Adobe Photoshop Elements 7: A Visual Introduction to Digital Photography

Editorial Reviews

Book Description
Invaluable guide for all photographers using Adobe Photoshop Elements 7

Product Description
'Introduction to Elements' is the essential all-round resource pack for all users of Adobe Photoshop Elements 7. Bestselling author Philip Andrews has refined this industry-standard resource over numerous editions, to bring you exactly the information you need to get right up to speed with the software, cut out wasted time in your workflow, and consistently achieve photographic results you can be proud of.
Philip approaches the subject of Photoshop Elements in a straightforward and accessible style. As a working photographer, he brings an in-depth understanding of the image-manipulation needs of photographers, and the best ways to meet them to his teaching. In the words of one reviewer: 'he comes across as a friend, who wants you to succeed'. His approach is always practical, with an emphasis on clarity. Step-by-step tutorials guide you through every essential Elements process, from image import right through to optimised output for print, web, and email, using a winning combination of inspiring images, clear screenshots and clean prose. Key subjects covered include: layers and selections, combining text with images, 'painting' tools, stiching, scrapbooking and file management. Additionally, the accompanying Website features over 2 hours of video tutorials to further boost your knowledge.
Completely overhauled for Elements 7, this resource is right up-to-date for photographers using the latest edition of this powerful software. Whatever your Elements level, you will find a wealth of invaluable advice in the pages of this book.

* Essential reference for all things Elements, fully updated for version 7
* Includes Website featuring over 2 hours of invaluable video tutorials to help you get up to speed quickly
* Written by renowned Elements guru and bestselling author Philip Andrews


Product Details

* Paperback: 456 pages
* Publisher: Focal Press (November 3, 2008)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 0240521579
* ISBN-13: 978-0240521572
* Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.4 x 1.3 inches
* Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
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Fresher Styles for Web Designers: More Eye Candy from the Underground

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Fresher Styles for Web Designers surveys eight innovative, contemporary visual design styles that break the mold and offer creative solutions to a variety of interactive design challenges. Readers will learn practical ways to incorporate these design approaches into their commercial work, using specific online examples as illustration.

In 2001, Cloninger wrote Fresh Styles for Web Designers, arguing that beauty actually enhances usability. Since then, styles and technologies have evolved, but clients still expect sites that both function well and visually entice. This book will inspire web designers and developers to deliver sites that do both. There are plenty of web design books that teach code. There are several books about contemporary print design that discuss visual aesthetics. This book stands out because it synthesizes experimental web design innovations with commercial marketing goals (without ignoring usability concerns).


Product Details

* Paperback: 240 pages
* Publisher: New Riders Press; 1 edition (December 26, 2008)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 0321562690
* ISBN-13: 978-0321562692
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System i Disaster Recovery Planning

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Mapping out all the preparations necessary for an effective disaster recovery plan and its safeguard—a continuous maintenance program—this guide is aimed at IT managers of small and medium businesses. The opening section covers the initial steps of auditing vulnerability, ranking essential IT functions, and reviewing the storage of tape backups, with the following discussion focused on the elements of the plan itself. The plan includes a mission statement, a definition of disaster, the assignment of staff to teams, methods of compensating for human error, and standards for documenting the steps of recovery. The final portion of the guide covers the all-important initial testing of the system as well as the proper maintenance thereafter and weighs in on the pros and cons of using outside vendors for recovery systems.


About the Author

Richard Dolewski is a certified systems integration specialist and disaster recovery planner. He has extensive experience in Server Enterprise Availability, Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP), Business Continuity Planning (BCP), High Availability, and Backup and Recovery program design. Richard has supported 18 computer room disasters and conducted over 200 disaster recovery tests. He is an award-winning speaker at technical conferences including IBM, COMMON, IBM Europe, IT Executive events, Quest, NEMA, and local user groups. Richard has held positions as subject matter expert at IBM and COMMON, a member of the Advisory Committee for IBM Business Resiliency, and president of local user groups. He also regularly contributes to several technical newsletters. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.
Product Details

* Paperback: 350 pages
* Publisher: Mc Press (April 1, 2008)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 1583470670
* ISBN-13: 978-1583470671
* Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.9 x 1.4 inches
* Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
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The Appeal

Editorial Reviews

1. Your new novel starts off where most courtroom dramas end--with the verdict. Where did you get the idea to reverse the usual order of events this time around?
The actual trial is not a terribly significant part of the story. Most all of the action and intrigue begins after the trial is over, with the verdict and the subsequent appeal.


