Active Books

I have not read this book as of yet, because I am just now ordering it. I am hoping that it will have all of the information that I need. The reason that I am ordering this book as opposed to others that I have checked out is the price.

I hope that it will be satisfying and I will let you know what I think after I have had a chance to read it.

Tammy

We bought and used the 2001 edition to plan our round trip to Maine and back to Texas these past two years. We are ordering the latest 2002 as gifts for some of our traveling and trail riding horse friends. This guide is somewhat more comprehensive in numbers of listings than the Nationwide Overnight Stabling Directory, which we also bought and used. They each contain some listings that the other does not, but Jim's has more, and seemed to have fewer problems with out of date phone numbers (area code changes, usually) or folks no longer providing a service. Also, the Overnight guide does not list prices, nor include specific driving directions to the "horse hotel" (they want you to call first, not just show up - which is fine). It appears folks listing with Overnight pay for the privilege, whereas Jim's listings are free (hence more of them?).

If you're doing some serious cross country horse traveling, buy both books, if not than this US Stabling Guide is the one to get you most anywhere with lots of good choices.

I don't have the new one yet, (I am ordering it now) but I have an older one and I travel across the US on a regular basis, and I have found this book to be a life saver!!!! I don't haul my horses anywhere without it! I love this book!

Well, I haul a lot of horses in the Western States and my one big complaint with this book is that it's not real good about truly covering the states in the West where we tend to be more spread out than in the East.

For example, try to find a place to stay in Utah with a horse if you are not way up in the northern part or clear down in Saint George. Another big drawback is that the book doesn't have any emergency section--like names of horse vets along interstates or tack and feed stores or anything like that-- not even the phone numbers for the Stateline Tack Petsmarts. Hey, I know everyone has to make a buck, but how hard is it to get the people submitting listings (and I was in the book as a stable and it cost me a pretty penny, let me tell you!) to recommend good vets/feed stores/etc. across the state for emergencies? Or what about asking for referrals and giving credit on NEXT year's listings to get more people in a state?

Oh, and then there's the accuracy issue. As a listing stable, I can tell you that mistakes are NOT corrected, no matter how critical, and they are perpetuated year after year despite sending in the correction form. We were able to deal with this as travelers because we didn't expect a year old guide to be up to date, but I recommend using the internet over buying this book. If you don't want to use the internet, then buy one of the other books that updates quarterly (they are in looseleaf format) and sell you the full year of updates for an annual price. In the long run, you'll get more for your dollar. Maybe with their books you won't find yourself broken down along a 600 mile stretch of main interstate with no veterinarian to call for your sick mare, and no place to keep your horses, foal or trailer while you seek help. Despite the advances in technology, there are still many places in the US where cell phones do not work. (Otherwise we wouldn't all laugh at the "Can you hear me now?" ad.)

Active directory is a concept that, for me, is something of a mystery. I have been reading several books on the subject and I still have a long way to go. I found this book to be better at explaining the concepts and make the understating of the subject matter a little easier.

It was apparent from the very beginning of the book that the author has a great deal of experience and knowledge on the subject. He uses real world experiences as well as exceptional examples of the material.

While this book is no written o any exam structure, it can be used for Microsoft Active Directory exam and possible the Server exam as well. The first part of the book is the deployment of the Windows 2000 domains.

Part 2 is the administration of the active directory and I found myself re-reading this section 3 times. I also found several parts of it that will help in the upcoming migration project I am involved in.

The book gives you several tools to work with from Security to group policy to distributed services. The book is laced with tips, notes, tricks and tips making this a great addition to any administrators' library. Overall this is certainly one book that I will be able to use in the future.

Don't buy this book! If you're seriously looking at being able to find out about all of the registry line items available in Windows 2000 this isn't the book. The book is rated intermidiate to advanced. What?!?! It's a beginners book. I expect a book that is advertised at such levels to be like "Windows NT 4.0 Registery: A Professional Reference". Now that's a registry book!

