Book Description

This expanded edition of Environmental Health and Safety Audits brings you up-to-date on changes in EPA and OSHA auditing policies, issues currently confronting auditing programs, and state-of-the-art strategies for managing and conducting audits. The author discusses new developments in information generation and availability, including new chapters on meeting ISO 14000 auditing guidelines, auditing dilemmas, and auditing tips, and new tools for building a successful audit program, including seven model program stages. ... Read more

Book Description

Presented here together for the first time are the greatest of the ancient Chinese classics of strategic thought: The Complete Art of War. Probably the most famous work of strategy ever written, Sun Tzu's Art of War has sold millions of copies in many languages around the world. Lost for more than 2000 years and only recently recovered, the Military Methods of Sun Pin (Sun Tzu's great-grandson) is a brilliant elaboration on his ancestor's work. Only The Complete Art of War brings the wisdom of these two ancient sages into a single volume and gives the reader a unique opportunity to master the essentials of Chinese thought on strategy, organization and leadership.

The Sun family writings on strategy have proven their value through the ages, and they continue to reward careful study. By unveiling the complex, often unexpected, interrelationships of armies locked in battle, they reveal the enduring principles of success in the struggle of life itself. With a practical index to the essential principles of strategy, and Ralph Sawyer's thoughtful chapter-by-chapter commentaries, The Complete Art of War  is designed to bring the reader new insights into the nature of human conflict.

Whether it is playing the game of politics or building a successful marriage, closing a deal or managing a large organization, making war or even making peace, The Complete Art of War  stands as one of the ultimate guides to a deeper understanding of human affairs. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

The teachings of the greatest military geniuses of all time.
Sun Tzu collected his teachings into the ancient Chinese treatise on military strategy known as "The Art of War" about twenty-five hundred years ago. Afterward his teachings were passed down through the Sun family, or a group of disciples, who edited or expounded upon the original writings until they assumed their current form. Sun Pin was the great-grandson of Sun Tzu, and he used the teachings of his brilliant ancestor to develop his Treatise "Military Methods". This wonderful translation by Ralph D. Sawyer includes both of these ancient texts.

"The Art of War" has been studied the world over by military, political and business leaders seeking to understand the nature of human conflict in all it's forms. Although thousands of years old, the teachings of Sun Tzu remain relevant even today. The maxims of Sun Tzu have been applied by students of "The Art of War" to such modern conflicts as the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

Sun Tzu's teachings range from the seemingly simple, such as "Someone unfamiliar with the mountains and forests cannot advance the army", to the more complex and thought provoking, such as "In order await the disordered. In tranquility await the clamorous. This is the way to control the mind." The manual covers such diverse topics as training, supplies, terrain, the seasons and the use of spys, and includes detailed commentary by China's greatest military leaders through the centuries.

"The Art of War" should be read by anyone who studies military history or strategy, and is part of the curriculum of many of the world's military academies. Studying the teachings of Sun Tzu can help you to form strategies for conflict resolution or negotiating in business, political or social endeavors through a greater understanding of human interaction.

Sun Tzu and Sun Pin are timeless
The Art of War is the oldest and best military treatise this world has seen. It is amazing how Sun Tzu can talk about strategy and warfare in thirteen short chapters. His book is just the best about competition and strategy. And now we get to Sun Pin, the military strategist. I have awesome respect for him. He was betrayed and mutilated by his best friend, and still, he survived. He defeated his nemesis in a great strategic way that Sun Tzu would have mostly likely done. These two are the best and if they were in this world today, they would won every war that we fight, by their ability to adapt. If you want to get Ancient Strategy and Chinese Culture, get this book.

Excellent
The publishing of both Sun Tzu's and Sun Pin's works together makes for a valuable purchase. I've found that this translation is also quite easy to follow, and the comments assist with interpretation. These works represent awesome insights into the nature of warfare.

suffering
The text does not remotely fill the entire page to lengthen the book and suggest a happier price. Sun Pin's addition is severely garbled because the original text was damaged and it's contadictory. The most likely reason that Sun Pin's methods were forgotten and preserved only in a tomb was because (GEE GOLLY) people believed it wasn't worth reading. The commentary uses the word obvious extremely often among various other uneeded lengthening exercises.The author describes himself as an imaginative entrepenuer.(Sun Tzu flirts with perfection)

good additional material
A nice attempt to include additional material about
the ancient chinese strategic art. I stress that it is art
since there are no analytical material here.
But the text is abridged and the translation could be improved. ... Read more

Book Description

Get a sound fix on the expanding universe of telecom

Explore the vast telecom landscape -- from standards and protocols to premise, access and transport technologies. Far more than an acronym-studded quick fix, Telecom Crash Course is a true tutorial that offers you context, connections, and the wisdom to quickly grasp key technologies, including wireless Internet, optical networking, 3G, IP, protocol layer, PSTN, ATM, spread spectrum, GPRS, and SIP. Author Steven Shepard includes lively stories that deliver important points about the markets that drive the technologies. You get rigorous technical accuracy, with explanations of each technology's economic importance. Here’s your chance to decipher the alphabet soup of telecom acronyms -- not just what they stand for, but what they mean and how they can generate profits. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

Excellent Introduction, in the opinion of a Telecom newcomer
This is a fantastic book if you want an overview that focuses on technical and some business aspects of telecommunications, and are someone that enjoys reading more techie-oriented material. (For the record, I am an MechE by training who is now working for one of the companies mentioned in the book, so this really was my entire Intro course to Telecom, and I plan to continue my learning. This book was an excellent guide for future, more in-depth subjects to pursue.)

