5 comments about Schaum's Outline of Strength of Materials 4th Edition.

1. This book is very good. First year students will find it very user friendly. Even a graduate engineer may need it to brush up previouly learned skills. All topics - e.g. material properties, stress, beam deflection, bending moments, columns, etc. are covered in very lucid manner. A must book for EVERY engineer.



2. I have already finished courses in strength of materials etc., and am using this book as a reference, instead of those voluminous handbooks. The book is very well written and William Nash has an excellent, straight forward way of putting forth the key points. The book has all the information you might need for a first course in strength of materials. I also use this book in conjunction with a finite element text to give me the theoretical values for comparison. In summary, if you need a solid backup for your textbook and a useful reference, you won't go wrong with this one.



3. I found the book to be very useful in that it summarizes my class textbook and offers many worked out example problems. I have since purchased Schaum's for my other classes and I find them equally useful



4. This is an excellent book. Very well written and with very explicit examples for a beginner or a pro.
   The new facts are the programs for some beams, columns and typical elements of strength of materials.
   The reading is easy and the processes are very simple and the exmaples are very clear.



5. I obtained this text in an older edition, around 1994. Although I had a college course in strengths, I really learned what I know through using this book and working all the problems. Later I found an even older edition of the Nash book at a used bookstore. I believe the copyright for this was around 1960 +/- 5 years. So it is probably one of the oldest Schaum titles, and it is the one I found most useful in my career in structural engineering and for passing the FE and PE exams. I have not looked at any recent editions, however provided that the editors retained the Nash chapters that use classical methods for calculating axials, shears, moments, deflections and stresses, you WILL learn by going through this carefully and working the problems in the back of each chapter. At some point this book was not available, and only the combined Strengths/Statics book by Nash was offered. I have that also (an early edition) and believe that it is not quite as good as the one devoted solely to strengths (this book.)

5 comments about How to Make Your Car Handle.

1. Hi,
   
   I'm involved with building rally raid (off road) comp cars and I think this book is very good for a medium level builder. Its better then a lot of other books that are veeery basic...even this one is not so "in deep"...
   
   Good info to know.



2. Some of the other reviews mention that this is for older cars. Maybe so, but the principles remain to be true. Since I am working with an '83 El Camino for street/strip, it has the answers I have been looking for. I want the car to handle on the street, but be effective on the dragstrip. This book gives the info needed to make the decisions about that compromise. And as an education about the forces actually acting on a moving vehicle it hits the target. I highly recommend it!
   Larry



3. Some potential buyers might be turned off by the date of publish, but to be honest, nothing has really changed in the last 20 years in suspension tuning and design. The same principles apply today, because we still have to deal with the same laws of physics. Topics cover everything from alignment, springs, and shocks, to antiroll bars, rear axle control devices, and tires. The tire section is probably less useful, since tires have in fact evolved quite a lot since the book was written. But pretty much every other aspect of the book is applicable today.
   
   Maybe new systems have improved the way OEM systems work, but the principles in this book will help those interested in improving their suspension systems to understand why their car acts a certain way, and how to address it. Furthermore, this book is useful for anyone from the shadetree mechanic to the serious racing enthusiast, with plenty of detailed information but enough lay-speak for the uninitiated.
   
   Definitely consider this book before you make any modification to your vehicle. Too many people make poor decisions that make their vehicles actually handle worse than they might if some thought had been given to the different options out there. In other words, 20" wheels, a 27" rear sway bar mated to a 20" front bar, and the stiffest possible coilovers are not good ways to make your car handle, unlike most of the "tuners" out there might think, and this book will explain why.



4. Great book - my son is working with race teams and is really just learning. He was so stoked about the book he took it with him to work on the car for their last race. They came in 3rd - best finish this season.



5. this is an absolute must have if you plan to modify your vehicle or have future plans to. many tips in this book to help rookie racers set up their first car with wise investments. so helpful in ways that'll get you started on the basic modifications that basically costs nothing.
   
   this book will get you laughing at the obvious amature you pull up to at the stoplight (who blows all their money on trendy expensive products) knowing you can maximize the performance of your car and its modifications properly at a fraction of the cost. leaving you confident that you have a well rounded car rather it be slower or older.

5 comments about Metal Fabricator's Handbook.

1. This book is a good start for those wanting to know more about metal fabrication. Author sells alot of the handtools he mentions in the book. Lots of good info.



2. This book was written in the early eighties, and it shows. There is some valuable information, but it is aimed at the sheet metal shaping world- for instance, how to put compound curves into metal.
   
   Some of the information is fairly folkloric.



3. This book paid for itself at page 3 and has continued to do so ever since. Why no 5 star rating well its because I cant afford some of the equipment and he provides no poor mans alternative.



