economics-software

Though rudimentary, this book filled some gaps for me left by more advanced texts, including some definitions that I was fuzzy on, and enlightened me as to why some things are on financial statements in the form they're in, since I don't have a business education background.

The CD contains the text, which is handy on a laptop, but marred by having the text superimposed on a busy patterned background that has some kind of periodic highlights that are particularly annoying (the current generation of magazine, book and web site designers can't seem to grasp that the point of text is to be read, and that stuff that looks nifty on the computer screen may be darn near impossible to read in print; busy photo backgrounds, light text on dark backgrounds etc. belong ONLY in ads, where no one is expected to read the text anyway.)

Also, the spreadsheets would have been more useful if incorporated in groups into workbooks instead of individual ones. You can't readily get numbers from one to another. And the disk titles are of the "sheet23.xls" variety, not helpful for finding the one you want, so you have to either have the book listing handy or access them strictly from the CD PDF file text.

Being used to technical book web sites that contain errata, new material, suggestions from users, etc., I was disappointed to find nothing new there. And the list of web links, as usual in this fast-changing world, contains a number of missing links. I would have appreciated a good old fashioned bibliography in addition to the links, because you can usually find out of print books through a library, used dealers on the web, and most really important books and texts have current editions.

I consistently buy this book to distribute to participants in my company's credit training seminars. I have used the previous edition and this newest edition, both of which are very informative and easy to read. To the author... Great Job!

I am the author. I would like to point out that the reviews that appear here, which are dated prior to May 2002, are for the previous edition. In this new Third Edition, I have worked hard to take this top-selling, clearly written book, and add content in many areas to provide more depth to the book. There are six new chapters covering tax concepts, capital structure, business plans, working capital and banking relationshsips, accountability and control, and personal finances. In addition many other chapters have been siginficantly modified and or supplemented with new information. I hope you enjoy my book.

I wanted to learn about principals of finance such as depreciation etc...this book is NOT for that. It assumes you know a good bit about finance, but have never heard of Excel...not a likely scenario.

This is an excellent self-study book. You learn MS Excel and Financial Analysis at the same time. You can learn (by doing) the construction of financial statements & cash budgets. For those interested in financial economics the book teaches about the Capital Asset Pricing model, Return On Equity, Net Present Value and the Cost of Capital. It even contains a section on forecasting which is invaluable to those looking to do rather than read about it. Best of all it shows you how to do this stuff with a readily available desktop application(excel). Furthermore, you learn not just how to input the authors formulas but how to build your own using the IF, AVERAGE, TREND functions etc. etc.
The best thing about this book is that you don't just read dry definitions of finance and economic arcana, but practice it as you go along. This really helps to build your skills!

An excellent book that really shows you how powerful Excel can be. But, at the same time, it also teaches you about Finance using Excel. Very, very good. A regret: I would have liked more explanations, in general, on the financial concepts used in the book (especially in the last chapters).

To Dr. Mayes: in your next book, the advanced one a reviewer speaks about, could you give more explanations in general on the financial concepts. Otherwise, keep using this great tool, Excel, or even Access 2000. I refer you to "Building Accounting Systems using Access 97" by James T. Perry, et al. I would think that you could use Access 2000 to apply financial analysis if Access is better suited than Excel, which I am not so sure; although Mr. Perry seems to give quite convincing arguments in favour of using Access instead of Excel.

Thanks for your book that I really liked. I am now up-to-date with Excel and I am keen to learn more about Finance. Thanks to you :-)

In the first five chapters, the book gives valuable historical background on the development of Internet, Unixes, Web, and Internet-related tools; encouragingly uncovers the Open Source philosophy; analyzes Open Source in business terms; explains various license types and legal issues; scrutinizes different organizational types, mainly network organizations. It is of vital importance for any Open Source Project participant to understand the philosophy of the Open Source and be aware of the history of the movement.

However, the book does not reach its goal, Managing Open Source Projects. The book title is misleading. The core two chapters, Managing a Virtual Team and Managing Distributed Open Source Projects aren't practical and not very deep.

The final chapters are a quick glance on tools and technologies for building Open Source Projects.

The information given in this book is not enough to start and manage an Open Source project. This book however may be helpful for anyone wanting to contribute to an existing Open Source project.

