5 comments about Programming Microsoft ADO.NET 2.0 Applications: Advanced Topics.

1. Great book for ado.net. I wish this book has covered "how to use new features of ado.net with business layer. There should be some more chapter(s) for data acesss layer utilizing ado.net.



2. This book does delve deep into the plumbing of ADO.Net 2.0, but I must admit that when I read the "Advanced Topics" part of the title, I thought that it would actually cover more complicated versions of some scenarios that might be found in "beginners" ADO.Net books such as handling many-to-many data relationships with bound controls and possibly designing and building a data access layer. While data access layers were covered to some degree, the described methods involved intensive interaction with SQL Server system tables - something I don't tend to make a practice of.
   
   The information in the book is good, just not what I was hoping to find.



3. Glenn Johnson has a very good book here on ADO.NET 2.0. Unfortunately, it just good not great. Here are my pros and cons:
   
   Pros:
   
   1. Well written and thought out.
   2. Excellent coverage of ADO.NET Trace Logging.
   3. Coverage of LOBs/BLOBs/CLOBs is very well thought out.
   4. Discussion of Connection Pooling is very good.
   5. Coverage of writting your own classes that work with System.Transactions is invalulable.
   
   Cons:
   
   1. Too many basic topics covered for an "Advanced Topics" book.
   2. ASP.NET GridView/WinForms GridView chapters are unnecessary and incomplete.
   3. Code examples are terse and somewhat unreadable (no blank lines).
   4. Some information inaccurate (e.g. Suggestion of using Database Mirroring in SQL Server 2005 which was dropped as a supported feature.)
   5. SQL Server Specific...lackluster Oracle, ODBC, OleDb coverage.
   6. Data Caching only discusses caching with SqlDependencyCache. There are a myriad of caching options, and this is only one of them.
   
   While not really a problem with the book, I disagree with the author in a number of assertions:
   
   - He pushes the idea of GUIDs as keys, but never discusses the index fragmentation issue with GUIDs as keys.
   - His discussion of SQLCLR doesn't warn the users enough (I know "enough" is a subjective phrase) that they shouldn't write all their code in SQLCLR.
   - Mentions that "The 8,000-byte limit is much higher than you should ever need." when discussing SQLCLR User Defined Types. -- I disagree since a single object might not reach that, but a shallow object graph will reach 8K very easily.
   - No comparison between SQLCLR UDT's and XML Typed XML.
   - Using XML in SQL Server is touted instead of disuaded. More often than not, storing your XML in SQL Server just to have it there (or without dissecting it into relational data) will just hurt performance and raise the complexity of a system.
   
   I gave the book a four out of five starts on Amazon.com because I think it will be a valuable resource for most developers. But it is not a perfect book.



4. Here it is. It's an ok book. But I have to agree with one of the previous post about the GUId Keys. I also found that the grid topics were not need it as well as the overview (the first two chapters.) If is advanced, I'm assuming the reader knows that or has another book.
   I think that saving 4 to 6 chapters that were not need it, they could have extended the book to be far more advanced and concentrate in transactions, SQLCLR and so on.



5. This is a very good book, well written, the author has a clean style that I enjoyed very much. All topics are extensively covered with small but very useful examples. No pages of code: Just what is needed.
   I give 4 stars only because it lacks explaining some in depth argument such as subclassing datasets or typed datatables. I expect a new edition with add-ins that will cover those new topics.

3 comments about An Introduction to Formal Language and Automata.

1. I willl always think of this book as my best friend!!!



2. Using the 3rd ed. instead of the 4th ed. specified in Computer Language Theory syllabus. Instructor said it would be acceptable (he is using the 2nd or 3rd ed.). There is some variation in the exercise numbers, but those can be resolved with quick comparisons with someone with the latest edition.
   
   Overall nice diagrams & explanations. I'm finding the text & examples to be solid. Nice to have solutions to selected exercises included as well.



3. This is one of the worst text books that I have used. It gives large amounts of problems to solve, but provides few examples that adequately help the user to solve those problems. It makes references, in examples, to exercises that it assumes you have completed. It doesn't provide many answers to these exercises, either. I would estimate about 10%, and the exercises referred to by the text are usually not part of this 10%.
   The book does not go into great detail in illustrating a point. I suppose it would be a good reference for someone who already understands the subject matter. For new students, this book is definitely not recommended.

