5 comments about Robot Building for Dummies.

1. I have been into the hobby of robotics for many years now and have to say that "THIS BOOK IS USELESS TO ANYONE HOPING TO BEGIN OR IMPROVE THEIR ROBOTICS SKILL SET". I was given this book as a gift for my birthday and have to admit it was a wasted gift. The first half (3rd actually) of the book is based on pure beginner how to and info, fine. Through out the basic discussion of gear ratios , batteries and electronics are references to the Arobot kit and how it is mentioned later. In the second half (3rd actually) of the book, where Roger starts the high level discussion on robotics, all you do is construct the $235 - $318 robot kit that he sells on his web page. The most helpful information in the whole book came from the list of 10's section (the last 3rd) found in all dummies books. If it weren't a gift I would have gotten my money back.



2. Totally cool book!!!!! This is the first book related to robotics that I ever read. It's what got me hooked on robotics. I'd recommend this to any robotics beginner. Packed with helpfull information, this book is a no-questions-asked must-get!!!!!



3. This book pretty easy to understand. Most others I looked at were too focused on one area or didn't show me how to actually get a real robot. I was reluctant to spend the money needed to buy a robot but finally did and it's awesome. I've added the light sensor and the camera with the movable head so far. This is my new hobby and its cool!
   
   TD
   Go Wranglers!



4. I bought this book thinking it would tell me how to program my own robot, and maybe how to make one from scratch. It just tells you a little bit of the basics, them moves on how to build the robot on his site. But it is an excellent book if you can afford his kit and dont want to move on to anything very advanced.



5. Dummies books are almost always spot-on in their usefulness. I say almost only because some titles do go stale as technology advances. I need to update some of the titles in my library. But I digress. Mr. Arrick does a good job of introducing the concept of kit robotics to the curious. Focusing on a specific kit platform called the ARobot, we are led through it's simple construction then add-on projects. If you're ready to attempt a simple robot, this book is an excellent choice.

No comments about System Engineering for IMS Networks.

5 comments about Optical Networks: A Practical Perspective (Second Edition) (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Networking).

1. I found the book highly valuable and a must for all students and Telecom/Networkengineers. Although theortical it gives considerable insight into technology. Balaji Sundararajan, Cisco Systems, Petaluma, California. (Previously with Singapore Network Services, Singapore.



2. Over the past year, I've been involved in a project which required me to learn a lot more about optical networks. In addition to reading the papers from ANSI T1X1 and the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), I purchased several books on the subject, including Siller and Shafi's "SONET/SDH," Goralski's "SONET" and Laches' "Fiber Optic Communications". Ramaswami and Sivarajan's book "Optical Networks" is definitely the best of the group. "SONET/SDH" gives a good overview, but you need to already know something about SONET in order to understand it. Goralski's "SONET" is too basic, while "Fiber Optic Communications" is too theoretical. "Optical Networks" is "just right" (to quote a famous young lady's comments about a baby bear's porridge). Whenever I need to know something about optical networks, this is the book I turn to. The only problem is that the field of optical networks is moving quite fast right now and this book provides a snapshot of the 1997-1998 timeframe. I wish the authors would put up a web site discussing some of the recent activity in the field, but I suppose it's a bit much to ask them to devote their lives to the book. All in all, if you want an excellent introduction to optical networks, this is the book for you.



3. This is surely the best book on fiber optics networks. It's that rarity - an accessible academic book which doesn't ignore the practical side of things either. Therefore it is useful both as a textbook as well as a refresher for professionals.
   
   We studied the draft of this book in a course in the Indian Institute of Science in 1997 conducted by Professor K.N.Sivarajan, one of authors and a world-wide authority on the subject. It was an enjoyable course,and we felt that we were truly studying the latest technology - in fact, even some of the future technology, since the book included architectures that hadn't been built yet(ie conceptual architectures)!
   
   Later on, as a professional systems engineer i worked in a team writing firmware for a SONET based product,and this book was much admired by my colleagues as well.
   
   This book has all the basic scientific and engineering concepts and considerations involved in understanding and designing fiber optic networks. The treatment is mathematical and the writing is lucid.

   Towards the later part, there are detailed case studies that will be truly helpful for the professionals designing their own networks.
   
   Since it was writen almost 4 years ago, it cannot have all the latest information is this rapidly expanding field - but for a sound, balanced introduction to the fundamentals, this is your book.




4. I got this book while working on my masters in electro-optics, and found that it completed the big picture of optical communications and how network components fit together which was lacking in my detailed graduate work. I especially recommend it to those with a background other than EE, as it fills in a lot of gaps that EE folks assume that others know.

   It starts off pretty light and qualitative, then begins incorporating some equations and formulas to accompany the qualitative descriptions. It does not waist time deriving anything, nor will you find pages of just mathematical equations. It has references and problems at the end of each chapter for the more technical reader.