2. The Appeal overtly suggests that elected judges can be bought. If the novel is meant as a cautionary tale, what's next--the Presidential primaries?
Why not? Over one billion dollars will be spent next year in the Presidential primaries and general election. With that kind of money floating around, anything can be bought.


3. Speaking of electoral politics, you've been more vocal recently about your political views ... first supporting Jim Webb for Senate and now endorsing Hillary Clinton for the White House. Have you given any thought to running for office yourself?
No. I made that mistake 25 years ago, and promised myself I would never do it again. I enjoy watching and participating in politics from the sidelines, but it's best to keep some distance.


4. This is your first legal thriller in three years. How did it feel to get back to the genre that started it all, and can fans expect another thriller from you next year?
I still enjoy writing the legal thrillers, and don't plan to get too far away from them. Obviously, they have been very good to me, and they remain popular. I plan to write one a year for the next several years.


5. Your nonfiction book The Innocent Man continues to be a bestseller in paperback. In your ongoing work with The Innocence Project, have you come across another story of the wrongfully convicted that begs to be written as nonfiction?
There are literally hundreds of great stories out there about wrongfully convicted defendants. I am continually astounded by these stories, and I resist the temptation to take the plunge again into non-fiction.


6. What's on your bedside reading list at the moment?
1. The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin
2. Eric Clapton's autobiography
3. East of Eden by John Steinbeck.



From Publishers Weekly
A Mississippi jury returns a $41-million verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping carcinogenic waste into a small town's water supply. The company's ruthless billionaire CEO is thwarted and the good guys (a courageous young woman who lost her husband and child and her two lawyers who've gone half a million dollars in debt preparing her case) receives its just reward. This sounds like the end of a Grisham legal thriller, but instead it's the beginning of a book-length lesson in how greed and big business have corrupted our electoral and judicial systems. Grisham's characters are over-the-top. The CEO and the other equally overdone villains—his venal trophy wife, a self-serving senator and a pair of smarmy political fixers—as well as the unbelievably good-hearted, self-sacrificing lawyers and an honorable state judge, are one dimensional. Michael Beck, with his natural Southern drawl, does a fine job of adding credibility and nuance to the large cast. But his efforts are for naught. In fact, the more he makes us feel for these characters, the less apt we are to be satisfied with the sourball moral of Grisham's downbeat discourse.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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Product Details

* Hardcover: 368 pages
* Publisher: Doubleday; 1 edition (January 29, 2008)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 0385515049
* ISBN-13: 978-0385515047
* Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
* Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
* Average Customer Review:

456 Reviews
5 star: 20% (93)
4 star: 17% (79)
3 star: 15% (69)
2 star: 23% (106)
1 star: 23% (109)

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2.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (456 customer reviews)

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this startlingly frank account of Buffett's life, Schroeder, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley—and hand picked by Buffett to be his biographer—strips away the mystery that has long cloaked the word's richest man to reveal a life and fortune erected around lucid and inspired business vision and unimaginable personal complexity. In a book that is dominated by unstinting descriptions of Buffett's appetites—for profit, women (particularly nurturing maternal types), food (Buffett maintained his and his family's weight by "dangling money")—it is refreshing that Schroeder keeps her tone free of judgment or awe; Buffett's plain-speaking suffuses the book and renders his public and private successes and failures wonderfully human and universal. Schroeder's sections detailing the genesis of Buffett's investment strategy, his early mentoring by Benjamin Graham (who imparted the memorable "cigar butt" scheme: purchasing discarded stocks and taking a final puff). Inspiring managerial advice abounds and competes with gossipy tidbits (the married Buffett's very public relationship with Washington Post editor Katherine Graham) in this rich, surprisingly affecting biography.


