Its comprehensive treatment of both theoretical and practical problems on capacity planning and performance modeling allows you to make quick decisions to improve performance and shorten the time to market.

Although the title is new, this book is based on the authors' 1998 book titled "Web PErformance Metrics, Models and Methods (ISBN 0136938221). This book is more than a minor rewrite - the chapters are in a different sequence, and each has been updated. None of the information that made the older book such a valuable resource was lost in the process. For example, the material on queuing theory and analysis remains, and it among the best written tutorials in print. What has changed includes:

(1) Shifting of focus from client/server and web server environments to web services, with an emphasis on performance characteristics of SOAP and UDDI. Client server issues are still covered because these issues are still germane.

(2) An emphasis on architecture and how performance and capacity fit into a larger picture. Network and server performance characteristics are examined in detail.

What hasn't changed includes the excellent material on performance and benchmarking basics, detailed analysis techniques, and the support for this book that the authors provide on the book's web site. I especially like the Excel spreadsheets that you can download to use in conjunction with material in nearly every chapter.

Overall, this is one more of a series of books on various aspects of performance and capacity management. I also recommend reading their companion book, "Scaling for E-Business: Technologies, Models, Performance, and Capacity Planning" (ISBN 0130863289), which covers the applications level of e-commerce systems and seamlessly complements the material in this book.

Britt Towery has written a beautiful tale of a family called to missionary service at the turn of the twentieth century. It reads like a novel, with a gripping plot, fascinating characters and an unbelievable story. But this is not fiction: this is the true story of Jewell and Carey who met in Texas but had to go all the way to China to fall in love.

I first became acquainted with the story of Jewell and Carey when I researched and wrote All That Fits a Woman: Training Southern Baptist Women for Charity and Mission (Mercer University Press). Towery has more thoroughly researched their fascinating story, finding little known details about the family and their Christian service.

Using personal interviews, letters, diaries, and other historical documents, Towery skillfully weaves the stories of the two Southern Baptist leaders, keeping readers intrigued all the way through until the final outcome. Jewell grew up with missionary parents in South Texas and went to Baylor where she studied theology in preparation for mission work. Carey attended Baylor as well and interrupted his studies periodically to preach in rural churches around Texas. Both Carey and Jewell ended up in Louisville, KY for further preparation. When Jewell set sail for China as a single woman in 1909, she did not realize that Carey would sail the following year and the two would eventually be married in 1914. I won't spoil the story by telling the ending: I hope you will read it for yourself!

One of the most helpful aspects of the book for me as a researcher was the Introduction, which describes the Shandong Province where Jewell and Carey were serving. Towery provides a summary of Chinese religions and a useful glossary of places, including how to pronounce their names. Towery has the expertise to provide these summaries, as he served over 30 years as a missionary in Asia. He thoughtfully reproduces some of the original materials in an appendix; the most touching is a letter Carey wrote from China and sent to his father.

Towery uses such good information, and serious researchers may be frustrated that he has not consistently documented his sources with footnotes. However, his purpose was to tell a fascinating and inspiring story of two dedicated servants of the Lord, and that he has done very well.

This small book is a great afternoon read for anyone interested in missions and missionaries, and it is accessible enough to be used in mission study groups with young people or adults.

T. Laine Scales Baylor University

Finally...a book on the GREAT cartoon music composers! AND it includes the way under-rated MAURY LAWS of RANKIN/BASS fame! Greg Ehrbar did a wonderful job on this chapter and his DISCOGRAPHY in the back of the book! They are all here....from CARL STALLING to HOYT CURTIN and even the modern cartoon music writers! This book was a LONG time coming! THANKS!

