Modeling

At the going used price ... , this book is probably worth buying as a reference for exchange server. However, it is the worst of the sharepoint books - only two basic chapters are devoted to Sharepoint.

This book is well written and an interesting read. I don't need to know a whole lot on Conference Server and SharePoint, but it was interesting stuff to read over. The book did help me with a problem in implementing an Instant Messaging set up too. Overall a nice book!

I bought this book when it first came out, and we used it as our guide to implement Exchange 2000 for our 3,500-employee company (7 domestic sites / 3 int'l sites). We just completed our migration last week and I don't think we could have done it without this book! Not sure what the other reviews were referencing since the time I bought this book (possibly SharePoint which we did not implement), but the Exchange 2000 information was rock solid! Excellent book, I highly recommend it!

This book is makes a difficult subject even more difficult. It assumes that you already know alot of the concepts in it. It kin of leaves you stumbling around in the dark. I hate this book and the person who wrote it with a passion. A good author should be able to explain concepts in clear organized language, I do not care how difficult.

Had to buy this book for my class. On the surface it looked OK -- plenty to screenshots and examples, but the problems arise when you try to read the long paragraphs. Language could have been clearer.
Book assumes solid knowledge of Excel, which should be expected of students, but still, some things should not be taken for granted :)
Another classic problem -- chapter 4 refers to examples mentioned in chapter 2. I hate this kind of cross-referencing !

Don't buy it if you can live without it.

...

I'll make two separate sets of comments - one for professors and one for students.

Students first... This will be a difficult course no matter which textbook you use. Having said that, I would say that the text is about average in terms of readability in comparison to other texts on the subject. There are plenty of realistic cases to illustrate basic decision/ management science concepts, as well as a very useful CD, with which I recommend that you become well-acquainted as the course moves forward. Not much has changed since the last edition, so you may be able to get by with a previous edition if the textbook (authored by Eppen). Be advised, however, that some of the chapter materials have been re-arranged, including the exercises at the end of each chapter.

For professors... You are probably already aware that this course can be challenging for the professor as well as the student, esp. with respect to how math-intensive you wish the course to be. I think Moore & Weatherford is an excellent text, but it is written as an advanced graduate text. I have been able to "tone it down" for undergraduates by accompanying it with a nice, soft, theory-oriented text on decision/ management science (featuring the teachings of Herbert Simon and some of the early decision science theorists). The text is accompanied with ample instructor resources including a very useful CD with solutions, decision science software. I would engage the students w/ the CD as early as possible. I have also found that the best exams for this course are take-home exams - give the students some moderately challenging decision models to formulate and solve, and focus your evaluation primarily on how well they are able to interpret the results and propose recommendations for decision makers, and secondarily on whether they were able to get the software to spit out the right answers.

If you expect to learn surfacing techniques in Pro-E
with help from this book - good luck! The examples are weak
at best and lack any step by step instruction. Save your money.

This book is well written but not meant for beginning users of ProE. The creation of surfaces requires the designer to create datum features which more advanced surfaces can be created with. The book dose a poor job discussing the creation of datum features. But if you are a intermediate level user of ProE it will not matter. The book is great for getting some valuable concepts from... However, you will not be able to do surfacing even if you master the concepts in the book because there are no menu picks in the book. The material is presented in a clear manner but the menu picks for some of the more advanced topics are 3-4 layers deep.. "so good luck finding them"

FYI: You will still need the advice of an experienced Surfacing Designer. Just to find the menu picks....

There are few surfacing books on the market so I suggest you get what you can.. BUY THE BOOK...

This is the best in depth treatment of surfacing in non-PTC literature. It is not a tutorial. It is very dense. Read it slowly and work examples as if they were tutorials. I think it's better time spent for the advanced user than in the ProE surfacing class.

