One of the good manuals out there
346301
It fills in the blank spots and extends other manuals.  Also a good cross check for other reference material as there is such a thing as printing error.
4607760
Many years ago I bought a second hand Ford Cortina in dubious condition. I kept it running with the assistance of a marvelous volume purchased at a specialist bookstore that was referred to as "the shop manual." It wasn't much help teaching you how to drive or how to park but if you needed to know how to perform an oil change, flush the radiator or bleed the brakes it told you all the details. Now James Duncan Davidson has given me a shop manual for Macintosh OS X Panther.

This volume assumes you know how to use your Mac, how to perform all the routine changes that are easily accomplished with the GUI. Davidson also assumes you don't want to know how to get a movie running as your desktop, or get an Expos blob floating on the screen or any of the usual sort of 'hacks' or 'hints.' What he gives is a good guide to lifting the hood and performing serious mechanical work or tweaking the performance of your Mac with enough background information so that you can feel confident taking your own steps.

It was good after a few near misses to read an O'Reilly book that was once again well written, well edited, tight and crammed full of information pitched at just the right level. Davidson has done an excellent job with this book.

Davidson starts with a little history, and from the viewpoint he presents, this is not a waste of space; he spends his time explaining exactly how we arrived at the current version of the Mac OS.

Then we have a chapter titled "Lay of the Land" that explores the file system, including both the Finder view and the view you get from the command line. It also explains the four file system domains and the 'Library' directory. The third chapter is a quick (20 pages) look at the Terminal and shell.

Then we get 'Part II: Essentials,' which is the 120-page core of the book. This starts off, logically, with system startup and the login (and log out and shutdown). This is followed by short chapters on users and groups, files and permissions, monitoring, scheduling and preferences and defaults before a marvelous long chapter on the file system. Davidson goes into great detail and closely covers each of the topics, making sure that you get all the details not just 'recipes.'

Part III ("Advanced Topics") starts with a chapter on Open Directory that I found particularly useful. It includes coverage on Kerberos and single sign-on that explains it well, as well as the command-line Open Directory tools. The chapter on printing could have had a bit more guts. It covers the obvious but leaves out such joys as CUPS apart from a half-page sidebar; since sharing printers has caused me more than a little grief I would have appreciated more detail here. The final chapter on networking is better, and provides more useful detail.

It must be said that this section concentrates more on user level detail and leaves out real information on server level software and options. Given the target group for this book, and that a book has to draw a line somewhere, this is quite fair.

Davidson has picked his topics well, almost everyone will find all of Part II useful and educational. Part III is perfect for people wanting to run Panther in a corporate environment. He has balanced the command line and GUI well, pointing out where you can do a job with both and explaining the details.

I would recommend this book to any Panther user with a moderate amount of experience. It is not for the newcomer to the Mac, perhaps, but everyone else will benefit from this book.
1468862
A must have in my essential library a well laid out manual
684205
This is a clearly written and practical introduction to Photoshop Elements.  It rewards both browsing and reading front to back for the various tidbits you can pick up.  The on-line manual that comes with Photoshop Elements 7 is hard to navigate and does a poor job of explaining how to do things, so a supplementary book such as this is essential, and this one does a very good job.
4528334
This volume contains even more information than previous Haynes manuals I have used.  It contains good, clear photographs of various parts of the car in place and partially dismantled, not just line drawings. I was pleasantly  surprised to find information on how to get the "check engine  soon" light to go out after changing oil and other service procedures.  It also includes a pretty complete set of wiring diagrams.  These are  things not always found in car repair manuals for the do-it-yourselfer.
571314
Quick-Ref Owners Manual is a very useful book.  It's small, easy to carry around and it's full of information that anyone would be interested in.  It's topics range from diet & fitness, time management, history, and timelines, to sports and test taking.  There are so many things that you can learn from this book.
4053110
Nothing overly great to say about this manual.  Nothing bad, either.  It walks you through, step by step, on how to do many of the maintenance tasks that you might need to do as an owner of an aging BMW.  It has pictures, but the pictures aren't necessarily as detailed as I would like, and give a sometimes vague idea of the wheres and whats of various components.  It's useful, but not excessively so.  My recommendation, instead of purchasing this manual, is to invest a bit more and get the "Bentley" guide for this car, as it is far more comprehensive.  Or, similarly, use your smart phone or computer, and get a DIY from a Google search.
4130523
It's solid.  It has a "cookbook" feel to it, which I like.  What I mean by that is that the book dishes out info in a succinct way and covers pretty much what you'd like to know when building an app. Things like, prepping the xml description file, accessing the local file system, connecting to remote data, interacting with the OS. Good stuff.

I don't like how short it is, about 300 pages. The text is big, has lots of pictures (this is good but it inflates the page count), and a few tables that I thought were unnecessary.

