graphics API that allows high level programming for OpenGL. It integrates into Visual Studio. Even though Open Inventor is an old product it is still widely used in various visualization systems around the world. Hollywood, advanced engineering systems, and scientific projects that require superior 3D visualization are still using this product. The Inventor Mentor book allows you to quickly get familiar with Open Inventor.
   
   With Open inventor you do not need to worry about rendering or drawing, all you do is define 3D objects and their surface properties (color, texture, ambient light, transparancy, reflective properties, etc.). You define object position/motion and interconnectedness via a scene graph. It is like building with lego.
   
   In 1996 I created a product prototype for an industrial robot visualization system. A ported ABB robot controller directly controlled the motion in the 3D simulation. A simulated Arc-Welding robot was created by converting the corresponding CAD drawings for the robots components into VRML. I used kinematic transforms (Sheith-Uicker) to connect the robot links together in the scene graph framework provided by Open Inventor. The result was a very realistic robot simulation that was nicer looking than anything you have seen on XBOX 360. The OS window seemed like a window in a wall through which you could see into a shop floor with a robot in action.
   
   With the help of the Inventor Mentor I was able to get a working prototype ready in three weeks. I did not need the Open Inventor C++ Reference Manual or the Open Inventor Toolmaker during these three first weeks (but I used them later). I continued working with this product for four more years, and it was one of the most fun tools I have ever worked with.
   
   10 months ago I contacted TGS about buying Open inventor. Unfortunately they wanted $4,000 for each development license, a $1,000 for each run-time license (one per unit), and $300,000 for a universal (for all units) run-time license. This was too expensive, otherwise I might have used it today as well.

2 comments about ActionScript for Flash MX Pocket Reference: Quick Reference for Flash MX Programmers (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)).

1. I purchased the pocket reference at Flash Forward and have found it very useful. ASDG2 is still a must have but the reference is very good to keep with you on the go. I read through the book on the flight back and realized some things I had forgotten (I think some of it is a new addition from ASDG2). It is also very good to use if you are constantly in an external editor and don't want to flip through a big book for reference.

   Great little reference.. I'm surprised it took this long :)

   Chafic




2. This is a great little reference to refer to when I get confused or need to brush up on some actionscript. Looking forward to the next version, more AS 2.0.

4 comments about Adobe Flash CS3 Step by Step Training.

1. After struggling forever with Flash, I just wanted a book that explained everything in a straightforward manner. I didn't want to read a 500 page manual to get what I wanted. This book was exactly what I needed. It's not that long, and just tells you what to do to make a simple animation. Basically it walks you through a lot of great examples and once you're done you can go do your own stuff. I feel like I *finally* get this program!



2. Just like the classes given at Nobledesktop, the training manual is straightforward and easy to understand and follow. The exercises are practical, giving you the tools to get up and running quickly and to accomplish tasks that you will use daily in real life Flash production. Heavily illustrated. Gives instructions for both MAC and WINDOWS users.



3. This workbook is a great learning tool if you're just starting out in flash. There is a cd included that has files and activities for you to work from. The book is very clear and gives you helpful tips throughout. You'll learn the very basics from using the tool palette to applying sound and inserting video. Overall, well worth the money.



4. I was also able to attend a tutorial session by the folks at Noble Desktop and I have to say that they are very thorough and consise in their direction for people like me who have always had a problem with this particular program. I was even able to go home and follow the easy step by step directions that are illustrated in the training books. They are highly recommended.

No comments about Saudi Arabia in Pictures (Visual Geography. Second Series).

5 comments about Genetic Programming : An Introduction : On the Automatic Evolution of Computer Programs and Its Applications (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Artificial Intelligence).

1. We all know that kind of books where the author likes to show how much he knows making things intentionally complex....well...this is the opposite side of the spectrum.
   The book is very complete and detailed yet easy to read, even after a day of work.
   The first part of the book contains introductory information on background areas like probability, biology and computer science as a general discipline.
   Getting into the topic, it clarifies some of the differences between evolutionary systems and genetic algorithms and shows how all this contributes to the theory of genetic programming and the evolution of computer programs.
   It explains how things are done with different types of individuals (tree, linear, graph, etc) and gives valuable insight about the implementation process.
   Although you may need other sources for formal treatment of some topics, this book is a very good acquisition.



2. I skimmed the Koza books (GP: I & II) and this one at the store. Using the layout, chapter names, and the introductory chapters as my guide, I decided to buy this book to introduce me to the current state of the art in GP. The strengths of this book are its textbook format and the informal exercises that are presented for the reader at the end of every chapter. There is also a great deal of compilation from other relevant gp works presented in a localized, intra-chapter basis. The book is thus highly digestable to a newcomer, and is a far less time-consuming way to learn about GP than through the "expert" papers on the web. Having now almost finished the book, I feel that I am ready and able to author and apply GP techniques in a wide variety of applications and languages, having spent less than 20 hours in study time. A terrific achievement by Banzhaf and company, highly recommended.