This is a most valuable book on Open Source. There is very little serious information around for those who want to use this model in practice. This one fills the gap. There are evidently several kinds of projects that can benefit, both technically and business wise, from using Open Source as a development model. Read this book before you start! It will help.

I am very glad for having bought the book, it is extremely interesting. Chapter 1 is more than a historical introduction, is the best written chronicle of 25 years that changed the world making everyone's life so different. It really is a masterpiece.

I found this book to be an interesting book to read, but challenging at first. I suggest that one starts with the appendix and then reads the book front to back. The first 72 pages "provides valuable sound bites," as David A. Wilson comments on the back cover, however previous knowledge of learning theory and organizational learning is required to understand these bites of information. "Theories examined in this section of the literature review include: double loop learning theory (Argyris, 1977, 1992, 1994)..." (pg. 21), the theories he discusses are many, and relayed so quickly to provide the foundation for the study that it may take awhile to engage your interest. If you need to find other reference material about organizational learning, this is a good resource, since he references so many in the first few pages. I also found value in the way he walks methodically through the research and case study process, specifically as it relates to Lotus notes and other collaborative database technologies. His discussion of the case was interesting to me from a process standpoint, however as a businessperson it was a bit too academic. It isn't until the last two chapters that the meat or content of the study is revealed.

Too much time is spent on giving the reader an understanding of the case study process, as a businessperson I want to know how did it work, right away. Therefore I found the "Summary: The 'Top Ten' practice prescription" (pg. 109) steps in the last chapters were great! I also enjoyed the section that discussed the "relationship between prior training and intellectual material contribution rates, Myers-Briggs-Type Indicators (MBTI)." (pg.86) The correlations by personality types and learning styles are fascinating.

I found no new ideas here, however the way he brings together several areas of organizational learning and collaborative technology combined with a methodical approach are worth the effort to read this book.

Dr. Neilson's contention that technologies should and can be used as force multipliers is a positive message to the workforce of the future. As students and employees are expecteded to learn more,learn faster, and apply newfound knowledge to increasingly complex problem-solving situations, realistic and practical guidelines are needed for managers and learning specialists within organizations to facilitate effective applications of chosen technologies. First, technologies must be selected that are helpful to the user, then personnel have to be able to use those technologies to effectively address their job requirements. This book introduces strategies for technology insertion, reviews succinctly the various theories on learning organization and knowledge management principles, and uses a case study approach to show how these strategies can be utilized to successfully implement new technologies within an organization. Most importantly the book re-emphasizes that the human interface is the most critical component of successful technology application. Dr. Neilson's theories and guidelines have practical applications across any organization that is considering new technology solutions--because the focus is on the end-user, the learner; and although Lotus Notes is the case study technology in this book, the concepts discussed here and the recommendations for successful implementation are pertinent to any technology insertion program. I have already shared this book with my clients and intend to list it as recommended reading for executives and learning specialists alike. The straightforward approach, the easy to read format, and the concise summaries of multiple areas of research make this an excellent introduction to the fields of knowledge management, learning organization principles,and collaborative technologies.

I liked the book, not so much for its evaluation of Lotus Notes, but rather for the perspective it brings to evaluation of information sharing. As a practical instantiation of qualitative research, Neilson has written an excellent style manual for research study design and reporting. Using "Collaborative Technologies" as a reference, and a model, makes the evaluation of other knowledge based tools or organizational learning situation much easier. I recommend it to students studying collaborative learning as a starting point for research. I also recommend it to company information managers as practical information as to the state of the art and expected return on investment from collaborative tools.

This book is written only for the very basic beginner in IT. If you have been around an IT department for any length of time, you will find it difficult to pick up any new management thoughts in this book. For example, the entire topic of ERP systems is covered in 2 pages.

Technology can change all it wants but the fundamentals of being a good IT Manager have changed very little. This book hits all the major areas of focus from staffing and budgeting to infrastructure and disaster recovery.

The section entitled "Certification: How Do I Know Its Worth" applied 10 years ago, and still applies today. Right on the money and a good brief for an IT Manager building a team. Also, small but extremently important policy issues like email and security are included.

I do think that the book included slightly heavy doses of technical information such as a full page table of different memory technologies as well as an entire section entitled "How Do I Configure a Server". These would service a Network Administrator or Engineer just fine but an IT Manager ? Not so much. Don't let this detract you from the overall picture though. Too much information is certainly better than not enough.

