Gives real life scenarios which makes this book valuable.
There are a couple of typo mistakes.
But on the whole a great buy.

I can't tell you how many times I, or any one of my co-workers has used this book. It's a great desk reference.

I recommend this book for those who need to get a quick reference on using the various types of access-lists as well as CBAC. It's a small book but it covers everything in enough detail to make it a "practical" reference guide. I don't have to hunt anywhere else and usually get adequate configuration examples to do what I need to get done. You can't beat this guide, especially for the money. Don't be fooled by size & cost - It's definitely a keeper!

I have read the entire series thus far (#7) and have enjoyed the story line and the realism of NASCAR racing. These books won't win any prizes, but they do a good job of relaying the excitement of NASCAR. The story is somewhat predictable at times, but it is still good and moves along nicely. I think what I enjoyed the most is the history that has been added to the stories. The history is basically all factual (with the exception of the fictional characters), from the roots of stock car racing to the Young Guns of today. I only wish the history would have continued through the 70's and 80's instead of skipping from '69 to the late 90's. Overall though I kept waiting for the next one to arrive to find out what was next.

As a relative newcomer to stock car racing, I picked up this book because I thought I might better be able to enjoy watching races if I had a sense of the history of the sport, and if I could get some idea of what it is like for the racers. This book did a fantastic job of both. I don't know what it's really like, driving in a stock car race, but I can't imagine it feels much different from the way these authors describe it.

When I read the Rolling Thunder books, I find myself getting really caught up in the emotions of the race. I root for Jodell to win, and find myself getting upset when he loses the lead or it looks like he might get in an accident. I also can't wait to see what happens next in the characters' personal lives. That wouldn't happen if the authors didn't do such a great job of creating likeable, three-dimensional characters.

The Rolling Thunder series might not ever be remembered in the annals of great literature, but they provide a good, solid couple of hours of entertainment. As I can attest, you don't have to be a racing fan to enjoy the books, though after reading one you just might find yourself wanting to watch a real race. For me, these books are like potato chips: they're quick and easy to devour, and as soon as you're finished, you want another one.

HAVING ATTENDED RACES FOR 34 YEARS IN THE SOUTHEAST STARTING AT AGE 12, THIS BOOK IS VERY REALISTIC. PURCHASED THREE ADDITIONAL COPIES FOR FRIENDS IN THE RACING COMMUNITY. LOOKING FORWARD TO READING THE ENTIRE SERIES.

Kent's writing here (and in v.1&2) isn't geared for the ultra-knowledgeable Jack Tar, but for those whose feet are at least damp from the sea spray. No foot notes, but not much exotic vocabulary, either.

The writing style and non-stop adventure seem better suited for an action movie or adolescent reading. Now, that said, it would make a great action movie, and I would encourage younger kids to read it.

If you're shoaled on O'Brian's highly technical writing, give this a try. Chock full of adventure, a young boy is growing up in the Royal Navy. There are the continuing steotypes he uses to learn from (the overly-harsh lieutenant, the distant captain, etc.)

Bonus for us Yanks, this volume is set in America during the Revolution.

A good read: quick, easy. Read it to your kids, just to get them loving the sea early.

This is the first Richard Bolitho novel written, and the fourth by the series internal chonology. Bolitho begins the spring of 1777 as Fourth Lieutenant in the eighty-gun Trojan lying in New York harbor. Because of the death in action of one of his superiors and the capture of another, he ends as Second Lieutenant and then, to his surprise, as prize master of a captured American brig -- during the operation of which he manages to grab yet another enemy ship, which is more than enough to give him his step to Commander in the next book! Bolitho is an officer in the Hornblower mode -- self-possessed, self-critical, and sometimes prey to self-doubts -- which is to say, he's closer in some ways to a late-20th century man than a true denizen of the 18th century (like O'Brien's Jack Aubrey). The chracterizations are carefully done and the action is clearly described without being overly technical (also a difference from O'Brien). Note: I personally find series like this more interesting when the characters are younger and lower in rank, fighting smaller vessels. Flag rank tends to remove the officer -- and the reader's viewpoint -- too far from the "front lines."

