No comments about Fundamentals of Tool Design, Fifth Edition.

2 comments about Interpreting the National Electrical Code.

1. I really like the authors, they seem very well informed. I'd like to meet them sometime and discuss their thoughts! ;-)
   -Matthew Best



2. 
   The single most important reference in the electrical industry, the National Electrical Code (NEC), is updated every three years and outlines minimum standards for all types of electrical installations. Each time the National Electrical Code® is significantly revised to keep pace with technology and enhance protection against electrical fire and shock hazards. This is a valuable reference to help you get in position to advance your knowledge and be prepared with the newest codes.
   
   This book is like an annotated version of the NEC 2005, explaining in a clear and understandable language that is additionally supported by clear to follow diagrams every important aspect covered by the NEC.
   
   This book is loaded with solutions designed to provide better safeguards, add greater usability, and bring provisions in line with technology trends. Absolutely a must for anyone involved in electrical design, installation, or inspection, the 2005 NEC provides 100% of the information needed to meet Code® and avoid costly errors in electrical installations of all types.

3 comments about Introduction to Organic Laboratory Techniques: A Small-Scale Approach (Saunders Golden Sunburst Series).

1. An outstanding lab text for sophomore level 1-yr organic courses. Any chemistry/physical science major should not sell this book back at the end of the semester! Half of the book is dedicated to experiments which while informative is not the real gem here. The other half of the book covers techniques in organic and microscale chemistry. If you ever need to build a chromatographic column or do vacuum filtration again, you will be glad that you kept this book in your library.

   The techniques section alone justifies buying this book. Chemistry majors, microbiologists, environmental scientists and engineers will all find this text valuable in their future careers.




2. Dr. Pavia's class was so much fun. It was great to have a book written for our facility, by our instructors. I recommend this book to other schools because the techniques are clearly explained and the experiments are interesting.



3. It has taken this company a month to even send this book. It is quite amazing how slow this company and how it treats its customers. Do not expect books to come unless you want to wait til the book become a classic. Highly suggest to purchase from someone else. Luckly, I've been using a book from lab TA for my organic lab
   class.

5 comments about Thermodynamics and Its Applications (3rd Edition) (Prentice Hall International Series in the Physical and Chemical Engineering Sciences).

1. I wish there was an option to give this negative stars. Or at least zero.
   If you think this book is good, then it is because of one of two things. Either: 1.) You have NOT HAD to read this book (i.e., for a graduate course in chemical thermo), or 2.) You are a sadistic professor who likes to see their students suffer. There is nothing here of any value. The problems are near impossible to solve, and the text does not explain terms at all. The so called "postulatory approach" provides zero insight into this subject. If you are looking for a text to learn thermo, then keep looking. If you have to buy this book, you have my prayers. If you have to use this book for a class, then I would HIGHLY suggest that you pick up Sandler's "Chemical and Engineering Thermodynamics." You will use it 10X more then Tester's text.



2. I have taken 3 years of thermodynamics with different books. This book being the worst! I felt I 'delearned' after trying to read some of the chapters. The early chapters were good in explaining the basis of thermodynamics. The rest of the book is way too general, the equations are derived for extremely general cases and it makes trying to relate to real world situations near impossible. The problems at the end of the chapters are not easy and there are NO good examples within the chapters. The problems are written poorly and often open to interpretation so students can get 5 or 6 different answers to one problem. If you are forced to use this book I would recommend that you do NOT read the chapters, only work the problems. Buy a different book to study thermodynamics from.



3. I am taking this course as a graduate student and I have taken three previous courses in Thermodynamics. I know less about this subject and am more confused then I was before I read this book. In my undergraduate degree I did really well in the thermodynamics courses I took and felt like I had a good understanding of the topic. You wouldn't think one book could undo three solid semesters of learning Thermodynamics, but it did for me. The title of this book implies that it is application based, but it is just a pure lie. This book serves the purpose of stroking the ego of professors, and demeaning the moral of the students. I am completely unsatisfied with this book.



