Fundamental-Information

Overview: Not so much a book about the Internet as a 200 page intellectual property nutshell, this book is an outstanding resource for anyone who needs a refresher course in (or, for that matter, an introduction to) intellectual property. It falls short in providing substance on the legal issues as they relate to the Internet; instead, it hopes to acquaint the Internet user with intellectual property law. Buy this book if you are looking for a thorough I.P. primer; do not buy it if you are looking for a comprehensive treatment of legal issues on the Net.

The full text of this review is online at: http://www.redstreet.com/readingroom/reviews/internetlaw.htm

_Internet_ fills a much needed void in providing a succinct overview of intellectual property and libel liability for the lay public, particularly as it relates to the electronic dissemination of information. The hypothetical examples (familiar to law school students) provide illustrations of what potential carelessness could cause in a humorous yet only mildly farfetched style.

The book is subdivided into several short and roughly independent sections. Some aspects of intellectual property yield overlapping rights and so it begins with distinguishing types of rights and to what they apply. Some, such as copyrights, trademarks and patents are covered under federal statute. Others may be primarily matters of interest in state courts. Copyright is probably the most frequently sought and encountered legal protection in intellectual property. It is also one of the more potentially convoluted rights because a single work (such as a motion picture) can have multiple holders of rights, and in the United States can be extended to an author by "work for hire" attribution rather than actual composition. Because the Internet has very wide range, the international implications are introduced as well. Trademarks provide a source of confusion for many people because while widely encountered, they are seldom intimate in the manner that one might imagine writing a novel or short-story for publication. The treatment is spartan (although also introducing unfair competition), reflecting the intended audience of business-persons to whom trademarks are frequently encountered.

The section on patents -- my own most familiar area of law -- although brief, provides a useful business perspective on a technically difficult and nonintuitive area of law. It includes discussion of software patents -- an area of much confusion since algorithms in themselves are not patentable. In the wake of events since _Internet_ was published, including the case _State_Street_Bank_ that knocked down a long-standing taboo on business-methods as patentable subject matter, and recent statutory changes on future publication of applications, an update of this chapter would be welcome. Following this is a chapter on trade secrets -- another but very different means to protect technical information rights.

Property rights are transferrable -- consider that ownership conveys right of alienation (e.g., to sell), possession conveys right of exclusion (e.g., to sue trespassers), custody conveys a conditional right to hold (e.g., collateral). The chapter on assignment and licensing presents an important source of information for Internet users regarding the identity of the rights owners for elements that people may wish to use. This is especially relevant in the area of software exchange, in which industry efforts to protect interests by means such as shrinkwrap licensing have encountered difficulty.

Before printing example application forms for copyrights and trademarks (patents seem to be treated by a "kids, don't try this at home" exclusion), a very relevant overview on defamation is presented. Although common-law libel was virtually nullified in the States by the Warren Court in _NYTimes_v._Sullivan_, the Internet is both an international forum and a quasi-anonymous, and consequently businesses should be aware of potential litigation in jurisdictions where libel laws are more severely enforced as well as difficulty in identifying the proper defendant. In all, an excellent overview on electronic-media law for the time-conscious business executive.

Peter Norton has a way of making learning computers enjoyable and interesting. Full of high quality color photographs and illustrations, this book gives you a feeling that you are guided by a patient and understanding instructor, ready to answer even questions you didn't know how to ask. The tutorial disk supplied makes the exercises come to life. A separate instructor version makes teaching the material a breeze for any level of student or class. The material will prepare the student for most hardware or software curriculums. The vocabulary is suitable for high school to college level students. Well worth the moderate cost.

I read the book, mainly because I was a student in one of Dr. Amoroso's courses at Stevens Institute of Technology. If you think that all he did was read from the book, you're wrong. The book provided a great background for the upcoming classes. It introduced concepts and terms, providing the information necessary to have a basic understanding of the concept or term. It's worth having around, especially if you want or need to know theories behind computer security.

The problem with almost all data structures books is - when is someone going to write one which is the ultimate desk reference - nothing is left for the reader to derive. This book falls short also in that aspect. It covers all the necessary topics. Strong, but academic.

I have not bought this book till now but my friend has and he liked it very much. He should have given a review but he is lazy. So, I am doing his part. A very good book to learn MEL expressions and make use of them in animation. The DVD has some cool stuff focusing on Maya 5 Features and MEL Fundamentals!