The book does an excellent job of being ubiquitous and covering all the aspects of the telecom field that you've ever heard about. At the same, I found it easy to skip around in reading chapters, based on my own priorities in buying the book. The chapters are divided very logically into sections on the Telephone network, Access technologies, Transport options, Protocols, etc. (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you will after reading this book :).
One of my favorite aspects of the books is that the author is very good at using diagrams to supplement his text, which can be rare in more engineering/technical books. The whole picture-worth-a-thousand-words idea, especially if you take the time to go through the diagrams.
Yes, the text can require a few read-throughs - but telecommunications itself is a dense field that really requires one to be patience in reading and gain understanding of the technology. There *is* a lot of detail stuffed through out the chapters, and perhaps not everyone will care to know everything -- but that is alright, there is no harm in skipping the nitty-gritty of sections that do not interest you.

Please, please, please do not let the bad reviews of this book discourage you from checking it out. I just finished reading the entire book, and wanted to log on to share my high opinion of it.

a scatterbrained mess...
First off, a word of warning: Pay heed to the reader's words from Woburn Mass, all of the 5 star reviews of this book actually are from people who are mentioned in the book's acknowledgements.

I purchased this book mostly to learn about telephony. I already know a lot about data networking, and I wanted to expand my knowledge of other aspects of telecom and optical WAN technologies like SONET and SDH. I knew I was in for trouble after reading about 50 pages. Have you ever read a technical book where you had a really hard time absorbing the info, even when you re-read the same paragraphs over and over again? Well, chances are it's not your fault, it's the author's! I can say this for sure about this book, b/c it described stuff that I already know about, and after reading it, I was more confused than before!

Part of the problem is the author's complete lack of organizational logic. On page 2, he describes all of the "techno-jargon" that permeates the telecom industry, and "often gets in the way of the relatively straightforward task of learning how all this stuff actually works". I totally agree, jargon should not obfuscate. BUT, if you're going to point out this common pitfall, you best avoid it yourself, and Shepard does not! He's all over the board, dropping terms and concepts with little or no explanation. About 10 pages in, it's already a muddled mess.

The mess gets worse. He discusses all of these different approaches to multiplexing, but doesn't take the time to explain what the basic process of multiplexing is all about until page 200! Throughout the entire book, he constantly refers to switching versus routing, but he doesn't explain the basic processes until the final 2 pages! These are just a couple examples that stuck out in my mind.

To be sure, there is some useful information to be gleaned here, but it's hard to sort out from all the "noise". Shepard gets into way too much detail on certain subjects and not enough on others, without any discernable logic. For example, he spends several pages discussing how fiber cables are manufactured, but spends less than one page discussing the basic processes of routing and switching. However, given the topic of the book, isn't the latter subject a lot more applicable? As far as I know, telecom professionals don't need to make the actual fiber cables.

This book is too technical for someone who doesn't know anything about telecom, and it's not practical enough for someone who knows a lot. If you're in between like me, you stand to gain a decent high-level overview of the industry, but the details are murky at best.

Excellent Telecom Overview
As an industry outsider with limited technical experience, I found this book informative, easy-to-follow, and entertaining. My compliments to the author for a job well done.

entertaining but lightweight
The author has a knack for seeing the big picture and coming up with funny metaphors to describe it (see Austrailian rules football in the other review). Also, he has a lot of friends in the business - four of the 5 star reviews below are from people listed in the acknowledgements. There is technical material here but the selection is sort of random, so you may or may not find a detailed explanation of a subject you're looking for. But his brief discussion of JPEG compression was so absurdly wrong it made me less enthusiastic about reading through the rest of his technical presentations.

I won't say this book is worthless, because he does have a marketer's flair for making business sense of technology and predicting trends, and there is probably enough material here to fill a few good magazine articles. One of them, on the psychology of computer hacking (inserted in the middle of a discussion of the OSI protocol stack), unfortunately has nothing to do with telecom. Also, the mini-Esperanto/English dictionary is entertaining but probably should have been left for the author's web site. I mean, I agree that's funny, but there are those of us who paid for a book on telecom.

The complete telecom overview
If I were starting out in the telecommuncations field, this would be the first book that I'd recommend that anyone read. It gives you a high level look at: what protocols do and are used for; what the primary access technologies are; a great description of the telephony system that provides the main infrastructure of the Internet; and, the primary transport technologies that are being used today.
Because this is a "crash course" book don't look for great detail in every topic, however, if you are looking for a compendium that covers the telecomm field all in one book then this is the book you need. My networking background has been mostly in the copper and fiber optic technologies, so I found the sections about the new 802.11 wireless technologies the most interesting. But some of things that I found unique for a book like this and most fascinating are the pictures of scenes and equipment taken inside of actual telephone central offices and the anecdotes about real life happenings in the telecommuncations world. For those of you interested in the state of the telecommuncations industry, you may want to go straight to the last chapter entitled "Final Thoughts" where the author gives some very interesting comments about the industry on a global view.
So if you have anything to do with telecommunications, be it as a user, CTO, IT manager, technology student, technology teacher, marketing or sales person of telecom or buyer of telecom, then this book should have a place on your desk. ... Read more

Book Description

Unique in approach, this book combines—in one volume—an exploration of the time-tested concepts and techniques of safety and health management, a modern perspective on compliance with mandatory standards for workplace safety and health, and a variety of solved problems, case studies, and exercises. It provides reasons, explanations, and illustrations of the hazard mechanisms that form the underlying basis for the volumes of detailed standards for workplace safety and health. KEY TOPICS Specific chapter topics cover Concepts of Hazard Avoidance, the impact of federal regulation, process safety and disaster preparedness, buildings and facilities, ergonomics, health and toxic substances, environmental control and noise, flammable and explosive materials, personal protection and first aid, fire protection, materials handling and storage, machine guarding, welding, electrical hazards, and construction.For industrial engineers. ... Read more

Book Description

Get the reference that defines standards and best practices for technical writers, editors, and content managers who work with Microsoft technologies. Developed by the Microsoft Editorial Standards Group, the newest edition of the computer industry’s leading manual of style has been fully updated, expanded, and optimized for usability. You get coverage on the latest developments—from accessibility and globalization issues to mobile computing, XML, and other emerging standards—as well as Microsoft-specific products, technologies, and initiatives. You’ll find expertly articulated and organized information about general usage, grammar, punctuation, formatting and layout, front matter, and indexing and attributing, as well as focused guidelines for topics such as creating specific document types, including Readme files and case studies; writing for software developers; documenting the user interface; and developing bias-free communications. Comprehensive, easy-to-use, and thoroughly up-to-date, the MICROSOFT MANUAL OF STYLE FOR TECHNICAL PUBLICATIONS, Third Edition, can help you maximize the impact and precision of your technical communications. ... Read more

Reviews (30)

Comprehensive, concise, and logical
This book would be excellent to use in developing a company style guide, or it will help you out until you have time to develop a company style guide. It will also help in resolving departmental word-choice squabbles, such as whether to use "click" or "click on". And if it seems odd to tell users to "check the check box," what do you tell them?

