FO Books

I recieved this book in a very timely fashion and it was in great condition. I was definitely satisfied.

The word is that people fear public speaking more than they fear dying, so this book is for any of those people. These tips help get anyone ready to not only get over their fear of speaking, but to command audiences. There are excellent tips for giving a presentation and using PowerPoint. Being able to master these two can give anyone a one-two knock out punch for public speaking.

This book was very helpful to use when preparing speeches for an oral communications class. The chapters were organzied effectively and it had everything you need to know about organization and presentation.

poetry to appeal to kids!

THis is the author who wrote _Alexander and the no good, very bad day_, which more people are familiar with-- and she's again struck the right chord with kids...

Once I read book about poetry. It was called Sad Underwear.
Some poems are funny, scary, crazy and sad. My favorite poems
in this book were the funny ones. I liked the scary ones because they creeped me out and being scary can be fun. I didn't like the sad poems because they make me cry. I would recommend this book because so I can make people laugh and it would make your day happier.

In keeping with the style and humor of her previous works, Judith Viorst's SAD UNDERWEAR offers a unique views of life through revisiting fairy tales with a 90's spin and creating thought-provoking verses that discuss childhood trauma, triumphs, and concerns. Certain poems, such as "Exploring"; "What Dads Do"; "It's a Wonderful World, but They Made a Few Mistakes"; or "See the Jolly Fat Boy," speak volumes to all audiences--young children to young-at-heart adults. Sweet and poignant, the book becomes a good gift for anyone approaching any of life's passages. A good companion piece would be Viorst's IF I WERE IN CHARGE OF THE WORLD AND OTHER WORRIES.

This is a very interesting book that concisely details the history of NACA and NASA. It doesn't get too deep into the technical or political sides, but tries to show a balanced view of all the important aspects of these organizations. My only complaint is regarding the pictures. One picture is used twice to represent two distinctly different aircraft, and a couple photographs appear very pixelated, as if they were taken from the internet and enlarged too much.

Testing Aircraft, Exploring Space is a profusely illustrated history of the NACA and NASA institutions, and their contributions to aviation and space exploration science, research, human exploration and much, much more. Black-and- white photographs, meticulous detail, and an involving survey of both history and discovery, make Testing Aircraft, Exploring Space an absorbing and informative study of America's exploration of the true "final frontier".

This is a quite successful attempt to synthesize the history of the sole federal organization created to undertake research and development (R&D) in flight technology. The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was established in 1915 in response to the rapid advancement in aeronautical technology in Europe and the need in the United States to duplicate and surpass that level of effort. The NACA was transformed into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 1958 in the aftermath of the Sputnik crisis, and given a mandate to undertake R&D in space technology in addition to its aeronautics component. As a synthesis this work brings together what is known about the history of these organizations. It does not seek to advance basic knowledge but instead to ensure that what is presently known is captured in a single volume. In successfully doing so, Bilstein's work will become the standard work on the subject.

Roger Bilstein is one of the very best historians of air and space technology working today. He also has the ability to prepare exceptionally comprehensive, uniquely useful syntheses. His books--"Flight in America: From the Wrights to the Astronauts" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, and several subsequent editions) and "The American Aerospace Industry: From Workshop to Global Enterprise" (Twayne Publishers, 1996)--are also standard introductory works on their subjects. Both books are the place to start with in any investigation of air and space activities. It is not easy to write satisfactory syntheses and Bilstein has a knack for it, as do no others working in aerospace historians. He demonstrates it well here.

"Testing Aircraft/Exploring Space" is the latest synthesis from Bilstein, and it bears all of the outstanding qualities of his earlier efforts mentioned above. He ranges broadly across his subject, exploring the history of the NACA and NASA since 1915. It is not an institutional history, however, emphasizing the research and development activities of these federal organizations rather the bureaucracy and the minutia of politics.

It is a terrific overview of a complex and important subject appearing at the time of the celebration of a century of flight since the Wright brothers.

These are great reference maps for generalized recreational activities. Not as detailed as a topo map, but still packed full of outstanding information. I have one for every state and I don't leave home with out them. An improvement over simple highway maps.

The map is beautiful and (reasonably) accurate, but its small scale limits its use for hiking. Many of the contours are so closely spaced, faint, or interrupted by text that they are nearly useless. The publishers tried to squeeze the entire national monument onto one map sheet, which makes for a good overview and planning map, but a poor hiking map.
Unfortunately, you have rather limited options, at least when it comes to paper maps: The USGS 7.5 minute topo sheets are great, but they don't show the trails, local hiking maps are hit and miss (some can be great). State-wide mapping software that lets you print customized hiking maps might be the way to go, but I haven't tried them yet.

