a solid foundation and reference
585312
I could echo the comments of praise left by other reviewers, but I think it makes more sense to confess that I'm "the one" in my company selected to take over the role of product manager without having much of a background in either software development or management.

Without Marty Cagan's book, and the guidance he provides on his website [...]), I'd be groping for the light switch with each step down the dark corridor to each release. In other words, Inspired is always at hand to provide illumination at every step of the way to delivering the 'right product.'

And it helps that it's well written and easy to digest.
2587803
We use this book for our introduction course at my university.  It follows the style we have been employing for the course for the last 20 years, discussing precedent, process, and projects (and we have been looking for a new book, since other efforts are out of print).  It is not a highly dense book and a bit simplistic (not overwhelming-- which is good), as it could be a bit more academic (thus the 4 stars); however, it is well illustrated which is important to a visual profession.  By reading this book, one will get a good overview of the profession.  The book has numerous international examples from sites that our students visit during their study abroad experiences, so it fits well with our intentions.  We supplement our course with readings from other authors, but the foundation is this book.  Robert Holden is one of Europe's outstanding landscape architects and landscape architectural critics/academics.  His expertise is evident throughout the book.  Mr. Liversedge is also an experienced landscape architect and academic at the University of Greenwich, one of England's top landscape architecture programs.  Robert and Jamie make an excellent co-authoring  team.  They cite Calvert Vaux, one of the designers of Central Park as an American; however he was born and trained in London, so at our school we call him a British-American.  While not mentioned in the book, there is a fair amount of information about the origin of the term landscape architecture first used by a Scot, Gilbert Laing Meason, writing about painters positioning structures within landscapes in Italy, and then redefined and promoted by John Claudius Loudon (another Scot working in London) who probably communicated his ideas to Andrew Jackson Downing, eventually filtering to Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux who fully embellished the notion of the practicing landscape architect.  One will not get such detail in this book.  Considering the origins of the term with noted UK authorities, it is surprising such history is not mentioned.  Still the book is highly valuable for those interested in understanding the foundations and activities of the profession.  I have a landscape history book coming out soon, so eventually I will become fair game for critics too.  I admire Robert's and Jamie's contribution, especially its breadth.  I hope more schools around the world adopt this book.  I suspect the authors may be considering a second edition as there are so many other examples that one could include.  But it all takes time and this is an excellent first edition.
2506664
Gilbert's precision and attention to detail makes this book an invaluable resource. This book helps give the reader an overview of a complex, winding history in short space. For those who accuse him of partiality perhaps they can suggest a satisfactory alternative, or provide specific examples?
Highly recommended as an introduction or for reference for one more familiar with region.
626550
Lighting is often the poor relation of building design and construction. Not only because the client often underestimates the value and effect of lighting, but also because the field itself is a moving target. This year's state-of-the-art lamping is next year's Title 24 embarrassment.  ("Where are we hiding the ballasts?" I said to the electrician at our first on-site. "How long since you've done this?" he answered with a grin.)

This book provides a very nice introduction to the field, covering both what I would consider the basics of lighting design (determining client needs, ergonomics and esthetics, daylighting, terms of art, RCPs, code issues, and hardware including manufacturer cut sheets), and some more interesting esoterica (credentialing issues, physics/optics, the human visual system, a bit of history). The text is very readable, though some concepts will require thinking over. Readers won't need a background in EE or Cognitive Science, but it will be easier to understand the lighting diagrams if you already understand floor plans.

There is a useful glossary, and new terminology is also called out in margin notes, which is lovely in a textbook. There are case studies and sidebars as well, though unfortunately the font for these is even smaller than the (relatively small) font of the book text. There are also links to online resources at the end of each chapter, and I am concerned with the potential longevity of these. I would have preferred a curated list as part of the online offerings. Like I said, it's a moving target. (4.5 stars).
2665529
I like the way how it structured and explained. It is  ideal to get started and also later as a reference.

Nice work and worth any penny. Thanks  Mr Whitaker.

Bernd
3616542
This book covers lots of ground in basic topics and makes references for more advanced topics, in a concise format. It has been revise several times some years back, although slightly dated, it still serves as an excellent introductory text. The Kindle version has few flaws, although most pages can have words selected for highlighting, several pages can not. Overall, the economy of presentation and easiness to follow for a math major makes it worth 5 stars.
4396301
Highly solid text/reference book, convenient to use to refresh memory.
4239932
This Cengage Higher Education volume is a good, contemporary reference that highlights daily themes and concepts prevalent in gathering statistical data. The pages are colorful and provide thought-provoking questions that challenge the mathematical specialist's ability to distinguish what constitutes reliable information apart from that which is relegated to biased sampling. The breakdown from one broad topic to its several distinctive subcategories with its highly detailed examples and definitions reveals that the author is very knowledgeable and analytical. For instance, we go from statistics as a whole to its various subdivisions, such as nominal statistics, inferential statistics, and ordinal statistics. Each classification is meticulously described in a way that can keep the reader engaged.