This volume in the long Bolitho series has added value for North Americans. It takes place along and off the east coast of the American colonies early in their rebellion. Here we have an English view to match (and out-write and out-excite) the American view purveyed by James Nelson in his Biddlecomb series. Bolitho has the distinct advantage (to American readers) of growing up in the British Navy earlier in history than most of the other fictional naval heroes from the Age of Fighting Sail, who are confined to the Napoleonic World Wars postdating the American Revolution.

4th Lt. Bolitho is now small fry on a large third-rate (80-gun) ship. Tasked to supress rebel privateers working close inshore, duty combines endless waiting, tense anticipation, and the sudden shock of small and bloody actions. Bolitho is centrally and most audaciously involved in successive fierce actions, 2 in small boats, 1 between brigs, 1 aboard a 3rd-rate, and once in the taking of a fort ashore. As we see the chances of battle visibly empty the ranks above him, he advances by skill and survival. Kent does a great job of developing characters here, as we can even understand the motivations of the arrogant and the cowardly officers with whom Bolitho is juxtaposed, and with whom he must deal at critical moments. In the course of rising in rank Bolitho collects another devoted acolyte, a midshipman, and begins to build a reputation in the fleet for dash and success through unorthodox, bloody, and killing conflicts.

The narrative structure is somewhat loose and episodic. The cover art is exciting and "ripped from the very pages" of this novel, but there are absolutely no other visual aids like maps, sail plans, or ship diagrams. Kent focuses on exciting action rather than technical details, and from the point of view of the seamen and under officers in these early novels. So far Bolitho has been blessed with mostly competent and empathetic superiors rather than hacks or unprofessional political appointees, and visibly grows in the abilty to command.

I like the way Kent Beck writes his books. And it's sometimes thrilling to read his strange ideas. Having seen so many projects skip unit testing completely the idea of writing tests first strikes me as very good. Mr Beck presents his ideas very clearly and leads the reader through all subtleties and traps of a small example. That's exactly the point where things become interesting for me: How does the academic idea scale when being faced with Web apps, EJBs, XML/XSLT and so on? Hardly any hints about that which makes me wondering if the approach can be used for real projects.

This book has nothing in it that you don't know you should be doing. You know you should test your code. You know that you should make sure changes don't break things. I'll bet that you haven't actually taken the steps to make sure that you do this though.

Kent walks you through a good way to develop code: write the test code as you write the actual code. I've actually put this into practice and it's surprisingly easy to follow the recommendations. As you write a new function, write some code that calls it in a few different ways. When it comes time to give your code to someone else (check in to source control, deliver to customer, use on a bigger project), you have a fair sense that things will work.

Again, you already know that you should test things. This book presents one really great way to do that. It's worth taking a few hours and reading this one. Buy it so that you can re-read it once every year.

Let me say first off that I agree with much that Kent Beck has to say: 1. Testing should be done along with the coding. 2. Use regression tests to be confident of making changes. 3. In many ways testing can be used as documentation since it is much more definitive than specification documents. 4. Testing should be used to have the client sign off on a product. In reading the book I learned the specifics of how tests are designed in TDD. It seems reasonable and I am going to make a conscious effort at designing my tests in the way suggested.

Where I disagree is in the use of the tests to drive software design. In the first part of the book, which I think is the most important part, a very good coding problem is analyzed - it is realistic, limited in scope and far from trivial. I followed along until I reached a point where things stopped making sense. I skipped ahead to see where things were headed and then things became clear.

What is being advocated is a type of bottom up design approach. This may work for some. It may even be that the book faithfully reproduced Beck's reasoning process. It does not work for me. I first have to see the larger picture, what he refers to as the "metaphor." The whole thing would have been much clearer to me if at the beginning I was told that one approach to summing money in different currencies would be to use an array to store the information but that instead the implementation would create a list similar to how things are done in LISP.

I urge the reader to judge for him/herself. Like I said this is a good example to go through. I even learned some things about more advanced uses of object oriented programming. As for software design I am going to stick with dataflow diagrams. They are still the best tool that I know of for putting together software, UML notwithstanding.