   For non-technical readers, this book is not light reading, but if you are patient enough to breeze over certain sections of math, you will find plenty of useful qualitative descriptions that do not depend on a full understanding of the math. There are even large sections of the book with no math at all.

   In short, this book offers an excellent bridge between quantitative and qualitative descriptions of optical communications and optical networks.




5. The book is complete brand new and I got it very quickly after the order even with the free shipping service. In addition, the price is pretty good for the book with such a good condition.

No comments about Activities Manual to accompany Programmable Logic Controllers.

5 comments about Engineering Electromagnetics.

1. This is really the best book on electromagnetics I've seen until now. It is very complete and very practical. The author has a clear style and the students can follow the text almost without any help from the teacher. There are a lot of review questions and problems (all with answers). It is really a great value book !



2. This is really the best book on electromagnetics I've seen until now. It is very complete and very practical. The author has a clear style and the students can follow the text almost without any help from the teacher. There are a lot of review questions and problems (all with answers). It is really a great value book !



3. It's a greatest book that I have ever read on Electromagnetics.
   It will be very competible with the Book of Balanis named Advanced Engineering Electromagnetics.
   Really Great.



4. This is a very, very good text for students new to electromagnetics. Mr. Ida uses lengthy, descriptive narratives to describe the important concepts in introductory field theory, and he goes the extra mile in making sure the student understands what these concepts mean. He accomplishes this through exemplary conceptual discussions and a collection of excellent example problems. His thoroughness justifies the 1200 page length of the text.
   
   There is really nothing bad to say about this book, besides that the figures are obviously drawn by Mr. Ida or an assistant and are occasionally more difficult to read than figures drawn by a professional illustrator. In several examples, it also appears that the students solving the problems for Ida used a table of integrals instead of integrating the functions themselves; in several examples this resulted in more work than would have been required by straightforward integration methods.



5. I recently bought Engineering Electromagnetics (second edition) by Nathan Ida. It has since become my favourite book on the subject, along with Field and Wave Electromagnetics (second edition) by Cheng. I own six electromagnetics books, of which the two best known are the one by Cheng (aforementioned) and Electromagnetics with Applications by Kraus (sixth edition). I now compare these three books, referring to them as Ida, Cheng, and Kraus.
   
   Firstly, all three books are good. All three are of similar level, suitable for EE undergraduates. (Ida and Cheng use matrices wherever appropriate, but Kraus never uses matrices, not even to simplify the discussion.) All three books display personal enthusiasm for the subject-matter. For example, Ida provides many interesting historical footnotes.
   
   Secondly, Ida has 1235 pages whereas Cheng has 703 and Kraus has 617. It is tempting to attribute this to the fact that Ida tends to explain things with more words (something which I appreciate), but this is not the case because this would not account for more than 10 percent of the total book size. The true reason for the book's length is the in-depth discussion of theory, and the many many applications of the theory. In effect, it combines the best of Cheng (which is good for principles) and the best of Kraus (which is okay for applications). Ida actually far exceeds Kraus in many important applications, e.g. transformers, Smith chart, and numerical methods for boundary-value problems.
   
   Thirdly, all three books are generous in providing answers to end-of-chapter problems. Ida goes one step further by giving answers to ALL problems except a handful of discussion-type questions. Moreover, the problems are categorized under headings so that you can zero in on an area of interest. For example, the chapter on antennas has 36 problems, categorized under the following boldface headings: Hertzian dipole (4 problems), magnetic dipole (2), linear antennas of arbitrary length (2), half-wave dipole antenna (2), various length dipole antennas (3), monopole antenna (5), two-element image antennas (6), n-element linear array (6), reciprocity and receiving antennas (4), and radar (2).
   
   It is noteworthy that most the Amazon.com reviewers say that this is the best book ever on electromagnetics. I am inclined to agree with them.

1 comments about Next Generation Wireless Applications: Creating Mobile Applications in a Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0 World.

1. By far, the best wireless book I have read.
   
   It's key features are - it's independence, scope and practical insights.
   Very detailed but also an enjoyable read.
   
   I especially liked it because it helped me clarify many concepts independently (i.e. you can read the vendor's documents but they are biased by definition). Have no hesitation in recommending it

5 comments about Troubleshooting Analog Circuits (EDN Series for Design Engineers).

1. This book can be a quick read, but also has examples of problems you may or may not run into. He's written for EDN for years, and I've always enjoyed his style (and the occasional tirade on repairing VW bugs!!!)...



2. Troubleshooting Analog Circuits takes a device-centric approach. About half of the chapters focus quite specifically on a type of device, and proceed to tell you a few common ways in which that type of device can fail. The other half of the chapters are quite random and don't seem to fit together very well, although they also contain useful information.
   