4. My purpose for ordering this book was to gain the knowledge of how to do this type of work. While the "how to" is limited, the advantage to me is to learn what can be done and this book covers this well. Overall, I am pleased that I ordered it.
   The delivery time was short and the condition of the book was excellent.
   Thanks;
   Dennis Osborn



5. I never saw someone doing this job before, so, I could'nt understand all the procedures the author explained. The fotos are dark and hard to see. I will try another one.

5 comments about The RVer's Bible: Everything You Need to Know About Choosing, Using, & Enjoying Your RV.

1. 
   We have been thinking of going the Rv route, but are still undecided. This book gave me much to think about, and will be helpful in making the final yes or no decision as to buy, or not buy. There are some aspects of rv ownership that I had not yet considered. The book certainly served it's purpose for me. Very insightful.



2. Generally okay for a newbie like me, but I was hoping for more.
   
   I found the writing style a bit annoying...seemed to say the same things over and over, with lots of "noise" words and little substance. Almost like they had contracted to write a 20,000 word book - but when they were done, there were only 12,000 so they went back and added some "fluff".



3. Boy, was this book a disappointment. I've been crisscrossing this beautiful country of ours now for over fifty years in pick-up trucks, travel trailers, and motorhomes. We'll be taking off in April in our Fleetwood Flair for six months and there was not one word in this book that will make the trip more enjoyable or safer. I'll admit that a person who has never camped or owned an RV might possibly find something of interest on one of the 380 pages of "The RVer's Bible".
   
   Several weeks have now passed since I posted this review and I feel badly about giving this author one star. It's just that the book was so very, very disappointing. Another reviewer expressed exactly how I felt while reading it, "Almost like they had contracted to write a 20,000 word book - but when they were done, there were only 12,000 so they went back and added some 'fluff'".



4. We should have bought this book BEFORE we started shopping for a used motorhome. Lots of good info on how to shop, questions to ask, what to look for, etc. It did not, however, give us enough of what we were looking for in terms of how to use our new (to us) motor home. Since it was published in 1997, more current information is needed.



5. I am getting ready to purchase my first RV, and I love this book! It starts with the basics like A-class vs c-class vs trailer, etc. Then it continues on to describe each system that you might encounter and how to tell if it is operating correctly. It doesn't give nitty-gritty schematics -- that is for owner manuals. It is laid out such that if you are getting ready to purchase a used (or even new) model, you can go step-by-step over the systems and have a real good idea of what you are getting yourself into.
   
   As an example - I never would have thought to ask the dealer if they would sterilize the water tank before we purchase the used unit. I am not a mechanic, so I never would have checked under the hood or chassis. After reading this book, not only did I feel I SHOULD do these things, but I had a good idea what to look for that might constitute trouble! Even looking for things like crazing and bubbles on the exterior....
   
   Plus, this book is written with a good sense of humor and lots of real-life examples from the authors' experience. So, even when parts of it get dry (like the electrical wiring), you can bet they will add in a blurb that will make you giggle at the end of it!
   
   I am SOOOOO glad I purchased this book, and I plan to hang onto it and re-read it before trading up for a better model in a few years!

5 comments about Modern Digital and Analog Communication Systems (The Oxford Series in Electrical and Computer Engineering).

1. EXCELLENT:
   =========
   This is an amazing book with many sections that are gems! Shannon's theorem is explained so beautifully in such detail that I have never seen anything like it. The chapters on Optimum signal detection and error correction codes are so beautifully written and easy to follow that I want to congratulate the author. The section on how to calculate the power spectral density of different line codes like bipolar, split phase, and polar was the easiest to read yet very detailed.
   
   BAD:
   ========
   However the book is scattered. The same material sometimes is covered in multiple chapters in bits and pieces. Partially this is because the author wants to first introduce some of the concepts without discussing probability and later covers them again after studying probability. But, this still can't explain why things are so scattered. The new chapters added in the third edition covering some of the new applications are not written well. The contribution by a guest author to one of the chapters was horrible!
   
   What will make this book excellent is to get rid of the guest author and some of the new material, clean up the presentation of the fundamentals and present in a more unified matter.
   
   This book is a good relief from reading Proakis. I have read many advanced books which were easy to read. The reason Proakis was hard to read wasn't because the subject was advanced but simply it wasn't written well.
   
   p.s. My second edition was read so often that the glued pages started falling out. I bought the third edition and once again the glued pages fell out! I don't know if it is because this is one of the books I most frequently use or just the binding should be improved.



