No comments about Essentials for Design Adobe InDesign CS2, Level 1 (2nd Edition) (Essentials for Design).

No comments about Learning Adobe InDesign (DDC Learning Series).

5 comments about The LaTeX Graphics Companion: Illustrating Documents with TeX and Postscript(R) (Tools and Techniques for Computer Typesetting).

1. If you use LaTeX and are serious about including graphics in your documents, then this is the book to read. I've never seen a more complete and readable explanation of using graphics with LaTeX.

   However, I don't recommend that raw beginners use this book. You really need some knowledge of LaTeX to understand what's going on. If you're an advanced user, THE LATEX GRAPHICS COMPANION is indispensible.




2. Nicely crafted guidebook to the graphics and fonts. PSTricks, color, chess, chemistry and music - helps you to typeset all of it, and more. My only complain is that the chapter on fonts is vague at places - because the book tries to be so encyclopedic, I guess



3. I would have to hazard a guess that this is probably the most advanced LaTeX book on the market. It is lots of fun to look at with its many esoteric uses of LaTeX--typesetting bridge or chess game diagrams, music notation, optical illusions--in other words, stuff that I wish had enough time to learn but probably never will. However, I do find myself looking at this book more than I initially imagined because it is quite useful on subjects such as fonts and the "dvips" program. For these areas, you'll definitely find things to learn and use even if you aren't ever going to typeset Mozart's lost symphony or fiddle with Encapsulated Post-Script code at the primitive command level.



4. Many times in this book I've seen exactly what I want to do, but the LaTeX code is not always shown. I use this book as a hint to what can be done, and then I search on the web for LaTeX examples. I am fairly disappointed, and often find myself more frustrated after reading a section than I was before.

   As an example (for those of you who have the book), Figure 4.1 is referenced as an example of how to use \multido, but the book does not have (or I could not find) the corresponding LaTeX.




5. Need to do charts or graphics using latex? Then this is the book for you. It's the most advanced and complete book on Latex graphics that I've seen. If you would like to implement a reporting system that can draw charts using latex then this book is a must. Though I've not used latex in a while, I do remember that this one is not for the faint of heart. I do put it into the one of "must have" latex books.

5 comments about Best Kept Secrets in .NET.

1. While this book does not go into great depth in any one area, it does a good job of recommending ways to increase the performance of code as well as make it more readable and extensible. Many of the tips apply across programming practice (i.e. short-circuiting and/or), but a few are related to just .NET. It is at least worth the $20 Amazon is selling it at (30 Nov 2004) for intermediate / beginning programmers. Advanced programmers may not find anything new however.



2. This has a lot of great ideas for the professional developer that uses Visual Studio to do .NET development. Many ideas that are hard to find or you have to spend a LOT of time working with others to find. Saves a ton of time. For a small book and a small price, this should definitely be on your shelf.



3. Best Kept Secrets in .NET
   Deborah Kurata
   APress 2004 ISBN: 1-59059-426-6
   
   Reviewed by Steven Mullins, HuNTUG member
   
   "The Secrets to improve your productivity and code quality" well that was about the gist of it. For those of us that are just getting into the writing of code and scripting this may give you a few clues on how to tweak while you write. I have only just started to learn how to compose code and this is what I needed to learn a little bit more. The author speaks well and gives plenty of examples in both VB and C# to keep even the beginner up to speed. I always want real world scenario when I read technical literature to help it all sink in.
   
   So down to the dirty, the book starts with the basics how to hot key and toggle between different screens where all the tools are stored and how to get to the tools and your data quickly. This is basics but for those who are still feeling our way through the interface it's nice to learn how to lock all that down. The keyboard shortcuts are here to, nice to have handy during setup. Getting deeper into it, the layout and cleaning of the interface was a nice thing to add in, I know I am not the cleanest builder of pages and have very little graphics skills. The biggest thing that I found here was the operator listings, another good reference for beginners. Chapter four covered a lot of area on getting your database into shape and configured for use but was pretty straight forward in how to get your data into your project. Chapter five was listed as defensive deployment which I learned that means how to clean it up and get your code right. There was very little "security" at least in my facet of it, I expect for security to talk on how to lock it down and deny access to users. There was a really good explanation of hashing and salting but that is where it left off.
   