Review
“The mandatory book to read in these treacherous times of financial crisis.…A thoughtful and intimate biography of the globe’s wisest investor.” –Forbes

“Will mesmerize anyone interested in who Mr. Buffett is or how he got that way.” The Snowball tells a fascinating story.”–New York Times

“If the replication of any great achievement first requires knowledge of how it was done, then The Snowball, the most detailed glimpse inside Warren Buffett and his world that we likely will ever get, should become a Bible for capitalists.” —Washington Post

“Anyone who has been watching events unfold in recent months–which would be everyone–can now appreciate the wisdom of Buffett....The most authoritative portrait of one of the most important American investors of our time.”–Los Angeles Times

“Even people who don't care a whit about business will be intrigued by this portrait… Schroeder, a former insurance-industry analyst, spent years interviewing Buffett, and the result is a side of the Oracle of Omaha that has rarely been seen.” —Time Magazine

"Schroeder, a former analyst, has a meat-and-potatoes style that matches the homespun wisdom of her subject...Now more than ever, Buffett's emphasis on fundamentals seems like genius. It's the perfect moment for a great book on an immensely inspiring capitalist."–People, four stars

“Schroeder, a former investment analyst, is well equipped to elucidate Buffett’s deals…[and] Buffett’s life abounds with good stories.” —The New Yorker

“An instructive chronicle of financial success at a moment when financial failure is on everyone’s mind....All you wanted to know about Warren Buffett–and more.”—Wall Street Journal

“You will learn a lot about one of the nation's most compelling and important men from reading The Snowball.” —Boston Globe

“In The Snowball, novice biographer Alice Schroeder gives us one of the most detailed, candid life stories ever published…It is almost impossible to stop reading.” —Christian Science Monitor

“A penetrating and personal look at the Oracle of Omaha…An astute, and at times riveting, read–especially now.”—BusinessWeek

“Everyone knows that in a deep and liquid capital market like that of the US, it is just about impossible to beat the stock market averages over anything more than the short term. But Buffett has been ahead of the curve for most of the past 50 years, making him one of the world’s richest people. Alice Schroeder’s massive authorized biography, The Snowball, provides some clues about how he’s done it.” —Financial Times

“In this startlingly frank account of Buffett’s life, Schroeder, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley–and hand picked by Buffett to be his biographer–strips away the mystery that has long cloaked the word’s richest man to reveal a life and fortune erected around lucid and inspired business vision and unimaginable personal complexity.” —Publishers Weekly

“This massive–and highly readable–text (produced with Buffett’s full cooperation) is an unvarnished and well-paced biography that is essential for all public and academic business collections.” —Library Journal

“For students of the Oracle of Omaha, or even those looking for a little reassurance during the crisis, Schroeder's book is a fascinating study of America's most successful investor.” —New York Post

“If you've looked at your 401(k) statement and started to fear that everyone in financial markets is either greedy, predatory or incompetent, do yourself a favor. Take $35 out of the mattress and buy a copy of Alice Schroeder's The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life. At a time like this, it's a real comfort: Buffet is living proof there's at least one wholly rational person managing money…an excellent and highly enjoyable look at the business titan.” —Houston Chronicle

“Ms. Schroeder does a good job of pulling…volunteered disclosures out of Mr. Buffett but her real contribution is her own investment expertise which enables her to make the convoluted financing schemes over the last 50 years understandable to lay readers and truly instructive to the business information junkie.” —Washington Times

“This is a fast-paced, precisely drawn profile of a man who, despite his high visibility in the financial world, isn’t someone we’ve known much about… We do now.” —Kansas City Star

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Product Details

* Hardcover: 976 pages
* Publisher: Bantam (September 29, 2008)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 0553805096
* ISBN-13: 978-0553805093
* Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.7 x 2.2 inches
* Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
* Average Customer Review:

89 Reviews
5 star: 65% (58)
4 star: 16% (15)
3 star: 8% (8)
2 star: 6% (6)
1 star: 2% (2)

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4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (89 customer reviews)

Outliers: The Story of Success

Editorial Reviews

Amazon Best of the Month, November 2008: Now that he's gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."


Outliers can be enjoyed for its bits of trivia, like why most pro hockey players were born in January, how many hours of practice it takes to master a skill, why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers became the most powerful lawyers in New York, how a pilots' culture impacts their crash record, how a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps Asian kids master math. But there's more to it than that. Throughout all of these examples--and in more that delve into the social benefits of lighter skin color, and the reasons for school achievement gaps--Gladwell invites conversations about the complex ways privilege manifests in our culture. He leaves us pondering the gifts of our own history, and how the world could benefit if more of our kids were granted the opportunities to fulfill their remarkable potential. --Mari Malcolm



