Open-book

If you not only want to learn SGML painlessly but also want to have a background on the subject, read this book. The author was careful to explain the important aspects of SGML in an easy to read way. When he presents the real code, you will notice how easy it is to read just because he has already explained it in an easy way. I recommend one chapter a day, every day. When you finish it, go back and read again, not in order, but specific parts that interest you.

Well, as a mom who loves books, this one has captured the love of books with a toddler's need to control things. This is a very sturdy book with "peek-a-boo" pictures that swing out that can stand up to very grabby hands (as opposed to the flap books that get ripped very quickly) There is not really a story, but it has a very cute punch line at the end.

This charming toddler story has a classic simplicity that entranced our 1-year-old. Wibbly Pig has a pile of presents to open. Each present is a distinctive shape, allowing the child to predict what's inside each colorful package. The illustrations are lovely watercolors with an attention to detail rarely found in books for this age group. I would enthusiastically recommend Wibbly Pig Opens His Presents to anyone with small children - especially if they have a birthday or other present-opening occasion coming up!

As one of the Open University Oceanography Series, this book offers an excellent introduction to the physical processes operating in the nearshore and immediate offshore environments of the coastal zone. With a particular emphasis on the relationship between process and form, this work covers essential ideas and practical applications for university level instructors and students interested in the coastal environment. The book material is straightforward, readable, and offers the opportunity to develop fundamental research questions at a variety of levels. Best of all, it's a well-organized work at an affordable price.

Kenneth Grahame's classic was recommended to me by several people over the years, but I just got around to reading it--at age 46! It was even better than I'd been led to believe. Everybody mentions the lovable buffoon Mr. Toad, but to me one of the greatest aspects of this book was the fantastically vivid nature writing. I don't believe I've ever read such evocative descriptions of landscapes, seasons, and their effects on the perceptive observer. Do you find "classics" boring? Well then, you won't regard "The Wind in the Willows" as a classic, because the stories and characters will seem as alive to you as anything else in life. A pure delight, and I look forward to reading it again and again. (Psst--The text of the book is available for free from Project Gutenberg if you want to sneak a peek.)

Kenneth Grahame wrote this for his son and published this in book form in 1908. He has simply created a masterpiece, not just in children's literature, believe me many adults read this one with pleasure. The chapters follow the doings and adventures of Mole, Rat, Badger, and of course Toad. The prose is lyrical at times, the stories hilarious, and charm and wisdom flow from Grahame's pen. There has been many illustrators for different editions of this over the years. I like Rackham and Shepard and recommend the editions that have one or the others illustrations, or get two copies of "The Wind in the Willows" and you can have both of these fine illustrators work to enjoy. I read this book when a child and I come back to it again and again.

The Wind in the Willows is a delightful children's classic that touches upon many things; wonder, pastoralism, but most of all friendship between individuals very different from one another. One of the hallmarks of this classic is that the adventure stories remain entertaining to this day. A must read for any child.

STREET MAGIC, the second book of Pierce's The Circle Opens quartet, is a story which ought to satisfy all of her fans and leave them asking for more. Still far from being one of Tamora Pierce's best books, STREET MAGIC continues her trend of bringing the books in The Circle Opens quartet to a more mature level.

Briar Moss and his teacher Rosethorn have traveled to the city of Chammur, where they are employed to revive the plants dying in the "tired" earth. It is while he is visiting one of the open Bazarrs there that Briar comes across Evvy, a young street-rat who in unknowingly in possession of stone magic. As with Sandry in MAGIC STEPS, Briar suddenly finds himself responsible for Evvy when the only other stone mage in the city flatly refuses to teach Evvy, or at least to do so in an acceptable manner. On the side, Briar must deal with the escalation of a multi-gang war going on throughout the city.

As I said, this is far from being one of the best books by Tamora Pierce, but I found it to be not half-bad. I like how she is bringing more dimensions to the lives of the four Winding Circle Mages, and making her stories more complex, mature, and different.

It's been four years since Briar Moss left Winding Circle Temple in SummerSea . Now he is in Chammur. There he meets Evvy. She is a 10 year old girl who uses her magic to polish stones for a local merchant. When Briar try's to talk to her she flees.Finally , she gives in and Briar starts teaching her about her magic. Then, a local gang called the Vipers here Briar say that Evvy has stone magic so they try to kidnap her to make a profit on her ability. In the meantime the Vipers are trying to take over Camelgut territory with the help of a rich noble. She gives them weapons and the Vipers start a war with the Camelguts. I won't spoil the whole book. All I can say is that this book is right up there with all of her other wonderful,marvelious,outstanding,terrific quartets. I highly reccomend this book. Only if you can manage complex plots and many confusing parts. I hope many of you out there have lots of acadimic ability!!!!!! Farewell!

