5 comments about Bloomberg by Bloomberg.

1. This book serves as a close-up case study of market disruption by a new entrant. In the early 1980s, Bloomberg's company, Bloomberg LLP, was a nobody, attempting to crack the financial news wire market, a mature business dominated by Reuters and Dow Jones.
   
   Bloomberg had three big advantages (plus a strong confidence in his own gut instincts) that fit with the theory of market disruption that has emerged since:
   1. He knew the customers and their evolving needs better than anyone because he had been a Wall Street trader for years;
   2. He was bold enough to focus on what was not good enough for customers (collecting, manipulating, and processing financial data);
   3. He recognized where the business had already been commoditized (earnings headlines and stock or bond quotes) and applied little innovation there;
   
   Also a good inspirational biography. Like a great business, Bloomberg has reinvented himself several times, from Harvard student to trader to entrepreneur, to media exec, to politician.



2. My confidence in Mike Bloomberg's courage, judgment, and self-discipline is confirmed. This update to my review posted last August is written a day after he decided finally not to run for president. The decision, which I am sure was an extremely difficult one for him, confirms my view that he has the capacity to be a truly great man in American history.
   
   Bloomberg has stated publicly that there are many ways to exert a positive influence on society without holding high political office. The degree to which humankind is at a crossroads manifests itself more clearly with each passing day. Unlike most of us though Bloomberg has the resources to make a significant difference. May he use those resources with the greatest wisdom and insight. And may he indeed surround himself with men like Kurzweil, Diamond, and Davies.
   
   With the admission that my concern about his ego appears to be unfounded, here is my review as originally published...
   
   First, I apologize for the length of this review. I would not write at such length if I did not think the subject was of very great importance. I hope you may find the review useful.
   
   Normally I do not review books of this genre but Michael Bloomberg, with his wealth, ambition, street smarts, and interest in political change, has appeared at a tipping point in the history of this country. He has no qualms about entering the political arena and with his vast fortune he could profoundly influence the course of our nation and ultimately that of the world. The question is, will he act wisely and with deep insight or will he use his wealth and influence in a well meaning but ultimately destructive manner?
   
   Mike Bloomberg may be short in stature but if he gets it right he will be remembered as a towering, perhaps even heroic, figure in American history. If he gets it wrong though, all the fame and goodwill he has built up over the years will be lost forever. After reading this book I conclude that the capacity for great deeds is certainly there. The question is, will his ego get in the way?
   
   Bloomberg by Bloomberg is a remarkable autobiography, as much for what it reveals about Mike Bloomberg the man and how he thinks as for the interesting and often amusing stories he tells about his rise from obscurity to fame and riches.
   
   Bloomberg's success stems from seeing a niche in the world of high finance and filling it. He had a technically inclined mind (degree in electrical engineering), got an MBA from Harvard, and became a star Wall Street securities trader, or as he honestly describes it, a salesman. He had the immense good luck to be fired from Salomon Brothers and turned his $10 million severance into a $5 billion financial information empire.
   
   In short he was at exactly the right place at exactly the right time with exactly the right skills and hard driving personality. He saw an opportunity to offer a unique and valuable service, used his brain, worked 12-hour days, six days a week for years, and lived the rags to riches American dream. But ultimately he was lucky.
   
   What distinguishes Bloomberg from so many other self made men is that he is willingly acknowledges that luck played a large part in his success in life just as it does for each of us. This is but one example of the kind of honesty that pervades the book and one of the reasons I admire the man even though I disagree with him of a number of important public policy issues.
   
   Actions not only speak louder than words, they inspire and motivate with far greater power. Bloomberg is not your stereotypical billionaire. He leads by example.
   
   He was one of the youngest Eagle scouts in history. He used National Defense loans to pay his tuition at Johns Hopkins but when he was rejected for military service because of flat feet he didn't just say thanks for the pass from Vietnam and let it go at that. He tried to get his congressman and others to exert political influence to have the rejection overturned and his status changed to 1A, in those days a sure ticket to the jungles of Southeast Asia. He failed at the effort and never served but that one incident of trying to fulfill a commitment to duty speaks volumes about the man and stands in such glaring contrast to some others currently on the national political stage.
   