Now a 3rd Lt. on a small frigate (without our seeing how he stepped up), the attractive Bolitho sails far from the coast of England into the hot and pirate-infested Caribbean of yore, on a secret mission about which his captain is long mum. There's lots of sailing involved, but little hard seamanship evoked in detail. That is one reason I see Kent's novels as pitched to young adult readers. They focus on rip-roaring risks and adventure, and less on development and the texture of naval life under sail. They have an episodic jerky quality to them rather than smooth story-telling. Every now and then Kent will insert into the flow the thoughts of someone besides Bolitho, although the thoughts are about him.

In the course of chasing a variety of pirates, and traitors who have joined them, the story turns into a treasure hunt. Whether or not they find the gold, Bolitho certainly pursues a love on shore and afloat, with all the wonderful hesitations and false starts of a first true love. Bolitho also makes life-long devoted friends and allies among his crew division, although I wish Kent had shown more often how Bolitho accomplishes that rather than often merely announce it as fact. Only his winning of boxer Stockdale--whom Bolitho rescues while serving as the leader of a hated press gang, of all things--is shown in satisfying detail. On the other hand, Bolitho's staunchness, pluck, and luck are clearly shown to win over other officers, and it is enjoyable to see him grow in skill and authority under the fortunate tutelage of his unusually sympathetic superiors. I place Kent's series as wonderful naval adventure books on the third level, after Forester and O'Brian, then others like Pope, Woodman, and Stockwin. These books published by McBooks have a nice look and feel to them.

My father introduced me to Horatio Hornblower when I was in junior high and I've been a fan of Napoleonic-era sea yarns ever since. C. S. Forester is still the standard against which I measure later creations, and Alexander Kent stands up very well in that regard. I always try to work out a birthdate for the main character in such a series, so I'll have some idea of the future course of his history and what real events he's likely to bump into. Hornblower was born in 1776, Jack Aubrey around 1770 (I think), and Richard Bolitho in 1756 -- which pretty much takes him out of the later Napoleonic period except as a very senior officer (the last book in the series is set in 1806). Things were quite different at that relatively early period as regards press gangs, construction of ships, international politics, and lots of other factors, which adds to the interest. Specifically, Bolitho is eighteen years old and a newly-appointed Third Lieutenant aboard the Destiny, a frigate armed for war during a time of peace, whose captain is frothing to lay hold of a would-be revolutionary hiding out in the Caribbean. Which provides plenty of room for Bolitho to develop his naval and leadership skills, to become infatuated with another man's wife, and acquire friendships that will last a lifetime -- especially with Stockdale, who will later become his cox'n. The prose is workmanlike and the author spends almost as much time delineating the characters of Captain Dumaresq, First Lieutenant Palliser, and Second Lieutenant Rhodes, all of whom are interesting, and which greatly increases the reader's enjoyment.

This is the first Alexander Kent novel I have read (I skipped the first one because this one sounded a little better) and it was a very enjoyable read. I have read several other authors in this genre, and my favorite by far is Patrick O'Brian. None of the other authors I have read, including Kent, really even come close to O'Brian's brillant novels. I enjoyed this book, however, and I will definately read more of this series. Life in the royal navy is romanticized more in this novel than in the novels of Patrick O'Brian and Richard Woodman. For example, all of the Destiny's officers are completely top-notch professional men. In reality, a fairly high percentage of navel officers during this time were highly incompetent and owed their positions to the fact that they were born to a wealthy, influential family. The characters in this novel are not developed to any great degree except for Bolitho himself. In general, I suppose this novel is a little cheesy in many respects, but I got drawn into it and really enjoyed it none-the-less. The book's hero is very likable and seems very real; he's no superhero. The best thing about this book are the action scenes. There is a lot of action and it is very well described. We experience the fear and horror of battle through Bolitho's eyes and it comes across more powerfully than in any other sea novel I have read, including O'Brian's. The battle scenes in an O'Brian novel are exciting but they seem to be a little aloof; a little removed from the death and horror that the common seamen experienced. This is not the case with Kent. In sum, I would almost dub Kent's work "O'Brian lite", but his great battle scenes make his work a little more than that.