2. The nice thing about this textbook is that it provides the needed background in probability and random processes. The first nine chapters discuss in detail how digital and analog communication systems work. Chapter 1 is an introduction to communications systems, and signal analysis is covered in chapters 2 and 3. Here the student is encouraged to see a signal as a vector and to think of the Fourier spectrum as a way of representing a signal in terms of its vector components. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss amplitude and then angular modulation. In the digital age many might feel that modulation should be deemphasized. However, modulation is a basic tool of signal processing and its understanding is therefore still necessary. Chapter 6 deals with sampling, pulse code modulation, and delta modulation. Chapter 7 discusses the transmission of digital data while chapters 8 and 9 discuss emerging digital technologies in communications as they were considered cutting edge in 1998. Chapters 10 and 11 are the promised chapters on probability and random processes, sufficient to the point of understanding what is covered in this book. Chapters 12 and 13 discuss the behavior of communication systems in the presence of noise. Optimum signal detection is the subject of chapter 14, and information theory is introduced in chapter 15. Error control coding is the subject of the final chapter of the book.
   
   The best features of this book are its visual style with plenty of diagrams and also its numerous worked out numerical examples. The mathematics is as complex as necessary to explain concepts, but the author doesn't lose sight of the forest for the trees in this aspect of the book. Exercises include not only traditional numerical type problems but computer exercises as well. Although there are entire books written on what this book covers in chapters, particularly in the last half of the book when the author is surveying topics rather than laying foundations, this is a good first book to read even on these advanced topics as far as getting the big picture and seeing how these topics tie into the design of communication systems. Highly recommended.



3. My only concern about this book is that I have discovered it too late, after graduating in electronic engineering! Really, many explanations that Prof. Lathi gives about Shannon, Nyquist, and the exchange of bandwidth for SNR, both intuitive and rigorous, would have helped me very much at that time.
   
   I really recommend this book for several reasons:
   1) Clarity
   2) examples
   3) Historical background for the development of analog and digital communications.
   
   I hope Lathi will write many other books like this one: I've never found any explanation better than his. He makes you love the subject.



4. I read this book for 2 of my semesters in my undergrad. In the beginning I didn't like the book much but today all that what I got from this book is helping me back in my Grad studies. One of the finest. Much better than many around.



5. This is a great book for building the foundations of communication theory. Serves great as an introductory text on analog and digital communications. Concepts are explained very well.

5 comments about Schaum's Outline of Engineering Economics.

1. Very useful for the Industrial Engineering student or someone interest in engineering economics. It had many typical situations that help in evaluating engineering projects.



2. This is a good compendium of pills and problems useful for practicing and for quick reviewing engineering economics concepts. It does not, however, stands alone as a book on the subject because it lacks unity and completeness in its treatment. The book was helpful for me to revisit some points and to clarify a few others, and I think that was the main purpose of the authors. For the price it is a very good deal.



3. this was an average book on the subject with good sample problems. a good resource for a student



4. The best thing about this outline, particularly the second half, is the use of real-world examples to illustrate the use of equations. Lots of Engineering Economy texts either fail to explain the equations sufficiently, or they lack examples of varying complexity so that the student can really test their knowledge of the subject. This outline bridges that gap and would make an excellent study guide for anyone enrolled in an Engineering Economy class. Just don't think it can stand alone as a textbook on the subject.
   
   The first five chapters are very basic, starting with the calculation of simple interest and continuing through continuous compounding and continuous payments. Chapter three is rather interesting, showing how algebra and linear interpolation can be used to calculate various values if they fall between two tabulated values. It's a simple enough concept, but it is often omitted in textbooks on engineering economy.
   
   Chapter six turns to more advanced topics, starting with economic equivalence and determining at what time money transactions actually occur based on the fact that money changes value with time. Chapter 7 treats several valuation methods which are useful in deciding among economic alternatives. Chapter 8 acts as a sequel and is devoted to techniques that are primarily used for analyzing proposed capital investments. Chapter nine reaches back to the concept of the MARR (Minimum Acceptable Rate of Return) first discussed in chapter six and discusses in detail the best way to allocate a given budget among several competing projects. Chapters 10 and 11 discuss the related issues of equipment replacement and retirement, depreciation, and taxes. The outline shows how to determine if a piece of equipment has reached a point beyond which it has become uneconomical to operate it even if the equipment is still "running".
   
   Chapter 12 is a capstone chapter in the book in that it bridges the gap between the specific techniques presented in the first eleven chapters and investment decisions made in the real world. Chapter twelve is thus concerned with the presentation of a feasability analysis to a lending institution. Highly recommended as a study guide.



5. When you have a lousy text like Blank and Tarquin's Engineering Economy, you have to use other sources of information to help learn the subject.

4 comments about Schaum's Outline of Statics and Strength of Materials (Schaum's).

1. Plese send for me about the screw test in all universities. Tank's all over.



2. This book is full of mistakes. I spend more time checking the author's work that I do practicing. Don't waste your money or time with this.



3. I have found it helpful in confirming information I was not sure about.



4. This book is a great self teacher of statics and beam mechanics. It has the best treatment of the "singularity function" method for beam loading that I have read.

5 comments about Network Security with OpenSSL.