I needed this book years ago--now that I have it, I reach for it all the time. While I don't always follow its suggestions exactly, it offers me a non-trendy second opinion on technical style issues. Its straight A-Z dictionary format makes information easy to find, too.

Perhaps a curious note of trivia is suitable here: the on-line help systems in many Microsoft products were not developed according to this style guide. This is unfortunate, as I find this style guide helps me write clear, approachable on-line help better than any other style guide I've seen.

Making Something Great Even Better . . .
Already a popular tome with software documentation professionals, this new edition has much to offer both to the new reader and those who have read the previous version cover to cover.

Modestly informing its readers that only 17 heavily revised or new terms have been included in this publication, the new Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications has nonetheless expanded its overall topic list by a total of 144 entries. This has increased the size of the book from the previous edition by 44 pages. Many outdated and unused terms have been taken out of the manual, only to be updated to include significant changes in Internet and browser terminology and usage.

From a presentation standpoint, there are minor changes to the headings and body text. Of particular note however is the new alphabetical tabbing appearing on the outer edge of the document to help locate the topics. The index is structured to contain more subentry references as well. Gone however is Appendix C, the Words with Numbers section.

As with the earlier edition of the manual, this copy contains a standard Windows Help system version of the book. To demonstrate support of its new HTML-based Help standard however, Microsoft has also enclosed the same information on an HTML Help system (what it refers to in the manual as an "electronic book"). For additional incentive, there is also an HTML Help version of the third edition of the Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary - another helpful resource. Be aware though that to view these HTML materials you need to use Internet Explorer 4.0 or later (also included on the companion CD).

As more software development companies are designing applications that use browser technology or can be accessed via the Internet and World Wide Web, the new topic information this book contains is timely. Other new and enhanced terminology is also extremely beneficial.

- Mike Donoghue, AMS Services (donoghmi@amsworld.com)

Superb
This third edition reflects the changes in the world of writing manuals, not just for print but also online (the web, online help, etc). While it's been a few years since the previous edition, Microsoft has made up for that by changing the book's format and including three "ebooks" on the CD (the style guide itself, Microsoft Computer Dictionary, and the Microsoft Networking Dictionary) that comes with the book.

The previous edition had all subjects alphabetized, which has changed somewhat in this edition has changed that. The book's first part is devoted to alphabetized subjects (called the Usage Dictionary). However the book's first part is devoted to other writing topics, ones which the book's authors obviously felt deserved their own major sections. Subjects like "documenting the user interface," format and layout, global content, indexing, common style issues, grammar, and punctuation. All topics in the book's first part are discussed throughly. And topics not discussed in the first part are addressed alphabetically in Part 2 of the book titled the "Usage Dictionary." The book's Table of Contents lists each item in the Usage Dictionary for easy referral.

I also liked how the authors recognized the changing world of documentation in the introduction where they point out how people using computers can be anyone from "home users," who use their computer for simple tasks, all the way to software developers, who produce programs for computers.

While this is intended for writers documenting Windows software, it serves well on its own as an excellent style guide.

Excellent Update...Much needed...Much Improved
As a technical writer I have been using the 2nd edition of this book for years as a primary resource. Obviously, its 1998 copy write date has made the 2nd edition more and more dated as time goes by.

I'm not going to go to specify which entries Microsoft has updated for this edition...I'll simply say that I have yet to look for an entry that should be there that wasn't. It's exactly what you'd expect for a new edition...it seems to be thorough.

What I did like is the book's new organization. It's divided into two sections:
1. General Topics
2. Usage Dictionary

The Usage Dictionary is essentially just like the 2nd edition, with all the latest XP terms and stuff. It's what I expected to get when I purchased the book.

The General Topics section is this volume's great improvement. Whereas topics like procedure guidelines, screen terminology, and grammatical suggestions were scattered throughout the 2nd edition (i.e., listed alphabetically) the editors realized that the 3rd edition would serve readers well if these types of entries had their own section. Consequently, the first 182 pages of the book contain chapters titled
1. Documenting the User Interface (includes naming conventions for screen terminology, dialog boxes, menus, etc.)
2. Content Formatting and Layout
3. Global Content
4. Content for Software Developers
5. Web Content
6. Indexing and Attributing
7. Tone and Rhetoric
8. Accessible Content
9. Common Style Problems
10. Grammatical Elements
11. Punctuation
12. List of Acronyms and Abbreviations

This first section is so good, in fact, that it should be considered standard reading for anyone who's going to be writing technical documents. It's comprehensive yet easy-to-read.

The book also comes with a CD-ROM that contains electronic versions of the following:
1. Microsoft Manual of Style, 3rd Edition
2. Microsoft Computer Dictionary, 5th Edition
3. Microsoft Encyclopedia of Networking, 2nd Edition

These e-books are not as convenient to use as the e-books that came with the 2nd edition (the new Style Manual e-book is just a big PDF), but they are nice resources to have...and I'll take what I can get. Certainly not a bad deal for the price.