Well, it's a really good book, and an exellent addition to the circle of magic, and my favorite. Even though Tris, Daja, and Sandry aren't included in this book, it is still really good.
In this book I think it really shows how powerful Briar really is. in all the other books, Tris was the powerful one, but Briar is here to give her a run for her money as he works his way through a phonomal book.

Books on PHP are definately improving as time goes on. This is the best book I've seen so far for the beginner, and I definately wish I had it when I was started learning 3 years ago. A wide variety of functions were covered to get the novice familiar with how PHP works, giving them a good foundation to move onto more advanced books and/or tutorials.

I would have given it 5 stars if it weren't for the fact that it failed to stress the importance of form related security (which should definately be taught from the beginning), as well as writing with registered_globals off (which is the default setting in PHP for 4.2 or later). Many beginners who follow this book may wonder why their scripts aren't working because of it.

Overall, though, I was very impressed with the layout of the example code, with plenty of pointers explaining what each part of the code is doing, as well as how easy it was to skim the text that came with it.

In less than 300 pages, this book manages to explain the simpler concepts while not omitting the more advanced topics of PHP programming that aren't covered adequately in other books with over 1000 pages. If a PHP book gets into things like object oriented PHP, using multiple tables in your PHP/database projects, session management and even frequently overlooked things like foreach conditional statements, then it is worth considering. This book covers all that without being annoyingly verbose like so many other books. Topics that take 30 pages of excessive rambling in some books are concisely covered in several pages with diagrams of code to illustrate. I have over a half dozen books on PHP/MySQL and I find that this is the most useful and easy to understand and can be used as a tutorial and quick reference. This book is useful for both beginners and experienced programmers and really does lives up to its motto "Read Less, Learn More".

This is not the book to be used for developing an e-commerce site (security issues left out)nor is it for advanced PHP features nor is it reference of all the PHP features. Its a book for someone who has had some little exposure to some other programming language and would like to develop a web site in PHP. This book takes from you from beginning through intermediate level and it does it very well and very clearly without confusing you with endless options and parameters and permutations of every PHP function. It covers the most usefull and basic fucntions and does a very good job. I have three books on PHP, this is the one I start with to learn a concept because it is quick, clear, and to the point. As I want to learn more advanced features I consult other books later or php.net

The book looks to be well written with lots of details, but I feel the first few introductory pages are insufficiently detailed which prevented me from setting things up. Specifically:

* The examples don't say whether your supposed to be in or above the working directory for various cvs commands. The reader is supposed to assume that current directory for this example is the same place as the current directory at the end of the previous example, but nothing says that. (it's obvious once you know).

* The overview chapter only talks about importing a whole directory tree. It's not clear how to add a directory or a file to an already imported directory tree. Actually, it's explained 20 pages later, but I didn't find that for a while.

* I made a mistake and imported a working dir subdirectory as a top level directory in the central cvs repository. There's no quick overview commands for removing setup mistakes. (Actually, that's shown about 30 pages after the overview). The book doesn't say that importing a subdirectory if you're in the subdirectory, makes it a top level directory in the CVS repository.

I'm sure once I understand what's going on, it'll be obvious. But to do my basic directory setup, and cleanup from a mistake, I had to wade through all sorts of "once it's working" text to find what I wanted.

Also, in the Removing Directories section, he keeps referring to directories without saying whether he's referring to directories in the user tree or under the CVS repository tree.

This book has 2 aims:

1) To give you all of the knowledge you need to use and administer CVS, and

2) To provide you with insight on the Open Source movement and management of an Open Source project

On both accounts, Kurt does a top-notch job. His explanations for (1) were detailed, provided command-line input and output to leave no question as to what's supposed to happen, and the language was familiar and easy to read. It is thus far a head above any other book on CVS I've found. His thoughts on (2) obviously showed a strong familiarity with Open Source combined with a realistic and analytical view that I would liken to combining parts of The Cathedral and the Bazaar with an instruction manual.