From Publishers Weekly
SignatureReviewed by Leslie ChangIn Outliers, Gladwell (The Tipping Point) once again proves masterful in a genre he essentially pioneered—the book that illuminates secret patterns behind everyday phenomena. His gift for spotting an intriguing mystery, luring the reader in, then gradually revealing his lessons in lucid prose, is on vivid display. Outliers begins with a provocative look at why certain five-year-old boys enjoy an advantage in ice hockey, and how these advantages accumulate over time. We learn what Bill Gates, the Beatles and Mozart had in common: along with talent and ambition, each enjoyed an unusual opportunity to intensively cultivate a skill that allowed them to rise above their peers. A detailed investigation of the unique culture and skills of Eastern European Jewish immigrants persuasively explains their rise in 20th-century New York, first in the garment trade and then in the legal profession. Through case studies ranging from Canadian junior hockey champions to the robber barons of the Gilded Age, from Asian math whizzes to software entrepreneurs to the rise of his own family in Jamaica, Gladwell tears down the myth of individual merit to explore how culture, circumstance, timing, birth and luck account for success—and how historical legacies can hold others back despite ample individual gifts. Even as we know how many of these stories end, Gladwell restores the suspense and serendipity to these narratives that make them fresh and surprising.One hazard of this genre is glibness. In seeking to understand why Asian children score higher on math tests, Gladwell explores the persistence and painstaking labor required to cultivate rice as it has been done in East Asia for thousands of years; though fascinating in its details, the study does not prove that a rice-growing heritage explains math prowess, as Gladwell asserts. Another pitfall is the urge to state the obvious: No one, Gladwell concludes in a chapter comparing a high-IQ failure named Chris Langan with the brilliantly successful J. Robert Oppenheimer, not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires and not even geniuses—ever makes it alone. But who in this day and age believes that a high intelligence quotient in itself promises success? In structuring his book against that assumption, Gladwell has set up a decidedly flimsy straw man. In the end it is the seemingly airtight nature of Gladwell's arguments that works against him. His conclusions are built almost exclusively on the findings of others—sociologists, psychologists, economists, historians—yet he rarely delves into the methodology behind those studies. And he is free to cherry-pick those cases that best illustrate his points; one is always left wondering about the data he evaluated and rejected because it did not support his argument, or perhaps contradicted it altogether. Real life is seldom as neat as it appears in a Malcolm Gladwell book. (Nov.)Leslie T. Chang is the author of Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China (Spiegel & Grau).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

* Hardcover: 320 pages
* Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (November 18, 2008)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 0316017922
* ISBN-13: 978-0316017923
* Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
* Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
* Average Customer Review:

31 Reviews
5 star: 45% (14)
4 star: 32% (10)
3 star: 6% (2)
2 star: 3% (1)
1 star: 12% (4)

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3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)

PHP: A BEGINNER'S GUIDE

Editorial Reviews
Product Description

Essential Skills--Made Easy!

Learn how to build dynamic, data-driven Web applications using PHP. Covering the latest release of this cross-platform, open-source scripting language, PHP: A Beginner's Guide teaches you how to write basic PHP programs and enhance them with more advanced features such as MySQL and SQLite database integration, XML input, and third-party extensions. This fast-paced tutorial provides one-stop coverage of software installation, language syntax and data structures, flow control routines, built-in functions, and best practices.



Designed for Easy Learning:

*
Key Skills & Concepts--Lists of specific skills covered in the chapter
*
Ask the Expert--Q&A sections filled with bonus information and helpful tips
*
Try This--Hands-on exercises that show how to apply your skills
*
Notes--Extra information related to the topic being covered
*
Tips--Helpful reminders or alternate ways of doing things
*
Cautions--Errors and pitfalls to avoid
*
Self-Tests--Chapter-ending quizzes to test your knowledge
*
Annotated Syntax--Example code with commentary that describes the programming techniques being illustrated



About the Author

Vikram Vaswani is the founder and CEO of Melonfire, a company specializing in software consultancy and content creation and syndication services. He is the author of PHP Programming Solutions, How to do Everything with PHP and MySQL, and MySQL: The Complete Reference. Vikram is the author of numerous well-received articles on open-source technologies (including Perl, Python, XML and the very popular PHP 101 series), all written with the goal of making complex technologies accessible and understandable to novice users. He has been developing software since 1995, was first introduced to PHP in 1998, and hasn't looked back since. Vikram is regular columnist with Zend Technologies (creators of PHP), as well as with IBM DeveloperWorks, CNET Builder.com, DevX.com and other OSS sites.
Product Details

* Paperback: 478 pages
* Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 1 edition (October 2, 2008)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 0071549013
* ISBN-13: 978-0071549011
* Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.1 inches
* Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
* Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.