5 comments about Programming ColdFusion MX, 2nd Edition.

1. Overall the better of the dozen or more books on coldfusion mx in terms of development-quality reference material.
   
   Almost all of the other books on the topic do a poor job of explaining ColdFusion MX in terms of an instructional blow-by-blow get from step 1 to step 30; where 1 is an architectural overview and by step 30 you have been "instructed" on the development of a featurable product.
   
   This book assumes some advanced knowledge of coding technicques and advanced Web-based topics, which is fine for its targeted audience. It is not a complete Bible or Courseware-level instructional offering, by any stretch of the imagination.
   
   Many CF MX offerings are too lite. This one is certainly not lite - it is rich in content that it does showcase, but I was disappointed when they got into the coding examples for T-SQL, but fell short by ending the topic prematurely. It also failed to give real-world examples of how SQL databases can be created, implemented and administered in a virtual capacity - as is the case with a lot of company's who do not host their own servers and do not Co-locate them either. Many, including ourselves, use a datacenter that offers industrial-grade servers that we share, and where the licensing doesn;t require me to sell my shild on the black market or a second-mortgage to pay for it
   
   Many CF/DW texts fill their weak offerings in those subject areas (often cursory at best) with other Macromedia Applications, specifically Flash - and even these are cursory categories at best. If you don't grasp the underlying mechanics of how CF MX works, and how DW MX interfaces directly as an excellent WebDev toolset, Flash becomes so far outside the box as to make that content worthless as a resource.
   
   All of these Macromedia offerings have their own (several hundred page) books devoted to them intimately, and still often fall short. Very few printed offerings (including this one) explicitly discuss combining DW MX for advanced design work (read: uber graphics, layout AND Database / e-commerce development/interaction...and I don't mean Access), along with DW MX's interfacing technologically with ColdFusion MX and T-SQL / SQL Server. My investigation required 2 resources: DreamWeaver MX Advanced (Towers, et al., PeachPit) and ColdFusion MX with DreamWeaver MX (David Golden, New Riders) - these were overall the "best" offerings I could find for this subject matter, although once under my belt, I will most certainly be looking forward to utilizing this book.
   
   Hopefully someone will put all of the respective pieces together ( CF MX / DW MX / Database integration / e-commerce development). There are few (if any) that do so, or do it well - the material is just too broad and deep for most audiences. Macromedia's Web site and Developer Forums continue to be the goods in terms of supporting this - the best quality materials I have seen in a software development product to date, and a far superior approach from a content-finding and "usability" standpoint. Still difficult to find good server-level DW/CF/DB materails, with a focus on e-Commerce, though - even on the manufacturer's website. Macromedia is still tops in my book, though. Microsoft take note: If you want people to use your products and do it effectively to saturate the market and develop your IT Development base, you need to make your product offerings rich but workable at a basic level AND you must post up real-world examples that can be used as templates and starting points for that educational process - not just White papers and written (non-technical) case studies... Macromedia has this nailed, and it shows through the support and uber-cool feature sets, and in its real-world implementation guide by professional users of the technology that run it, use it, help develop it and teach it openly. Technology isn't supposed to a technical or administrative nightmare - which is sort of how I feel about Visual.Net at the moment. Adobe could also take a cue from Macromedia - it has probably the closest suite of product offerings that are usable, rish, and increibly flexible - and Version Cue is cool, but alas, GoLive sucks when it comes to DB integration and there is no Server infrastructure (or product available) to support scalability the way Macromedia's products do. If Adobe ever gets their ducks in a row in this regard, they will directly be a competitive force to be reckoned with, but until then ColdFusion MX reigns supreme, and if you know what you're doing, this book will pave the way to glory.



2. This book seems to bring a whole new perspective on Coldfusion. I have been programming CF for approximately 2-3 years, and this just opened up more doors of CF functionality. For example it displays one of the best "homegrown" login examples I have ever seen. It also really goes into great detail on more advanced topics that other books seems to skate around. Once again, an incredible book for beginners and pros!!!



3. -as read by member Kelly Young
   This book assumes some advanced knowledge of coding techniques and advanced Web-based topics, which is fine for its targeted audience. Use of SQL examples I found very useful. I very much like the appendix references Tag Reference, Function Reference, Cold Fusion Resources. The author delivers a well-structured, systematic reference to ColdFusion; just what a developer needs to get the job done, also a handy reference to keep near the keyboard.



