"All" About Electricity - but should have been called An Overview Of Electricity
351469
Note: this is not an actual book, but it is an eBook for Kindle.

This book, Lets Get Charged! (All About Electricity) is an entertaining book by Speedy Publishing. I have now purchased multiple Baby Professor books, and both my child and I enjoy reading them. I believe that they give some great basic facts while inspiring children to ask questions and learn more. I like that this book is on the short side which helps with the attention spans of younger children.

As with other Baby Professor books, the photographs are beautiful full color and very detailed. The books are short at 18 pages, but they do give quite a few facts within that short amount of pages. And also as with other Baby Professor books, some of the language is a bit advanced for children. It does give opportunity for discussion with children, so I appreciate that.

We purchased this book to learn All about electricity, and was disappointed to find out that it really was not all, but more of an overview. Seeing as this book was geared to fifth graders, I thought there would be more information besides what they provided. An example is that the author introduced AC/DC but didn't explain what they mean. Also as another reviewer stated, the definition on the first page is right out of Wikipedia. The author didn't even bother to mix up the language at all. In my world, that would be called plagiarism!

I rarely give any book a five star rating, but this book is enjoyable and at least gives an introduction to electricity which could stem into a larger discussion. I am giving this eBook three stars. I was given this product in exchange for my honest review.
1171579
This is an excellent overview of the field and the options on the market, but it is neither comprehensive, nor detailed.  If you want to know what home automation is, and what some of your options are, then this is a good bet.  You'll find out some of the ways you can control your lighting, control the heating, lock the door, etc.  There are whole technologies left out, such as automatic toilet bowl cleaners, automatic shower cleaners, robotic window washers...  With a book like that, the information is guaranteed to go stale fast, but these technologies were on the market well before the book was published.

Some of the things that were left out were some of the more interesting components.  WeMo Maker, for example, lets you add automation to some devices that don't support it.  It's not listed.  No homemade IoT devices are listed.  No Pi.  No Arduino.  Nothing of the sort.  This book is nowhere near that technical.

Various companies like Verizon offer inexpensive solutions that are partly custom and partly do it yourself.  They are a great option for first time automaters, and are not listed.  You can have multiple elements work together, so for a movie night, you can dim the lights and start the popcorn popper with a single button.

For streaming media, you hear about Apple TV, ChromeCast and Roku, but I'd argue the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick are both worth a mention as well, especially as they bring gaming into the mix.  No mention is made of XBMC, which felt like a shortfalling given the nature of the chapter.

It had some good advise early on about securing your network, but again it falls shy of being comprehensive.  If you're going to do as Dwight Spivey suggests and make an inventory of all devices on your network, add mac filtering so that those are the only devices that ever can get on the network.  Why manually monitor what devices are on the network when you can automate that?

It has next to nothing on details on how to set any of this up, nor how to troubleshoot when things go wrong.  It doesn't get anywhere near that level of detail.  If you want to actually set something up, if you want a book that's going to get that deep in the weeds on the topic, you will be disappointed.  If you want to know what the options are, and some of the kinds of things on the market (and again, the options aren't comprehensive) then this is an excellent starting point.
4383210
As the subtitle suggests, this is a review of the current state of three different but related topics: electric cars, battery technology and the economics of lithium. The last topic is the unifying and controversial theme: how important is lithium to a greener future, and what are the geopolitics of its supply? The minutiae of recent evolutions in battery science are also explored in some depth. Even after being digested for supposedly popular consumption, though, the balance between edification and simplification sometimes disappoints on both sides. If you have an interest in such matters, however, it's certainly covered here.

 As for the synopsis on the state of electric cars, which one would expect to be the most exciting part of the story, I found the focus to be misplaced. After a tantalizingly brief mention of the pioneering efforts of Tesla Motors, and admitting that Japanese firms have a huge technological lead, the author chooses to concentrate instead on GM's efforts to produce the Volt. Perhaps this was meant to help sell this book to an American market, but for those looking for a concise overview of the science behind an issue of global concern, the narrative seems held hostage to concerns for the resurrection of the US auto industry.

Although he writes in an engaging style, the author also has a habit of inserting catty personal comments into descriptions of his sources that I found petty and distracting.