Seems a Little Out-of-Date
It's difficult to give a good review to a book that has missed several publication deadlines. You'd think Microsoft would get it right for the 3rd edition and be able to ship it when promised, but apparently not. ... Read more

Book Description

West with the Night is the story of Beryl Markham--aviator, racehorse trainer, beauty--and her life in the Kenya of the 1920s and '30s.
... Read more

Reviews (79)

First Aviatrix in Africa
The rule is, I found, that females can't write. I am staying away from what my own gender writes. Beryl Markham is a wonderful exception to my rule. Ernest Hemingway felt dwarfed by the authoress.
Beryl wrote in 1936, and Africa were she grew up was obviously different than now. She describes first hand encounters with lions and elephants, very interesting observations on animal behavior. She also describes the natives, and I wished she would have even gotten more into them. I love her philosophy on life and often I got the feeling she is writing right now, not 70 years ago. A great book for people curious about Africa! Put it into your collection, because you want to read it again!
Addendum April 30, 2004: After writing the above review I have learned from the biography "The Lives of Beryl Markham" by Errol Trzebinski that Beryl did not write "West with the Night", but her third husband Raoul Schumacher, a Hollywood ghostwriter.
Addendum June 15, 2004: I read "The Splendid Outcast" and in the Introduction, Mary S. Lovell, who wrote another biography on Beryl and knew her personally, does not doubt the authorship is genuine Beryl Markham.

The Great American Novel - Only Its A True Story From Africa
Life and love, hardship and adventure, romance and history - all beautifully woven into a delightful autobiography of an unlikely heroine. The daughter of a poor white farmer trying to eke out a living in untamed and uncharted Africa, Beryl Markham rose from very humble beginnings to become a successful horse trainer, bush pilot, and the first person to fly east-to-west across the Atlantic from England. Her fantastic life seems to be one adventure after another, coincidentally commingled with the lives of Isak Dinesen (the author and heroine of "Out of Africa") and Denys Finch Hatton (played by Robert Redford in the movie, OOA). On this level alone, that of an adventure-packed historical tale, this book is compelling. But the absolute poetry of the narrative makes it inescapable.

Ms. Markham's inimitable flair for description and metaphor are enchantingly powerful. One could truly open the book to any random page and find a treasure. No previous knowledge of plot or precedence would be vital to the enjoyment. That such extraordinary prose also reveals an incredible life provides a rich dividend. Savor the following corsage randomly plucked from the bouquet:

"Arab Ruta... is of the tribe that observes with equal respect the soft voice and the hardened hand, the fullness of a flower, the quick finality of death. His is the laughter of a free man happy at his work, a strong man with lust for living. He is not black. His skin holds the sheen and warmth of used copper. His eyes are dark and wide-spaced, his nose is full-boned and capable of arrogance.

"He is arrogant now, swinging the propeller, laying his lean hands on the curved wood, feeling an exultant kinship in the coiled resistance to his thrust.

"He swings hard. A splutter, a strangled cough from the engine like the premature stirring of a sleep-slugged labourer. In the cockpit I push gently on the throttle, easing it forward, rousing the motor, feeding it, soothing it."

My first encounter with this charming book was accidental but fortuitous. I found the paperback in an airport bookstore, and stayed engrossed and enchanted by the lyrical meanderings for the entirety of my three-hour flight. A few years later I discovered the audio version which springs to an even greater life in the voice of Julie Harris. Her reading of the horse race that proved to be a watershed moment for Ms. Markham, still has the capacity to choke me to tears, though I have listened to it many times.

A few reviewers here have given less than laudatory reviews. This book is absolutely among the top five I have ever read, and I must pity those unfortunate souls who are tone-deaf to the rhapsodic music playing among its pages. Never mind my glowing endorsement. Never mind that Ernest Hemmingway said that Beryl Markham "has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer." Just find this book and open it randomly to any page. You will quickly discover that this book is an extraordinary encounter. Don't miss it!

Companion piece to Out of Africa. Should be read together
From the age of 4, Beryl Markham lived in East Africa and spent her childhood with native Maruni children as her only playmates. She was there during the same era as Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), author of Out of Africa, and reading these two books together gives a lyrical, poetic, and heart-full-of-love picture of the Africa they both knew. But it wasn't only Africa they loved; they both shared a passion for the same men: Bror Blixen (Dinesen's husband) and Denys Finch-Hatton (Dinnesen's lover), so, inevitably their paths collided at times.
Although Dinesen is more well-known and respected as a writer compared to Markham, better known as an adventurer, Markham rises to heights of poetic imagery and her writing style was praised highly by many other writers of her era, including no less than Ernest Hemingway.

Wonderful Life, Well Told
I read this book when it first came out in the early 80s and have never forgotten it. I love Beryl Markham's language; and the story she has to tell is better than any fiction. She was an independent spirit, living an amazing life in an immense and beautiful land.

A Special Book
I read this book on the recommendation of my husband, who had read it twice over the years, and various comments and adulations from others. I had not heard that there was controversy over the authorship of this magnificent work - but it would not have made any difference. It is a beautifully written book about a beautiful life. What more can one wish for? Whoever wrote this book had a style very little seen today. She writes with care and attention and humour, so that we can experience not only the mechanics of her exciting life, but also the self realisation she developed. The author makes me want to be alone so that I can share the silence of the soul and the environment that she describes so acutely. I have been enthusiastic with my recommendations of this work to my friends and I am sorry to read the rather sad "one star" reviews on this site. ... Read more

Book Description

To succeed in technical writing, you need a lot more than just writing ability. Technical Writing 101 details the skills you need as a technical writer, and it explains how to handle the pressures of tight deadlines and ever-changing product specifications. This valuable reference also describes the entire documentation process—planning, writing, editing, indexing, and production.