The writing is fragmented and incomplete statements are often seen, for example:

1. in section 4.6.4, it is written
"If A and B are vectors, A&&B returns true if both words are
positive integers." then no words there to specify "otherwise" part. If you assume otherwise A&&B returns false, you are wrong,
since A&&B returns true when both are negative integers too.

2. In 7.5.1, it says "There are two forms for delay control,...
The first form is ...", but the second form is never explained or mentioned there.

3. You often see
always @ ( a or b ) in examples with "or" in boldface,
but I could not find where "or" is defined. Even though I
understand its meaning, I wish to tell the differece from
using "|" , "||"

4. ... plus many typos

These cause a lot confusion in reading

I am using this book for an introductory Verilog class at my University and I must say I am truely confused by some of the reviews here. Although this book takes the reader through the most basic elements of the Verilog language, to its more complex and esoteric uses, most people here complain that the it fails to provide the advanced, cutting-edge examples they feel it should have. What? Do you really expect to learn how to build a Pentium IV from a book teaching the basics of Verilog? Get real!

This book teaches the basics, it teaches you how to use the Verilog language by providing examples that, although dated, illustrate timeless approaches that are used in every Verilog design large or small. If you can't find how to complement a variable, then its your fault, not the book; I can assure you its there. Furthermore, if you think that pointing out a few mistakes in the book, (and have obviously learnt the correct way of doing it from it), makes it rubbish, then I'm afraid there won't be any books that will fully satisfy your needs.

This is one of the best books I've encountered on the Verilog langauge. Although I wouldn't say it's as good as, say, Ashendens VHDL, it is _not_ as bad as some of the reviews here make out. Recommended!

This book is one best to learn Verilog with. Each chapter starts with an statement of the chapters objectives, then covers the topic with many examples and finally summarizes the chapter at the end. There are an series of questions at the end of each chapter that help to solidify the concepts within each chapter. (but no answers in the book). All in all I think that this is the best overall presentation of Verilog that I have read yet. Samir Palnitar's Verilog HDL is slower paced and thus better for the novice (I read this one first). This book is slightly more advanced and seems to take you further.

This is probably the tenth Microsoft Press book I've purchased, and it is no different than the rest of them. While the technical aspects of the material seem adequate, I think there needs to be more detail. The exams always seem to contain a few questions that only Technet can help you answer. An exeption to this was the Microsoft Press MCSE study guide for 70-216, which was very detailed. Another bad thing about this publication (70-290) is the CD, which contains a few typographical errors and what I believe to be wrong answers on a few of the Readiness Review questions; namely a claim that a RAID-5 array isn't fault tolerant, which it clearly is. If you are considering purchasing this book, please do yourself a favor and check it out first. Read through some of it, and verify its accuracy with other publications or online material. The 2003 Server Administrators Guide is much better written and contains more real world scenarios than this book. Use it as a backup. Hope this review helps, and good luck on the exam.

If you have no experience with Windows 2000 or 2003 you will not pass the exam regardless of which text you buy. I am studying for the MSCE in Windows Server 2003. This text covers all of the objectives for the 70-290 exam. This book also includes a Prometric exam discount voucher and a set of practice questions on the CD in addition to those in the text.

The exam objectives listed on Microsoft's site are covered by this text. The coverage is not deep, but is adequate for those that are attempting the exam who have experience with the operating system. Unexperienced candidates are wasting their time on the new MS certifications and should get some hands on before heading off to the testing center.

The questions in the second part of the book appear well written. They mirror some of the lengthy questions on the actual exam and this aspect of the text was refreshing. Most certification textbooks skimp on the practice questions adding them as an afterthought rather than a feature. To many books ask questions like "what does DNS stand for" and "where would you use DHCP". The first time I tried many of them I got them wrong. When I was getting them right I tried the exam and passed. Until the Transcenders are released, finding good questions will be difficult. Resources like this text are quite valuable.