If you are interested in a concise update on the battery technology that may finally enable electric cars to achieve mass market success, this may turn your crank, but as a general overview of the state of the electric car, it sputters.
3916340
Unbelievable, I am not even an electrician, but I noticed inconsistencies in the book that confused me in the first couple of pages. I cannot believe this got to print. This is supposed to be a resource! It's inexcusable.

The first problem I noticed, was that the answer on page 8 for number 2 was wrong, it mistook the amperage in the problem as being six when, in the page just before it has 5 written for amps. So the answer guide gives you the wrong answer. I'm only on the 8th page and I'm starting to doubt this is a good enough resource for me to rely upon. When I am learning something, I like to have a resource I can rely upon. McGraw Hill owes me a refund.

The second and most shocking one I found was on page 6; it says "watts/ohms = amperage", when its actually watts/volts = amperage:. In the diagram above, it clearly contradicts what's written right below! Even if you read the line underneath you can clearly see that there is a glaring problem because its says sqrt(watts/ohms) = amps. It clearly can't be both.
3026389
Here are the good points:
1.  The book is well written and organized.
2.  It is fairly well up-to-date when discussing costs.

Here are the weak points:
1.  36 out of 181 pages have to do with solar insolation.  You can get information on this for your location on the internet,
and should not have been put in the book.
2.  Not enough research was done into REAL equipment.  He should have discussed some of most popular types of equipment on
the market today, like SunnyBoy Outback, etc.
3.  The inovations into solar cell and thin-film technology are not covered in enough detail.  Thin-film is likely to drop
below $1/watt soon.  Some dealers are below $2/watt on polycrystalline panels now.
4.  The author is from the UK, so I am not sure this is the best choice for USA readers.  No offensive intended.
5.  More information about state and federal tax credits and such is needed.  A large portion of the cost of a system can be
recouped with these incentives.
6.  Instead of insolation tables and verbage, a single page map with insolation zones would have told the story, no map was
included.
1560448
Its pretty good and a pretty light read.  Could use some more analytical explanation, but its really meant to just introduce the basic equipment of power systems.
4892127
It is a good reference book if you are involved of Power supplies.
I recomended it just for a book of reference, there is nothing practical on it an i agree with others reviews that the book is not organized at all.
4250348
This book is about how electricity transformed America. Nye explores how electricity changed the home (it was now cleaner and safer than gas), the factory, and transportation (it made the subway and inter-urban trolley-car systems possible). Americans embraced this new source of energy quickly and convincingly. The mantra, however, that electric appliances would free the housewife was not true: men did not take to the appliances as readily and (surprise!) women suddenly were doing chores (vacuuming) that men used to do (beat the rugs). There is a lot of detail in the book, but not much that is new or not obvious. For that reason it was somewhat dull.
762898
I don't understand enough about the subjects of volts, amps, and direct current.  Otherwise,  I would have used solar power a long time ago.  This "booklet" doesn't cover that information. The suggested products cannot be purchased with the available information given. For example, the author advises the battery used should be a 6 volt, DC 250 by a certain manufacturer.  That company doesn't show up on Internet searches. batteries fall into many different categories - and that info is not available in the book. Author advises some batteries put off toxic fumes.  The information shared from the author is just a story of how his personal equipment was put together.
4406759
This book is an easy read and has excellent photos and drawings.  The basics of electricity and electric generation are covered as background, then the book walks the reader through all the aspects of wiring a house from the service pole to the panel, then from the panel to all types of loads, swithes, and other electric devices.  Details on how to route wire, how components work, tips and tricks for a quality and safe job are all useful.  As a semi-novice, I would have preferred more info on various receptacle and switch wiring diagrams, and a bit more on working out the details of a wiring plan...that would have delivered a 5-star rating.  Very good overall.
1313922
This is a guide to the history and current state of electronic media, including TV, radio, and the Internet.
At first glance, this seems like a good overview of the media industry, but after finding several factual errors in the early parts of the book, I have a much more cautious view of the material it contains.