4. Prentice Hall, a more or less new member of the world-wide Pearson Education Group, offers countless texts on thermodynamics at their prenhallDOTcom site. At least five of them feature in the series labelled 'Prentice Hall International Series in the Physical and Chemical Engineering Sciences': BalzhiserSamuelsElliassen1; ElliottLira1; Kyle3; PrausnitzLichtenthalerAzevedo3; TesterModell3. Although you might have put up with it yet (I own four titles from that series.), just to state this irrefutable fact: With regard for the existing competition, the overall book quality, unimaginative content presentation, disorderly, ugly content layout, horridly cheap(!) quality of beige-coloured sheets of paper, amateurish typeset, yuckily yellow hardcover, lack of (online) companion resources, and maybe most of all, the horribly sloppy editorial supervision monitoring (typo-)graphical errors, hardly add to a convincing marketing concept. So this, the beauty of book quality, is not what you pay for or what you get for your two-star bucks. What is left as only, possible decision-maker is the taco bell distillate: the pure, intellectual text content. And letting me anticipate, of all the mentioned yellow fives, this advanced textbook is the only worth talking about contents (ie. dont ever/even bother with the other four yellows. sincerely!). To begin, to quote the preface, "The third edition *now* is intended for a two-semester subject in graduate-level chemical thermodynamics". I am not sure if you got this, so again: as an chemical engineering student (and this text is for ChemE's only. Only.) you usually have passed two standard semesters of thermo (called ENGINEERING thermo; something which virtually *all* eng stud's of diverse fields CivilE, MechE, EnvironE, ChemE etc share. boring and easy stuff) by the end of sophomore's. It is then mandatory for one of your very first junior courses to be *a* semester of 'chemical thermodynamics' which is almost the same as 'chemical engineering thermodynamics'. For the average aspired this is it, not more. Well, sophisticated college of engineering programs do offer additional optional, more-in-depth lower division level thermo courses (=undergrad courses) for your remaining senior years (often called 'Advanced Phase Equilibria Blah-blub'). Now, the world-famous M.I.T., Cambridge MA, goes even further by offering another(!) two, *higher division* level courses in ChemE thermo (theoretically your 5th and 6th thermo-semester!) for its aspiring graduates wow. And the JWTester3 text (?. the book rather appears to constitute a monograph. although with examples and end-of-chapter problems ;-) is to accompany this 1st-gradyear at MIT. Hopefully you are by now in the picture of the MIT situation. Be it as it may, PolingPrausnitzOConnell5 classifies the monumental 942pages-work as "semiadvanced text" whereas Koretsky1 calls it an "advanced text and monograph". Little old me would even title it as "*highly* advanced" without exaggeration. But, and here the wonderful comes, all this hard, high-level, dry theory is wonderfully interconnected with everyday world, experience, love, phenomena, science, technology, ie. not only with the typical, boring MechE or ChemE apparatus, devices and engineering cycles Carnot etc. Where other typical core texts such as Sandler4 or SmithVanness7 limit themselves to engineering applications of immediate engineering interest, Tester3 --a fellow of RReid, JPrausnitz, HVanNess, WDeen, PHarriott, MDuncan-- regards thermodynamics as a global, unifying theory which can be applied to any process, any phenomena, any part of nature, any thing, any time, any system, any subject. And not only standard engineering matter. So Tester's book was not titled 'Chemical thermodynamics and its engineering applications' but 100% appropriately 'Thermodynamics and its applications', since it is about *any* existing thermodynamics (treats and unifies engineering thermo, chemical thermo, chemical engineering thermo, statistical thermo, classical thermo, mathematical thermo and modern thermo) and about *any* application of that colossal theory web to *any* reality in its most general form including all special cases. Isnt this cool? It is! So a great book? Sure, no doubt. The most comprehensive, the only all-round thermo treatment, and also from a modern point of view, Third Edition, and ©1996. And why only a two-star rating? Because the book's usability is limited to a hee itsy-bitsy audience. For the bulk part of ChemE students the entire book, theory, examples, problems and appendices are faaar beyond scope [sic] (Normally, textbooks note in foot notes the contrary [sic!], namely that a mentioned subtopic is "beyond the scope of our text. please refer to the literature, see supplemental reading at the end of this chapter blah-blah"). Not useful and of limited student's practical value: I bet that for 98.5% of the AMAZON.COM users who stumble upon this review of mine the book is not "it", so steer clear of Tester3. For the other 1.5%, be sure you can handle this highly advanced treatment! And also, with the lack of a student's solutions manual or study guide and the lack of Prentice Hall PTR's overall book quality, I would never recommend its purchase. If you need it, borrow a lib copy. But dont buy new! And if you still think of buying, you better wait. It has come to my bad ears that a new edition ©2007 is to be out at the end of 2006. Ten years later, finally. By the by, an exemplary text of more usefulness and practical value to the general ChemE student to accompany the full undergrad higher education is Sandler4, if that is what you are looking for. As to the education at higher division, Tester3 might *well* be the best...because the only ;-P
   A last note, a personal. I do like the book, because I do appreciate its completeness, its scope, the many unusual topics treated (much material which i have never seen before or elsewhere. especially not in a book, which calls itself a "text"!), the advanced mathematical level of treatment, the lengthy, overly(!) hard problems, the illustrations, graphs, tables, collections of formulas, the detailed examples, the exact referencing, and the fantastic applications of high-level, dry theory to everyday world. As a gaga fan of thermodynamics science I wish I could exchange my old SmithVanness for a used copy of Tester3. But who wants a SmithVanness copy after having read my review of it? *g* Even if I am interested and find the book highly interesting/fascinating, I would never be willing to pay full price (=brand new copy) for Tester3 nor for Tester4 because of diverse reasons, as mentioned earlier in the whole review. Please also read my other thermo (intro) text reviews at AMAZON.COM for more relevant titles *for you*. You are definitely wrong *here*! (98.5%-probability ;-)