This book is fine if you already know alot of geography, datastructures and computing but if your knoweldge is basic beware because DeMers doesn't always explain everything very well. Sometimes its like he expects the reader to figure out stuff him/herself which is fine if you have no problem keeping up with his convoluted writing style, but for a person like me who does not enjoy engaging in some "Puzzling 101" whilst reading it becomes a wee bit of a nuissance.

That said, he seems like a knowledgable chap and it would be great if he could take some "Novel writing 101" so I can enjoy his future publications a bit more.

I am completely aware people love this kind of stuff though, who love the convolutions of a scientific writer. I am not one of them, I enjoy being spoon fed thank you very much.

I am a GIS novice, and am about 1/3 of the way through the book. There is definitely a lot of useful and current information in this book, so I find it worth reading. However, I feel editorial work on it is needed in several ways. There are numerous examples of sloppy use of English (both in choice of words and in paragraph structure), discussions that are overly abstract, and explanations that are lengthy yet unclear. This was not universal, but occurred annoyingly often. On subjects I knew something about already, I was able to see how the book's accounts were accurate, but only after puzzling over the author's choice of phraseology. I will definitely have to look elsewhere for an understanding of map projections, database structures, raster models, and other topics.

Too much time is spent early in the book belaboring an abstract conceptual framework, where some concrete examples would serve much better. It was also disconcerting that certain terms are used without being defined (or only defined very abstractly), forcing the reader to guess meaning from the context. Yet other relatively simple terms are defined at length. The discussion questions at the end of each chapter are sometimes too open-ended, not focussed on the chapter material.

It is difficult to write for neophytes about a subject one knows intimately -- as I'm sure the author does. Important terms and assumptions are embedded in the one's thinking, so one does not realize that some crucial points are unfamiliar to the student, and one tends to skip certain steps. This book has good coverage of GIS issues, but it would benefit from a more severe editor and from more feedback from the undergraduate audience on which areas need clarification.

This is unquestionably one of the finest GIS textbooks available today. It covers not only the basic input, data management, and reporting concepts, but includes sufficient depth of spatial analysis issues that anyone not able to take additional geographic analysis courses will come away with enough practical knowledge to truly unleash the power of geographic information systems.

THis isn't even a real book. The book is actually a power point presentation taken to kinko's to be copied and bound. You might think that all the money you paid went into making a really cool learning tool (the Video CD)... but the video lessons are unprofessionally done... very generic, not helpful... All together the lessons are only 1.5 hours long, most of which could have been condensed into 30 minutes. I would not recommend this book, even as a joke!

The instructor is dry, but the labs gave a good start on ASP. Cookies module was helpful.

Needed to know only the basics of ASP for a product we're purchasing - didn't have time to take a class so I was able to watch this video and get a look at ASP without spending the time or money for a seminar.

I have to agree with the negative reviews so far. This book is a nightmare! I'm currently using this book for class.
The author contradicts himself not only from chapter to chapter but within individual paragraphs.
He spends entirely too much time on simple ideas and breezes through complex ones.
I find myself reading through paragraphs thinking, "Oh, he's still talking about that? Why is he still taking about that?"
Then the next paragraph, "What the hell is he talking about!?"
His sentences are wordy and complicated. He has forgotten the basic structure of the English sentence. That being: Stick to one subject per each, please. Throughout these verbose outbursts, he combines terms that are so similar they cause confusion. As an example:

"The physical description of a semantic object domain is just a reference to the semantic object description."

This gem of a sentence is halfway through Chapter Four. However, since this book is so poorly thought out and written, I still don't know what any of those terms mean or refer to.
If I knew what he was talking about, I would rewrite that sentence. However, I don't. So I've given up reading and am now writing a scathing review. What does that tell you?
Thankfully, there are many figures scattered throughout the book to attempt to clarify what the author can't seem to. Unfortunately, none of the figures being refered to are ever on the same page. The student must read the sentence, flip the page, try to remember what the author was rambling about, flip back, ... you get the point.

All in all, this is the most miserable textbook I have ever read. And perhaps one of the most overpriced. At "this cost", not only do expect this book to basically read itself, I would expect it to teach me through osmosis while I sleep.

This book in its 8th edition still lacks clearity. I have a copy of the 7th edition also.

Whats wrong with this book:
1. Chapters are too wordy, examples fail to fully clearify what the author is trying to convey.

2. End of chapter questions have no solutions to review questions/problems to verify readers understanding of material.
Companion web site is weak also.
Author offers no real RE-Enforcement of topic.