I hold an MCSE in NT4 and 2000 (and soon 2003). This text covers all of the objectives in a good, if occasionally dry, fashion. Including an exam discount voucher and the book in ebook format was a good idea, though reading such a long text on a PocketPC is a bit of a strain.

The objectives themselves are covered, though not at a level of detail higher than is required to pass the exam. If you are looking for a straigh reference on Windows Server 2003, rather than a reference for the 70-290 exam, you would do better waiting for the Resource Kit to be published. Good pointers are given on where to seek further information if you wish to drill down into a particular topic, but when trying to cover so many topics some readers might find them a little brief. This isn't really a criticism of the book itself as all certification texts suffer from this problem. This particular title suffers less than most from this particular issue.

The questions supplied in the latter chapters are sometimes a little long, though I found them to be of similar length to what I actually encountered in the exam. Some of the questions are harder and some are easier than what you will face on test day. It is fair to say that if you can pass the questions in the written chapters you are in good shape. Some of the questions provided on the bonus test CD are simpler are simpler than the real exam questions. Unlike the questions in the book, passing the questions on the companion CD won't give an accurate indication of your readiness to face the real exam.

Overall I found no glaring errors and I'd recommend this text to other students looking to pursue Windows 2003 MCSA/MCSE certifications.

and clearly a cut-and-paste rush conversion job from the NW 5.1 book.

There are dangerous omissions and advice here. Do not purchase this book unless you already know NW 6 and just need a quick reminder occasionally (and thus can recognize likely errors)

I am a current Master CNE and have been a CNE for many versions of Netware (also an MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, CCSA). The book is filled with wrong information and problems. I'm not being overly critical, I'm talking basic information that's just plain wrong. It was right for NetWare 5, but not NetWare 6. In fact in several places, the book accidently says NetWare 5 when it means NetWare 6 - I think they were cutting and pasting from the NetWare 5 book. I virtually always buy the Novell Press books and this is the first time I have ever been this disappointed. The information that is correct is frequently woefully light on content. It's amazing how little of value a 1500 page book can actually say.

I purchased this book hoping to find a definitive reference on NetWare 6. I mean, who else would publish such a book but Novell Press themselves.

Unfortunately, within the first 50 pages of this book there are at least 10 errors on items such as what is included with the OS, minimum requirements for RAM and DOS partitions, what is included with the Express Install and what some of the features like NSS support. There were also numerous references in the text to NetWare 5 or 5.1, which makes me think that much of the text was cut and pasted from previous versions of the book. There are also some glaring omissions like no mention whatsoever of the new auditing tools.

Considering that the book was published about 5 months after the release of the OS, I was extremely disappointed in its accuracy. I'll be looking to return my copy and find something else that does a better job. I recognize that someone put a tremendous amount of work into this book, but someone should have done a better job at checking it for technical accuracy.

The title seduced this reader with its promise of insight into object-oriented features introduced with Oracle8. Numerous examples show their coding syntax, but not one justifies their use. The authors deserve some credit for explaining their shortcomings and drawbacks, but more blame for selling a book offering no reason to be read. One uses features for a reason.

Let it be said from the start that Oracle8 introduced many valuable new features for performance and scalability. Some of these are briefly catalogued in Chapter 1. The bulk of the book, however, is a review of recurrent data structures, comparing (1) their ERD models against their UML models and (2) their relational implementations against their object-oriented implementations in Oracle8. The main subject is external design of application databases.

Appealing subject from this reader's perspective, but the devil is in the details.

Chapter 1 ends with a section entitled "Advantages of an Object-Oriented Approach," wherein the authors are able to do no more than to cite examples of their own successes using design abstractions. They seem to believe that every employment of an abstract design deserves to be called "object-oriented." This fallacy recurs from cover to cover, short-selling object-orientation and shortchanging the reader.

Chapter 3 attempts and fails to demonstrate the superiority of UML over ERD for database design. Aiming for a balanced consideration of these alternative techniques, it includes a section "Disadvantages of UML Diagramming" that omits mentioning the absence of a notational convention for representing identity--UML's most serious disadvantage in this reader's opinion.