Windows 2000 Registry answers the most often asked questions relating to the Windows 2000 operating system by novice users. Key features include a concise overview of the Windows 2000 Registry structure, valid data types, and data storage methods. A complete chapter is dedicated to securing and protecting the Registry while avoiding conflicts that create difficulties in completing everyday tasks. There are step-by-step instructions dedicated to the various methods of backing up and restoring the Registry database. Windows 2000 Registry defines the interface of the Registry keys, editors, and utilities for novice users while examining and explaining multiple Registry configurations and network settings (including instructions for fine-tuning the Registry). The Windows 2000 Registry boot process is described in detail while tips and techniques for eliminating boot failures are revealed. There are even descriptions of popular third-party tools for editing the Registry and a complete listing of additional Windows 2000 Registry information sources. Well written, nicely laid out, and highly recommended.

As the Windows operating system has become more and more complex and those old easy to modify ini files have been replaced with the registry and it�s much more complex structure anyone who needs to tweak the Registry need a good book to study just how the Registry works. This book offers a very good overview of the Registry.
The book covers common problems, common fixes, how to back it up (very important since a corrupted registry may cause your computer to not be able to start at all), how to restore it and how to backup and restore just certain branches of the registry. Making changes to the registry is not for the faint-hearted. Deleting a wrong key, changing the wrong key, or any other change can create havoc for your computer. The book describes things in sufficient detail to allow you to make changes with confidence and knowing that you can get back to the original registry if something goes wrong.
I wish it had more information on how one could identify programs that a particular key is related to. Why? Because it is still very, very unusual to find a program that completely removes itself from the registry when you uninstall the program. These dead parts of the registry make it larger and larger and cause your computer to boot slower and slower and also create more and more places where there may be software conflicts or other items that cause your computer to crash. In the author�s defense I have not been able to find any computer books that cover this topic in any significant manner. So, it is still click and guess if you want to remove all the threads of a program in the registry.
All in all, this is still an excellent book on the registry and a good choice for a computer technician, or the courageous novice, to have on their bookshelf.

If you took the phrase "velvet touch" out of this thin book, it would be half the size. If you really think you want to spend money on the book then here is the whole book:
Be nice to people, even in difficult situations.
(add your example of when that benefited yourself and now you have the entire book)

I was fortnuate enough to get an advance copy of this book before its release. I don't like self-help books and have never managed to complete reading one. WINNING WITH THE VELVET TOUCH took me on a ride with interesting stories and relevant anticdotes that made the point without preaching. The point of the book is simple, yet invaluable: If you get people on your side you will accomplish so much more than if you go it alone. Books like "Winning Through Intimidation" seem old fashioned and out-of-date compared to the dynamic principals of WINNING WITH THE VELVET TOUCH. I have followed the examples this book illustrates with great success and rewarding results.

This is an excellent, to the point book that everyone can benefit from...even those who practice what it preaches. Author Richard Stern tells it like it is...you get more out of life if you learn the simple lessons he provides throughout the book. Probably the most important of those lessons is how to better communicate with difficult people. He tells how the velvet touch philosophy has not only helped to make him successful, but those around him, as well as countless others. This is an easy to read book that I am purchasing for all my employees and partners to read because it can only help to make them better people. I would rate this book with the top 10 best of self help and other business books that I have read. For the price, you can't beat it!

In addition to the various psychiatric journals, textbooks and research studies I review, it is always enlightening to read "self help" books which add another dimension to psychiatric thinking in my opinion. Richard Stern's description of "The Velvet Touch" is a very nice addition to this field. It is always amazing to me to watch a skilled "people person" at work. Psychiatrists like myself and other therapists my be medically and psychologically educated, but despite working with hundreds or thousands of patients/clients, we do not necessarily have the ability to get the most out of our interpersonal relationships.