3. Seems to rely on instructors to clear up text material.
Which in my opinion is a very bad mistake.

4. I had to search out other resources for re-enforcement and claification of material.

5. The author writes a whole appendix B section on a software product that covers designing databases(that I will never use). I think if the author would have taken the time to do that for chapters 3 and 4. One read through would have been enough.

Bottom line if you have to read a chapter more than twice to understand what the author is trying to convey. Then its not worth reading and a waste of time. Technology curve is at a 6 month change over, you no longer have 2 years to learn a subject.

In response to some negative reviews, I think some are missing the point of why this book was written. This book's goal is not to teach you how to totally design and program a database from scratch. Its purpose is to familiarize readers with the various methods of designing and interacting with databases. The coverage of SQL is well done. Yes, there is more to it than what the book covers, but most of those details vary from DBMS to DBMS. Also, the ER diagram is covered well, although I would have appreciated a few more problems and examples that give the student practice in constructing a diagram from scratch. The much-maligned SOM was for me a good alternative perspective. Maybe it isn't used as much in industry, so what? It still helps the introductory student grasp the underlying concepts and think outside of the box. The later chapters are not extensive in their coverage of xml, asp, and the like but they don't have to be. Remember, this is NOT a book about any specific language. Professors have the freedom to delve into areas that they think are more important in more detail. It is a fine companion to professor lectures.

This is a great book if you want study the theory of computers. How to create information with computer is really showed. There's all about 0s and 1s. There's not enough examples I think but otherwise everything is very clear.

This book is well suited for a namesake semester course. We have used it, together with Murdocca's "Principles of Computer Architecture". The result has been quite satisfying for all of us. The book is well paced, and digital design topics are covered just enough to understand the second part of the book, about computer design fundamentals. This second part too is very well explained and many subtleties (e.g. details on CISC and RISC kind architectures) are precisely pointed out.
My only complain is that design concepts are explained with no reference to real CPUs (e.g. Intel, SPARC, Motorola, PowerPC), so if you are the kind of reader that likes a direct match on reality you'll have to look elsewhere to find some examples (e.g. Murdocca).

The previous reviewer complained that solutions to the exercises were not available. Since this is obviously a text book to be used in a course, I don't fault the author for not providing answers to the problems. Moreover, he does provide the answers to select problems on his www page.

The Xilinx student software is a great way to learn digital logic. Xilinx dominates most of the FPGA applications and experience with their software and more familiarity with their chips makes the Xilinx software a great choice.

Be aware that there is a "2nd Edition Updated" that is to be released soon. I spent $100 and already found out that it is out of date. I hope the author includes any supplementary material for the updated 2nd edition on his www page as well.

This book is grossly overpriced and not useful, at all, to anyone trying to learn about databases. I find some of the "positive" reviews to be unfounded and grossly biased (they must be friends of Kronke or bad instructors trying to justify their use of this BAD textbook). I would suggest that both Kroenke and his buddies look for a dumbies book on "how to write a textbook." Note how the publishers comments about this book refer to it as discussing "fundamentals" and providing a "foundation" on databases. This book fails completely at doing either of those things.

David Kroenke's newest edition of his work, Database Processing: Fundamentals, Design, and Implementation (9th Edition), is an excellent book that serves well as an introductory text on Databases. What makes this text even more valuable is that it takes you beyond the basics as you work your way through it. The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) uses this text for two different database courses. Here is an overview of the sections in the book (each section contains multiple chapters):

Part I - Entity-Relationship Data Modeling
Part II - Database Design
Part III - Structured Query Language (SQL)
Part IV - Part Four (multi-user databases, Oracle 9i, and SQL Server 2000)
Part V - Database Access Standards (ODBC, OLE DB, ADO, ASP, XML, ADO.NET, JDBC, Java Server Pages, MySQL)
Part VI - Object-Oriented Database Processing

As you can see, Kroenke covers the necessary foundations of multiple DBMS systems, and goes into good detail on different schema regarding E-R data modeling. Additionally, screenshots are abundant in this text from numerous applications and DBMSs (including Access), and Kroenke does a great job at giving examples and discussing topics in a reader-friendly manner.

I found some of the reviews interesting and would like to put a few comment of my own-
We used David Kroenke "Database Processing: Fundamentals, Design, and Implementation" in a cram course for preparation of graduate placement test here in Chulalongkorn University last year, and everyone was happy with it, especially it offers very clear concept of database and database design, internet. I don't know why some of the "Amrican" reviewers give it a very low rating. May be for those reviewers who found the text difficult are not well prepared in the technology yet, in this case may be they can try some 24 days or dummy types of book...