   Bloomberg before he became mayor of New York drew the same salary as his lowest paid employee ($19,000 in 1998) and the rest of his remuneration came from his holdings in Bloomberg LP. When the company does well he and all of his employees share in the profits. If it does poorly everyone takes a pay cut. (Why does this sound like the way we were taught that capitalism is supposed to work?)
   
   One of the nation's most generous philanthropists, Bloomberg approaches his stewardship to the community with the same energy and enthusiasm as he does to his business. And he is not shy in admitting he likes approval and being in the limelight. All of which gives him, for all his brashness and self promotion, an endearing humanness.
   
   But if you are going to enter the national political arena during a time of great turmoil and danger, you had better know what you are doing and you better be prepared for the law of unintended consequences. If ever there was a time when this nation needed decisive but wise leadership this is it.
   
   Bloomberg with typical bluntness admits "stubborn isn't a word I would use to describe myself; pigheaded is more appropriate." (p. 251). But he can also listen and after repeated prodding, eventually get the message. "One of us is stupid, and it's not him" he recalls when a budding entrepreneur, after four tries, finally convinced him to expand into broadcasting. (p. 115).
   
   The most disappointing aspect of the book is Bloomberg's conventional thinking about a host of issues from the economy to education. Like most `futurologists' he extrapolates the present into future. The computers will be more powerful, the distribution systems will be faster. You'll be able to select just what you want and filter out the rest, etc. etc. This is not very deep stuff.
   
   Yes, Bloomberg has made some major improvements in New York City schools. It's wonderful that more kids are graduating and math scores are up. Bloomberg with his 'take command' management style deserves much of the credit. But what good is it to go to college, study an lot of advanced math and physics to get a degree in computer science when Bill Gates wants to import thousands of computer scientists from India and pay them a faction of what similarly trained Americans would cost? It's the same story in field after field.
   
   The problems facing this society go far deeper than simply bad management. They are in fact rooted in the very way contemporary technological society is organized. There are no doubt solutions but these would require changes far more sweeping than most elites are willing to admit.
   
   Confronting them honestly would provoke a firestorm from vested interests, including powerful universities and think tanks who with arrogance and pomposity cling to outdated paradigms, and - with a handful of exceptions such as Lou Dobbs - the intellectual light weights who populate the media and parrot their pabulum. Bloomberg talks about thinking outside the box but at least the ideas in the book seem to indicate a pretty small box.
   
   The mayor's solution to illegal guns in New York City: hire private detectives to hunt down gun stores in the South who sell to New York criminals, then sue them. He even got the U.S. Council of Mayors to sign on although some of them have since backed away after getting an earful from their constituents. Well intentioned but a totally futile approach in a country with 100-200 million firearms in civilian hands and 50,000 licensed gun dealers.
   
   It turns out that less than one percent of the stores account for 40% of the guns used in crime in this country. Spend a lot of time, money and effort to shut down a handful of bad apples and the criminals will just go down the street to others. Plus, this kind of tactic raises a huge red flag in the minds of millions of potential supporters in Middle America who might otherwise be tempted to vote for him. Are there smarter solutions? Sure. Just contact the cities with low crime rates and find out how they tackle the problem.
   
   This kind of short sighted, ill advised action lends credence to the belief that however brilliant a businessman and however well meaning he may be, Bloomberg appears more likely to sow havoc in 2008 than to bring unity, purpose, and direction to our nation. It is not a question of intelligence but of insight, two very different qualities.
   
   Over the years I have worked for a number of men like Mike Bloomberg. In almost every case they have been excellent problem solvers and opportunists on the mundane level but hardly a one of them would qualify as a really deep strategic thinker. The key indicator is with whom do you surround yourself, very smart 'technicians' or the likes of Ray Kurzweil, Jared Diamond, and Paul Davies?
   
   Funding an independent third party while not running as a candidate himself could have a profound and positive impact but it would demand the ultimate in personal self discipline and self sacrifice for a man with Bloomberg's ego. It would be the greatest challenge of his life.
   
   Mike Bloomberg is a smart man with a good heart. I for one believe he's up to that challenge.



3. I'm a huge Mike Bloomberg fan, and really enjoyed the autobiographical parts of this novel and the story of his company's genesis. The generic computer stuff I could have done without, also the story didn't really flow and was a bit choppy. Overall a good, quick easy read. But I definitely could've used some more Bloomberg, Mike that is.
   
   Unfortunately there is surprisingly very little written about this great man.