   After all that being said let me say for a quick read and reference book this is one that I would put on a student readers list just for all the shortcuts and hotkeys. The author has a good flow to writing keeping it from being a solitary technical book. It was a good read for me and I would consider it a good find to add to a desktop library.



4. I read this entire book. Those who have praised this book as a "good book for newbies" have apparently forgot that the book is entitled "Best Kept Secrets". These are not secrets. Much of the book goes into painful detail of basic procedures in Visual Studio that you can figure out easily by using the program for a few days. The title of this book is absolutely fraudulent.
   
   What's really funny is that, at the end of the book, the author declares that if you said "I didn't know that" at least once while reading her book, then the book "met its objective of revealing the best kept secrets in .NET." That self-congratulatory statement is so illogical and false I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
   
   Literally 90% (I made careful marks of the content that was at least slightly informative to me) of the book's "secrets" are extremely basic, tepid, well-known practices.



5. Like other reviewers have pointed out, "Best Kept Secrets in .NET" is a bit misleading title. From a developer's jargon, it would mean internals of assembly binding redirection or uncharted waters of machine.config etc however, this book is more about shortcuts and development techniques from an IDE perspective. "Literally" speaking, its a cross between Visual Studio Hacks and Code to Developer.
   
   Apart from its name, it's generally a good book for beginers and average book for mid-level devs and skim through for seniors in case they won't know how to store code snippets in toolbox. I liked the improving unit testing and defensive development sections along with much ADO and hidden tricks in VS.NET. The Apress roadmap explains the intended audience and its a good match but generally, I'd recommend Coder to Developer for this particular genre of IDE/Process learning.

5 comments about Learning Postscript: A Visual Approach.

1. This book offers clear, simple examples and covers the basic Postscript concepts in a way that makes it easy to apply them to real-life situations.

   I borrowed this book froma friend, and I have GOT to add it to my library -- a must-have!




2. This is a wonderful starting point for learning postscript. It takes you step by step through a very complex topic in a way that is easy to understand as well as offering opportunities to practice what you are learning. I recommend it highly!



3. Simple, concise, yet by no means limited. I learned essentially all the postscript that I needed to know for my job in about 3 hours reading this book. Excellent examples, easy to follow, what could more could you ask for?



4. I bought this book in 1994 when I had absolutely no clue about programming. It was a real eye-opener, and to this day it's my reference bible with regard to PostScript. Highly recommended.



5. This book is useful to people employed or interested in graphics, desktop design, document engineering, or programming. It will help you better understand any of these topics. PostScript, developed by Adobe, is the language "under the hood" of PDFs, many layout programs, and a category of printers. It's a full-fledged programming language that's pretty much dedicated to graphics, letting you get at the elements of lines, shapes, shading, and color. And it is becoming even more relevant. Before a document can be made into a PDF, traditionally it has had to be converted into postscript (.ps), and even Microsoft has given a little territory in that direction by their attempts to include automatic creation of PDFs in Office 2007.
   
   PostScript is relatively easy to learn and can also diversify your understanding of programming concepts. Unlike varieties of C or Java, PostScript is a "reverse Polish notation" language, which means that the parameters are stated prior to the relevant commands. Like "144 144 lineto" will draw a line to the coordinates listed. It is also "stack-oriented," so I find that it's a little easier to visualize what is happening as I work through the code. Because it's so graphics-directed, PostScript obviously lends itself to the "visual approach." Most of the basic commands resemble actual everyday words, so you can learn rapidly before you even know you are programming. In other words, you don't have to be a programmer or script writer to learn PostScript.
   
   And this particular book makes learning PostScript basics easy. It gives code on one page and then shows what happens next to it. It starts with the basics of positioning on the page, and then adds commands that extend the complexity and richness of the illustrations. It also does a good job introducing the programming concepts such as RPN and stack arithmetic. Over the years, PostScript has evolved into a more complex language, incorporating numerous commands that extend the language and concatenate groups of simpler commands (such as a command to draw a box rather than 4 commands to draw the sides). But the book sticks with the basics, and slowly extends your knowledge and skills. Like other programming languages, PostScript includes techniques like recursion, definitions of variables, definitions of complex tasks, mathematics, etc. PostScript is not object-oriented.
   