Bolitho has two shocks on a voyage in the Tempest to a trading outpost in SE Asia and faces the bleakest prospect yet when he arrives, up against an angry pirate king with two frigates to his one. Bolitho has never been so close to utter defeat as here. In this plot Kent awards Bolitho a bit more luck than logic. It seems odd no one ever gets a tropical fever.

I like how Kent fills his stories not only with naval actions but little mysteries, or here "peacetime" intrigues and ambitions in the Far East. Kent has the ability to rapidly shift the reader's perspective from one character's thoughts to another's in a smooth and always clear manner. Most other naval authors focus on their hero alone, and everyone else is seen from outside.

I had two problems with this novel. I had trouble visualizing the ship maneuvres relative to land. Action proceeds and suddenly there's land or a channel where I didn't expect it, or on the opposite side from where I imagined it. Most disconcerting. It's possible I need to keep much more exact track of passing mentions of wind direction, tack, and course because Kent offers few other clues and does not describe them in laymen's (landsmen's) terms. It is vital to know, for instance, that starboard tack means sailing to the LEFT (with the WIND from the right), or "helm a lee" means turning into the wind. And of course there are no maps, there never are in Kent's stories. The one in Dean King's "A Sea of Words" (an O'Brian companion) is not quite right. Masts and lamps are frequently described as "spiralling" when surely "circling" to the motion of the ship is meant? Most seriously, for a subject that produces so much of the motivation in this story (and the next two), Kent never made me like Bolitho's great love, Viola. She starts out as just another arrogant aristo who makes eyes at our Richard, and it seems stupid he falls for her. Maybe that's part of the loneliness of command.

Alexander Kent's novels are typically filled with action. Chronologically earlier entries in the series like In Gallant Company, Sloop of War, Stand Into Danger and To Glory We Steer were all action-packed page turners. In Command a King's Ship Kent attempts to do the same but I didn't find the results as satisfactory. It's a good read and a must for series aficionados but it's not one of his best.

In this entry with key survivors from To Glory We Steer, Captain Richard Bolitho is off to the East Indies where piracy is alive and pirates can set up private empires. Europe is now at peace and Bolitho must cooperate with his former Spanish adversaries. However, things go awry well before they leave the Atlantic Ocean. At their destination, Bolitho faces two formidable adversaries. He also has to face his nemesis within the British administration. There are nefarious schemes to be unraveled and fierce battles to be fought. All the elements are in place for a superb action story.

Bolitho also falls for the wife of an administrator adding romance to the story. Perhaps this element is a little too formulaic. Needless to say the husband is a cad. Perhaps it would be more interesting if her husband had been a decent man and the tension created by them both not wanting to hurt him would have been greater. As it stands, the fact that a woman is married to a nasty man is long-standing literary justification to conduct an adulterous affair.

The novel progresses with Bolitho torn over his professional duties and his personal desires. The romance is fluff and the battle scenes are fairly good. One problem that I have with Kent's novels and this one in particular, is that Kent doesn't set the reference for the battles. If Bolitho is approaching an island, it's not clear from which direction. Does the port face north, south, east or west? Is the land on the starboard or larboard side? Which way is the wind blowing? The reader rarely gets enough information to clearly understand what's going on?

It's a good story but not one of his best.

Years ago, when I served as a Chaplain for the 3rd Armored Division (Spearhead) in Frankfurt Germany, Dan, my Chaplain Assistant encouraged me to read the naval fiction of Alexander Kent. I had no interest in the British Navy, but Dan's enthusiasm, along with previous recommendations which had been on the mark, encouraged me to give Kent's books a try.

I began to read about the remarkable life of Richard Bolitho, whose life spanned from 1756 to 1815. In the course of 22 books we see Bolitho from his days as a lowly Midshipman (at the age of twelve) to his death as a knighted Rear Admiral during battle. Kent has even continued past Bolitho's death with a novel focused his nephew Adam, captain of a frigate, who appears throughout the saga.

