electronics-industry

The writing was so obvious and atrocious that I found myself waiting for the next quotable moment....

"Roger drove while Art sat next to him, yellow legal pad open, making notes. A fine mist had started to fall. Harris clicked the wipers to "intermittent" so they would scrape the windshield at automatic intervals."

Wow! "Intermittent"! Great high-tech addition to the chip wars! Schlossstein's 'yellow peril' version of Japanese people and every day inaccuracy makes my head spin. I'm relieved it's out of print and that I only spent 25 cents for it.

It is too bad this book is out of print. I read it years ago, and it still makes an impression in my mind like a bell going ding-dong-ding. Back in 1983, the Japanese were giants, seemingly invulnerable, and threatening America daily. This book is how America still had one advantage, creativity, and how the Japanese countered by sending industrial spies to Silicon Valley. The scenes of infiltrating a SV company, then getting the chip back to America on a tramp steamer, are memorable. The scenes in Japan itself, showing the Japanese corporate hierarchy as still bound to samurai tradition, are even more so. Kensi means one's samurai teacher, the kind you greet with a mean sharp sword in your holster and bow to. For Americans who still don't understand the Japanese, this book filled a need. Too bad it's out of print.

A book with a keen perspective about an important time. Schlossstein provides unique insight into the human condition as it was played out between Japan and the U.S. Highly recommended.

I used the Microsoft A+ Certification Readiness Review as a supplemental study aide for my A+ exam. I passed the exam with flying colors but I attribute my success to the "A+ Certification Exam Guide" by Mike Myers.

The questions in the Microsoft book are much more difficult than those on the actual exam. Many of the questions are lengthy scenarios that in no way mimic the actual exam. I would caution those who buy this book that your progress cannot be accurately gauged using the practice exams in this book. The actual exam simply is not this difficult. I would strongly suggest that you buy the Mike Myers book and read only the sections marked "test specific". Once you do this, you'll be more than ready for the exam. Don't waste your money, or more importantly your time using this book as a study aide.

I just passed (January 2003) both A+ exams, using this book as one of my references. The book and CD did test you on the info in the MS A+ Certification Training Kit; however, the nature and scope of the sample test questions are different than the current A+ questions: some sample test questions ask you about arcane topics or are a dozen lines; none of the questions on my test neither covered any of the arcane topics in this book nor were longer than 2 or 3 lines. I would recommend using this book and the Microsoft A+ Certification Training Kit Review as supplements to one or more of the slim A+ Adaptive Exam books by either Meyers or Crayton. The practice tests on the included CD were good.

Now admittedly, the A+ Readiness Review is purely for exam preparation by throwing out multiple questions at you based on CompTIA's exam objectives. In this the authors succeed as you get a blend of relatively simple, straight-forward questions to some very tough troubleshooting scenario problems. If you have no problems working your way through all the questions in this book, you are very likely to pass both A+ exams. However, this book provides the barest of coverage on the topics so it would be a very good idea not to use this book as your main study guide. The A+ Readiness Review cross-references its questions to the proper sections in its meatier brother, the A+ Certification Training Kit.

The title held great promise, but as a practitioner with over 18 years experience in power projects and project finance deals both at home and in some pretty difficult countries, this book was a let down. It approaches the subject from a theoretical point of view and it is clear that the author has little first hand experience in negotiating and closing deals.

Please provide me with books that are really helpful in the area of Energy, Power finance in emerging markets. contact me at fininfo@mail.com thanks.

Taking people with little investment experience and little technology knowledge and teaching them a little about investing in Internet stocks is inappropriate at best. That's like entering elderly people who move slowly into the running of the bulls in Pamplona. People are going to get hurt. Avoid this subject, and this book.

Here are some of the observations the author makes. "Investing in Internet stocks makes good sense." "With information, intelligence, and patience, you will be successfully investing in Internet stocks." "Investors willing to step out just a little on the risk side may find the rewards outstanding." Well, since the book came out, owning any of the Internet stocks has only led to losing a lot of money.

Why then did a rate the book at 2 stars rather than 1? Well, it does have some cautions in it. "Don't put your life savings into Internet stocks . . . ." Amen! You are encouraged to buy quality companies, hold the stocks, keep your expenses low, use mutual funds, watrch your risk (based on your stomach acid levels and sleepless nights), diversify, and have fun. Well, you would have been out of Internet stocks before the book came out if you followed that advice literally.

Many Internet companies are going out of business as they run out of cash. To the book's credit, this risk is finally pointed out briefly on pages 183 and 184.

Naturally, if many stocks were going to fall 50-99%, this was a great time to sell the stocks short. This is first mentioned briefly as an opportunity on page 147. But brand new investors should not be selling short in volatile categories.

Here's my advice. Buy a lottery ticket instead. You have the same chance of making money, and because the unit cost is smaller, you will lose less money.

Stick to things you know where the odds are in your favor. Read Common Sense About Mutual Funds by John Bogle instead if you want a useful perspective on how new investors can make money.