4. This takes you from the basics to more advanced topics. It's a great reference!



5. While it seems only adobe makes coldfusion books of any quality anymore this is still the reference book to get. this book combined with the adobe livedocs and you should have no problems easily finding most of your coldfusion programming answers.
   
   though you can buy the latest Web Application Constuction kits, the are good, but honestly much of them are the same book only updated, so once you have one you really have them all, plus the latest books are half online anyway so your better off with the older ones, like mx7.
   
   however for a solid reference you just can't beat orielly..if only we could get them to release another coldfusion book...

3 comments about Artificial Intelligence for Games (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3D Technology).

1. I have been fascinated with AI for a long time, so I was excited to see this book. I own 3 other AI books, and all of them are really good. This book explains things in a way that is easy to understand. The author doesn't use any C++ in the book every algorithm is done in pseudo-code to make it easy to implement using any language. It is a definitive guide to the basic and not so basic AI techniques. The aicore that the author provides on the CD is well documented and is very helpful.
   
   The book covers:
   Steering behaviors
   Pathfinding
   Decision Making
   State Machines
   Fuzzy Logic
   Waypoints
   Learning Behaviors
   Communication
   Teaching characters
   
   And a break down of how a typical AI design is done in different types of games.
   
   Just to give you a notion I am about 12 hours into this book. So I may add or change this as I get further along, but overall this is a must have book.
   
   There are a few things that I personally don't like. One is no .exe are on the cd so everything has to be built. This is a new book, so maybe the author will build them and place them on his website. I would also like to see some solutions for Visual Studio on the cd. The author says several times he tries and makes the code as platform independent as possible, but It would be nice to have prebuilt .exe files at least so I can see the demo's in action.



2. The author uses "pseudo-code" through out the book. The cd contains only a pc-executable program. There is no source code on the CD.
   
   This book is a poor source of programming code where the author explains how ai works based on the pseudo-code.
   
   If you're looking for source code (ie C++ source code) you'll not find it here.



3. Understand that the pseudo-code approach this book takes is what makes it such a standout from the rest of the crowd. The author is technically thorough and the syntax is straightforward enough to use in any language needed. Moreover, it frees the author to discuss AI in abstract terms which, in the end, proves to be much more valuable content. C++ source code puts the pseudo-code discussions into practice for those looking for real-world examples.
   
   I would HIGHLY recommend this book as a follow up to Mat Buckland's "Programming Game AI by Example" (Nov., 2004)

No comments about More Effective C#: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your C# (Effective Software Development Series).

5 comments about Secrets of the Rock Star Programmers: Riding the IT Crest.

1. I got this book because I liked the idea very much. I gave it 3 stars because some of the questions and info he presents seemed to be irrelevant. For example, he has these general questions he asks all the programmers (in addition to the unique questions). Questions like, "how important is it to be aware of your own ignorance?", "how important is it to be thinking about how you're thinking?", just strike me as rhetoric and a bit "boring". Also on each programmer he has a profile page like name, degree, etc. he has some irrelevant things like "Birth Order"... Birth Order?? C'mon man. Also, it would be more interesting if he were to interview some more recognizable programmers (maybe Bjarne Stroustroup that created C++, or people that made some significant technology like Craig from craig's list or Sean Fanning from Napster or the guys at Google, or maybe even Bill Gates). Alot of the people he interviewed I just didn't recognize. Also, it seems he has a bias towards the java world. What was a bit irritating is that at the end of the book he interviews Weird Al Yankovic. Again, I just felt this was irrelevant information to the subject at hand. Overall, I'm not dissapointed I got this book.. I just guess I wasn't completely satisfied after reading it.



2. While I like the concept and the different ways these people attack problems, I do have a bit of an issue with the Java centric cast. I was hoping for some low level kernel hackers, or at least something a bit more relevant than high level programming.



3. "Secrets of the Rock Star Programmers: Riding the IT Crest" is a series of 13 (or 14) interviews with different people that are known in the programming community. The fourteenth is for "Weird Al Yankovic" which has nothing to do with programming, so I won't count it.
   
   Even after reading the book, I'm not sure what criteria was used in determining who is a Rock Star Programmer. It seems to be some combination of successful software developer, entrepreneur, those with a fanbase, some specific skills and being in the right place at the right time (riding the crest.) Then there are the exceptions such as Herb Schildt who is a programming educator and author.
   