The side-by-side UML versus ERD data model comparisons presented throughout the rest of the book show how little real difference there is between the two conventions. These comparisons were nevertheless valuable when the book first appeared and UML was new stuff. Since then UML has so far extended its mind share that today's reader may focus on UML alone--not because it is superior, but just because it is a standard.

Many of the code examples could also be eliminated. They often do no more than illustrate a simple idea or variation more economically explained in text. It is not hard to find long samples of code differing from their predecessors by only a single line (see pp. 148-150, 152-155).

Another problem with the code examples is that they are generally separated from the data models whose implementations they illustrate. While reading an example, one must travel several pages back to view the diagram of the subject data structure.

Nevertheless, as catalogs of data structures and introductions to Oracle8's object syntax, chapters 4-18 merit lunchtime browsing in one's favorite bookstore. Favorite chapters: 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18.

Error and ignorance are more commonly encountered than they ought to be in a volume so priced. The authors misconstrue the object-oriented term "overloading" (p. 326). They do not know that Oracle supports table-level check constraints: ". . . check constraints are not allowed to reference other columns (p.314)." They propose (p. 137) a range constraint between 000 and 999 as a method to exclude alphas from a character field. They relate that they used an index to improve the read performance of a table with only 96 short rows. To this same table they also added a redundant Y/N-valued column so that rows could be retrieved ". . . without an inefficient search for a null end date (p. 425)"!

Oracle's "mutating table problem" recurs in several examples, and the only solution offered is a "mirror table." Better to consult Appendix B of the excellent book "Oracle Design" by Dave Ensor and Ian Stevenson (O'Reilly, 1997). They offer a much more elegant solution requiring only a few lines of trigger code.

In one code sample the mutating table problem occurs only because of the awkward implementation chosen by the authors--even though a simple alternative is available (pp. 443-444). This slip is all the more lamentable for having nothing to do with "Redundant Total Fields," the title of the section in which it occurs.

In fact, there are many passages (even some good ones) that digress. There are introductory paragraphs delving into details (pp. 429-430) as well as summary paragraphs in detailed sections (pp. 393, 422). One of the four major parts, "Time-Related Modeling: Tracking History," dedicates only one of its five chapters to its named subject. Careless organization makes reference difficult.

The authors are obviously seasoned application developers with significant expertise. Their wisdom comes through in many of their general comments on the art of database design. Clearly, they could have written a better book.

Contrary to what tool vendors may be saying, UML is difficult. This book goes along way into clearly explaining those difficult concepts and then applying them to practical application. It is, as the title indicates very Oracle centric, but would be worth while reading even for non Oracle people because of the way UML concepts are presented. Of particular note is the chapter on Composition and Aggregation, two UML concepts which have been left open for interpertation. The authors present their precise definition of the concepts and present it can be clearly understood and applied. This treatment alone make the book worth while. I also found the toe to toe comparative analysis UML vs. traditional ERD displayed throughout the book, to be compeling. The authors do take the liberty of expressing their own opinion of how things should be done and I found myself in agreement on some issues and disgreeing on others. (e.g. I agreed with the notion that recursive relationships are extremely useful and powerful structures. Yet, I found it it difficult to agree that logical and physical models should be merged.) Never the less opinions in the book are clearly marked as such. Whether you agree or not, does not detract from the crystalization of UML concepts and the illustrative examples. The authors comendably are not shy to point out when approriate, that UML diagrams are often imprecise, and they offer methods to improve precision when opportune. The book is an excellent complement to David Anstey's High Performance Oracle 8 Object-Oriented Design which tackels the big picture and concentrates on Oracle 8 itself, whereas this book concentrates on the the application of UML to Oracle 8.