I highly recommend it. I'd buy it again if I didn't already own it ;-)

I've been bugging Karl with both simple and complex CVS questions for as long as I can remember; I guess I annoyed him enough that he wrote a book just to shut me up! Here at last is a great place to get the answers to all my CVS needs. CVS is complex enough that it deserves a close inspection and detailed examples and explanations. Karl seems to have pulled it all off; this book is well organized and will easily be an essential reference and definitive guide to programmers and managers alike who use revision control in any project, Open Source or not. One of the biggest selling points of this book is that it not only covers CVS but it also examines software development from a design and organization standpoint. It will explain why CVS is such a power tool for seeing a project through, from development to releases (and everything inbetween). It also covers using CVS as a revision control tool for web sites and documents. It is nicely organized, easy to read and follow. You should check this book out for whatever role you play in a company which deals with home-grown source code or documents. If you're a CVS admin, developer or project manager: Get this book.

I always liked Tamora Pierce's books, like the Circle of Magic series. This book was very entertaining and suspensful and keeps you holding your breath, waiting for more. This particular book features Sandry, a former character of the Circle of Magic series. Now she is 2 years older and teaches her own student who introduces a whole new type of magic: Dancing. Teaching Pasco is the least of her problems. Murderers are set on killing the family of Rakat and our using a new, rare kind of magic: unmagic. The complete and utterly evil magic feeds on real magic and slowly consumes the user. Sandry is the only one who can stop these murderers from killing the whole Rakat family, one by one. I recommend this book, it keeps you on the edge of your seat, begging for more. Good reading for adults and kids alike!

In Magic steps, Sandry is four years older and four years wiser. Her talent with threadcraft is famous all through Summersea and many people know both her and her friends', Tris, Briar, and Daja's names. When she travels to her uncle, Duke Vedris's, lands to help him recover from a heart attack she plans on putting all of her energy into helping him. But two things happen that changes everything. Sandry meets a young boy named Pasco, who can dance with such magic that few people have ever seen before. Pasco, a future harrier (police guard) of Summersea refuses to admit he has any talent but Sandry isn't giving up on him that easily. Another challenge faces Sandry when horrible murders start to occur in her uncles lands, murders that are distinctly linked to magic, murders that Sandry cannot ignore.

I was a bit dubious with this book. Sandry has always been my least favorite character of the series, but I was happy to see she's improved in the past four years and has grown into a wonderful character. Yes, Magic Steps, is a lot more gruesome than the rest of Tamora Pierce's Magic Circle books, but people are making too big of a deal over it. The story behind it is satisfying and exciting, and that's what really matters anyway. If you want to read about Sandry and Lark after the Magic Circle Series, pick up this book!

It's been a long time since these four mages met and learned to use their magic. And they've left the Winding Circle Temple with their mentors.
Sandry goes to live with her great uncle - a nice man, a duke. While there, she meets a boy. Years younger then she, this boy has a magical talent himself. A dancing talent.
He needs to learn to use his talent - and Sandry is going to teach him.
And trouble is always around....

This is a good book and the reason I didn't give it five stars is because Tris never was my favorite character. The plot is good though and the cultures that the author comes up with is really interesting.
Tris and her teacher, Niko, are visiting Tharios the capital of the city-state of Tharios. Tris goes exploring and discovers a glass maker who appears to be sucking all the surrounding magic in to his glass. Tris discovers that he has glass magic warped by lightning magic. And she is the only mage in residence with lightning magic. And if things couldn't get more complicated there is a serial killer lose in the city!

Shatterglass was an excellent followup to the prior Circle Opens quartet. I guess I identify most with Tris, even though I am much, much older. I've had a wicked temper I've fought all my life, and it is interesting to weave temper control into her magic. Actually, I'm a huge fan of Tamora Pierce, even though I'm a 50+ year old woman...her books in many ways remind me of the best of Andre Norton. They are suitable for younger folk, but interesting and somewhat intriguing for us older readers. There isn't a book in any of her series that I would rate below 4 stars! And her determination to make her characters strong, but flawed, and with emphasis on females in uncharacteristic roles is a great way to give role models to our young readers.

The seventh yaskedasi was dead, according to Dema. Dema was the one to investigate the murders of the preformers (yaskedasi), helped by some lightning mages named Tris and Keth. Intrigued? Will they find the killer? Will Keth be able to make a glass globe that will show the killer's face? Or will it again be covered with lightning? Will Tris be able to help Keth master his powers before the killer strikes again? Tris and her teacher, Niko, come to Khapik to study the magic in glass making, but end up with more than they bargained for. But for Tris to help Keth, Keth must put aside the fact that Tris is only 14 years old and he is an adult. Tris is a very impatient girl who keeps magic in her braids.
But what about the killer? You'll have to read and find out!