However, what is perhaps the book's greatest strength is, ironically, also its weakness. As described in the aforementioned statements, Elementary Statistics: Looking at the Big Picture is arguably a page turner for the novice who wants to gain insight regarding how his/her daily life is affected by, say, standard deviations, measures of central tendency, and the notorious albeit ubiquitous bell curves. Nonetheless, those, like myself, who want to see the concise summaries of these mathematical realities, or the perceptions thereof, in the form of equations are often finding themselves thumbing through the chapters with many difficulties finding algorithms that they could expound on. To me, the presentation of the formula followed by laid out examples at the introductory level, first, followed by the intermediate, second, have been tried and true though not always foolproof.

In spite of this observation, I find the publication to be well-written. As an educator, I find it a refreshing break from the boring, rote materials that are laden with bullet points and can only admire the narrative approach that Nancy Pfenning continually utilizes throughout.

All in all, Cengage Learning, I believe, wants to deliver the highest quality educational tools for both instructors and students, and this work of Pfenning is, no doubt, an asset in carrying out this overall mission.
1066015
This is an essential reference source both for practicing GIS users seeking to navigate the often confusing morass of data available, and for students just building their awareness of what can be done with GIS. Much more than just a catalog, Kerski and Clark give the needed background on data types, quality considerations, ways out get the most out of metadata, and other important issues. Worthy of space on your geo-bookshelf and on your syllabus!
1228436
InterVarsity Press has been establishing itself as a leading publisher of scholarly reference works for the last several years.  After the completion of the four volume Dictionary of the New Testament series, they have embarked on a matching four volume set on the Old Testament.

The editors have assembled an impressive list of nearly 100 individual contributors representing a full spectrum of evangelical scholars.  There is a helpful list of the contributors by name with a listing of the articles they authored.  The editors have included a useful section on "How to Use this Dictionary" (xi-xii) that details the structural features of the work.  There is also a listing of abbreviations, which, although it is a duplication of the Society of Biblical Literature guidelines, it is still a handy quick reference for this volume.  The volume is arranged in a helpful two-column format and each article is outlined at the beginning and all have rather extensive bibliographic support.

It is impossible to discuss even a small portion of the nearly 200 articles in this massive volume.  Some are worthy of special note however.  The article by B. T. Arnold on "History of Pentateuchal Criticism" (622-31) is an excellent survey of the major issues and personalities in Old Testament historical criticism.  The articles on the "Date of the Exodus" (258-72) by John H. Walton and the "Exodus Route and Wilderness Itinerary" (272-80) by Peter Enns are exceptionally detailed with excellent charts.  There is also a thought-provoking article on "Preaching from the Pentateuch" (637-43).

The publisher is to be commended for commissioning this new addition to Biblical reference as are the editors for the end result, which is a work that should serve as the standard reference work on the Pentateuch for many years.
2337845
Really solid book that covers Spark and Scala in great detail, without getting bogged down in the weeds.

Like most O'Reilly books, this one assumes the reader is generally knowledgeable but needs more/better specifics about this particular area. The authors do a good job of introducing concepts without making you feel like you're wasting your time reviewing the bare basics, but also giving you enough depth and background so that you're not suddenly dropped in the middle of an unfamiliar landscape.

I particularly liked the wide variety of examples. Honestly, I doubt that I'll use half of what I learned from them, but I don't know which half, and the book gives you a solid foundation to work from so that you're ready to tackle a broad range of projects.
4681185
Database and Transaction Processing by Philip M. Lewis, et al. is written as a multi-purpose textbook and practical reference guide for software engineers. One can use this book both as an undergraduate introductory course in database theory and design, as an advanced graduate-level course in databases, or as a graduate level course in transaction processing.
Being outside of the academia, but still needing a foundational theoretical (but not necessarily formal or overly detailed) reference, I was impressed on the ability of the authors to present concise and useful practical facts. Some other textbooks suffer from overwrought attention to topics in database normalization, correctness proves, and such - this one gives a lot of practical advise in optimization, distributed databases and issues of concurrency control and transaction processing. Chapters are organized in a self-contained fashion, so with a bit of background in databases, reader can just read a chapter in isolation if she is interested in a topic.
In summary, a very useful book.
875460
Excellent reference- it does indeed cover "basics" and beyond" , good place to start, and useful as you become more skilled.
1665230
A well-designed resource with plenty of examples and screenshots. This book shows where PostGIS fits in the larger picture of GIS applications by showing how to use it in conjunction with QGIS, GDAL and more. Despite being a fairly high-level overview, quite a bit of ground is covered and in sufficient depth. Complements "PostGIS Cookbook" (also from Packt).
2243873
I bought "Moving Media Storage Technologies: Applications & Workflows for Video and Media Server Platforms" at the National Association of Broadcasters bookstore during the Broadcast Engineering Conference in April 2013 and have been devouring it. Typically I don't purchase books on the road and prefer electronic copies, however in the case of this book I find it helpful to annotate my copy with links and notes as I go along.  The clear writing style and succinct way of summing up the salient points of workflow issues starts my own wheels spinning . It's a fine follow up to "Video and Media Servers " which is the defacto reference on the topic and remains a in important volume despite the dated reference to now outdated hardware.