3. This book is good for getting a general view of genetic programming. Nevertheless, I think it neglects many details. For example, it is very hard to from the book how a simple selection strategy (tournament selection) works in practice.

   I do not think this book is useful for someone intending to code a genetic programming algorithm.




4. It's rare to find an advanced computer science textbook that's both so engaging and so informative. I've only read the first seven chapters so far, but when I sat down to write my first genetic algorithm (for real research use), the book had already prepared me well.
   
   It's hard to imagine a better introductory textbook for this topic.



5. I have no idea how this is marketed as a college level text on the subject. It is just a 'high level' text suitable for non programmers interested in learning some of the terminology regarding Genetic Programming, with little or no practical information. This book was published in 1998, there are many free texts with far more practical information. I bought A Field Guide to Genetic Programming, which is also available as a free pdf, with this book, and the Field Guide is a far far better book on all counts.

1 comments about Warping & Morphing of Graphical Objects (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Graphics).

1. I felt that the book was lacking in details that
   would have led to implementation of some of the
   algorithms presented. Often I felt that the math
   was not providing any insights into what was acutally
   going on behind the terminology.

   The code on the CDROM has virtually no comments
   and was useless to me when taken out of context.

   I was disappointed in the end with the price/performance
   of this book. It might be right for you, but flip through
   it before buying!

1 comments about Macromedia Flash Interface Design: A Macromedia Showcase.

1. I design interfaces in Flash, Director, and HTML, so I was hoping for a showcase of interfaces that would give me some ideas or otherwise provide something useful. This book profiles the developers' goals and philosophies in detail, which is fine, but the interfaces themselves are so specialized that there's no real-life (for me anyway) use for any of the information. I didn't even get inspired. I expected to learn more that I could put into use.

5 comments about Apple Pro Training Series: Color Management in Mac OS X (Apple Pro Training).

1. At first when I started reading this book, I was amazed at how fast I was flipping through the pages! I loved it and kepts going. The first part of the book explains color and its management within Mac OS X pretty well, I was impressed when I learnt so much about the color sync. untility and other stuff like that. However, the more I read the more I felt like I was going through the chapters a little too fast for my liking. Why? Because I found that a lot of the times the author would repeat what he said before, making it a bit repetitive....
   As much as I do not own a Gretag Macbeth Eye-One or any of those devices that calibrate monitors and other things, I learnt about them in the book. One thing I found odd was that I got pretty much the same information from apple.com's PRO section's online seminars..which was a bummer when I found out.
   
   Anyways, I'm still a bit confused about color management and might have to indulge in another book for a clearer understanding of it. This book just seemed like it didnt explain everything enough for me to really understand. It's easy to follow and click step by step, its hard to understand what you're really doing so u dont need to refer to a book everytime...



2. A fast book you can read in one day, full of large screenshot all in color.
   A step by step book to configure your color workflow in Mac OS X for home or professional, in a only-Mac or Mac-PC office.
   A chapter is for Adobe Suite: Photoshop, Illustrator, In-Design.
   There is also a chapter for a web-based color management.
   
   Great Book.



3. This book should be titled Color Management in Adobe Applications on MacOS X. I picked up this book with the expectation of finding tips on how to print using Apple's Colorsync color management facility but most of the book simply covers printing using Adobe's color management system, which has totally different controls to Colorsync.
   
   While coverage of printing color-managed prints from the Adobe applications such as Photoshop are quite comprehensive, there is hardly any discussion of how to print from a non-Adobe application that uses Apple's Colorsync.
   
   From that perspective, this is a book that is comparable to Real World Color Management but from a less technical, more hands-on viewpoint since RWCM covers Adobe's color management system pretty comprehensively.
   
   It would behoove the author to plug this gap in a future edition because there is a dearth of documentation on Colorsync. Each iteration of Colorsyn brings in new features but leaves it up to users to basically poking around a black box which has a multititude of buttons, levers, and switches but no manual.



4. This book has a serious flaw. It includes a demo version of ProfileMaker, which you need to use to create profiles in Lesson 4. Unfortunately, the demo version doesn't actually allow you to create profiles, so you can't complete the lesson! In other words, you really can't use this book unless you spends hundreds more on various software and hardware to actually do the color management.



5. Rather than present genuinely useful information on the various theories behind color management which can be applied to a wide variety of situations, the author of this book instead chooses to pad page after page with promotional fluff advertising a select handful of software products the reader is encouraged to purchase in order to follow along. Granted, you can't build a printer profile without a spectrophotometer of some kind, but the tone of the book is generally "go buy this and you're done" rather than "this is what needs to happen and here are a variety of ways you can choose to accomplish these goals". Apple might have invented color management, but they've let their ColorSync CMM grow horribly stagnant (and buggy) over the years, and this officially endorsed training manual reflects the company's priorities unfortunately well. Hopefully Aperture's belly flop will convince someone at Apple that people really do care about this stuff and spur someone into action, but until then, buy Bruce Fraser or Abhay Sharma's book instead.