4. I bought this book on 1 January when news first came out of the University of Oklahoma "bipartisan" gathering, but I did not have a chance to read it until this week. I went to Oklahoma, only to see this good man embarrassed by a truly rotten press conference that invited mockery. My three page trip report is at Earth Intelligence Network.
   
   I'm going to summarize what I learned from this book,and then conclude with an observation on how Bloomberg could go to the next level while simultaneously cleaning up our government and educating the 5 billion poor free, one cell call at a time.
   
   There is absolutely nothing in this book that is conceited or self-serving. This is straight talk from a hard worker, an Eagle Scout at a very young age, an ethical businessman, an inspired information entrepreneur. This is an honest worthy book I wish I had noticed sooner.
   
   The author lived in a one-room studio apartment for his first 10 years, working 12 hours a day as a matter of routine, not counting his early morning jogging, where he says he gets his most creative thoughts.
   
   It certainly helped that he had a $10M termination payment from his first job, but this book positively lights up around the combination of open workspace, open mind, how to create a company on the fly, fully integrating customer views, ignorning banks and other pyramidal consultants. The author discovered the "power of us" a quarter century before Business Week did its cover story on this topuc, 21 June 2005.
   
   What I was not expecting, and what made the book riveting for me, is the complete well-paced coverage of how the author realized he could monetize financial data, then information about the people behind the data, and then information on the politics behind the people.
   
   A few of my fly-leaf notes:
   
   + Build from scratch, don't buy over-priced companies or capabilities.
   
   + Trust me, or go out the door.
   
   + Do'ers with fires in their belly make for a great team
   
   + Pioneered compact low-cost workstations with English buttons
   
   + Excelled at rapid prototyping where good intention was better than any business plan
   
   + Really superb overview of how numbers can lie, how dangerous an automated numbers game can become
   
   + Outsiders do what's asked; insiders do what's needed.
   
   + Superb vision for the future of the hand-held cell phone as the single device, he knew this long before Eric Schmidt came along to help Google.
   
   + Corrects my long-standing mis=hearing of Marhsall McCluhan's book title, The Medium is the Massage (not Message, that was a separate quote)
   
   + Really excellent stories aabout how hard Bloomberg had to fight to be accredited both in Washington DC and in Tokyo as a legitimate news organization
   
   + "Ignorance and arrogance are a deadly combination." I wish he had realized Oklahoma would be a dead end--bi-partisan is code for keeping the two-party spoils system. Transpartisan is where its at, visit Reuniting America, 110 million strong and growing. See the definitive book on the death of the two parties, Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It.
   
   + I agree with his view that computers should not be allowed in the classroom throughout elementary school.
   
   + Throughout the book, it is clear the author knows what I learned from Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, both personally and through his book, Miles to Go: A Personal History of Social Policy, Change is Hard. Specificially, big change takes 25 years (I am in year 18 of reforming secret intelligence and creating public intelligence, he is now in year 1 of reforming democracy and saving the Republic as well as moral capitalism).
   
   + The chapter on Management 101 is decent, sensible, and worthy of study.
   
   + I've spent hard time trying to do digital innovation, and the details in this book just blew me away as I followed the innovations the author led back in the 1980's when CIA tasked me with creating a "smart desktop" for clandestine operations. Had I known then about this man, I would have gone to his doorv and offered to help him put CIA out of business. There is still time.
   
   I put the book down with both a feeling of pain--the Oklahoma debaacle should never have happened--and hope. This author embodies three big ideas: moral informed capitalism, honest informed self-governance, and educational reform.
   
   I have three ideas I offer to anyone who can reach the author, I do not believe the book I created for him (Democracy 2008, see it at Earth Intelligence Network) was delivered to him by his staff, one reason he got humiliated in Oklahoma.
   
   Idea #1: Fund a global "True Cost" project within the Natural Capital Institute's rapidly growing World Index of Social and Environmental Responsibility (WISER). Get Paul Hawkins in to energize everyone, and become the Moody's for true cost information (e.g. designer T-shirts with 4000 gallons of water, water bottles whose plastic required more water to make than is contained in the bottle, etc). This will change markets within 2-3 years, especially since ScanBack would allow Bloomberg to deliver this information to end-users via their cell phone at the point of sale.
   