   As a graphics description programming language, PostScript needs some type of compiler for you to see what your code actually draws. This traditionally involves an accompanying program called "ghostscript" that allows the user to see the results in nearly real time. I personally don't care much for ghostscript and often used Adobe Distiller and created PDFs to see the results. Those who don't have Distiller can install and use ghostscript, and that is covered in the book.
   
   Since PostScript is a relatively mature technology, there are a lot of older books available, as well as a plethora of web sites and a couple discussion groups. Adobe has some excellent books that can be downloaded for free. They all have something to contribute, but I found this book to be the best of the lot, the easiest to read, and generally the most useful. Improvements? Well, occasionally the author works a new term into the code and doesn't really explain it. That happens more frequently later in the book, and by then you can sort of guess what the term accomplishes. At a certain point, things like this are probably unavoidable, since it's a very rich and complex language, and you can't be treated like a "dummy" all the time. I would also like to see more discussion about PDFs and how to work my written code into existing PDFs, but this book - like many of them - was written more for the era of the PostScript printer than the current period where PDFs are so prominent.

4 comments about PostScript(R) Language Tutorial and Cookbook (APL).

1. This book is good for beginner who are writting some basic program. May not be good for advance programming.



2. This books gives very good start for the programmer who want to learn postscript.



3. This book is a great start to postscript programming, but it leaves out some very important details. I found that if you wanted to include images into your postscript file this book is no help at all. Most of the examples in the book you can find on the web, and if you dig a little you will find this entire book in pdf format on the web. My recommendation is to not spend the money.



4. Imagine this: you are tasked to be responsible for understanding the PostScript language. Perhaps because you need to troubleshoot printing issues, or because you want to write specialized drivers for a custom system. Where to start?

   Many recommend that you can get these sorts of resources on the web for free. That's is true, but I prefer to take into account the true cost of doing so. I can't speak for you, but my time is worth more than trying to save a few bucks downloading and printing my own version.

   Most tasked with understanding PostScript are typically given the monolithic PostScript Language Reference Manual and perhaps a supplement. If you lack exposure to PostScript, this is a huge and perhaps impossible leap towards PostScript proficiency.

   This book goes a long way towards helping the reader quickly understand the basic foundation of PostScript. The book itself is short, small, and easy to read. In fact, its helpful to imagine it as a "PostScript sing a long."

   Most higher end PostScript printers support network socket connections directly to the PostScript interpreter, meaning that you can connect and actually work directly with the PostScript monster. Write me and ask if you want to know how.

   I found it helpful to simply sit by a computer with this book, read some pages, then duplicate the programs the book illustrates. If your printer supports the socket connections, great. Connect and enter the code directly. Try creating syntatic errors and watch how the PostScript interpreter responds. Understanding these errors goes a long way towards effectively troubleshooting PostScript.

   Alternately, you can enter the PostScript code into files, and download them to the printer. Most printers support a verbose debug mode, enabling you to see why the PostScript programs were rejected by the interpreter. This too is rather helpful, educationally and practically.

   If you need to learn PostScript, and lack any exposure, get this book. But it will leave you in PostScript first grade...more resources listed in my other reviews pertaining to PostScript.

5 comments about PostScript(R) by Example.

1. Although I found this book to be accurate, I did not enjoy it. Concepts jumped from chapter to chapter without any order. The index is totally lacking. It covered graphics completely but failed on handling bitmaps. It left text formatting to your imagination. As a programmer, I need to create reports. This book left me out in the cold. If you want to manipulate graphics using PostScript this book is for you. If you want to produce a spreadsheet on PostScript look elsewhere.



