MS

I found this book to be of no help at all. Seemed to blame the woman for husbands affair. Gave the impression that they didn't work hard enough on their marriage to begin with. What a crock.

I have yet to be able to forgive much less forget. I have been in counseling and he has said he is sorry a few times but there is more I need to hear from him. He seems clueless as to what I need to hear from him. Can it be he so that dumb? He not only cheated, he told her about my personal self. These were things I told only him. I trusted him and now I am suppose to forgive and forget. ??

This book will give you directions to the "road to recovery" from the ultimate betrayal; infidelity. Highly recommended. Read: "Forgiveness: What's it For" at [...]

I was so dispappointed in the presentation made in this book that I sent it back. The cover and even title give the impression that the book will include photgraphic and descriptive information regarding landscaping. What actually comes across is a very boring, poorly presented reference type of book that simply seems like an elaborate dictionary on various landscape terminology. The photographic connections were especially done poorly; all pictures relating to topics were simply united together in a large section at the back of the book. When a reference is made by an author regarding a specific subject, it is certainly best understood and appreciated by the reader when both are on the same page. It was also misleading in their title reference to Florida plants, shrubs, etc., that there would be direct inclusion of information of those subjects, but all that comes across is very general information relating to the words themselves. I have been working on my own Florida yard area now for over 5 years, enjoying what I have been learning by simple hands-on techniqe and questions to my neighbors. None of my own 26 personal plants were even directly mentioned in the book. Again, possibly some of the topics regarding pests or plant diseases might have been appreciated if the information would have been on the same pages as the related photographs--needing to turn clear to the the back of the book every time was a frustrating way to try and understand the connections.

Although not the most interesting "read", this is a great reference book for gardening in South Florida. Straight forward without too much fluff. The section on pest control is a little heavy on identifying pests and little light on how to control them but the rest of the book is very clear on the basics. Probably not the best book for an advanced gardener but I highly recommend it for the novice like me who wants the nitty gritty on how to get going in Florida but doesn't care about a fancy looking book.

I thought this was an excellent reference for selecting Florida bedding plants. I wanted a book that had lots of pictures of various plants and told me when and where to plant them. This book does that. It is limited on pest control, but has a good basic section on digging and prepping your bedding areas. It would be a great reference to take with you to the nursery when you are trying to decide which plants to purchase for your beds. It has more color photos for identification of bedding plants than most of the Florida gardening books out there.

The folksy information really isn't much for true gardeners but some may enjoy it. If you're really into gardening, there are far better books.

Excellent primer for gardeners in the southern counties of Florida. Pen sketches. No photos, so you'll need a garden/plant photo book too.

Humorous tips and practical advice on Fl gardens, lawns, trees & shrubs along with their 12-month growing season. Includes short descriptions on some of the more beautiful or well-adapted plants to use in the suburban landscape.

The authors also cover specific challenges south FL gardeners face regarding soils, wet/dry periods and bugs. Conversational style and short chapters but thorough. Gets you to want to go outside and start planting! Excellent!

I realize this is a textbook, and as such, I didn't expect it to be scintilating. This text, however, did not even meet up to my limited expectations- the chapters are way too long and attempt to conver too much material. It would have been useful if the authors attempted to break up the material into smaller, more digestible bits. All in all, this book is extremely dry.

I don't know why, but I didn't enjoy reading this book. It didn't seem right. I guess I'm not a big fan of marketing. However, concepts were explained quite well and overall it was informative. Unlike many business related books this one did have negative examples, complete with explanations what, how, and why something went wrong. For that I rate it at 4 stars.

There was no need to write this book. It covers simple definitions, but that should be covered in a good glossary. Definitions just aren't enough.

Highly recommended! I plan on telling my new Win95 users to pick it up and share with their co-workers.

If you want to drain your pocket, buy it! Otherwise, stay away of this

A great book for clinical medical students. Concise, clear and very readable. Helps in those few weeks before surgical finals.
Highly recommended to anyone who wants to know about everything there is to know for finals. I could never have survived without it.

Another boring early edition of Sweet Valley High. Claire is a real tomboy who fights to join the boys footy team.Thats all well and nice,but why she has to sling off at cheerleaders and other girly females...is she,like,a lesbian or something??