Students enter the study of psychology with the belief that psychology is a discipline that can contribute to the benefit of humanity and the betterment of society. They expect to find the accumulated wisdom of thousands of investigators working for over a hundred years of effort to answer the questions and solve the problems of everyday living that burden their existence. They usually come away from their studies sadly disappointed that there were no real answers and that their only hope is a faint promise that a scientific psychology will some day in the distant future have the answers for which they seek. They then turn or return to pop psychology where at least the authors attempt to give answers (superficial as these may be) to the pressing problems that trouble them. If we as a discipline have the courage and vision to go down the path that Daniel Fishman has charted for our profession in his Case for a Pragmatic Psychology, we will finally be able to face our students with integrity, and ultimately with the real answers to the problems they seek assistance in understanding and solving. In this monumental undertaking, Fishman has challenged the myths and self-serving presumptions of the entire discipline of basic and applied psychology, and he has done so with an argument that is both historically and philosophically cogent, and that articulates a concrete alternative research paradigm -- the pragmatic case study. He offers us a vision of a discipline of psychology that is relevant, meaningful, practical, and theoretically sound, and that contributes to the public well-being and interest in the manner in which we have long promised to do, but have rarely actually done. This book will threaten those who are entrenched in the academic-scientific power structure and bureaucracy, and is sure to earn their wrath. The public and professional debate that will ensue is exactly what the field needs to arouse itself from its auto-hypnotic, self-satisfied, scientistic slumber. If the public interest, and the well-being of the individuals in our society are the criteria against which his proposal is evaluated, the outcome of the debate is assured; and the 21st century will be the century of a pragmatic psychology. Of course, only time will tell if that will be the case. In the meantime, the discipline of psychology is indebted to Daniel Fishman for tackling this monumental endeavor, and for having charted a course for all of us to work together to see the promise of psychology is ultimately realized. --Ronald B. Miller, author of The Restoration of Dialogue: Readings in the Philosophy of Clinical Psychology.

This is an excellent historical review of the events that surround the most important day in American History. July 2, 1863 in Gettysburg, PA. Mr. Sauer's concise history is a good beginning although many of the questions will never be answered. The Sickles-Meade Controversy is still vigorusly debated 130 years after the event. Most events are long out of the public memory by then but, I feel this one will last as long as there is an United States of America.

Although, I do not typically read science fiction, this book grapped my attention from the very beginning. My interest continued to the end of the book. I felt the author did an amazing job of taking a real life struggle that many people face and incorporating the possiblity of extraterrestrial life on earth. The story felt "believeable" to me and would make a good movie.

Catchin' the Drift o' the Draft is a collection of 41 original, satirical, and thoroughly entertaining short stories by the prolific writer, poet, and biographer Louis Daniel Brodsky, one of the ablest and most memorable literary figures of our day. These stories present a fast-paced journey through a literary cast of characters that reflect a full spectrum of the human experience. Also highly recommended are Brodsky's earlier works Yellow Bricks (1999) and This Here's a Merica (1999).

I own the French version of this book and I must say that it is exceptional. It's like a small encyclopeadia about Chagall, but in a convenient and light format (although there are A LOT of informations in the book)! I'm currently reading it and it offers an excellent trip into the world of Chagall: not only his art, but also his life. Some of the pictures (like the ones on the first pages, showing Chagall while he is painting) are stunning. If one word could describe this book, it would be: "complete". I recommend it to those who do not want to pay millions of bucks to have a book on Chagall, but who want to have a good view of who is the best artist that existed... and who want to be able to read the book in the bus, for example!

Traditional critical studies of the Bible have been focused on studying the text. Patte, in "Challenge..." focuses on studying readings of the text. And he does this by offering a system (he calls them frames--contextual, hermeneutical, and analytical) that helps us analyze how, what, and why real, flesh and blood readers (ordinary and informed)read!

So much have been written on locating meaning behind and within the text. Feminists, womanists, Third World, and other cultural critics of the Euro-American androcentric readings have privileged the world in front of the text. But only a few have seriously addressed the need to come up with a paradigm that enables us to understand or make sense of how readers actually read. Patte offers a groundbreaking contribution. Christian believers read the text as Scripture. What does that mean? He suggests seven metaphors that represent how most believers understand Scripture's role or function. Believers engage the text from specific contexts/problems/needs. Patte offers categories that frame their situation. Believers focus on specific dimensions of the text and he suggests six metaphors to represent this framing, this wandering viewpoint. Many will find his book disconcerting. It definitely is. But for those who take the ethics of interpretation seriously, this is a must read!