5. It is impossible to understand how a prof can choose this book. I am an grad student and forced to buy this book. This book contains no useful engineering applications whatsoever. It is very confusing and hard to follow. I had to purchase two other thermo books to finally understand what was going on. End of chapter problems are very hard and not enough sample problems. I have too much negative things to say about this book than positive.

2 comments about Interpreting Engineering Drawings (Drafting and Design).

1. This is an in depth tutorial and reference book, masterfully written and made accessible for whoever is looking for the serious knowledge, the part dealing with geometric tolerances is particularly impressive, the author did his best to nail down this elusive and often skipped subject. I am recommending this book to my students



2. After I purchased this book, I realized that the book looked very much like a sub-set of the 1200 page Engineering Drawing and Design by David Madsen published by Delmar.
   
   This is a very good text/reference book that is written very well for anyone who is looking to learn and to create engineering drawings. The book is very user friendly, with numerous illustrations and white area. The book covers the in-depth ASME drawing standards. If you are looking for a great book that covers both drawing and design, purchase the Engineering Drawing and Design book. It is more expense, but you get 500 pages of additional design information.

2 comments about Applied Economic Analysis for Technologists, Engineers, and Managers (2nd Edition).

1. To whom it may concern: Do you publish the applied economic analysis for answers of problem and question in each chapter? We would like to buy this solution book. Which ISBN is the solution of this textbook?

   Jim.




2. I expected to receive the Bowman textbook in paperback form, not the study guide so in the end this product cost me more through Amazon than if I had purchased it through Eastern Michigan's book store. To save the hassle of returning it, I am keeping the study guide, but again, it was not what I expected and I am disappointed that it was not shown to be the study guide on the Amazon web site.

3 comments about Instrument Engineers' Handbook, Fourth Edition, Volume Two: Process Control and Optimization.

1. The first edition was published in 1969, the second edition was released in 1982 (Volume 1) and 1985 (Volume 2). This latest edition comprises over 3000 pages between the 2 volumes. Each volume includes 8 chapters with many sub-headings per chapter.

   The Flow Measurement (29 sub-headins) and Analytical Instrumentation (60 sub-headings) chapters were heavily revised for the 1995 edition of VOLUME 1. PLC's & Other Logic Devices (10 subheadings), DCS & Computer-based Systems (16 sub-headings) and Process Control Systems (27 sub-headings) were largely rewritten for the 1995 edition of VOLUME 2. Within each product-oriented sub-heading (eg. Magnetic Flowmeters, Infrared Analyzers, DCS Basic Packages), in addition to extensive treatment of the applicable technology, a comprehesive listing of manufacturers and typical price ranges is provided. Under Process Control Systems, a diverse group of applications (Airhandler Controls, Clean Room Controls, Distillation Advanced Controls, Compressor Controls, Reactor Control & Optimation and many others) is profiled. Throughout this handbook, process control is treated in the time-domain to minimize mathematical complications implicit in frequency-domain analysis. Its focus is the practicding engineer and explains most control phoenomena visually.

   Over 250 contributing authors are listed, including many prestigious names immediately recognizable by process control professionals. Liptak personally authored a substantial number of revised and up-dated easlier contribution of pioneering practitioners. This opus is a tour de force.

   Liptak is a long-time industrial consultant, teaches a graduate course in advanced process control at Yale and writes the widely-followed Lessons Learned feature in CONTROL magazine. He has also lectured at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and been published on the editorial pages of the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.