This is a book that I really loved. It is the kind of book someone should read if they are looking for a realistic heroine. It is about a girl named Claire Middleton, who wants to earn a place on the high school football team. This book is not only about a girl and the discrimination she faces when playing "male sports," it's about a girl trying to heal herself and win the respect of her peers and fellow teammates. It is a book I would definately recommend to all teens.

Years ago, Billy Gates and his merry band of programmers hacked a CPM clone from Seattle Computer Systems into the first version of PC-DOS. Later on, they diverged from IBM (as they would again in the future) and came up with MS-DOS. We've been stuck with this abomination ever since.

It's now 2003, and the technically challenged marketing MBAs at Micro$oft have decided to publish yet another book on DOS. It's bad enough that DOS is sadly lacking in scripting capabilities (especially when compared to Unix shells like bash or cshell). For generations, engineers have had to jump through syntatic hoops just to do fairly pedestrian scripting tasks. To add insult to injury, Micro$oft has insisted on keeping DOS alive.

Perhaps they think that they'll be able to squeeze a few more bucks out of their old clunker; just like those people who own the rights to the Elvis songs.

I don't care what the marketing disinformation from M$ claims, no one uses DOS if they can avoid it. The salient question in this case is not "is this a good book?" The question is "why in god's name would you still want to publish such a book?"

You could be a complete nimrod and buy this book ... what do I care. It's your money.

14 years ago when I started in this industry DOS 3.2 was the Operating system I learned on and from there worked all the way up the Microsoft's final; release DOS 6.22. While I no longer used the OS I was impressed by the depth and diversity of this book.

Covering just over 600 pages, 400 of which breakdown the 6.22 operating system. Taking you from the DIR, COPY and PRINT commands to the TREE, XCOPY and DEL commands. You have navigation tips and tricks to help you along the way and overall every command seems to be covered.

Included in the learning and review process are screen shots so you can see what happens with the command. Finally the is 3 Appendices included, A is for overview of installation with DOS 3, 4 and 5.

B is for the 150 plus term glossary and C is the 160 page command reference including syntax and examples. While most people have moved on this book can be a handy reference for future needs.

Although Hollands book may move some women's careers forward, she is also setting back most women in all fields a few dozen years! Equal opportunity for women is still a long way off. Each time a woman succumbs to theories like Hollands' ''bully broads,'' she not only halts progress, she takes a giant step into the past. The challenge is to speak out about gender discrimination, not bow to it. The challenge is to rid the workplace of stereotypes -- not pay homage to them. Until we do, executive women will still be called "bully broads," while men are applauded for their aggressive, take-charge business style! (Marion E. Gold is author of "Personal Publicity Planner: A Guide to Marketing YOU," and "TOP COPS: Profiles of Women in Command."

Imagine a woman who is no nonsense, aggressive, bright, extremely capable, hard-working, very focused, and willing to take charge who is the top performer in her organization. Sounds like a future CEO, doesn't she? Jean Hollands predicts that this is a woman who will rise near the top of her organization, but will then hit the glass ceiling so hard she may be shattered. Such women are usually referred for coaching (if they haven't already been fired) to make them less like bullies. "No one likes a bully. Even so, in today's business climate, many men can get away with it. Women almost never can."

Ms. Hollands reports that she knows the type well. "I'm from a long line of Bully Broads." Although that term may sound pejorative, Ms. Hollands reports that everyone knows what it means and it avoids using other "B" words that are more pejorative.

While the men that she coaches are sent for a variety of weaknesses, 95 percent of the women are there to get rid of Bully Broad characteristics.

There are a number of different types of Bully Broads, including Sounding-Off Tyrants (who verbally blow up a lot), Sarcastic Aggressives (who use words to cut others down to the floor), Selectively Quiet but with High Expectations (perfectionists who let their disapproval of others' performance show), and Silent, But Judging (Ms. Understood, and whose reserve and mental point-scoring is seen as disdain or worse). The book has a quiz to help identify if you have any of these problems. Bully Broads seem to be immune to realizing they have a problem until it is too late because they don't measure themselves very much by what others think of them. Basically, these are people with low emotional intelligence, the attribute that most equates to success in typical business situations.