1. If you have little or no experience with SSL, or OpenSSL, get this book. It explains the principles behind SSL, and then goes on to cover OpenSSL. The companion website opensslbook.com contains the latest examples.
   
   The only drawbacks to the book are the way that the authors cover random number generators for windows, (totally excludes the MS crypto function cryptgenrand(), in favor of the Author's own entropy collection system), and the creation of certificates could have been covered a little better. I also kept having to consult the Openssl API documentation for clarification on certain things, but overall this is a great book.



2. I worked on a LAMP project with 'C' switching application behind it. This book clearly described what I needed and how to do it. Very good resource.



3. This book was a valuable resource in implementing Secure Sockets, it would have been difficult to finish my product without it.



4. Contents: intro, openssl command line, PKI, then programming: support infrastructure, ssl, symmetric keys, hashes, public keys, and openSSL for Perl, Python, and PHP.
   
   As others have noted, this is a great book for programming. It's not as detailed if you are looking to set up your own PKI. Basically it is about 30 pages of the openssl command (using symmetric keys, generating private keys, making certificates, signing them) and ~270 pages or so of programming.



5. Everything I needed to know to write code supporting certificates, multi-threading and error reporting was explained in the first five chapters. Without this book to tie together disparate facts, I probably would still be scrounging through Google hits, forums and the OpenSSL source code. At least a week of research and experimentation (non-billable hours) were saved. Highly recommended.

5 comments about Construction Trucks (All Aboard Books).

1. We've had this book since my twins were 2 years old. They both love it. The illustrations are colorful while being realistic; they're actually *better* than photos, because the artist can juxtapose several different trucks in one picture, which would be hard to do with a posed photo.
   
   The book addresses suburban house construction, roads, and city demolition and building.



2. I bought this book for my son shortly after his second birthday almost six months ago, and we STILL read it almost every night. Construction equipment is a source of endless fascination for him, and this book has satisfied some of his need for details about what certain pieces of equipment do. He seems to like this book in particular because the drawings are realistic -- he doesn't like the cartoony-drawings in some other books because they don't look like the real trucks he sees in the world. He also seems to like the more sophisticated language in the book, and amazes friends and relations with tales about tree spades, foundations, concrete mixers and pumps, and "jumping" cranes.



3. My son is only 20 months old and just LOVES this book! The details in the drawings are so realistic. And it's great that they have both men and women working at construction sites! Too bad it doesn't come in hardcover, as this is a nightly read before bed and that has taken its toll on the paper pages.



4. Great book. Very realistic pictures. My son loves it and has read it everyday since he got it.



5. Just a note that everything in this book is a "truck" - my 3 year old knows better. The pictures and idea of the book are great, but it was obviously either written by someone that does not have a feel for the details or it was dumbed down for the audience. There are better books out there for the 3 year old audience presenting the material accurately yet at the proper level.

4 comments about Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Analog and Digital Communications.

1. Hsu gives you a wide spread of topics. The book certainly has an impressive coverage. It talks about most types of digital modulation techniques, like Pulse Code Modulation. Plus, there is an explanation of random processes and simple probability. Necessary because of the inherent stochastic nature of much of communications. Which then leads directly into information theory, and the key Shannon concepts of how to find a quantitative measure of information in a channel with a given signal power and noise power.
   
   Understand, though, that the very breadth of the discussion means that Hsu often only has time for a brief venture into each topic. But, then again, the book's title does say "Outline". This is really a review book, rather than a text from which to learn material for the first time.



2. I have used Schaum's outlines for 40 years and this is no different. Excellent explanations and problem solving.



3. This is an excellent supplement for upper level undergraduate electrical engineering students enrolled in a communications class, particularly if either "Modern Digital and Analog Communication Systems" by Lathi or "Communication Systems Engineering" by Proakis is being used as the main textbook. This outline follows along with the topics in those books particularly well. The first two chapters go into the basics of signals and systems and discuss linearity, time invariance, impulse response, and the Fourier and Hilbert transforms. The next two chapters discuss the principles of amplitude and frequency modulation. The next four chapters cover the idea of random processes from the standpoint of communication theory. First the concepts of probability and random variables are introduced. Then random processes themselves are outlined. Finally these concepts are applied in chapters on noise in communication and hypothesis testing. I think this section of the outline does a particularly good job of presenting material and worked problems on possibly one of the hardest topics to understand in electrical engineering undergraduate studies. The final two chapters of the outline cover the basics of information theory and error control coding.
   The depth of material presented is not sufficient for self-study, but is very good supplemental material. The problems are excellent with many worked out examples, and there are more than enough illustrations and figures to help explain the subject. I highly recommend this outline.



4. A concise and useful analysis approach on the subject. It is intended for a junior or higher level college audience. I used this for more technical details while taking an engineering technology course on communications.