"Winning with the Velvet Touch" reads well and quickly, and makes its basic points authentically. Mr. Stern uses the velvet touch well in his writing, which draws the reader in to identify with the author as he formulates his reactions and strategies in his daily encounters. There are more than two dozen narratives of complex human problems taking place at airports, union halls, ski resorts, and lonely streets at night. The author shows how to tap in to the innate human proclivity to help other human beings, an important aspect of our evolutionary origins. How do you get another person, sometimes hostile, to be interested in your welfare? How does he or she discover where his own best interests lie? How do you deal with bullying, with threats, with your own negative thinking and how do you recognize hopeless situations? In this brief and highly recommended book, Mr. Richard Stern demonstrates his won strengths (he's not perfect; he also demonstrates some weaknesses) including an ability to use humor, to defer to the social ranking system, to motivate, and above all to be civil. Yes, I think one comes away from "Winning with the Velvet Touch" with a new appreciation for what civility can do for us.

RFG

A good topic for a book, and this one promises a lot, but read it with at least a few grains of salt while you test, test, test. I'm unsure how this book made it past the editorial reviewers, as the prose is often awkward and dense, with many unnecessary words and rarely flows. The often informal and inexact sentence structure loses the reader when the author attempts to describe more complicated concepts.

The book's first 100 pages are spent going briefly through AD basics (which leaves something to be desired) and making a case for a business continuity plan for AD. I feel the latter is completely unnecessary. I think it would be safe to assume the reader already knows the importance of a disaster recovery plan if they've bothered reading this book in the first place.

There is one glaring conceptual mistake in the book that I cannot let pass concerning sites and services, especially after the author makes statement: "This is the section where a lot of administrators get confused and it is also the section that, if poorly implemented, can cause extremely high network traffic generated by excessive replication."

Unfortunately the author seems to be one of these administrators as he writes on page 86 about setting site replication schedules that:

"The schedule per site actually only allows you to specify how many times per hour and during which window the replications can occur from the site. This does not affect the intra-site replications, which is the replication between the DCs located in the same site."

The section continues with screen shots and text describing how the NTDS Site Settings object under each site affects the way intersite replication takes place. This is completely wrong, as described by Microsoft (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc755994.aspx):

"Intrasite connections inherit a default schedule from the schedule attribute of the NTDS Site Settings object. By default, this schedule is always available and has an interval of one hour."

By default, intrasite replication happens whenever there are changes, or if there haven't been any in a period of an hour, it will replicate once anyway. Intrasite replication is what the schedule on the NTDS Site Settings object controls.

Rommel's book is filled with useful information, presented in an easily accessible format, that could be critical to a business at the worst possible time...highly recommended.

In "Active Directory Disaster Recovery" Author Florian Rommel has created very readable, and usable title devoted to one of the least understood aspects of Microsoft's Active Directory technology. In a familiar and easily readable style, Mr. Rommel presents aspects of a widely used technology that is all to often overlooked even in large companies with competent staff.
Full of practical information and solutions to what can sometimes be very esoteric and difficult to understand concepts you will find yourself returning multiple times to this book to refresh your memory before planning for and testing your disaster recovery plans.
With active directory digging deeper and deeper everyday into the core of every business and data center, this is the information you need to know in order to assure the long term viability of your infrastructure.

"...intended for the adventure-minded travelers with special affection for the outdoors and nature. Each Adventure Guide packs in outdoor-oriented activities set in different regions. There's something for nearly everyone." Midwest Book Review

California's magnificent Sierra Nevada mountain range packs a punch when it comes to adventuring. Join local author Wilbur Morrison as he walks you along the Pacific Crest Trail and the John Muir Trail, through King's Canyon, up to the top of Mount Whitney, and swimming in Lake Tahoe. Offering tips on exploring this fantastic area alone, Morrison also lists local outfitters who can help you plan a horseback riding trip, a hike, a biking excursion or an overnight trek.

The trouble with this book is that it tries to do too much with too little space. A book with 261 pages may not seem "little", but given the multitude of adventures available in the Sierra Nevada, that turns out to be the case. The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range in California that stretches from Lake Tahoe on down past Mount Whitney. Encompassed within this 400-or-so mile stretch is a diversity of topography that is world-renowned for its stunning beauty. No less is this area admired for the myriad adventuring possibilities, from the typical skiing, hiking, and fishing to the more exotic rock climbing, mountain biking, and river rafting. Unfortunately, in trying to present this smorgasbord of possibilities in its limited space, the book squeezes out quality for quantity.