This map is part of the Trails Illustrated series covering many national parks. These are all sturdy and convenient.

Your map choices are essentially this one, the National Park Service map, and USGS topos. The NPS map is fine if you're staying at Rock Harbor Lodge and doing light day activities from that base.

If you're backpacking, or doing long day hikes, the Trails Illustrated map is absolutely essential because the USGS topographic maps are outdated. For example, the topo shows a no-longer-existent East Feldtmann trail on the southwest part of the island.

The topo also shows inaccurately the trail that goes over White Oak Ridge in the same area. The Trails Illustrated map shows the trails correctly.

This map also shows (1) group and individual campsites and (2) distances between trail junctions that accord with the NPS signage. Both features make it useful for planning your trip.

Upgrading to .net is a must have for any developer or company that is planning to use .net.
I highly recommend this book to any developers or project managers who need to rapidly understand what's involved in upgrading to .net from VB. By purchasing this booking I upgraded a VB 5/6 to VB.Net and I'm about to deliver my first .net project on time and within budget.

As with all VB releases I was both excited and daunted by the release of .net.
Being a developer who has worked from basic to VB 6.0 I was suspicious of the learning curve involved and the bombardment of books about .net. In early February my manager informed me that a client of ours was insisting on moving their VB 6 app to use the .Net framework. Instantly before my eyes I saw late nights and busy weekends whilst adapting my VB knowledge to expand into the .Net framework.
Like many developers before me, I smiled with confidence and told my project manager this upgrade could be done. As soon as his back was turned I searched the Internet and instantly got presented myriad of books about .Net.

Scanning the list I saw a familiar name "Ed Robertson", I remember this guy from a developer day's conference. He was concise and accurate whilst presentation technical and conceptual information on how to upgrade from VB to .Net

Needless to say I purchased the book and in 10 days it arrived. By resisting the temptation to start programming and actually reading the book first. I was very quickly able to upgrade one of the smaller Apps involved in system and then with planning
I tackled with confidence the main application

This book will teach you how to upgrade and more importantly what applications can be upgraded well providing you with an in depth view into the .net framework

My recommendation is that anyone who going to use .Net should purchase this book.
It will save you hours of programming and frustration as the authors drawing on there own wealth of .net experience cleverly guide you through the stormy waters of system upgrades.

When I first got this book, I did not think I would like it very much. After all, how much can one write on upgrading from Visual Basic to Visual Basic .NET?

While I believe most people will rewrite rather than upgrade, having experienced the wizard's decisions, this book has a lot of good advice to both make this an easier task and to make the right decisions in your current code if you have ever thought of upgrading.

While you expect this book to have a good deal on Interop, the gem here is the great explanation of remoting. While web services are the talk of the town, the ability to create server to server communication without creating another layer, is very important. For me, this section, alone, was worth the price of the ride.

For most, the upgrade information will be the most important, which should come as no suprise. If you are currently writing Visual Basic 6, you can learn a lot about setting up your own code to make sure it does not become legacy code when you move to .NET. Even more important, however, is the fact that following these suggestions will help you create better apps, as the suggestions for your current code are good suggestions whether the code will be upgraded or not.

One more nice gem before I sign off. The section on creating global components in .NET is wonderful. While most of your .NET apps are designed to sit in their own directories, knowing how to create shared components is very important for Enterprise development. If you are developing in .NET currently, this section details how to set up your own global components; this is an area where the documentation is a bit slim, so it makes a nice selling point for current .NET developers.

With so much misinformation and speculation about migrating apps to vb.net, I decided to go straight to the horse's mouth for the word.
This book does the job. It demystifies the migration story. It shows how to migrate apps to vb.net, and has complete reference material about potential problems and how to fix them. It contained less hype and more fact than I have come to expect from Microsoft. I particularly liked the sections that list the differences between vb6 and vb.net. This is exactly the information that I was looking for and the only place that I have been able to find it. Other notable chapters cover COM Interop, migrating COM+ services and troubleshooting migration problems.
With the help of this book, I have migrated several of my applications to vb.net, a much easier job than a lot of the reports and newsgroups have made it sound.

Vb.net is NOT a whole new language for us developers to learn, I believe it adds a new dimension to the same language ensuring that we as Vb developers will still have a job in 10 years when java users are well and truly obsolete! I recommend this book to everybody moving apps from vb6 to vb.net.

Bring on vb.net Microsoft, I'm ready!