I have to be honest, I didn't read this cover to cover. But for someone who has spent time as an IT Manager in the past and one who is looking at doing it again, I was able to re-establish concepts and draw on new tools that, no doubt, provided benefits.

This book is full of practical examples. It is useful to people who have in-depth programming knowledge but no idea how to do a budget or interview job candidates. I found this book specially timely, given that my team is composed of several technical professionals who are now considering a move into management. The information in the book is well layed out and quite accessible.

This book is aimed at developers already advanced in VB, COM, MTS, and SQL. The author presents an interesting generic framework for implementing persistent distributed objects using Microsoft technologies. Most unfortunately, many details are missing from the example code, some of it depends on code not presented until future chapters or at all, and the downloadable code does not match what is presented in the book. Even within the book itself, some of the UML class models don't match what is described in the text. The concepts of the framework were useful to me, especially the generic database classes, but I expect more attention to detail in a technical book.

The book covers vb-object to db-tables mapping. The download code for this is not in sync with the book on areas such as ClassManager/Lib and on the DataManager GetObject (set DataManager ClassDef.DatabaseName), some Interface Methods too, an (optional?) XML parameter. With no installation Readme or Errata file this could be overcome by the author (please) update the downloadable code. Although Session Variables (and ActiveX Controls)are used in places there is no talk of their security limits. Otherwise an excellent book!

If you are a developer who already knows the basics and has gone through the simple examples provided in the documentation and teaching books, then this book is for you for an advanced exposition of the subject. You will also get a nice feeling reading the code (the book has a good amount of it) which works, since the author has actually implemented it in a production environment.

Like someone else said in his review, this book is good for beginners. I'd like to confirm that, and maintain that's its ONLY good for beginners. The book glazes over much of the material and never goes in depth for any of it. If you've already had just a little experience with crystal reports already, this book won't help you much at all. It can hardly be used as a good reference.

I wasn't knowing anything about Crystal Reports, then it was needed that I design critical reports about some data, the project system engineers decided that Crystal Reports is the solution.
I bought the book, and it really helped me to do the required job, it took me less than 2 weeks to read it all, and it was really ver helpful.

Lets be honest, any book that says Teach Yourself ... in 24 Hours is a beginner book. And as such, this book is great. I am a application programmer and needed a PRIMER to get started and this book not only allowed me to do that, but allowed me to meet my business critical deadlines on time. Although I may need another book for advanced topics in the future. I find that I can write most of the reports requested of me with this handy book. I even told Crystal Decisions that they should contact the author to have him write their manuals, which are inadequate and hard to follow.

Software Engineering Economics is one of the biggest classics in software engineering books. Still today (2004) much of the content is valid and the discussions are very useful. When reading this book you should realize that it's from 1981 and that much has changed since then.

Personally I especially likes the Part III and Part IV which were about the factors changing the software estimate and the reasons why. The last chapter of the book is something everyone should read who is working in quality/process management and is trying to improve productivity of a large project.

Still a classic and worth reading!

"Software Engineering Economics" is *the* book to be considered for anybody wishing to seriously enter the world of software cost estimation - only if it were because of the extremely great influence this book has had on this very peculiar aspect of software engineering. In this aspect, Barry Boehm is undoubtly the master.

HOWEVER, it must be kept in mind that the book itself is somewhat outdated - COCOMO 81, as defined by Barry Boehm, has been overtaken by new technologies and in particular by the surge in PCs & the Internet. The basic model is still valid - I still use it myself - provided you are aware what the background in computing was when it was written, and you carefully assign the adjustment factors.

Barry Boehm himself recognizes that COCOMO 81 is no longer valid - hence his collaboration with COCOMO II, which has addressed many of the problems that affected the old COCOMO 81 (e.g., it was mainly thought for development of software on expensive mainframes, and development tools have greatly evolved since that time). Still, I insist, if you are careful when making your estimations, the model and the techniques presented in this book are very useful and could be applied even on more modern projects.

My second HOWEVER is related to use the model presented in this book for Software Maintenance purposes. Though the book has a chapter on this issue, by opinion is a radical NO-No on this particular issue. COCOMO 81 (as presented in this book) and COCOMO II are adequate for software development purposes. I totally disagree that they are adequate for software Maintenance purposes (though COCOMO II is at least not so very bad). Apart from the fact that it ignores things such as regression testing, or the number of releases to be made during such maintenance, it also ignores the fact that software "degrades" during such maintenance - subsequent modifications introduce more and more stress on the original design, until at a certain moment the software requires a great "overhaul" in order to solve a lot of patchwork that has accumulated over the years. Hence the typical case of having to redesign a complete new software system because maintenance of the old system becomes too expensive.