This updated second edition features the latest information on single sourcing and a new chapter on how trends in structured authoring and Extensible Markup Language (XML) affect technical writers. ... Read more

Book Description

Forensic Pathology: Principles and Practice is an extensively illustrated reference book that contains more than 1800 color photographs accompanied by well-considered text that thoroughly explains representative topics, and also provides abundant, up-to-date references for further reading. This well-written volume uses a case-oriented format to address, explain and guide the reader through the varied topics encountered by forensic pathologists. It will benefit not only the experienced forensic pathologist, but also the hospital pathologist who occasionally performs medicolegal autopsies. Doctors in training and those law enforcement officials investigating the broad spectrum of sudden, unexpected and violent deaths that may fall within the jurisdiction of medicolegal death investigators will also find this an invaluable resource.

* Large, colorful photographs which beautifully illustrate the concepts outlined in the text.
* Sample descriptions of pathological lesions which serve to aid pathologists in reporting their findings to law enforcement agencies, attorneys, and others involved in investigations of sudden death.
* 'Do and Don't' sections at the end of each chapter which provide guidance for handling the types of cases examined within preceding sections. ... Read more

Book Description

To understand the power of Geographical Information Systems and Geographical Positioning Systems today, it is essential to understand their background and history, and the needs they were designed to answer .This is the first comprehensive history of GIS for both practitioners and students.From GPS systems that help you find your destination in a rented car, to satellite imaging for locating new petroleum reserves, GIS technology is changing the world. This book brings together for the first time the expert testimonies of the pioneers, key scientists and entrepreneurs who created the GIS field and made it what it is today. It covers both the raster and vector sides of GIS development. From remote sensing to PC-based systems; from Land Information Systems to defense applications, this is the definitive history of GIS.For all GIS and GPS professional practitioners, developers and students. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Fans of Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado will certainly be attracted to The Chasm Companion, a step-by-step manual by longtime Moore associate Paul Wiefels that lays out specific ways to apply his popular tech-oriented business principles in our fast-changing world. But even those who never warmed to the earlier works--which proposed a pragmatic path for successfully navigating the ever-moving environment of "disruptive technologies that force changes in both strategy and behavior"--could find this book appealing. Designing The Chasm Companion as a hands-on field guide, Wiefels opens by explaining six "inflection points" in high-tech market development (the Early Market, the Chasm, the Bowling Alley, the Tornado, Main Street, Total Assimilation) that he and Moore insist everyone must carefully watch and properly react to as internal and external conditions evolve. He then outlines models and tools developed in the consulting practice he co-founded with Moore that enable individual corporations to carefully craft relevant strategies that they can align correctly with the appropriate market phases defined earlier. Finally, he presents initiatives (strategy validation, whole product management, marketing communications planning, and field engagement strategy) to help these firms actually implement their plans. Graphics and sidebars help Wiefels drive his points home clearly. --Howard Rothman ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Extends beyond high tech
Wiefels get to the heart of high tech marketing. Nothing I have read has more insights or is more useful in the practical application of marketing constructs for high tech. Anybody in high tech, indeed in marketing of any sort, can benefit from these concepts.

THE guide for tech marketeers and managers
It's a very simple and clear framework to keep in mind, with VERY practical results in day-to-day activities of product management (specially for those, like me, come from "techies" backgrounds). It's reccommended to read the other 5 books of Chasm Group to fully understand the concepts, but to start using as product manager, this is THE guide.

Tough Marketing Decisions Made Easier
Paul Wiefels has given a gift to marketing and technology executives by doing an extraordinarily difficult thing: adding yet more value to some of the most valuable marketing strategy books ever written (Geoffrey Moore's). For both readers and non-readers of Moore's books (Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, and others), The Chasm Companion is an immensely useful how-to guide to successfully marketing technology products and services. It provides thoughtful and provocative connective tissue between Moore's books for those who are already Chasm devotees, but doesn't rely on the reader already having familiarity with Moore for this book to be completely understandable and immediately actionable. The author's intimate experience with difficult technology marketing decisions saturates each chapter with a pragmatic perspective often missing from consultant-authored books. The "field guide" format insures that theory consistently supports rather than trumps practice and execution. As a strategy consultant and former Fortune 100 marketing executive, I highly recommend reading The Chasm Companion before your competitors do.

For converts of The Technology Adoption Life cyle
I have been a keen student of the Chasm Group publications for a number of years and this book starts to bridge the gap between the theory of visionaries, tornados, gorillas etc and the application of the concepts in practice. The style is very readable and filled with good "common sense". I have already started using it in earnest ... Read more

Reviews (1)

This is an excellent book.
I was required to take a technical writing course for my degree and this is the book we used. It did an excellent job of explaining how things should be professionally written. It covers everything from asking for a recommendation to typing a resume to typing a proper e-mail. The layout of the book makes everything very easy to learn. After every concept there are examples of what a proper document should look like and sometimes even an example of what it should not look like. At the time, I thought I would never use anything I was learning, but after only two months out of the class I find myself using it to type up my resume. If you are in a job that requires professionalism in language and writing skills then this book is a must have. You will be surprised at what you can learn. ... Read more

Book Description

Control of engineering documentation, sometimes called Configuration Management (CM) especially in the defense industries, is critical to world-class manufacturing survival. This new Second Edition of a highly successful engineering documentation handbook is one of the best blueprints for constructive, efficient EDC/CM ever published.

Use the ENGINEERING DOCUMENTATION CONTROL HANDBOOK to get on track right away and make the release of new products and their documentation flow smoothly and easily. The book is packed with specific methods that can be applied quickly and accurately to almost any industry and any product to control documentation, request changes to the product, make those changes and develop bills of material. The result is a powerful communications bridge between engineering and "the rest of the world" that makes rapid changes in products and documentation possible. With the help of the simple techniques in the HANDBOOK, companies can gain and hold their competitive advantages in a world that demands flexibility and quick reflexes -- and has no sympathy for delays.

The new edition contains substantial additions worked into the book and several new chapters. However, the thrust of the book retains the same focus on basics, rules and reasons. The author emphasizes that EDC or CM must be recognized as a key business strategy, and the days of "throwing it over the wall" are gone forever.