   I would have enjoyed this more as a series of articles than as a book. I felt the chapters jumped around a lot and had different voices. Largely due to the dynamic in individual interviews. Some interviews flowed well and others had a number of disfluencies ("right", "okay", etc.)
   
   The author was trying to tie everything together. He adds cross references, observations when interviewees say similar or contrasting things. There is a table in the back to direct you to which interviewees answered a given question.
   
   Some themes in the book are knowledge of ignorance, the right thing vs the quick thing, a non-IT plan B, continual optimization of environment, outsourcing and personal/professional balance. Many of the interviewees gave their thoughts on their expertise which was nice. It left me wanting more though. I think that is because I would read a book on the topic to get the opinions.



4. First off, you'll have to forgive this book for the title. Using the term "Rock Star Programmers" is just a piece of techie humor that was probably used to sell the book. The problem is, any non-techie that sees you reading it will probably think you're an egotistical chic-geek.
   
   Inside the cover, however, is a wealth of information from various programmers across the industry. What these folks have to say about the software industry's *past* is extremely relevant for budding programmers and the people that have to manage them (and understand them). The author asks each of his subjects what they see coming in the next cycle of technology, but those answers are always vague. It's the observation of the industry's past successes and failures that gives the real answers, and the author flushed that out pretty well.
   
   I also think the author did a decent job getting a variety of people for his interviews. There are gurus, company guys, program managers, pure coders, etc. I don't know the exact coding languages or frameworks of 75% of the subjects, but it doesn't matter. Software is software and there are enough Microsoft, Java, C, and open source guys to avoid any support to the idea that any one technology is best. The book does a good job of not making the reader feel they need to do more research to understand the conversation.
   
   And the last chapter of a "real" rock star was still a nice touch, regardless that some other reviewers that didn't get the humor.
   
   Overall, I'd say this is a good book to read if you are trying to learn what the software industry is about or you've been charged with the tasks of managing the technical direction for your project or firm for the first time.



5. I found this book a great read for a variety of reasons. I don't have an IT background but I enjoy reading about groundbreakers and top performers in any field -- hence my interest in the book. The author does a great job of getting at why these folks are RockStars and how they all think about programming and software. But it also does a great job of getting at the issues they face that we all share -- how do I keep up with the deluge of information in my field, how do I stay current with trends and changes in the industry, how do I maintain a work/life balance, etc? And for those with an IT background, there is some very technical information as well. And with the great interview with Weird Al at the end, there is something here for everyone. You'll find value in this book if you don't know COBOL from Ajax, are in CS 101, or are a 20 year industry veteran.

5 comments about Multiplayer Game Programming w/CD (Prima Tech's Game Development).

1. For those that are interested in multiplayer game programming, whether beginners or intermediate coders, will enjoy this book. A large section is dedicated to network connections, showing examples in both C and C++. The back half works with DirectX and beyond. This isn't just good reference material but a template to get started.



2. My personal opinion about this book is don't buy it unless you want to read through a badly written language with a lot of smart remarks and very little substance about network game programming. It covers the basic about network gaming with socket and then shows how to set up directplay. It uses a lot of time and pages to show how to draw a couple of lines with direct3d and basic windows programming stuff, which I personally would have bought a book on if that was what I wanted to know something about. There's no discussion about cons and pros for using tcp or udp protocol and it totally lack information about latency problems and how to handle those, because this is a subject that absolutely needs to be handled when we start talking about multiplaying, unless it's a turn based game.
   Thumbs down from me...there got to be better books out there about multiplayer game programming.



3. This is a decent book, although I would not recomend it to the novice programmer. If you cannot read C/C++ code fluently or any code for that matter, this book will only confuse you further. He has good examples with ok descriptions but he kinda jumps from very simple stuff to very difficult things in a hurry. On the other hand this is one of the better books that explains windows programming, you have to weed through the chapter to find it but all in all it helped me to understand Windows programming much better than I already did. But thats just one Nerds opinion



4. Like most books written by want Want-A-Be game programmers with little or no real world experience, this BOOK is crap.
   
   Save your self (and money) from someone college thesis, rewrite of DirectX samples, etc., and buy a real game programmer book like one of the Game Gems Series written by real game programmers. You can Download the DirectX/DirectPlay documentation for free.