If you are competent in Actionscript, but don't know much about AIR, this is great.  I'm an advanced ActionScripter, so this book really just fills in a few holes I had about AIR, and will serve as a good reference when I need to be reminded how to say, move a directory on the users computer or how to set the window chrome of an application.
16757
This book is written in a direct, simple style that makes it very useful.  The diagrams are ok, but it is the books prose which is really the value here.  I've used a Visible Ops book and another by Pink Elephant, but I keep coming back to Rob Addy's book, and always get good advise.
The level of detail strikes a good balance, and I find the bullet points to be very helpful.
I especially like the "common mistakes" sections in many of the chapters.
1800599
I work in the security field and this book is a quality manual to keep around.  It definitely covers a ton of material in such a small package.  It is not overly detailed in it's explanations, but I don't find that to be a problem as I see it as more of a quick reference guide to spark a memory than an all inclusive reference book.
4175817
The manual was in great condition and it had the information in it that I was looking for.
2674690
This Bentley repair manual is actually very, very good. It's a massive book with loads of useful information about the Jetta. It is so much better than what I had (which was the web). It is better than the typical Chilton or Hayes manuals, which I've owned a dozen of over the years.

I'm fairly mechanically inclined. I change the fluids and do all the routine maintenance myself. I had even changed the timing belt twice before getting the manual. When I go looking to a manual, I'm looking for details that can't be readily observed by a somewhat competent shade tree mechanic/driving enthusiast.

When I bought the manual, I was repairing a couple electrical issues on my TDI Jetta (bad fan control module and failed fan) and despite having a decent electrical diagram, it did not have enough information to actually diagnose the exact problem. I got further information from the Bentley support forums (yeah, the guys that write the book support the purchasers of it!) and learned that the electronic version has the additional information I was needing. Specifically, pinouts of components along with methods for testing individual components (such as, apply 12v here, jumper pins 2 and 3, and X should happen. If not, Y is defective). This book has some of that, but not enough.

Having that information is the difference between knowing for certain if buying a particular non-returnable electrical component will actually fix the problem.
4269119
This book has alot of attributes I like, it has sections on the Kubelwagen, Schwimmwagen, and "bug" peoples car.  I was looking for more of a technical manual concerning pictures of the drivetrain, to include the four wheel drive, but there is a diagram in there and some talk of that all wheel drive employed, especially in the schwimmwagen, there is photo's of cutaway drawings of the front drive mechanisms which are good, a little dark and small but legible, well worth having the book for that.
I've had work as a mechanic in the past that got me associated with the transaxles, split case, tunnel type, swing and irs axles, I wouldn't mind seeing a complete diagram and photo overview of the four wheel drive mechanism, but alas I have other books coming that may, not to knock this book, its great, and it does have a reprint of the original four wheel drive assembly.
I learned alot about the schwimmwagen I didn't know previously, wished I had one or a reproduction, I saw on yourtube a guy made his own reproduction kubelwagen, so anything is possible these days.  Of course, my interests are from a purely mechanical aspect, I have a degree in automotive technology, have rebuilt vintage vw transaxles, once had alot of vintage volkswagen specialized tools, and appreciate the simplicity of a design that was manufactured right up till the 2000's last in Mexico as the type 1 version, only to cease production cause Mexico came up with a new rule that all new cabs must have four doors, ha, ya know, they used them for cabs, and if I remember rightly, it was the swingaxle version.

Recently I found Kubelwagen and Schwimmwagen repair manuals and parts list manuals, four in all, reproduced, I'll know how great those are when they arrivve, but like I said, I love this book, actually own two of them, my first one had unfortunate underlining in it and property stamping, I hate underlining in books, and property stampings never work when loaning out books.
536309
This manual does a pretty good job in showing you what order and direction to follow a process to tackle no so extensive repairs. It is a definite must have if you are going to do your own mid range repairs and need simplified information on your vehicle.
1645604
Folks who are serious about their HD motorcycles understand that there are a whole lot of companies  making the same parts Harley makes - only a little different - sometimes better. Clymer's manual fits that category.  It expands on the format of the standard Harley-Davidson service manual by  including far more illustrations, troubleshooting tips and parts  diagarams.
The only area that requires improvement is the  "wiring  diagrams" section.  If you're buying this  to sort out an electrical  problem - you might be happier with the factory manual.  This appears to be  a result of the books smaller format.  The diagrams are smaller and the  letters used to identify wire colors are all but illegible (on my copy  anyway).
Still, if your serious about doing your own  "wrenching" this will be a worthwhile addition to your reference  library.
4008950
This book is very good. A little more detailed than the other manuals I have read. It definitely helps when there is nothing to go on from iPad. Organization leaves a little to be desired, and subject matter could be clarified a little better. It does take for granted that one knows a little about iPads, but nontheless, I would buy the book again.
1384044
I bought Peter Burian's A 900 Guide to help me with getting the most out of my new Sony A 850 as the 2 cameras are almost identical except for a few features.

If, like me, you try to  avoid reading  the manufacturer's instruction manuals that come with the camera, you will certainly get a lot out of the book.  it's well written, gets straight to the point and covers all the important processes that a user will want to know about.

You'll notice that I used the word processes, not features . This is the reason why I do not read manufacturer's instruction manuals - they tell you all about the functions and features of the camera, but do not tell you what you really want to know - how to use these features to do something that will result in a good picture.

A nice feature is his coverage of the pros and cons of various  Sony Alpha lenses availablle for use on this full frame camera .