I am often disappointed with technical books because they lack the practical advice that I need to get my job done. This is definitely not the case with Dorsey and Hudicka's book on Oracle 8 Object modeling with UML.

The authors have provided Oracle Developers and modelers with a book that addressees not only the background and issues associated with object and object-relational modeling but suggests numerous ways to incorporate these concepts into your application designs.

The book provides an excellent introduction to the world of relational and object-relational design. There is an appropriate amount of material in the beginning of the book to bring you up to speed if you are not familiar with relational modeling concepts (which most of us are) and object modeling concepts using UML (which most of us aren't). If you have to learn one object notation methodology, UML (Unified Modeling Language) is the one you should learn. A chapter on UML introduces you using the notation, which is then used throughout remainder of the book.

These basic concepts are then quickly built upon . The authors next walk you through basic object database construction looking at such key concepts as class/entity definitions, logical and physical naming conventions and dealing with domains and list of values.

These concepts are further extended to examine the relationships between entities and classes. More advanced concepts like recursive structures, cyclical structures and N-ary relationships are explained in detail with working examples to show you how to put these concepts into action.

The last section of the book deals with more advanced concepts like the ability to handle time-related relationships along with mechanisms for making your models more generic, implementing business rules and denormalizations.

The authors have put a lot of thought and hard work into the organization of the text and the topics are well explained. The examples used throughout the book are the icing on the cake that helped me understand the concepts. If you are a serious Oracle developer that is just moving into object-relational modeling, this book will definitely play an important part in teaching you the necessary concepts and approaches to be taken in your Oracle8 applications.

I bought this book six years ago and was appalled to see a copy with a new cover in a bookshop around here containing the same materials I saw six years ago.

And yes all those crappy plasticky textures which are the hallmark of a Bill Fleming 3D image is still there. After almost a decade not a single pixel changed.

Pity the would-be digital artist who will be so naive as to fall into this trap of Fleming constantly reheating yesteryear's leftovers.

This is the Digital Age. Use your search engine. There are newer, younger, more talented and savvy artists appearing on print every month.

I bought this book as an avid 3D Designer. I use Lightwave, SoftImage, 3D Studio Max, and I have a degree in IDI. I found this book to be totally confusing, in the first few chapers they speak of walk throughs, but it never tells you when you're approaching tutorials so you become lost. I do not recommend this book to beginners or intermediate

I found the book to be very useful for determining how to approach the aspect of modeling and surfacing objects. It covers most technologies found in 3D packages and shows when and where to apply certain techniques. There are no tutorials, but by the same token it is not geared to be a tutorial book. It is more of a project planning and reference book. The walkthroughs are there to reinforce the topics discussed, not to teach step by step modeling. Would recommend for anyone needing to know why something is modeled in a particular fashion.

This book is a fascinating mixture of perfectly reasonable AI techniques which are seldom useful for games, combined with useful but obvious techniques which are described better in a standard AI textbook.

Overall, this book suffers greatly from a lack of relevance. There is no pseudocode, and the few examples in the book are poorly chosen and generally not representative of the real problems encountered in game AI programming. Similarly, many of the valuable techniques often used in game AI are not even mentioned.

The book gives a brief overview of breadth-first, best-first, and depth-first search, but it entirely omits mention of the A* algorithm, some form of which is used in nearly every game that involves pathfinding.

The book also covers a number of topics that are entirely out of place in a book about game AI. Chapter 2 is entirely devoted to game physics. Chapter 6 covers machine learning, a technique which is seldom used for games. And Chapter 11 covers texture mapping and deformable models, which, although important for games, have nothing to do with AI.

The book does have some high points, such as the and the introduction to interval arithmetic. But even then, it wastes the reader's time with several pages of unnecessary mathematical proofs.

Overall, I recommend avoiding this book. Not only will it not inform the reader, it presents a misguided notion of what game AI is all about.