2. Although this book could be useful to the person who cares nothing of how things work, I found it extremely lacking in the area of defining the way Postscript works. From the outset, the book shows many examples which the authors touts as the best way to learn something. However, many of the examples used have little or no explanation of some of the cryptic commands contained within. You end up wasting a lot of time scratching your head trying to find out *what* is going on. It becomes a matter of wading through the entire book since many terms are not even listed in the index. A glossary and perhaps a command reference would have been extremely useful in this book.



3. In fact, I could barely get through it.

   My introduction to PostScript was through the Language Reference Manual and the Supplements. Plus it was quite helpfil that I was surrounded by PostScript gurus.

   By the time I got this book it read like a Dr. Suess novel. Bored, I was.

   Skip it.




4. This is an extremely helpful book, *if* you are a little familiar with PostScript and want to know more. Although it suffers a bit from lack of organization, the subsections are fairly self-contained and are generally extremely clear. As a hobbyist, my primary interest is in PostScript drawing rather than text manipulation, and this book has good coverage of drawing and graphics. My understanding of PostScript was greatly deepened by this book. (I finally understand dictionaries!) PostScript level 2 is discussed in some detail, which is unusual among the available texts. I have looked at several books and have not found a better intermediate level text.



5. The book provides too many examples. Some of them (30%) are useful.
   The rest are boring. The definition of the Current Transformation matrix is wrong (colums and rows are exchanged) showing that the author has no idea about linear algebra and matrix products.
   However this is the only book available for me, so I had to learn
   PS with it.

5 comments about Postscript Language Reference.

1. Clear, easy to understand and complete. Very good



2. If you want to program in PostScript, you must have this manual. However, you need the newer version, since this second edition only covers version 2 of the PostScript language. The third edition covers version 3, and you can find it for sale here on Amazon using ISBN 0-201-37922-8.



3. This manual - the 'Red Book' - is absolutely necessary for programming in PostScript. It is the only complete reference guide to the language, and is so well-organized and thorough that no one else even bothers to publish a complete third-party guide. Many other books have been published on PostScript - and many are excellent - but they are books you will buy in addition to, rather than instead of, this manual. We can only wish that other software manuals were as well-written.



4. If you're like me and just need to do a little bit with the language, you will need this book but you might want to consider downloading it directly from Adobe. They have it, in its entirety, in pdf format. (Why not postscript?!) On the otherhand, if you are going to be using this language alot, you will probably just want to buy the book seeing how an 897 page pdf is a bit unweildy.



5. If you are going to be working with PostScript you will need this book (widely refered to as the "Red Book.")

   It is indeed THE reference for PostScript, but the organizational aspects of the book itself are a bit confusing until you understand some PostScript fundementals and have a grasp for some oddball "Adobeisms."

   In addition to this book I've always made a habit of leveraging the "suppliments" released for each version of an interpreter.

   For example, PostScript level 2 actually consists of several versions of level 2 interpreter (2011, 2015, etc) all of which have associated supplements describing specific features supported (or not.) The supplements are available for download from Adobe's developer side of their web site (they are often far smaller than the Red Book, and absolutely indespensible.)

   Additionally, each manufacturer who OEMs an Adobe interpreter sometimes release documentation pertaining to which specific features within an interpreter version are supported, and how.

   For example, companies often develop specialized applications built upon frameworks provided by Adobe in an interpreter version. Understanding the customized PostScript commands for these applications enables you to take full advantage of them.

   Either way, buy the book. Don't waste your time downloading it. Sure, that's "tree friendly" but we all know it will end up getting printed anyway.

3 comments about LaTeX Graphics Companion, The (2nd Edition) (Tools and Techniques for Computer Typesetting).

1. The second edition of the LaTeX Graphics Companion, along the second edition of the LaTeX Companion, are essential resources for LaTeX users. When one first starts using LaTeX, you need one of the commercial books or free on-line books that provide an introduction and overview of LaTeX. Right after that you need the nearly comprehensive Companion books, written by the on-going developers and maintainers of LaTeX.