In any case, if aware of such limitations, I can highly recommend it.

A classic reference on estimating the cost of software projects, economic analysis techniques, and applying economic principals to upper-level management of software projects. The intimidating appearance of the text on initial inspection is overcome by the author's excellent organization of the content into small chapters and his lucid writing style. The definition of a software cost model called the constructive cost model (COCOMO) is a major centerpiece. Another centerpiece is the chapters on cost-effectiveness analysis, multiple goal decision analysis, dealing with uncertainties and the value of information, software project planning and control, and improving software productivity. Alternatives to cost models such as experts, analogy, Parkinson, price-to-win, top-down, and bottom-up are discussed in Chapter 22. Uses several case studies for example a transaction processing system. Contains an excellent set of questions and exercises at the end of each chapter.

The COCOMO model is calibrated by industry data and expert opinion. Given module size estimates in lines of code as input the COCOMO model will predict effort and schedule in man-months. The COCOMO predictions cover the plans, product design, programming, and integration & test portions of the life cycle. The validity of the model is illustrated by charting actual vs. COCOMO prediction and the detailed analysis of the COCOMO cost driver attributes in Chapters 24-26. Product attributes are required software reliability (RELY), data base size (DATA), and product complexity (CPLX). Computer attributes are execution time constraint (TIME), main storage constraint (STOR), virtual machine volatility (VIRT), and computer turnaround time (TURN). Personnel attributes are analyst capability (ACAP), applications experience (AEXP), programmer capability (PCAP), virtual machine experience (VEXP), and programming language experience (LEXP). Project attributes are modern programming practices (MODP), use of software tools (TOOL), and required development schedule (SCED).

Readers should be aware that some aspects of the COCOMO have been replaced by the publication of the "Software Cost Estimation with COCOMO II" book. The "COCOMO II" book contains a preface section titled "Relation to 1981 Software Engineering Book". I recommend keeping a copy of this preface handy while you read "Software Engineering Economics" because it provides a chapter-by-chapter assessment of the relevance of the "Software Engineering Economics" content in the year 2000.

It's great to finally come across a book that sketches out the borders of new media business practise. I run a Web design firm in Ottawa, and while I found that many of the numbers seemed to be a bit off, the descriptions of the margin calculations and proposal process would very useful for someone starting out. Let's hope there is a revised second edition of this book soon.

If you are planning or even doing any type of business in the internet, this book is a MUST read.
Frenza covers all the angles step by step, and I got excited realizing the power and the potential of running a successful internet business. He really opened the floodgates of success for us.
Gary Block OWNER Route 66 Classics www.route66classics.com

Books covers basics of preparing a simple business proposel, and emphasises the importance of applying the same basic business principles to wab & new media, i.e. contracts, estimating costs, recording actual costs vs estimated etc.
Pricing for web services is outdated, but this is to be expected from print media.
Illustrates how not to under-cost a web project, something that is easy to do if you are new.

This is a 27 chapter 1200+ page textbook. The main problem with this book is that there are plenty of questions at the end of each chapter, but there is no way to check your answers. There isn't even a book to buy in addition to this one that allows the answers to be reviewed. This in my opinion makes this a HORRIBLE text to learn from.

This Textbook is a good teaching book, if the instructor isalso good. The drawback of this book is it overcomplicates severalareas and has the chapters set up in a bad order. The the biggest thing wrong with this book is it has several errors in the book and even more in the working papers. The book does however make a good introduction of accounting and covers the subject well.

I would have given full praises for this excellent writing. It did help me to understand better the subjects in my degree courses. The explainations are clear and direct with interesting colourful examples. 'Feature story' on the start of each chapter section give an insight for real world examples and 'Accounting in action' do explore the critical thinking on the issue. 'Review It' and 'Do It' sections help the students to test their understanding before reading on further. Exercises and cases at the end of each chapter will enhance students' learning and knowledge abilities. My lecturer highly recommends this book since it is comprehensive and the illustrations give better pictures about the whole chapter. Since this book also includes theoretical aspect of accounting, it is excellent as a basic for students who would like to learn the accounting principles.