The book is divided into three regions: the Eastern Sierra (which includes Mt. Whitney, Bishop, Mammoth Lakes, and Mono Lake); Nevada & Lake Tahoe; and the Western Sierra (which includes Sacramento, Yosemite, Kings Canyon & Sequoia, and Gold Country). Looking at the table of contents, one might be impressed by the books' seeming comprehensiveness: Under any given area one sees subheadings about its history, local transportation, information sources, cultural & historical sights, where to stay, and where to dine. And the listing of its raison d'être, adventuring, appears to be even more impressive: the table of contents is liberally sprinkled with listings for hiking, skiing, water-sports, and other activities. Looks impressive until one notices that most of these sections get only one page or less -- with fairly large print to boot. In other words, you don't get as much information as you might think you're getting.

Even the activities or areas that get multiple-pages are given short shrift. The section on Tahoe rock climbing, for instance, amounts to three pages of extremely brief descriptions of a number of climbing areas; clearly, a guidebook or two to the area will be needed, and yet they don't mention any. As another example, the section on recommended Yosemite trails points out the names of the standard spots (Half Dome, Yosemite Falls, etc.) with a minor bit of description -- too minor to be of much use. You'll end up having to use a Yosemite hiking guide or some brochure available at one of the ranger stations. One is tempted to ask the authors: Why not just start with the other guidebooks or brochures? What does your book add to them? What makes your book worth purchasing?

The book's main claim to existence -- the niche it has tried to carve out for itself to separate it from the scores of other Sierra guides -- is its attempt to be comprehensive in listing the adventuring possibilities in the Sierras. In this attempt the authors have failed: the listings are just too scanty to be of much use. Nothing in this book expands on the information you could get on any given area over the internet, through the mail, or over the telephone; it certainly doesn't expand on the information available in similar books.

Not that the book is terrible; if you can find this book at the library, perhaps it might be of some use to you to help plan your trip. I just can't recommend anyone purchasing it; any number of popular general guides would probably serve you better. A guide on your particular specialtie/s would be better still, e.g., a guide to Sierra fishing or Sierra hikes. And the internet or a few addresses and numbers (available at any library) could get you the info that would really flesh out your trip. Even if you were into scores of outdoor activities, this book wouldn't be enough. Which gets back to my question: Why, then, pick up this guide at all?

This email was received from Hans Mills, Lavonia MI.
Your book is Excellent! The videos are great too.
The book covered exactly what I was looking for. I have collected 50+ programming books over the past 20 years. Your coding is straight forward and the same syle that I use after 20 years of experience. I will be looking for more books similarly written by Wiley.

I thought both titles I bought in the 60 minutes series were good (ASP.Net and VB.Net). The video's you get off of the Wiley site are worth the price of the book. Very good for getting you started with the basics and that is what you want from a book like this. I hope that Wiley keeps on in this series but from the lack of reviews I wonder if anyone is buying the books.

This is actually a very good book. In fact, Wiley Publishers released 4 "60 Minutes a Day" books": Java, ASP.NET, XML and VB.NET.

The book comes with an accompanying website with audio/visual presentation for each chapter consisting of a PowerPoint presentation along with audio. Warning: You can only view the presentation with a high speed broadband connection. Dial-up can only get the audio and sometimes not even the audio. The online presentations are fine, but the value comes from the book itself, not the online presentation.

I usually shy away from books with phrases like "In a weekend", "in 24 hours", "hour-a-day crash course" etc. You really can't learn a new programming language in a few hours. HOWEVER, THESE BOOKS ARE AN EXCEPTION. The authors don't try to convince you that you can expect to learn ASP.NET using Visual Basic.NET in a weekend. If you do all the lessons (some of which may take a bit more than an hour) plus try to do a few original applications on your own, from scratch, you WILL get a very good foundation of the subjects being taught.

I own both the VB.NET and the ASP.NET (which is also VB.NET based) books and recommended them to my students who wanted to learn Visual Basic.NET.