   Idea #2: Forget about running for President. It's a lousy job. BE the virtual president, forming a Transpartisan Sunshine Cabinet (Senators Nunn and Graham should be respectively Defense and Intelligence), and leveraging True Majority and Reuniting America to lead a national conversation firmly grounded in a balanced budget, on how to orchestrate $1 trillion a year in planning giving to eradicate the ten high level threats by harmonizing the twelve policies, while also creating the EarthGame to help the eight demographic challengers avoid our mistakes.
   
   Idea #3: Examine Telelanguage.com and figure out how to register and put online 100 million volunteers who can use Skype, Telelanaguage, and their Internet connection to teach the 5 billion poor in any one of 183 languages, one cell phone call at a time.
   
   The above will sound self-promoting, it is not. I have labored with 23 other co-founders to do Mike Bloomberg's staff work for the next decade, and if someone can get him to carefully consider these ideas, I give them to him freely. I don't need a job, but I do need a planet my three boys can grow up in, and I believe that if Mike Bloomberg stops trying to leverage political has-beens (with a few exceptions), and instead creates an architecture that can deliver public intelligence in the public interest, he will achieve his grand vision, faster, better, cheaper.
   
   Thank you, those whom Dick Cheney has inspired into reading my non-fiction reviews. I never, ever, expected to be of service to the Nation in quite this way. If my reviews help us restore the Republic, of, by, and for the people, working with moral capitalists and leaders like this author and John Bogle (The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism then the author's unbridaled optemism could be warranted.
   
   See also:
   The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
   Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
   A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
   All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (BK Currents)
   One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
   THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest



5. This is the book that motivated me to finally take my GMAT and apply to b-school. I find the Bloomberg story to be uplifting, from his darkest days of being out of a job to his shoestring budget method of value creation, I highly recommend this book if you are struggling with management or motivation issues. Plus, let's face it, the guy is brilliant. Bloomberg lays a foundation in this book for the reader to put the him/herself into a mindset conducive to success.

5 comments about Control Systems Engineering.

1. Norman Nise has done a great job with this book.This book is a first hand guide for beginners who have absolutely no knowledge of Control Systems and its purposes. The book with its details of each methodology & its purposes gives an indepth view of the subject. This is excellent tool for beginners (for understanding the fundamentals) and gradually upgrading to a better level by able to design systems. The Skill Assessment Exercises are able to bring out the key techniques to solve any problem. A must buy for all people interested in Control Systems Engineering and looking for a book where fundamentals can be cleared.



2. As a student in control systems engineering, I found this text to be very valuable (I had the 3rd Edition then). As an engineer, I found it to be my everyday reference. A few years back, I jumped ship from the engineering field and have obtained a PhD in another field of science and to my surprise, I still reference this text today. Great Text!! Dorf and Bishop is not bad but Nise takes first place.



3. Very complimentary to the main text if you are actually trying to learn and have the time and energy to go over more examples.



4. This textbook is an extremely comfortable read. It covers a lot of material, including fundamentals of state space and digital control. Its clarity and excellent writing ensures that the reader is never sidetracked trying to resolve what's being conveyed. The introductory chapter alone reveals the quality of this text.
   
   The organization, including the two comprehensive case studies, is perfect throughout the book. The prerequiste is nothing more than a full course on electric circuits (ideally). This book is probably my favourite one among my fifty plus engineering textbooks.



5. The book is very good, but you feel cheated because the access to the web site is just for some time.
   When you buy the book, you buy also the right to access the site whenever you like. Not in this case.

5 comments about iPhone For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)).

1. I got this book today and have not been able to put it down.
   I thought that I knew a lot about my iPhone but this book has given me even more detail that can only enhance my already delightful experience with my iPhone. Edward anb Bob have done a top-rate job of providing easy to understand content. The illustrations are perfectly complementary to the text. Page Layouts are extemely well thought out and executed.Font selection makes this book both easy to read and a feast for the eye. Cartoons by Rich Tennant are hillarious. And now you know why I fell in love with this wonderful book. Go no further. Put it in your cart. You will not regret the decision...ever.



2. Having been in the IT field as a trainer for over 20 years, I seldom pick up a Dummies book. But after reading two other books, Kelby and Progue, and then this one, I can honestly say that this is the one to get, if you get only one iPhone book. The warnings are a unique and especially useful addition, and the photos are gorgeous.