Foodservice Cost Control using Microsoft Excel was a real disappointment. The first few chapters led me to believe that the entire book was structured as a tutorial with a lesson in the beginning and spread sheet examples at the end. The was true for several chapters but fell through in chapters 6 and 7.
Another major shortfall is that rather than generating new Microsoft Spreadsheet it appears that they simply copied the original spread sheets from the precursor of the is book (Foodservice Cost Control with Lotus 123, for the DOS version of Lotus) and converted them to DOS style sheets with no Windows formatting. The content of the book is very good but the editing and conversion over to a Excel version is very disappointing. For an almost $50 softcover book I think they could have spent a little more time!

"Living With the Chip" is a primer on history of microelectronics. It discusses the evolution of the IC chip from its roots in tube-based electronics to the future. In the process it provides a survey of the people (primarily American) and companies that developed the technology.

The book was informative in cursory way, but was uneven in presentation. Some chapters are flat and report-like, others are blue-sky. Some chapters pre-suppose a technical background and others do not. It appears the book was originally written in Japanese. I believe it probably started as a graduate or PhD thesis and was "dumbed-down" and hyped-up for publication.

"Living with the Chip" provides a good start for someone looking for information on the microelectronics industry, but is not a source.

For 195.00 dollars I was expecting A LOT more. Although the research was concise and informative, the description of the item was unclear. When I realized the prize vs. content ratio, I was VERY disappointed. I would not recommend paying this amount for a 4 page document!

Maybe my expectations were too high. The fact is that this book offers you very little unless you really have no clue about how electricity works. The book is also poorly organized. I really couldn't figure out a logical sequence. The book also seems to be very dated. There is virtually no mention of electronic security panels and common programming tasks. In my opinion, it's a book to avoid.

Go to the movies, or read on of the following (in this order): Peter Meyer (Getting started in computer consulting) Rick Freedman (The computer consultant) Gerald M Weinberg (The secrets of consulting) Enough said.

I am afraid that I must agree with the other reviewers. This book had the potential to be a decent reference, but the information is choppy...the "will be covered in a later chapter" stuff will drive you crazy trying to track down all you need to accomplish simple tasks. There are better books out there.

This book is not the best on the subject, I was a little upset about this purchase. Through out the book he makes these comments "..we'll discuss this more in chapter X" or " ...like we said in chapter X" I count 143 lines of these and gave up, it became aggravating and I stopped reading the book.

Owen's book -- as he stressed when I saw him speak at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. -- makes a very limited argument. It tries to answer the following questions: "Will the Internet ever develop to challenge television's predominance?" His answer is a weak "No."

I completely agree with the previous reviewer, particularly in his examination of Owen's technical failures. Owen hedges, and his argument is weak. The book ultimately flops because of its limited scope: it primarily analyzes the Internet as a medium for entertainment - not for electronic commerce, or other potential purposes.

The only feasible excuse for Owen's lapses is one he mentioned at the lecture in Washington; the Harvard University Press has not gone to a wholly electronic printing process, so manuscripts must be submitted early. In other words, he finished the book long ago, without the advantage of perspective we have had in the recent years of rapid Internet deployment. Still, I am no apologist: his economist's prose is turbid, and his conclusions sadly myopic. The book's title is misleading - it should more appropriately be, "Why Television Will Remain Relevant."

Bruce M. Owen makes too many assumptions and doesn't do enough research in this book. Owen's focus is the future, but he speaks about the Internet as a group of technologies that will not change in the future, that are somehow stuck in time and will never improve.

He doesn't understand the technology (like Packet Switching, the very breakthrough that made TCP/IP and thus the Internet possible). Throughout the first part of the book, he claims that the Internet doesn't have the ability to transmit high quality video. We might not have the bandwidth now, but why is this _never_ going to be possible? The technology is there, just not there for everybody yet. He cites "Moore's Law," but does he think for some reason that the Internet is immune to this Law and that it won't continue to improve?

Owen also doesn't understand the history and development of the Internet, especially not the idea of open standards. As chaotic as the Internet is, it works because groups have already gotten together and handled many of the standards issues or came up with the technologies to deal with the incompatabilities. He even asserts that it might be to the Internet's advantage if "Silicon Valley" (as if they own the Internet) invites some regulators in to help with standards issues. Anyone who knows how the Net works knows that such ideas are not only improbably, they're impossible. The Internet is not a singular, private entitiy like a TV network.

Indeed, Owen seems to have a large bias against the Internet for some unknown reason. He believes that the Internet is an elite audience and makes every attempt to minimize the number of people participating. He even asserts, with no facts to back it up, that the number of households buying computers is "leveling off."

Owen hasn't done his homework. This is a work that turns out to simply a platform for the author to try to back up his biases, including not only an anti-Internet bias but an strong anti-Regulation bias. If you are looking for clear insight into the history and growth of media, get a good survey textbook; Owen's book will simply muddy the waters more for you...