5. As someone who likes to dabble in game development, I was completely unimpressed with this book. I was hoping to learn some of the details about some of the complex and difficult issues of game programming: keeping games in synch, making the best use of bandwidth, UDP vs TCP, etc. But this 800 page book only devoted about 2 pages to these topics. Instead, the author chose to spend more time explaning the differences between C and C++.
   
   That points to the major flaw in this book: The author doesn't seem to pick a clear focus to write to. He jumps back and forth, discussing threads and mutexes, then charging into a diatribe about hungarian notation, or how C++ object-orientation works. He spends the last half of the book showing a rough overview of a multiplayer game he wrote, but only spends a couple pages of that talking about the network elements of the game.
   
   If this book had been titled "Game development for software developers who already know how to write and design software but don't know the specifics of DirectX or windows programming, and who want to learn the absolute basics of networking with DirectPlay", I would give it a better review. Really, it's more of a DirectX tutorial than anything.
   
   My advice? If you fit into that narrow group of people described by the title, then it's worth picking up. Even then, you'd probably be wondering why the author wasted so much time telling you things you already know.
   
   If you don't fall into that group of people, I'd find another book.

2 comments about Lotus Notes Domino 8: Upgrader's Guide.

1. The book is contains a good overview of what you can expect when you upgrade to Notes and Domino 8. The book is written by "some of the senior architects and specialists of IBM Software Services for Lotus". The content:
   
   * A Short History of Notes and Domino
   
   * Overview of New Lotus Notes 8 Client Features
   
   * Lotus Notes 8 and SOA
   
   * Productivity Tools
   
   * Lotus Domino 8 Server Features
   
   * Deployment Enhancements in Notes/Domino 8
   
   * Upgrading to Notes/Domino 8
   
   * Coexistence between Notes/Domino Releases
   
   * What's New in Notes/Domino 8 Development
   
   * Integration with Other Lotus/IBM Products
   
   After a useful recap on the history of Notes and Domino, a number of screenshots show you what to expect when you make the move.
   
   A longish chapter on Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) introduces the reader to the topic and describes the components that Notes provides in terms of web services. The IBM productivity tools are given their own chapter with a few screen shots. Upgrade planning and coexistence of Notes and Domino versions are discussed in quite a bit of depth, as are the coexistence of Notes with other members of the Lotus product portfolio (Quickr, Sametime, etc.). An appendix with "advertisements" of commercial add-ons to Notes/Domino rounds off the book.
   
   As an overview, the book is a good read for managers who want an introduction into what Notes/Domino 8 have to offer. Admins and programmers want to dig into the product documentation after reading the book.
   
   Lotus Notes Domino 8: Upgrader's Guide is a good read. On the downside, the index is lacking. I checked the word LDAP, a topic which is discussed several times in the book, and it doesn't show up in the index.



2. I was given a reviewers copy of this book.
   
   With the availability of Lotus Notes and Domino Release 8, comes a host of new features for the software. I am sure that if you are working with that software, you are aware of most of them. However, this book does a great job of examining all of the new features and functions, and more.
   
   Contents:
   Forward
   Preface
   Chapter 1: A Short History of Notes and Domino
   Chapter 2: Overview of New Lotus Notes 8 Client Features
   Chapter 3: Lotus Notes 8 and SOA
   Chapter 4: Productivity Tools
   Chapter 5: Lotus Domino 8 Server Features
   Chapter 6: Deployment Enhancements in Notes/Domino 8
   Chapter 7: Upgrading to Notes/Domino 8
   Chapter 8: Coexistence between Notes/Domino Releases
   Chapter 9: What's New in Notes/Domino 8 Development
   Chapter 10: Integration with Other IBM/Lotus Products
   Appendix: Third-Party Tools
   Index
   
   If you are working toward upgrading your Lotus Notes/Domino infrastructure, or deciding if Lotus Notes/Domino is for you, Lotus Notes Domino 8: Upgraders Guide, by Tim Speed, Bennie Gibson, Joseph Anderson, Dick McCarrick, Brad Schauf, Barry Rosen, and David Byrd, will give you quite a lot of information in a slim (253 pages) book. From a history of Notes and Domino to what to expect with Notes/Domino 8, this book covers a lot of ground.
   