This books is designed for people who don't have the money or the time to attend a live, in-class course on ASP.NET using Visual Basic.NET. The authors anticipate, in advance, some of the questions you might ask to a live instructor if you were learning ASP.NET in a classroom environment. According to the authors, they have taken their own experience as instructors and put that experience into the book. It works pretty well.

Two caveats:

(1) the book doesn't cover everything about .NET or about ASP.NET or about the .NET Framework. It's provides a self-study, introductory course on ASP.NET. If you complete the book, then you will be in good shape to take on some more advanced topics such as the details of ADO.NET (an entire subject in itself, check out Murach Publisher's Murach's VB.NET Database Programming with ADO.NET by Doug Lowe, Anne Prince - ISBN: 1890774197 for that) and WinForms( check out Wiley Publisher's VB.NET in 60 Minutes a Day Bruce Barstow, Tony Martin )

(2) The online presentations are only available to broadband subscribers. However, even without the videos, this would be a great introductory book for beginners who cannot take a classroom course on Web development using VB.NET and ASP.NET.

Andy Rooney's wit and insights at their best. If you like Rooney's sense of humor and wit you will love this book. One of his best (if not the best).

This is a collection of essays written by Andy Rooney for his spot on 60 Minutes, and his wit and sarcasm convey amazingly well. Reading these essays, I often could hear Andy's voice. Most of these essays were written in the 1970's, and some of them are quite dated. However, most of them stand up to the test of time quite well, and still hit their mark. If you enjoy Mr. Rooney's irreverent sense of humor and biting sarcasm, you should enjoy this collection.

Andy Rooney has been a regular on the popular TV show 60 Minutes since 1978, and if you're a devoted fan of the show like me, you MAKE time in your busy schedule to relax in front of your TV and listen to Andy's wry essays on American life. By the end of them, I'm sure it can be agreed that most of us either find ourselves on the floor convulsing from laughter, or saying to ourselves "What on earth possessed that man to write about something like THAT!" Well in case you just can't get enough of Andy Rooney, I suggest reading this incredible book. It is filled with a variety of essays writen by Andy on everything from fences, to hair, to even a clever editorial on profanity. What I enjoy most about Mr. Rooney's style is that he "tells it like it is." He finds a way to tastefully poke fun at the most random American quirks and celebrates the uncelebrated. THIS BOOK SHOULD DEFINATELY BE PUT BACK IN PRINT!!! He is a very talented writer who has style all his own.

The book was not what I expected. The hints on the book can be found in Microsoft's white papers and chapters are too short. The part of Active Directory planning is very simple (the white papers of Microsoft are more complete). The concept of active directory is confuse and primary. The approach of OUs, group policy and delegation and security are very superficial and it doesn't give any foundation to implement this features of Windows 2000. The figures are too big (it looks like to fulfill pages and for the book have more volume). The case study developed throughtout the book and the worksheets and forms provided on the accompanying CD don't help you to understand the concepts explained on the book.

If I can give you a little piece of advice, read the book before you buy it.

I was fortunate to be able to participate with Curt in the role of Technical Editor for the book. You'll find Curt's information to be up-to-date and not crammed together in long chapters that will lull you to sleep. For those of you wanting to get a grip on this new animal (in the Windows world), grab the book and enjoy it. (I've also been technical editor for other books written by Curt and his writing style is great-- check out some of his other Windows 2000 subjects that will be coming out).

This book is clearly written, well edited, and covers planning as well as installation (complete with numerous screen shots). It is written for network architects and administrators who are planning to do an actual Active Directory installation. The book becomes an installation tutorial after the first 100 pages. The author is an experienced writer and consultant and expert in the subject matter.

I used this book together with "Configuring Windows 2000 Server" by the same author for planning and installing Windows 2000 and Active Directory for a small but sophisticated network that includes web servers and many remote users. (My network has one forest with three trees.)