I noted another's review in which he lamented the minimal citations to earlier reference materials.  As an Telecom and Computer Engineering graduate student we were encouraged (under threat of severe sanctions for possible plagiarism and copyright violation) to cite every reference.  While this encourages honesty, my experience in engineering school can be an impediment to independent thinking.  The only requirement for a work such as the one I'm reviewing is to reference and properly attribute the empirical research and technology resulting from work of others.  To fill the volume with footnote would diminish it's readability and value. As a SMPTE Fellow, Certified Broadcast Professional Engineer, IEEE member, SBE Life Member, Paulsen's decades of systems integration work in our rapidly evolving field and his professional qualifications are well known in the broadcast industry.

The evolution of the technologies discussed in "Moving Media Storage Technologies: Applications & Workflows for Video and Media Server Platforms" has been evolving through a decentralized collective of industry standards committees, workgrounps and independent

This reference book anticipates and guides media engineering professionals in evolving workflow for our new age of narrowcasting, Netcasting, and CDNs which have democratized the production and distribution of content. In addition to informing broadcast engineers, Paulsen provides engineers guidance in integration of servers for digital cinemas, digital signage, and other business and entertainment venues.  Paulsen's earlier work remains historical valuable as a  "how-we-got-here" technical reference as well, and I would highly recommend purchasing a copy of the now 12 year old "Video and Media Servers" which I believe was last updated sometime around 2007.

If a reader requires a couple of weighty volumes detailing the key equations and extensive reference data required for the design, specification, installation, testing of digital production and transmission systems, I'd highly recommend the reader to consider Standard Handbook of Broadcast Engineering (McGraw-Hill Standard Handbooks) by Jerry Whitaker and the NAB Engineering Handbook, Tenth Edition by Graham A. Jones, David H. Layer, Thomas G. Osenkowsky and edited by Edmund A. Williams which comes with the contents  on DVD in case you might find it difficult to carry 30 pound hardcover reference book around.  I wish that Jerry Whitaker's Standard Handbook of Broadcast Engineering was available in electronic form as well.

These two references focus for the most part on conventional DTV production and distribution systems:  ATSC/DVB, Satellite, Microwave, Fiber Optic and Coax.  "Moving Media Storage Technologies: Applications & Workflows for Video and Media Server Platforms"  helps you bridge the narrowing gap from the world of ATSC/DVB transmission to our brave new world TCP/IP and UDP distributed television.
4124684
Here's a readable reference on a subject many people love to avoid: coding standards. Why have them? How to choose? How do they help developers? In-depth chapters on the psychology of how people understand code (when they have to read it in order to change it), and on how to deploy a coding standard successfully.

Of course, the bulk of the book is a detailed explanation of almost any kind of item you could put in a coding standard, with reasons and considerations. While these chapters are really a reference, I can see reading through them over time in order to become a better developer. To those who (rightly) are concerned about creativity, consider Straker's response:

"The creative element in programming is more in the design, than in the coding. All but the most stringent standards and the most detailed designs leave plenty of creative scope for the coder. The only creativity that is to be frowned on is that which adds unnecessary complexity to the code."

By the way, the author has recently put the entire text of the book online [...], but I'm still ordering print copies because I'd rather re-read under a tree than at a PC.

Update: Now I've read the print copy -- there's a big difference reading from a book. Straker is thorough, and it's worth reading every word -- there's a temptation to skim and skip online. When you get tired, put the book down and come back to it later. Well worth it!
616171
A very good .NET database book for beginners and those who already knows a bit more. I enjoyed the writing which is very competent and I believe that this book is a very good and solid reference on most kinds of .NET database access.