   If you are expecting a book to help you upgrade your environment, Chapter 7 will help you with the planning. The other chapters will show you what to expect. The final chapter will give you an excellent overview on integrating your Notes/Domino environment with Quickr, Sametime, and Connections. A lot of information in a small book. But if you are simply looking to upgrade your environment, the authors put quite a bit in about 17 pages (Chapter 7). After following their upgrade plan, you should be very confident of taking on the task of moving your environment to Release 8. I am well aware of the new features, but I did pick up quite a few new ones by reading this book. They give the important new server features a lot of consideration as well as why the Eclipse platform is so important. Further, I was surprised that this book included a chapter on the new development features and explanations of leveraging Web 2.0 (like RSS) in your applications.
   
   As weird as it sounds, I did get a laugh from the book due to a typographical error. In Chapter 1, they told about a new Release 7 feature, "Frivolity Autonomic Monitoring Engine (TAME). I think the word should have been "Tivoli." My only other gripe with this book is that the Index needed to be better. It seemed that they spent a lot of space on the third-party tools at the expense of LDAP, DirLint, and others. Other than those issues, the authors did an exceptional job with this book, especially since there are a lot of new features in this release in the Client, Server, and Designer areas.
   
   This book is worth your time if you are upgrading your environment or looking at Notes and Domino 8.

5 comments about Information Design.

1. Its like hanging out with an interesting group of people. They speak from experience, some talk too much, some don't talk enough. Great book for getting exposed to ideas rooted in a variety of experiences (much better than a one-author book)



2. This is a mixed-bag of articles on (of course) information design, in which every author defines the field differently. It would have been nice if the editor had set up a single definition and had authors work within that. But you'll end up skipping whole chapters which discuss left-field topics. I'm also amazed that a bunch of people writing about information design can't produce clearer illustrations.

   The best of the bunch is by Nathan Shedrof, who comes up with a decent definition and gets into the details of it gracefully and eloquently. Ask a colleague who bought the book to copy chapter 11 for you.




3. I am a professional Information Architect; However, I picked up the book without any preconcieved notions or superficial expectations. I found especially illuminating (and actually empathisized with) the comparisons between IAs conceptualizing Information Design and Traditional Architects conceptualizing "wayfinding" through building structures. For those of you who are looking for a Home Deopt style "How-To" manual on creating intuitive interface design for software applications; you simply have to surf the web for 1001 lessons on HOW NOT TO do it. Seriously, the only effective Information Design training program is years of experience in software development. A "blueprint" or plan is key to useful execution, but there is a lot more to good Information Design than a pile of flowcharts. The best an author can do is to share some of his/her insight on ergonomic design with the rest of us. While many of the reviewers found this book's exposition of visionary and philosophical approaches to design impractical; I found it to be both informative and refreshing. Information design is not about how rigidly organized the branching structure is; instead, it's about how the user "moves through" an application (hopefully with pleasure and ease of use). This calls for a combination of clever engineering and artistic design, and cannot be accomplished simply by "keeping all your ducks in a row" The most significant aspect of good Info Design, in the end, is clear, intuitive, useable interface.



4. This book consists of a series of cross-disciplinary articles on information design. In the concluding chapter of the book, Jeff Raskin summarizes the volume by saying "I find that [the articles] accurately represent the diversity of the field - - from fuzzy New Age touchy-feely rantings to thoughtful studies." I'm inclined to agree, but fortunately, the thoughtful studies outnumber the rantings. I was fascinated most by Whitehouse's article on architectural signposting for the blind. However, many of the other articles were also exceptionally thought-provoking. Before I read this book, I thought "information design" had something to do with drawing effective graphs. But after reading these articles, I would say it is making meaning by revealing the relationships between data through planned presentation. Or something to that effect- -the field is much wider than I had ever thought before.



5. I bought this book because it was on the reading list for Sheffield Hallam University's MA in Technical Communications. If I ever take the course I'm going to ask them why they bothered to put this book on the list, because it has very little to do with what is commonly accepted as 'Technical Communication'.
   
   This book is basically a collection of essays by people who are trying to answer the question "What is information design?". Most of the articles are concerned with such things as signage and navigation in public places. This is entirely WORTHLESS for the average Technical Communicator/Writer. I was hoping to learn something about structuring written communications, or about the presentation of technical information. Instead I simply learnt not to buy a book just because it is on a University reading list. Extremely disappointing.

2 comments about Adobe Photoshop Elements 4: Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks.

1. As always the layout and the content to this book is superb. Quick learning is facilitated and I look forward to the next one.



2. I probably wouldn't buy it again. I like a lot of detail.