I've since read C.S. Forester's books on Hornblower and have tried O'Brien's, but the lesser-known Kent outshines all in his fiction. He brings the hardships of the period to life, drawing the reader into the harsh world of the seaman, telling compelling, epic tales of courage.

Throughout Kent's books one finds impressive lessons regarding leadership and commitment to country and one's shipmates. Along with the sea battles, we learn of the press gangs, the in-fighting politics of the Admiralty, ethical dilemmas, the uneasy alliances among nations, and especially the human reaction to an irresistible yet severe life. Bolitho earns the respect and devotion of his sailors and officers through his bravery, fairness, tactical brilliance, and because he chooses to become personally involved in their lives and takes care of his men. Bolitho is not a remote, aloof or harsh leader. He is stern, yet compassionate. He is charming and complicated. On every ship he immediately learns the names and backgrounds of his men, and they find out quickly that he is committed to them. He is also flawed; Kent does not make him out to be a cardboard hero.

The many battle scenes are magnificent and horrible in their depiction of the tactics and awful bloodshed in close engagements. Heated shot, fire ships, risky maneuvering and grappling the sides of enemy ships for hand-to-hand combat mark this kind of war and determine the victor. Sometimes mutinous seaman, brutal weather, or cruel leaders become the enemy as well. Kent has exhaustively, in epic fashion, crafted the minute details of life at sea. In the process he tells compelling stories of the courage and cowardice. The brotherhood of seaman, "we happy few", as they quote the Bard, fight with and for each other. Kent even manages to get on land occasionally, and brings in some romance. But the bulk of the action involves the unique struggles of those in the warships.

In the course of his writing, Kent allows us to also see the American Revolution from a British perspective. Bolitho's brother deserts to the colonists' cause, which brings grief and disgrace to Sir Richard. Kent treats the Revolution as unfortunate and inevitable.

I want to pass on the favor Dan gave me by encouraging you to explore the unique world Alexander Kent has so meticulously and masterfully detailed. You will care about the people in these books, and in each you will find parables of leadership.

A better title would have been "HTML 4 A Self- Study Guide". The primary reson I chose this manual was for the online, interactive assistance. After trying the URL given in the book, and attempting to e-mail the publisher several times, without success, I finally used it as a self study guide. As such, it was adequate. If you're looking for a good tutorial, I'm sure you can find better, at a lower cost.

This book was good with some of the stuff in covered but offered little outside help. The CD is poor. It doesn't include the files you need and the trail offers it allows you to have are not the greatest and become hard to delete. All in all if your good at learning things by yourself you might enjoy this book.

I was very impressed with this book. I went through it and my attention was kept. There are good examples and even some humor. It was very thorough and I would recommend this for anyone who wants to learn HTML.

While this book can be informative at times, it lacks organization, and is inconsistent.

If you're used to other Falcon Guide Trail books, you expect a section on each trail...how to get to the trailhead, difficulty rankings, miles each way, elevation gain, etc, all laid out at the beginning of each trails description. Not in this book. If you're interested in Longs Peak, for example, it gives no details of how to arrive at the trailhead at all. No details on getting there from ANY of the parks campgrounds, of which there are few. It goes into the climb in the style of a travelogue, NOT a trail guide. I was disappointed, and this book will now simply collect dust on my shelf. I want a guide for specific trails, with specific instructions on how to get to the trailhead, with suggestions and tips for each. Maybe I'll write my own, after spending a few weeks there this summer.

Save yourself some cash, and pass up this book.

For anyone hiking in RMNP, this is a good book to have along, but I'd prefer to have a second option, like Malitz's RMNP Dayhiker's Guide. Malitz's book has altiude gain, elevation at destination, distance one way, and which trailhead to use at the beginning of the description of each trail. This book just has a chart in the back. It also is just a little more like a story book than a guide book. Not what I need in the middle of the wilderness. The only pictures are sketches, where Malitz's Dayhiker's Guide has lots of nice color photos, which can take a little of the surprise out of what you're about to see, but do help in location recognition. Dannen's guide is full of info, you just have to read a little more to find it. Both are good companions to have along and to use for preparation, but if I could only carry one I'm afraid this one would stay behind in favor of Malitz's Dayhiker's Guide or the soon-to-be-released Frommer's RMNP 3rd Edition.