2. Like The LaTeX Companion (Tools and Techniques for Computer Typesetting), "The LaTeX Graphics Companion" is loaded with valuable information from beginning to end (925 pages in total). This time, the focus of the book is on the various graphics packages that are available in LaTeX including:
   *Metafont, Metapost and Metaobj;
   *PSTricks (including pst-plot, pst-node, pst-tree, pst-fill, pst-3d and pst-3dplot);
   *XY-pic;
   *MusiXTeX (which is used for preparing music scores)
   *Packages for typesetting science, technology and medicine formulae and diagrams; and
   *Packages for typesetting games (influding chess, cards, etc).
   
   Each package is described thoroughly, through the use of numerous examples and I doubt there is a more detailed manual to these packages available anywhere. However, be aware that this book assumes a working knowledge of LaTeX (if you haven't already purchased it, I recommend you buy "The LaTeX Companion" as well as this book). Also, I found that I could not obtain some of the graphics packages described in this book and I found that when I started learning PSTricks, I needed to look at some online tutorials as well as this book, in order to learn the basics. Goosens et al. are not good at describing things to absolute beginners, but are good once you get beyond that.



3. This book together with "The LaTex Companion" represents the state of the art of any manuals for LaTeX. The book is well written and it is comprehensible even to beginners . It shows all the major feature of the most common graphics packages. The most important thing is the all the packages are free available from [...] .
   A really good guide for who is interested in producing high quality document and wants to write once and export in many formats.
   It's a pity that there is no cd-rom media included.

5 comments about PDF Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools.

1. With PDF files everywhere from web sites to help files, sooner or later you will run into a situation where you need to do something to a PDF file. For me the first time I realized I needed to do something I could not was when I needed to take one and convert it to a Word format so I could quickly outline the high points to study for a certification exam. After several hours I finally got it into a text file thanks to a web site that did the conversion. But even then I lost the tables, illustrations, etc. How to do that is one of the hacks included in this book. I wish it were printed a few years ago because it would have made my life easier.
   
   After testing that hack I browsed through the book and kept finding myself asking "You can do that with a PDF file?" There are a lot of good tips in this book from making Acrobat startup faster, to converting PDF files, to automatic timed scrolling for easy reading, to creating a PDF using Word, WordPerfect, OpenOffice, Perl, HTML, PHP, and Java. With page after page of coding, this is a tremendously useful book for anyone who wants to create or edit PDF files or change the way Acrobat works with files. PDF Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools is very highly recommended and will be put on my shelf reserved for books I want to be able to access quickly.



2. This is a very comprehensive solutions catalog on all kinds of PDF related issues. Each trick is described with step-by-step instructions and contains pointers to relevant resources. The chapter listing categorizes the hacks - Consuming PDF, Managing a Collection, Authoring and Self-Publishing, Creating PDF and Other Editions, Manipulating PDF files, Dynamic PDF, Scripting and Programming Acrobat.
   
   I embrace the beauty of PDF as an end user and applications developer, but do not use Adobe Acrobat. Many of the tricks mentioned in the book is about this product. A problem is that the TOC does not tell whether or not a trick is Adobe Acrobat specific. Some of the hacks are like sections extracted from an advanced Adobe Acrobat user guide. As this is not obvious from the TOC, the content of the hack can be quite different from what I expected.
   
   Despite this problem, the book is still a very useful one-stop resource about PDF. I will recommend this book to all who need to use or work with PDF.



3. The title is completely misleading.
   I purchased this book and software from Broderbund, after reading the reviews posted here at Amazon, believing the book and software would help me covert PDF files that I could not Save or print in its orginal format into ones I could.
   I can say for sure,in my opinion, the other reviews of this book led me down the "fools primrose path."
   Perhaps I should have read the reviews more carefully.
   Of course the fault is entirely mine.



4. There are several categories of hack in this book; two of them are "saving money" (finding ways to work with PDF's outside of Acrobat) and PDF in web design--using CGI scripting to serve up individual pages that have search text for example. A third type of hack are some old-school tricks that help make your PDF's more widely compatible. Good stuff, not crucial unless you happen to need it.



5. This book is a god-send for those of us who have to struggle with the often frustrating world of PDF documents on our computers. I was completely confused until I dug into this manual, which is relatively easy for a novice to understand. It has been a great help to me in find answers to problems I had with using PDF on a daily basis. I would highly recommend it.