3. The iPhone for Dummies is a dated book and seems to be written for iPhone with firmware 1.0. The book does not cover the January 15, 2008 update that Apple rolled out at Mac World. Apple has also rolled out a 16 G iPhone in addition to the 8 G iPhone as of February 5, 2008 which is not covered in the book.
   
   For someone that has been using the Mac OS X and uses Apples standard application such as Address Book, iPhoto, and iTunes the iPhone is probability not a hard to use and the iPhone for Dummies probability seems like an easy read. But if you are coming from a Microsoft Windows platform or have had little interest in learning or do not use a lot of the standard Apple programs that are on your Mac this book is for you. The authors easily walk you through the features of the iPhone. If the iPhone seems easy to you and you have questions about specific functions the book is easy to jump around without having to read the book from cover to cover. The book has a good table of contents and a good index to find what you want about the iPhone.
   
   The book has good color photos and graphics so you can look at the pictures as you work along with the authors. The authors bolded the steps in the instructions so they can easily found and followed.
   
   The authors cover all the basic functions of the iPhone in 13 chapters from making a phone call, playing music, and surfing the web. They have 4 additional chapters that would be of interest to iPhone users. The chapter titles are "When Good iPhones Go Bad," Ten Thing for the Wish List," "Ten Terrific Web Resources," and "Ten Helpful Hints, Tips, and Shortcuts."
   
   One feature I wanted to learn more about was the use of the Google Maps Application for the before the January 15th update. I found the directions easy to follow, and I was able used the iPhone to navigate from Denver, CO to Glennwood Springs, CO and back on the instructions in the sections on Google Maps Application.
   
   One item that I have had problems with on the iPhone is getting the iPhone to sync my Apple Bluetooth headset for the iPhone. I looked in the book regarding this subject and it is very weak on Bluetooth information. I am guessing the book was written prior to the headset being released.
   
   The authors also point out some of the things that the iPhone does not do. I found myself frustrated when the iPhone was in cover flow (horizontal) playing music. They point out that you lose some to the controls such has volume control. You have to switch pack to vertical position in order to control the volume.
   
   I would have like to see the publisher have a site for the book for updates to the iPhone features. Since it seems there has been 3 updates in iPhone features since the book has been published.
   
   The book iPhone for Dummies is a good book for someone wanting to getting up and going with the iPhone. It is an easy to read and understand. The downside of the book is it is dated.



4. The iPhone is very intuitive to use, but there are features and tips that let you get the most from it. These are covered well in this familiar "Dummies" format.



5. The iPhone is a great product. But it takes getting used to. I am an Apple/Macintosh devoteé since 1994, but one place they fall down is on manuals. If they have one at all it is incomprehensible. I am also a fan of all the "dummie" books. And this is a good one.

2 comments about Power Electronics: Converters, Applications, and Design.

1. Good power electronics textbook. I use it for my power electronics course at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It covers a lot of material well, including switching power converters, thermal and magnetics design. It's a bit thin in some important subjects, such as current mode control.

   Marc T. Thompson, Ph.D.




2. Although a little light on full converter schematics, this textbook contained excellent descriptions of converter building blocks and semiconductor device physics. It is excellent that it came with a simulator program too.

2 comments about FPGA Prototyping by VHDL Examples: Xilinx Spartan-3 Version.

1. This is one of the best introductory VHDL books out there. Even though it does not focus on the VHDL Language itself it does demonstrate the use of VHDL and the hardware design methodology via practical design examples. All explanantions are clear and easy to follow. The design examples provided in the book are very practical (UART, PS2, VGA controller). The examples themselves are designed using the hardware design methodologies presented (FSM-based and FSMD-based). Finally the Picoblaze section in the textbook is the best treatize of the picoblaze micro that I've seen this far.
   
   For those interested in a more rigourous treatment of the VHDL language, design methodology and synthesis issues (but not practical examples) I also highly recoommend "RTL Hardware Design Using VHDL: Coding for Efficiency, Portability, and Scalability" by the same author.



2. I have been looking for a book like this for 2 years now. It is the first book I know of that is actually written about a current development board. The author does a great job of teaching you many of the basic concepts you need to get going. I hope that people at Xilinx stand up and take notice of what the author has done. If you ask me, Xilinx's marketing or technical support department should have written this book. If you want to get involved with fpga development, then buy this book and the development board. I'm recommending this book to several other software engineers as well as some of my students. Well done Prof Chu!