This book is a must-have for anyone planning a trip to RMNP. It is by far the most comprehensive trail-guide available, and includes more than adequate reference materials. This book is perfect for the first-timer, the seasoned dayhiker, and the experienced backcountry hiker...I very highly reccomend it.

I got this book free with the game, and it proved to be a waste of my time. Its only strong point is telling you how to beat the scenarios--and it isn't much fun to play them if you already know everything in them=no challenge or surprises. As far as strategy--WHAT strategy??? The only strategy I saw was "archers attack well in groups." As far as civilization strengths, you get that information in the tiny book that comes with the game anyway. Why pay money to read the same thing in more verbose language. If all you have is the information in this book, be prepared to be laughed at if you play anyone who has ANY experience with the game! Free web sites galore give you REAL information. I don't think this book was worth what I paid for it, which was nothing, since I got it for free. I'm ashamed of Microsoft for foisting off such worthless stuff when they could have made a great guide for a great game.

I found the book very helpful. I am something of a newbie to the game. I have played AOE both 1 and 2 for only a couple of months but I found this book a real help in picking up some of the more subtle aspects of the game's dynamics.

Compared to the Inside Moves Edition strategy guide for AOE 2, this one is far superior. Kent has obviously done quite a bit of work on figuring out the strengths and weaknesses of the various units. There are comparisons and contrasts and useful strategy suggestions. I particularly liked the discussions of the times required for particular units of one type to vanquish units of another type. The book would have been better for including yet MORE of this kind of information (e.g. How many stone age club men does it take to kill an Iron Age chariot archer? How does one recover from certain tactical mistakes and unit mismatches? What do you do when facing a catapult and you only have archers? etc.) The author goes into detail when explaining how he experimented using the scenario editor and explains this process to the user so that even the newbies can continue their educations beyond the book.

The walkthroughs were readable, the instructions were clear and complete and the advice is good, given that the suggestions worked and behaved as indicated. The section on multi-player gaming may have been a bit light, but then, experience is definitely the best teacher in that realm and everyone has their own style. There may indeed be more extensive information on the various fan web sites, but as a tutorial, reference, and walkthough guide, I find the book useful and recommend it.

This book was awsome! Just the historical section was worth the 13 bucks. If you like Age of Empires fan, this is a must buy

First in a nautical series modeled on Forester's Hornblower, the action and settings are intriguing although the prose lags a bit, never catching the music of Forester. Really two "peacetime" stories, Bolitho is already an experienced midshipman (lowest officer) when he and his buddies invest a pirate island off Africa, and in the second tale hunt smugglers and a particularly canny "wrecker" luring vessels to a rocky doom on Cornwall's shore. One learns considerable of 18th century customs on land and sea, some of its morals, and hears several amusing dialects. I couldn't always visualize the ship handling. Among the second tier authors, Woodman's dour Drinkwater feels more authentic, but "Alexander Kent" provides a better read and one that would appeal to younger readers, given the more heroic than introspective Bol-LYE-tho, and his more modern sensitivities for his men. The cover painting by Geoffrey Huband has a darkly authentic look to it, but I didn't recognize the scene in the actual text.

Midshipman Bolitho begins the saga of Richard Bolitho, heir to a proud familial naval tradition. This first book in the series is a compilation of two separately published works, both of which told stories of Bolitho's days as a midshipman, and as such this book reads like two unconnected novellas. While this could lead some to assume that this is a weak book, the truth is that Midshipman Bolitho is an engaging book, demonstrating strong storytelling with compelling characters and tight action sequences. Readers of historical fiction and the nautical genre will find much to enjoy in this book.

This book will whet your appetite for the entire series. It is fast moving and extreamly hard to put down. The writing is such that I was there, on deck, with young Richard. Great book!