The factual errors of which I speak are:

No mention of Tesla in regards to the invention of radio. In 1943, Tesla was awarded (posthumously) the rights to the patents on radio, after his second court case against Marconi established that Marconi had violated a number of his patents. Everyone who has written since that time that Marconi "invented" radio has been incorrect, including this book's authors. Get your facts right, especially on such an important item. (Most people continue to get this wrong, which is inexcusable in this day and age.)

No mention is made of the German Olympics TV broadcast of 1936, a huge landmark event in the early history of TV.

Also, no mention is made of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, which was another landmark TV show, pioneering various kinds of comedy content, as well as introducing several innovations in TV technology, such as videotape editing, jump cuts, and electronic effects.

The book goes on into marketing, advertising and the business of media, but given the lack of depth and skipping of important events and information, I wonder at the ultimate value of reading it. I feel that the info is too shallow and hit-and-miss.

Read this with the understanding that you are missing important info.
859174
The book is written with the purpose to be an "up-to-date [source about] DC/DC converters for students and practicing professionals". It is a shame how this target is not reached. Since from the very begin, the introduction, you will face an answer: what is its usefulness? You'll hope that, going on reading, everything will be clearer, and, from a certain point of view, this is what you get: what you've seen in introduction is eventually explained so that it could be useful even to students. However the text neither is "practical" nor gives you the "in-depth-analysis" you were hoping since its title begins with "Advanced". Schematics are rarely useful to understand the following analysis and are often badly sketched/printed. Mathematical derivations are quite good but not enough to fulfill designers needs. Apart from this it is a good effort. In my opinion readers should have to wait the next edition, if there will be a next edition.
3029585
This book does a fair job of explaining electronics, but overall I regretted purchasing it. On a positive note, it is nicely illustrated which makes the presentation visually interesting. However, the author is not consistent in building on previous explanations to help the reader understand new concepts being introduced. As someone without a background in electronics, I was pretty lost about 1/2 through this book and gave up reading it. I think this book may better serve as a basic reference for someone working in electronics rather than as an instructional manual.
4484299
I feel like everyone thinks the world is comprised of city folk, really... if you live in an appartment, you're not gonna whant wind power, if you live in the suburbs you'll likely only think of it if you feel like there's more wind than sun in your area! and if you're dummy enough to think otherwise, you only need a few lines to explain why you should get that idea off you head, not half a book!!! total waste of print paper that could have otherwise been used to add a DIY chapter since wind turbines and charge relay controlers are still damned expensive.
However, I get the feeling that noone is really interested in sharing such information with the public, taking into account the HUGE lack of resources available! I come from medicine background and know zero electronics. It's a nightmare for me to try and understand how to make a functional wind system, but I really need one, and am getting there slowly by scraping hints and tips out of a thousand sources! I REALLY wouldn't mind paying 30-40 bucks on a DECENT DIY book! seriously? people who sell parts and used stuff also need to make a living! why not benefit THEM instead of wind station manufacturers?... just sayin...
1277019
The subject of electricity has been illuminated.
Well-written book on a subject that affects all of our lives, but about which I knew very little.
3661163
I bought the manual for electrical diagrams. I'm disappointed with the lack of detail.  The mechanical stiuf is sound of you need a reference for that type of thing.
4323424
This book gives a bottom-up, in depth explanation of how an electromechanical computer might work. It explains what a relay is and how it can be used to implement the logic circuitry of a digital computer. Beginning with AND and OR gates, it ends with a Turing complete computer. Beautiful!

The remaining two thirds of the book I was just skimming through. From countless other books I already know about number bases and ASCII, for instance.

In the last chapters the author tries to cram just about everything else that could be mentioned about computers. This leads to a few errors (like "Unicode is 16 bits", a widely held misconception) [edit: I since discovered that this was actually true back in the early 90's when this book was written. Sorry, Mr. Petzold!] and several explanations way too short to convey significant content. On two pages (376 and 377) Petzold covers compression, (lossy and reversible), something called "metafiles" (dunno what that is), OCR, digitized sound and CDs, microphones, ADCs, DACs...

Instead if this, I would have liked the gory details on how vacuum tubes, transistors and integrated chips actually work. What exactly in the CPU in my laptop does the same work as the relays in the early chapters? How can current from one circuit block or amplify current from another?

I still don't know how my computer works, but after reading this book, at least I know how an electromechanical computer might work.