5 comments about CCNP BCMSN Official Exam Certification Guide (4th Edition) (Exam Certification Guide).

1. This was the only source I used for the exam. While it did a pretty good job at covering everything, I did notice questions on the exam that I know for a fact were not covered in the book. I'm not sure if those questions counted toward my score, but I do believe I answered them correctly anyhow. The CD that came with the book was a waste of time. The quiz chapters were out of order and had some content that wasn't even in the book (Multicasting amongst other things.) I am hoping for better quality out of the BCSI book I'm about to read.



2. Haven't finished the book yet, but so far not that great. The writting does not keep your attention, but maybe it will get better. Have only gone through 2 chapters so far.



3. Covered most of the content I encountered on the exam and wasn't as verbose and dry as some other Cisco Press titles I've read. I was glad that I had first hand experience with the ADU and ASTU since this was on the exam but not in the book.



4. The actual exam and the content depth of this book are in completely different worlds. The exam questions are very deep and complex while the book only superficially covers each topic and spends a great deal of time on commands which make only a minimal appearance on the actual exam.
   
   The test "simulator" questions on the included CD-ROM are simplistic and way to easy compared to the actual test which gives you a false sense of security. You will know it when you are hit on the side of the head by the real test and it will be like wow, what happened, I scored 95% or higher on the CD-ROM simulations.
   
   In addition, many of the questions on the actual test aren't even covered in the book. Believe me, I went back to the book after taking the test and the topic detail WAS NOT IN THIS BOOK.
   
   I would not waste my money on this book if you are going to use it to prep for the real test. Save your money and buy real test study material online.
   
   You will be extremely disappointed with this "study" guide.



5. This is an excellent material for those who want to get Cisco CCNP certification. Also contain a very useful and update topics of networking.

2 comments about Handbook of Photovoltaic Science and Engineering.

1. I used to sell solar electric PV systems as an ARCO Solar dealer back in the early 1980's. At the time no one could pronounce the name of the technology, and most thought is was angel dust. Solar powered calculators were just coming in, same with watches. Solar powered emergencyy freeway phones were 15 years away, unheard of at the time.
   This technology is the most fascinating and yet due to cost, the most frustrating of all the renewable energy technologies. It is not widely used in mainstream electrical production, yet will fill vital niches in the renewable energy portfolio of any advanced economy.
   
   The big energy companies have spent big bucks on research and have patents in all directions, yet the most widely sold solar cell modules use twenty year old technology.
   
   Now that Germany has finally taken the plunge in supporting solar in a big way, other countries are taking a second look. California's governor tells the German chancellor that "we will do it even better." So the interest in the technology is growing.
   This book is a bridge between the Popular Science or Scientific American articles and the chaotic science papers so much in vogue among academics trying to publish-not-perish. It is readable, for an educated individual who has some high school science.
   Once you are over the rahrah and want to know "How does it actually work? or Could I get into manufacturing? this book will help. Trying to get answers to these questions is tough. No way will the marketing staff at BP Solar or Sharp or Shell tell you how they manufacture solar cells and assemble them into modules. So you wander in a sea of science papers, some in expensive collections like the IEEE proceedings or the obscure conference papers. Perhaps you stumble across the US DOE ENREL web site, or the patent information. But without the foundational knowlege, it is all hard to evaluate. So now comes the Wiley Handbook of Photovoltaic Science and Engineering. Take the time to use the "look inside" feature to see the table of contents. The writing style varies, each chapter is written by a different author. What unifies the presentation is that it is understandable. You will read some paragraphs three times but hey, this isn't Jules Verne. Yes it will take some effort, and you definitely need to know at least high school chemistry and physics, but when you really want to know something, you will find a way. So how to justify the cost? Well it comes out to 4 cents a page. And based on the used book prices, you can resell it later if you care to. The down side? Most of the research that is digested here is 2002 or earlier, but hey, some of the basic physics is over 100 years old, so there is quite a bit of catching up to do. I have not found another intermediate to advanced level book with the understandable detail this one offers. And something that gets you up to speed with state of the art 2002 does provide a good foundation for the field.
   