Key Features:

- Expanded case studies and actual experiences with consulting clients have been added

- New chapter on Benchmarking/Surveys contains real-life results of several surveys conducted and analyzed by the author that allow you to compare your enterprise with those surveyed

- Interchangeability and change cost sections have been substantially expanded and given separate chapters in recognition of their critical importance in the EDC strategy

Reviews (3)

Thorough Industry Configuration Management Resource...
...but not for Software CM.
As the title says, this is an Industry CM book. If your need is for Software CM, this book can be used for general CM concepts and background (and to develop a strong understanding of CM principles), but no more (get a software-specific CM/release management book instead). Only a few brief mentions of application of these concepts to software CM. If your need is for doc. control/industry CM, then this is probably an ideal book.

Great Inroduction to CM
Unlike the vast majority of books available on configuration management, this book, as the title suggests, focuses entirely on configuration management in industry. Throughout the book, the author focuses on a simplified, fast configuration management system that exceeds DoD standards. This book, in the chapters titled Change Control and Fast Change, has an exceptional explanation of how to handle configuration modifications. In these chapters the author gives a detailed description of how to set up a system that allows the fastest possible changes to take place. Also, many case studies are given in these sections which provide further insight as to how to implement the correct system for a given situation. Overall, the book is very easy to understand, and serves as an excellent introduction and handbook to a configuration management system for industry.

Crisp and practical guide to setting up a CM system.
This book explains the theory but includes plenty of examples of how to set up an Engineering Document Control, or Configuration Management (CM) system. The examples in the text focus on an imaginary manufacturing company. The text does include some mention of tailoring a CM system for software developers.

The text is crisp and the books organization clear and logical. One of the last chapters includes what is essentially a checklist of how to put together a CM system.

This is not a one size fits all system. The user must use the material in the book as a guide to tailor a CM system to their company's requirements.

Overall an indispensable book for someone trying to set up or overhaul a CM system. I highly recommend it. ... Read more

Book Description

This book guides users through the entire writing process—prewriting, writing, and rewriting—developing an easy-to-use, step-by-step technique for creating the types of documents they will encounter on the job. The authors' conversational style engages students in the writing process and encourages hands-on application.The book discusses ethics, audience identification, electronic communication, and the role of technical writing in the workplace.For anyone who needs to compose written presentations—and especially those who have no formal training in doing so. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

This really is a good book.
I learned a lot from this book.

Could you make a good even worse?
There has to be better books than this. Every third word is a contraction. i have no problem with them persay except should we use them all the time? besides the teacher who is teaching my class (Steve Gerson) wrote the book so it seems like a way for him to make money on the side and the ability to make the students use his book. His content on web pages should have been left out because its outated. Overall try not to use this book.

FINALLY! A Good Book in the Field of Technical Writing!
Steve and Sharon Gerson provide a comprehensive guide to Technical Writing, and then some. The reader gains practical technical communication knowledge and helpful guidelines to the job search as an added bonus. This book should be on the shelves of anyone with a career that require concise communication skills (in other words, EVERBODY). ... Read more

Book Description

Bombs are as old as hatred itself. But it was the twentieth century--one hundred years of incredible scientific progress and terrible war--that brought forth the Big One, the Bomb, humanity's most powerful and destructive invention. In The Bomb: A Life, Gerard DeGroot tells the story of this once unimaginable weapon that--at least since 8:16 a.m. on August 6, 1945--has haunted our dreams and threatened our existence.

The Bomb has killed hundreds of thousands outright, condemned many more to lingering deaths, and made vast tracts of land unfit for life. For decades it dominated the psyches of millions, becoming a touchstone of popular culture, celebrated or decried in mass political movements, films, songs, and books. DeGroot traces the life of the Bomb from its birth in turn-of-the-century physics labs of Europe to a childhood in the New Mexico desert of the 1940s, from adolescence and early adulthood in Nagasaki and Bikini, Australia and Kazakhstan to maturity in test sites and missile silos around the globe. His book portrays the Bomb's short but significant existence in all its scope, providing us with a portrait of the times and the people--from Oppenheimer to Sakharov, Stalin to Reagan--whose legacy still shapes our world.

Book Description

A journalist with unique access tells the gripping, never-before-told, inside story of America's elite troops in action -- from the nadir of their reputation after Vietnam to their preeminence today on the frontlines against terrorism around the world.

Special Forces soldiers are daring, seasoned troops from America's heartland, selected in a tough competition and trained in an extraordinary range of skills. They know foreign languages and cultures and unconventional warfare better than any U.S. fighters, and while they prefer to stay out of the limelight, veteran war correspondent Linda Robinson gained access to their closed world. She traveled with them on the frontlines, interviewed them at length on their home bases, and studied their doctrine, methods and history. In Masters of Chaos she tells their story through a select group of senior sergeants and field-grade officers, a band of unforgettable characters like Rawhide, Killer, Michael T, and Alan -- led by the unflappable Lt. Col. Chris Conner and Col. Charlie Cleveland, a brilliant but self-effacing West Pointer who led the largest unconventional war campaign since Vietnam in northern Iraq.

Robinson follows the Special Forces from their first post-Vietnam combat in Panama, El Salvador, Desert Storm, Somalia, and the Balkans to their recent trials and triumphs in Afghanistan and Iraq. She witnessed their secret sleuthing and unsung successes in southern Iraq, and recounts here for the first time the dramatic firefights of the western desert. Her blow-by-blow story of the attack on Ansar al-Islam's international terrorist training camp has never been told before. The most comprehensive account ever of the modern-day Special Forces in action, Masters of Chaos is filled with riveting, intimate detail in the words of a close-knit band of soldiers who have done it all. AUTHOR BIO: Linda Robinson is a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report. She was a Nieman fellow at Harvard University in 2000-2001 and in 1999 she received the Maria Moors Cabot prize form Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. She has covered numerous wars, guerrilla conflicts and special forces operations, and currently lives in Washington, D.C. ... Read more

Book Description

This Fourth Edition of the Quick Selection Guide to Chemical Protective Clothing has been revised significantly, including 100 new chemicals and approximately 1000 more selection recommendations compared to previous editions. The color-coded tables of recommendations containing 16 representative protective clothing materials have been updated by replacing two of the barriers.
The best-selling pocket guide now includes 700 chemicals, additional synonyms, CAS numbers, risk codes and special notations to alert the user. A section on chemical warfare agents and selection recommendations of protective clothing against chemical warfare agents, have also been added in this edition.