The heart of the book can be found in the cases (usually two per rule) that show how a variety of women in many different kinds of jobs and organizations walked the plank without realizing they had a problem. Each rule then goes on to suggest ways to change (even if you only have the problem slightly), how to deal with a colleague or boss who has these characteristics, and specific suggestions for how to communicate better. Many of the 25 rules will seem obvious, but apparently they aren't to some successful women, such as "Don't Tick Off the President, the CEO, or the Human Resources Person."

I won't list all of the rules (space doesn't permit, and that wouldn't be fair to the author), but let me give you a few examples to help provide a flavor for the book:

"'Listen Up' Until You Are About to Throw Up"

"People Will Sabotage You If They Can't Confront You"

"Beware of Jealousy"

"Don't Burn Bridges -- Ever"

"Soft Sell Is the Best Sell"

"Remember: It's Not Your Money"

"Avoid All or Nothing Thinking"

"You Are Not Joan of Arc."

The messages are strong, because many women who need them apparently are in denial. For example, I was fascinated by one story about a woman who was fired and didn't emotionally realize it until about two years later since she continued to work out of her old office as a "consultant" to the company, and kept up her old ways.

The irony of many of these stories is that the woman involved often has a CEO or boss who sets a bad example as a bully or polishes his image by letting the Bully Broad do the dirty work of carving people up for his benefit (the old "good cop, bad cop" routine).

The main weakness of the book is that it's aimed at helping a small percentage of women improve their career prospects. The bulk of the potential readers will be victims of Bully Broads who need protection. If you are either a Bully Broad or a Bully Broad victim, this book can really help.

On the other hand, I hope that many human resources people will read this book as well so that their company can help head off bullying situations, whether they are caused by women or (more frequently) by men.

How many things can be accomplished faster and better by having more than one person cooperate with one another? Almost everything. Find ways to make that cooperation smoother, more pleasant, and more effective for all involved!

Be the leader you would like to have!

The book was a waste of my money. Mr. Ramalho has taken a subject that is exceedingly comprehensible and sent it into the realm of mystery. His thoughts and explanations are desultory. It's as though he wrote the book on a bunch of 3x5 index cards, shuffled them and handed them off to the publisher. His explanations are incomplete and lack continuity. I spent more time in the "HELP" menu of MS SQL than I did reading the book. The tome left me with a bald spot from scratching my head. Don't the publishers have anyone who proofreads their technical texts? Probably not, else they would have those very people writing the books. It is a rare skill, an art, to be conversant and knowledgeable in a technical subject and also be capable of clearly relaying that knowledge. Most technical people are great at what they do, but lousy at explaining the intricacies of the subject. Mr. Ramalho is likely a whiz at MS SQL. Writing about it - he missed the broad side of the barn. I know whereof I speak, having a BA in journalism and the ability (albeit self-proclaimed) to wield the pen as a broadaxe or deftly finger it like a scapel. I am sure that the author is guilty of one sin only: failure to review and revise. Revisiting and revising are the essence of good writing, be it fiction or fact. Write and rewrite. Set the material aside for a few days and then repeat the process until you are satisfied. With all due respect, the author apparently finds satisfaction in mediocrity.
Malcolm Hein

While I had some SQL education way back in college, I needed to quickly get up to speed with SQL Server 7.

As a technical user it left me disappointed with the lack of depth, but I would still have been disappointed if I were less experienced - a large amount of information in the beginning chapters is slightly incorrect, or the screenshots don't match the text (presumably the book was written against a pre-release version of SQL Server 7).

Try another book, no matter what your experience level is.

I have seven MS SQL Server books and I recommend Ramalho's book as the best jump start guide. The book is cookbook style with many step-by-step screen shots and will get you running faster than any other without having to read endless pages of jargon-filled text even if you didn't know how to spell SQL. Once you create your first database, however, you will need other books, as Ramalho's does lack detail. DO NOT expect one book to be enough to learn SQL from. The best companions I've found are Sam's "Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes" for fast access to instructions on specific tasks, and QUE's "Special Edition Using SQL Server 7.0" for looking up details. CAUTION: if you are relying only on books to create your first SQL 7.0 database, I strongly encourage you to read Using's Chapter 6 on Tables and Datatypes. Proper datatype selection is (I think) the most important aspect of efficient database building. Happy "sequeling".