   Now if I could only find a solar cell manufacturing cookbook... lets see-- 99 parts silicon, two parts boron one part phosphorous, heat the oven to 1150 degrees and stir ever so slowly.. pull the taffy out with a crystal and let it cool for eight hours, slice with diamond dust and sprinkle with silver and tin. Wrap in tedlar,place under glass. Serves millions, should not spoil even in full sun for 25 years...yup it is angel dust.



2. This Handbook is a collection of writings by many authors with expertise and experience in the field of solar photovoltaics. It brings the reader an excellent brief review of the history of PV, exposes the reader to just the right amount of theoretical foundation behind the workings of PV, and doles out to the reader fair amount of practical advice in the makings of PV products that eventually provide clean - and green - electricity to the humankind. It covers different types of photovoltaic products, from crystalline to amorphous based on the Group IV semiconducting elements and their various compound forms. In addition, this Handbook also offers insights into the economics of photovoltaics in an increasingly environment-aware society.
   
   If there is a place where this Handbook could be improved, I think the editor could find more industrial practitioners of photovoltaic products to offer more hands-on advice about how to make a better - more efficient - solar cell.
   
   Overall, this is an excellent handbook and could serve as a good reference to anyone who's interested in solar PV.

2 comments about Professional Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio (Wrox Programmer to Programmer).

1. This is not an actual review of the book since I am still waiting for it to arrive. I wanted to post the Table of Contents here to help out others since I did not see one from Amazon...
   
   Foreword.
   Introduction.
   
   Part I: Robotics Developer Studio Fundamentals.
   
   Chapter 1: Exploring Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio.
   
   Chapter 2: Concurrency and Coordination Runtime (CCR).
   
   Chapter 3: Decentralized Software Services (DSS).
   
   Chapter 4: Advanced Service Concepts.
   
   Part II: Simulations.
   
   Chapter 5: The MRDS Visual Simulation Environment.
   
   Chapter 6: Extending the MRDS Visual Simulation Environment.
   
   Chapter 7: Using Orchestration Services to Build a Simulation Scenario.
   
   Chapter 8: Simulating Articulated Entities.
   
   Chapter 9: Adventures in Simulation.
   
   Part III: Visual Programming Language.
   
   Chapter 10: Microsoft Visual Programming Language Basics.
   
   Chapter 11: Visually Programming Robots.
   
   Chapter 12: Visual Programming Examples.
   
   Part IV: Robotics Hardware.
   
   Chapter 13: Using MRDS with Robotics Hardware.
   
   Chapter 14: Remotely Controlling a Mobile Robot.
   
   Chapter 15: Using a Robotic Arm.
   
   Chapter 16: Autonomous Robots.
   
   Chapter 17: Writing New Hardware Services.
   
   Index.



2. Of the two textbooks available, Professional MRDS is an excellent reference book for those who need guidance with MRDS. The textbook has a plethora of examples that are easy to grasp and has an excellent code library (available from the website at no cost). In addition, the hands-on attitude of the authors make MRDS a pleasurable experience.

2 comments about The ARRL Operating Manual For Radio Amateurs (Arrl Operating Manual) (Arrl Operating Manual).

1. This is one of those books you can pick up and read random chapters, or even individual pages and find value. The book is organized topically and covers a wide variety of interests, so whether your interest is RTTY, DX, moonbounce, or whatever, you'll likely find it covered here - not just in shallow survey form, either (in spite of its wide coverage), but with usable advice and perspective. I think this is one of ARRL's better titles, along with their license manuals and the Antenna Book. Highly recommended for the newer ham or experienced ham curious about unfamiliar operating modes.



2. And another fine book, all about the operation of HAM. Everything from rules to help to projects !

2 comments about Sound Reporting: The NPR Guide to Audio Journalism and Production.

1. Jonathan Kern does the profession a favor by capturing and explaining the practices of the best broadcast journalists in America today. The book may serve the interests of many, but I see this as a practical manual for those of us still making radio news -- and trying to do it very well. Excellent use of actual examples. Comfy, readable style. Thanks, Jonathan! -- MM



2. As a working journalist, I found this book thoroughly refreshing and chock full of some of the best advice on how to put together a great radio, broadcast or web story. It's full of detail and fresh real-life examples using real reporters and stories from NPR. Any NPR junkie would love this book. The author has a fresh and easy writing style which should put journalism textbooks to shame. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in how stories come together, or those learning to do it for themselves. I honestly wish I had read this book 10 years ago.