Jan Clausen wrote a very intellectual and profound moving book especially for this very book, Apples & Oranges. I am very moved by the depth of feelings in which Jan Clausen described herself and her experiences. The character development is a real suspense and this book gave me thrill and also could have helped people who are in search of their sexuality. Moreover, I really could not get my hands of the book, and if I could, I would read it from dawn till dusk. A real life experience full of colours of life which brought an aspect in my real life. Very Good !

Jan Clausen has been walking on the wild side of sexual preference all her life. First she came out as a lesbian, in a world that is not particularly friendly to the sexually deviant. Then she left her 12-year partnership to be with a man, a decision which alienated her from the lesbian community she had been so instrumental in building. In this book, she tries to make sense of it all, for herself and for the reader, exploring what it means to be a lesbian or not.

The central idea of the book is that either/or sexuality is too confining, that women's eroticism flows in a way that makes all labels into prisons. This summing-up misses a great deal, however, as she covers the ground of her own intense life experience, the ways in which the lesian community deals with sexual outlaws, and the ways in which our principles sometimes get in the way of living authentic lives.

This is a great book, just because of the ideas discussed. However, the author is also a poet, and so the prose is dense and lovely, with a rhythm that supports the philosophical discussion in a profound way.

An excellent resource for scrapbooking ideas - good for beginner & experienced. Covers types of embellishments & how to use them. Doesn't feature brads & stickers so much as momentos, ribbons, tags, cut out paper that are related to the photos or theme. An excellent section on techniques for cropping & arranging photos (this section really got me thinking). One entire section on ideas for making toddler scrapbook pages. Excellent general information on organizing your working area for scrapbooking and lists of basic supplies. Gave me many ideas & started the creative juices flowing!

What a great book! Nearly every page has another great idea. You have to look a little closer to find the real treasures.... when a layout is presented, certain aspects are discussed. But so many of them have other techniques or methods that aren't pointed out in the written discussion. Innovative layouts, fresh techniques, and easy-to-understand instructions make this volume a staple for your scrapbooking library.

There is even a section on how to get organized; something most of us need to do! This is a great book for beginners and advanced scrapbookers alike.

Bobby's Watching is a good book overall, but I only gave it four stars because throughout the entire book you know who the bad guy is, who the victim is, what's going to happen to her, and everything! There's no surprises, except at the end where an unexplained murder takes place and it's so confusing and you never find out how on earth it happened. However, the story makes up in part for it's blandness by having the story told in part by the stalker and the victim, and it's interesting to see how the victim is feeling while the stalker is planning to kill her. Recommended if you don't mind there being no surprises. If you like Fear Street, you probably won't like this.

This is one of the best and most suspenseful books I have ever read in my entire life. It's filled with action and excitement. A nail bitter till the end!

This book looked really promising when I saw it advertised, but I haven't found it to be quite as helpful as I'd hoped. I thought it would be a resource that would give me some fresh ideas for preaching, but what I've found is a really good introduction to preaching. Some of the standard homiletics texts have not been updated to deal with media and the emerging movement; Nelson does a good job of handling those things and intriducing the basics of putting a message together. While it has not been as helpful to me as I had anticipated, I would highly recommend it to someone beginning a preaching career or to someone who has not really looked into the use of media in preaching.

Creating Messages that Connect by Alan Nelson highlights the powerful link that exists between the speaker and the audience. This book reveals ten secrets that will improve the process of communication, without diminishing the purpose of the message.

The author's genuine zeal and enthusiasm is evident from the very first page. In the introduction, he looks at some of the problems that currently exist, and then clearly defines the type of principles that work. Readers are encouraged to turn the pages to learn these techniques in greater detail, so they can be incorporated immediately and effectively.

Although the book is primarily geared toward pastors, this information can be valuable to anyone who needs to give a presentation, whether it's oral or in writing. The main idea is to understand the audience and then tailor the message to their needs. Relevant is the key word here, and the author demonstrates this belief with Scripture verses, statistics and stirring personal accounts.

The book is easily arranged into compact informational chunks with eye-catching appeal. The chapters have the main points set apart from the text for easy reading and reference. Charts, diagrams and even clever cartoons grace the pages and help to creatively explain the author's teaching. Thought provoking questions at the end of each chapter guides the reader to a more personal application of each point.

The author is the pastor of a thriving church, which is additional evidence of his expertise in this area. For those who wish to emulate his successful style of communication, this book is certainly the place to start.

Creating Messages that Connect is both motivational and meaningful! -- Joyce Handzo, Christian Book Previews.com

Straightforward, understandable, well-written. It's not an easy topic but this helped me get the material much better!

Gives a clear picture of the basis of these tests. I had a better idea of what they covered and what to expect after reading this book.