Active Directory Services (ADS) is the defining new feature in Windows 2000. It provides a coordinated database across the entire enterprise for all network objects including workstations, servers, printers, users, and security and configuration policies. ADS is closely integrated with DNS, and all users and applications resort to ADS for locating and accessing resources. Well planned, users will be able to unlock all permitted resources, located anywhere in the enterprise, with a single logon. Mastering it before attempting a full-scale installation is imperative since you may have to tear down and reinstall if you make major changes to your network topology.

With that in mind, I gathered a library of six Active Directory books and read through most of each one before doing my first installation. At only 300 pages, this is not the most complete reference in my library, but I found it the most readable and nicely balanced between planning and installation.

The companion volume on Windows 2000 Server, mentioned above, devotes half of its 448 pages to network issues including ADS and will be sufficient for those who want to be network administrators but not network architects.

When you are growing up, your mind groups things in certain ways in order to help you process tons of information that innundates your every day life. It learns to recognize patterns and helps you quickly form opinions about something. In nature, animals may learn to recognize a predator if its parent runs away from it each time it sees it. As the youngling grows up, it too runs from the predator. Some would say that this is stereotyping and thus is wrong, but it most likely would save this animal's life one day.

My long winded story just points out the usefulness of teaching your brain how to think and not just react. Debono does a good job in this book as it gets you to think about thinking. Just as in any book you read, you walk away with some thing useful, you walk away with something you would not find useful, just as you would find something you would agree with and something you don't.

For me, it was a good investment in time because I now have in my arsenal methods to think analytically in situations that come about. If for nothing else, this book saves you time in your job and in your life. As a plus, you will be able to understand more of what is going on around you.

DeBono has some valid points, it's just that I've read most of them elsewhere, however, in other places he contributes original material to the discussion. I fail to see the point of a "thinking club" which he advocates at the end of this book, the purpose of which is not to solve any problem, but to develop thinking skills. He fails to convince me of the efficacy of such an activity.

On the positive side of things, the author said arrogance is not the point of being an effective thinker. It has nothing to do with being superior to other people or being clever. Developed thinking skills relate to the process and quality of the activity.

I buy his argument that just because an idea is "good" does not mean it cannot be improved upon. Seeing options one didn't perceive earlier is an effective way of expanding one's territory. Similarly, he makes a good case for action over perfectionism by saying, "If I were to rewrite my manuscripts they would always get better--but never get published as the process of improvement can be never ending."

He creates new words in this book and justifies himself in doing so by noting, "I believe they ought to be part of the language because without new words we cannot 'hold' new concepts--they just drift off into the old concepts if we have to use old words." Overall this book has some worthwhile points to make about thinking.

DeBono counters the misconceptions that creativity and thinking are innate, by providing tools and exercises for thinking. These tools encourage deliberate thinking, and a self-image of "I am a thinker". The techniques provide mechanisms for focusing, looking at alternatives, and deliberate thinking. deBono introduces his term "lateral thinking" and "po" for emphasizing pattern changing and provocation. deBono does not take himself to ponderously, and often sees humor as tool of escaping set patterns (and I was surprised by his "Nor can God have a sense of humor since there can be no surprise .."). In the area of decision science, there are more techniques available (e.g., risk avoidance, regret avoidance, Bayesian). I also am sure some of his more recent books (this one written in 1982) offer additional tools, but this book provides a good foundation.

This book was almost as wild as a Mel Brooks movie and just as funny. The pace is very New York - fast and furious. If you don't know anything about New York City, this would be a great start. Okay, so it might take you a minute to catch on, but that's life. It will tell you just as much about the city itself as it will the experiences of a born-and-bred New Yorker.
And how many travel authors give tours of the cities they write about? You couldn't ask for more.

This title had promise when I first saw it. But when I read it, I thought it was written by someone with a severe case of ADD. It jumps around too much and the chapter that promised sex was very weak. At least the cover was inviting.

Exhilirating! Take a back seat and let the Gabby Cabby guide you through his travels of the streets of New York. Famous for his radio show broadcasts and eloquent tales, feel the flavor of the Big Apple by stepping into the time of your life. Hail Gabby!