2. This book is a Must Have in your Engineering Library.
   Liptak provides extensive detail for this to be your one-stop-shop for controls as well as a great introduction & encyclopedia for the rookies.
   Hats off to Liptak and his team.
   Just brace yourself for the 1,500 pages of information !! ;)



3. 
   Absolutely the Very Best Process Control Reference for the Process Control Engineer - Now Updated and Expanded !!. This is the second volume of the Instrument Engineer's Handbook, and. as its title suggests, it deals with Process control and Optimization, covering everything from Control Hardware, Control Theory, Control Strategies, and the Control and Optimization of Specific Unit Operations.
   
   The Chapters on Control Hardware cover in detail transmitters, controllers, control valves, regulators and other types of final control elements, PLCs, and other logic devices, human interfaces and displays, including the design of control rooms.
   
   The Chapters on Control Theory and Control Strategies covers everything from control basics and PID controllers, to tuning methods, stability, process characteristics, process modeling and simulation, model-based control, genetic and other evolutionary algorithms, fuzzy logic programming, neural networks and other advance control strategies.
   
   The Chapters on Control and Optimization of Unit Operations provide both in-depth of both the theory of operation and control, and practical implementation for the control of pumping, distillation, chemical reaction, heat transfer and many other.
   
   While evaluating and reviewing such sophisticated topics about Process Control, this handbook also tries and succeeds to provide and reinforce the reader with the most useful tool for the Automation and Control Engineer: Common Sense. In order to emphasize the importance of Common Sense, the Author gives some practical recommendations that include the following ones:
   
   - Before we can control a process, one must fully understand it.
   - Being progressive is good, but being a guinea pig is not. Therefore is the wrong control strategy is implemented, the performance of even the most advanced digital hardware will be unacceptable.
   - And Instrumentation, Automation, and Process Control Engineer or Technician is doing a good and better job by telling plant management what they need to know, and not what they like to hear.
   - If an instrument is worth installing, it should also be worth calibrating and maintaining. No device can outperform the reference against it was calibrated.
   - Trust your common sense not the sales literature. Independent performance evaluation based on the recommendation of international and national users associations should be done before installation, and not after it.
   
   I am an Industrial Practitioner of Process Measurement & Control. I have been working in the Process Industries for more than 16 years as an Automation, Instrumentation, Process Safety and Process Control Engineer. I consider this book to be the very best reference in the field for anyone and everyone working in these areas or in areas related with their Industrial applications. You will find this handbook useful, either if your work is related with the engineering, maintenance or operation of Process Control Systems.
   
   If you are a beginner to Process Control, you may also want to consider "Process Dynamics, Modeling, and Control (Topics in Chemical Engineering)" by Babatunde A. Ogunnaike, which is an excelent introductory reference to Chemical Processes Dynamics and Control.

1 comments about Chemical Principles in the Laboratory.

1. This book uses removable pages as prelabs which were very good in giving a conceptual idea of the experiments before they were done. Also, there are good flowcharts, equations for every step of the reactions, and formulas to help do the problems. All data that needs to be recorded is clearly mentioned in a form format.

2 comments about Textile Testing and Analysis.

1. This book is not only poorly written, it is also poorly edited. I am not a textile engineer or textile technologist, and I found obvious errors in the first chapters that would actually affect the quality of work anyone using this book would perform. I think that the authors of this book should be ashamed of themselves. I suspect they are professors that needed to be published, and now they are. Their peers should review this book before giving them any credibility.



2. For anyone who is involved in textile testing and analysis, this book is very thorough. It not only lists which acceptable testing standards to use, AATCC, ASTM, etc. but it explains different considerations for unexpected results. I'm not sure what business someone who is "not a textile engineer or textile technologist" has reviewing this book. I doubt it was intended to be a great work of literature to read in one's spare time. I do however believe that it is an excellent resource and guide to anyone who actually works in a textile lab and analyzes test results.

2 comments about Manufacturing Process and Equipment.

1. WELL INITIALLY THE BOOK LOOKED NEW AND IN A GOOD CONDITION. BUT JUST A WEEK INTO ITS USE I STARTED NOTICING THAT THE BINDING IS NOT GOOD AT ALL AND A FEW PAGES JUST STARTED COMING OUT.REALLY DISAPPOINTED WITH THE CONDITION.BAD SERVICE.



2. This was probably the most useless book I've had to buy since being in mechanical engineering. Not only was the book useless, but the book's binding fell apart on me as soon as I opened it for the very first time! I have about 60+ pages that are barely hanging on to the binding. What a shame! You pay all this money for this book and the damn thing falls apart on you. What a rip off!