The Quick Selection Guide to Chemical Protective Clothing, Fourth Edition is an essential field guide for spill responders, safety engineers, industrial hygienists, chemists and chemical engineers, purchase agents, sales people, and workers in all industries. ... Read more

Book Description

Nanotechnology, science, and engineering spearhead the 21st century revolution that is leading to fundamental breakthroughs in the way materials, devices, and systems are understood, designed, made, and used. With contributions from a host of world-class experts and pioneers in the field, this handbook sets forth the fundamentals of nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), studies their fabrication, and explores some of their most promising applications. It provides comprehensive information and references for nanoscale structures, devices, and systems, molecular technology and nanoelectromechanical theory, and promises to become a standard reference for the field. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Very Young Field
Is Nanotech just more hype? Blue sky research with no practical products in sight?

This book hopes to dispell that by presenting a solid survey of the field. It does require a fairly high technical level in the reader, concentrated in engineering. This may be a good sign. Things are not relegated to pure research. Indeed, several chapters discuss possible biotech and molecular electronics applications. Though you should be warned that these might be harder to build than expressed in the confident tone of some authors.

Some readers may see parallels to a description of the semiconductor industry circa 1955, when some devices had been built, but the full potential was only just being suspected. If so, perhaps all the more reason for you to go into nanotech, using this book as one of your guides. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

This Style Guide Has Everything!
This book tells you how to do everything! It can be used by both students and professionals. This book has everything from how to properly use a comma to writing bibliographies; from how to use photographs in presentations and documents to writing resumes. This guide gives you hints on how to manage meetings effectively. I use this book at both work and home. People come to me to borrow this fantasic book constantly. I have the CD installed on my computer and love using the program - it is very user-friendly. I don't think any student or office should be without this wonderful tool.

Covey's CD doesn't work, neither does customer service!
I recently purchased the Covey Style Guide with CD Rom. The CD rom, after installation, wouldn't come up. I phoned Covey's 800 number and got bounced around to several people who said I had to go online for help, or else give my credit card up front for a minimum of $20 service charge. Their online system supposedly has a technician online, but I kept getting the message "Sorry, sometimes the system cuts of the reply. Please resend."

This is was too weird for me. This is not my idea of customer service!

Stephen Johnson
editor@healingpath.com

Great book to improve technical writing skills!
This book was great for improving my technical writing skills. I used this book as a required textbook for a masters degree program and felt it was great for my first class.

The most helpful style guide ever!
There are a number of useful style guides for technical and business writers on the market; this is my most favorite!

It is easy to understand, has great examples, covers all imaginable aspects of written communication, and - the best - it comes with exhaustive coverage on a CD.

Finally, it is definitely the best bank for your buck!

Great desktop reference for Technical Writers
This is a great reference tool for anyone starting out in the technical communications field! This book is very user friendly. It's apparent once you start flipping through the pages. All the topics, such as, "Editing and Proofreading," "Page Layout," and "Word Problems," are organized in alphabetical order and printed on the outside edge of the page's header in large easy-to-read font. I also appreciate the way each topic has the keypoints summarized at the beginning with numbers that corresponds to an in-depth discussion of the keypoints. The enclosed CD-ROM was also a great addition to this book. This book is a worthwhile investment! ... Read more

Book Description

This popular applications-oriented approach to engineering technology fluid mechanics covers all of the basic principles of fluid mechanics--both statics and dynamics--in a clear, practical presentation that ties theory directly to real devices and systems used in chemical process industries, manufacturing, plant engineering, waste water handling and product design. "The Big Picture" sections--focus on real products or systems where the principles of fluid mechanics are used, discuss the kind of fluid used, what the fluid is used for, how it behaves, what conditions exist in the system that affect its behavior, and the relationships between those systems. Features a "programmed approach" to completely worked, complex, real-world example problems; spreadsheets; a unique presentation of the Moody diagram; highlighted major formulae and definitions; and an extensive set of appendix tables.The Nature of Fluids. Viscosity of Fluids. Pressure Measurement. Forces on Submerged Plane and Curved Areas. Buoyancy and Stability. Flow of Fluids and Bernoulli's Equation. General Energy. Reynolds Number, Laminar Flow, and Turbulent Flow. Energy Losses Due to Friction. Minor Losses. Series Pipe Line Systems. Parallel Pipe Line Systems. Pump Selection and Application. Open Channel Flow. Flow Measurement. Forces Due to Fluids in Motion. Drag and Lift. Fans, Blowers, Compressors. Flow of Gases. Flow of Air in Ducts.For Mechanical, Manufacturing, and Industrial Engineers interested in Fluid Mechanics, Hydraulics, or Fluid Power. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Don't adapt for your course
The book is very shallow and not worth considering for any engineering or any technical degree. it might be good for high school level pre-engineering classes, but difinetly not at college or university level.

Bob Mott knows how to teach.
This is a great text for technology based fluid mechanics. To elementary for an engineering student, but then it was meant for an engineering technology student. I find it easy to use. My students love it. There are few, if any, technology based fluid mechanics texts available of this caliber. I only wish it were less expensive.

Best text I've had the pleasure to read, helpful examples
I am the type of person who generally hates the way that texts are written. I have always said, that if I were to write a text, it would be this way. The whole class talks about this book, we love it at at the University here. ... Read more

Book Description

The most important thing happening today is not reported in newspapers or on the TV news. It’s a global transformation of technology and society that is creating an age of hyperchange.