   The primary theme in this book could be condensed quite simply: Don't assume anything. A recurring theme in the book is "This type of component is usually pretty reliable, but might sometimes be out of tolerance, so don't assume it's correct." Pease reiterates this same theme for resistors, capacitors, test equipment, circuit configurations, and so on. Virtually everything boils down to "x might not work, so if the system it's in doesn't work, x could be the problem".
   
   This, in turn, means the book boils down to little more than a collection of random observations which normally would remain unpublished in some engineer's notebook, but are just valuable enough to make a published book in this case, because Pease has so many decades of experience that his experience is worth a bit more than the standard spurious observation. Even so, this book is in no way a comprehensive guide on how to troubleshoot anything. It really is a collection of thoughts and tips from Pease; it should be called "Bob Pease's Book Of Tips And Tricks".
   
   Pease is also singularly obsessed in his hatred of SPICE. While he's correct that SPICE can't be relied upon for perfectly accurate simulation of anything, it's funny that he rejects its use so strongly in a book whose overwhelming theme is that *EVERYTHING* is unreliable. The accompanying photo of Pease throwing a computer off a roof is, like the rest of the book, amusing but hardly useful. In the end, this book contains a lot of information that *could* be useful, but don't rely on it as any kind of resource on troubleshooting. It has little to do with troubleshooting at all; its main audience is seasoned engineers who can benefit from a fellow engineer's experiences.



3. This was written some time ago, but all information is still real and true. Bob has a way with making learning fun. He should have been a teacher; in fact he is in this book. How about more bob!



4. Bob has written a book that only Bob can write. It may seem somewhat anecdotical. But Bob is a legend, he can get away with it. You may or may not like his style, but if you read it, you'll learn something from it.



5. Ok, it's clear Bob Pease is waaay good. And we're fine with that. The book is VERY good, very clear in all the aspects, and in all I am very happy to have it. If you read this, you will find many other books use Bob's advice and circuits. I am learning how to build tube amps, and this book almost only talks in terms of low voltage circuits, but still it's incredibly useful.
   Highly recommended if you are to build reliable circuits

No comments about Communication Technology Update and Fundamentals, Eleventh Edition.

No comments about Telecommunications: An Introduction to Electronic Media.

5 comments about Basic Mixing Techniques (The Basic Series).

1. Well, I find that this book is really easy to read, and it probably is a good book if you know little about mixing, but to someone who has some knowledge on the subject, almost everything will sound familiar (at least). Also, if you're looking for a "cookbook" go find some other book, as this one hasn't fast and hard mixing rules.

   Overall, it's a good book, but after reading so many positive reviews, I was expecting something else...




2. Well, I find that this book is really easy to read, and it probably is a good book if you know little about mixing, but to someone who has some knowledge on the subject, almost everything will sound familiar (at least). Also, if you're looking for a "cookbook" go find some other book, as this one hasn't fast and hard mixing rules.

   Overall, it's a good book, but after reading so many positive reviews, I was expecting something else...




3. When my friends decided to make a band as a joke, I decided I'd pick this up. When a few of my friends decided to each learn a musical instrument at the same time, we thought it'd be fun to get together and make some really awful music under the guise of a fake band name. Yes, we're awfully bored an awful lot. After some thought, I thought I'd learn drums and perhaps some mixing on the side. With the help of this affordable little handbook, I was able to not only play some [bad] drums, but [bad] remix it when I was done. What could be better than that! Obviously, with my incredibly low expectations, I found this book to be very good. I guess that probably doesn't help much though, huh.



4. White is a great writer, no doubt about it, but it seems that the editors pushed a little too far to present a title that fits in the hullabaloo about mixing. The market is hungry for books on mixing and that may be the reason for this book to exist. Almost a third of this very small book is just a glossary, and almost half of it is about recording, not mixing. If we take the other third about automation off, we end up with almost no useful information. But it is Paul White, and everything that he talks about is right, but certainly not focused enough on the matter. To make matters worse, it was written in 2000, making it suffer from old age (eight years is a lot of time in mxing techniques).



5. This is a real good starting point to learn the basic concepts to mixing your music, it's a small pocket guide easy to carry around and the table of contents is laid out efficiently for you to jump to that particular chapter if need be. You can read the entire book in one sit down or you can use as a basic reference to refresh your understanding in certain areas of Mixing.
   
   I have other resources on this topic, but in this field you can't underestimate a book like this, because I've been involved in projects with so called "Mixing Experts" whose mixes sounded poorly, because they couldn't grasp the basic concepts, therefore, rendering a poor acoustical project.
   
   Also found the Glossary Valuable as well, get this book and stick with the basics, as more advance books will be more understandable to you in the future. I Hope This Review Helps You. Good Luck.