When you are reading this book you fell like a man telling you things that you already know, nothing new. If you dont know nothing about AI maybe will help you.There is not algorithms on it, only obvious info. If you want to learn real AI buy "Artificial Inteligence" by Rich

The idea of creating an autonomous virtual creature with behaviors that dynamically change in response to alterations in the virtual environment is intriguing. With a set of many different creatures available, one could add as many of each type as necessary and have a game or simulation with an enormous number of possible outcomes. This idea is consistent with the object-oriented approach to programming, where complex blocks of code are called components. In the ideal scenario, to build a program from components, you would select the ones that you need and then specify how many of each type and how they are to interact.
Funge puts forward the principles of a high-level language that can be used to abstractly define the behaviors of virtual characters. Unfortunately, he does not describe enough of the language to be completely convincing that his approach has been effectively implemented. Even insects demonstrate behavior that appears complex, and his examples are those of a Tyrannosaurus Rex trying to herd a small set of Velociraptors and a set of merpeople trying to avoid a predatory shark. Both examples include fixed obstacles and to be interesting, the creatures must exhibit behaviors that surprise human observers as well as their virtual opponents.
The treatment of artificial intelligence (AI) is also too light to completely prepare the way for the case studies. For example, the title of chapter 6 is "Learning", where the topic is ways in which a machine (virtual creature) can learn. However, it is only fourteen pages long, which is hardly enough paper and ink to even scratch the surface of this complex topic.
This is not to say that there is a lack of good ideas in the book, in fact there are many. My criticism is that they are not expanded out to the point where someone who reads only this book will be able to act on them. Intelligence is a complex topic, and making it artificially has proven to be very hard. Therefore, none of the ideas put forward in this book are adequately covered.

This is a mixed-bag of articles on (of course) information design, in which every author defines the field differently. It would have been nice if the editor had set up a single definition and had authors work within that. But you'll end up skipping whole chapters which discuss left-field topics. I'm also amazed that a bunch of people writing about information design can't produce clearer illustrations.

The best of the bunch is by Nathan Shedrof, who comes up with a decent definition and gets into the details of it gracefully and eloquently. Ask a colleague who bought the book to copy chapter 11 for you.

This book consists of a series of cross-disciplinary articles on information design. In the concluding chapter of the book, Jeff Raskin summarizes the volume by saying "I find that [the articles] accurately represent the diversity of the field - - from fuzzy New Age touchy-feely rantings to thoughtful studies." I'm inclined to agree, but fortunately, the thoughtful studies outnumber the rantings. I was fascinated most by Whitehouse's article on architectural signposting for the blind. However, many of the other articles were also exceptionally thought-provoking. Before I read this book, I thought "information design" had something to do with drawing effective graphs. But after reading these articles, I would say it is making meaning by revealing the relationships between data through planned presentation. Or something to that effect- -the field is much wider than I had ever thought before.

I am a professional Information Architect; However, I picked up the book without any preconcieved notions or superficial expectations. I found especially illuminating (and actually empathisized with) the comparisons between IAs conceptualizing Information Design and Traditional Architects conceptualizing "wayfinding" through building structures. For those of you who are looking for a Home Deopt style "How-To" manual on creating intuitive interface design for software applications; you simply have to surf the web for 1001 lessons on HOW NOT TO do it. Seriously, the only effective Information Design training program is years of experience in software development. A "blueprint" or plan is key to useful execution, but there is a lot more to good Information Design than a pile of flowcharts. The best an author can do is to share some of his/her insight on ergonomic design with the rest of us. While many of the reviewers found this book's exposition of visionary and philosophical approaches to design impractical; I found it to be both informative and refreshing. Information design is not about how rigidly organized the branching structure is; instead, it's about how the user "moves through" an application (hopefully with pleasure and ease of use). This calls for a combination of clever engineering and artistic design, and cannot be accomplished simply by "keeping all your ducks in a row" The most significant aspect of good Info Design, in the end, is clear, intuitive, useable interface.