Since the future is hurtling toward us at breakneck speed, foresight is the great need of our times. We must think ahead if we are to cope with the hurricane-force changes now bashing at every aspect of our lives. This acceleration of change brings enormous opportunities as well as great dangers.

Most of us know better than to drive down a highway at eighty miles an hour without looking at the road ahead. But when it comes to steering our careers and businesses, we hardly ever consider what’s coming toward us. We often wind up in a nasty "crash" that we could have avoided if we had better anticipated possible developments.

This is where futuring can help.

Futuring is the art and science of exploring the future. It offers methods and techniques that can help you understand trends, identify opportunities and avoid dangers. Futuring can help you understand possible future developments, make better decisions, develop worthwhile goals, and find the means to achieve them. Futuring is a powerful way to help you and your organization to create a better future.

Virtually anyone can benefit from learning the skills and perspectives of futuring:
* Businesspeople can anticipate profitable new markets and innovative products.
* Investors can be ready to get in on the ground floor of emerging industries and new technologies.
* Educators and parents can help ensure that young people are properly prepared for the new world they’ll inherit.
* Students can plan out careers in highly rewarding professions.
* Concerned citizens and policy makers will find practical ways to help guide their communities and organizations to a successful future.

Futuring will open your eyes to the world of the future and how you can prepare for the opportunities and risks ahead. In addition, Futuring will guide you through the history of serious thinking about the future, including the development of the idea of progress in the seventeenth century to the disillusionment with progress that came in the twentieth century.

You will learn how far-sighted military planners, trend-watchers in business, and scholars in think tanks developed ways to think scientifically about the future so that leaders in government and business could prepare for the opportunities and risks ahead. Now you, too, can benefit from their discoveries. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A very important book
Thinking ahead is the great need of our times as the rapid pace of technological and social change affects work, home, education, health, amusements, environment and even religion. Futuring helps to understand trends, identify opportunities, and avoid dangers; it is a powerful way for individuals and organizations to create a better future. We cannot predict the future in detail but long-term shifts in population, land use, technology and governmental systems provide vital clues. We can all benefit by doing what futurists do, namely:
- preparing for what we will face in the future
- anticipating our possible future needs, problems and opportunities
- identifying possible situations that might be encountered
- expecting the unexpected
- thinking long-term as well as short-term
- dreaming productively
- using even poor information if that is all that is available
- learning from our successful predecessors
Futurists have identified many trends but for simplicity Cornish limits discussion to six super trends shaping our future:
- technological progress
- economic growth
- improving health and longevity
- increasing mobility
- environmental decline
- increasing deculturation
Assuming no big surprises these super trends allow us to create a picture of what the world might look like under a 'continuation scenario'. This picture of the future is not a forecast but a way of thinking how we might prevent certain things happening and how we might create a better future.

We tend to feel powerless and that we have little control over our future. Chance or even trivial events can have enormous consequences and the possibility that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil could cause a tornado in Texas high lights the chaotic world we live in. The butterfly effect also highlights the enormous effect even our simple actions can make to the future. Once we recognize our power over the future, we have the responsibility to exercise that power as well as we can. We must seek to understand the possibilities of the future and how to work toward influencing events in a way that will be beneficial. Myriad potential futures lie before us; we can only imagine them and many lie beyond our wildest imagining. Reconstructing humanity's response to his environment and the astonishing number of ways in which different groups of people express themselves in language, music, art, objects of worship, food and housing would have been beyond our most creative brainstorming sessions. Yet each cultural pattern represents a series of choices that a given people has made during its social and cultural evolution. Each people has carved out a different destiny for itself. Likewise, we have enormous freedom to shape our lives. We must abandon the notion that we must have absolutely certain knowledge before we can act; we must base our actions on probabilities and highly uncertain knowledge. We need to train ourselves to think realistically and creatively about the future by simplifying complexities and imagining a much wider range of possibilities than we are in the habit of doing.

The goal of futuring is not to predict the future but to improve it. We must try to prevent the crises of tomorrow so we can avoid disasters. We must mobilize people ahead of time through a democratic process whereby groups of people create their own vision of the future. Edward Lindaman saw how Kennedy's awe-inspiring vision of putting a man on the moon mobilized people to achieve a miracle and he organized citizen groups to create visions of desirable futures for their communities. Clement Bezold outlines five stages in building a vision:
- identification of problems
- identification of past successes
- identification of desires for the future
- identification of measurable goals
- identification of resources to achieve those goals
The vision must be widely shared because people must really believe they can shape their future, commit themselves to doing it, and be prepared to do the hard work involved.

DEGEST - an acronym for demography, economy, government, environment, society/culture, and technology - is a tool for understanding the world around us and bringing us to the threshold of the future at which point futurists use scenarios or conjecture about what might happen in the future. "Scenarios give us an excellent way to think in an orderly manner about future possibilities, assess their probability and likelihood, and evaluate strategies that we might employ to achieve a chosen goal. But imagining scenarios is a challenge to our creativity: We need to come up with lots of ideas about what might happen in the future, since we cannot expect the future to be simply a replay of the past." Scenarios are particularly useful in dealing with wild cards - events that we do not expect to happen but having enormous consequences if they did and the main purpose of thinking about wild cards is to chip away at the rigidities of ideas about the future and open up a new level of creative thinking. 9/11 and the leaps from horse to car, from pen to typewriter and from typewriter to computer were wild card events and over the course of a century there might be several thousand wild cards so we have to expect them to impact our lives in times of rapid change. New ways of thinking are required to overcome our unwillingness to think seriously about future events thought to be unlikely. Putting a man on the moon demonstrated human ability to shape the future. Just as Thomas Edison trained himself to produce one minor invention every ten days and one major invention every six months, so we can train ourselves to prepare for the future and this book is an excellent place to start. ... Read more