This edition is ripe for update (the information in this guide is more than three years old). The lodging and restaurant profiles are adequate, but dated.

I live near Cusco and have seen new and better accommodations, restaurants and dives open up. When I was in Cusco, in May, 2003, Footprint was there researching the next Cusco edition.

The one constant is the information on the attractions and ruins - timeless. Ben Box is at his best describing and touring the spectacular antiquity of Cusco, Machu Picchu and surrounding areas.

When it comes to profiling tour operators, Ben Box is superb. Especially consider his profiles if you are hiking the Inka Trail or want to see Manu Reserve (only 10 lic. operators). He has also highlighted some of the NGOs working with abandoned children and environmental issues - applaudable indeed.

The best place in Peru for up to date information is the 'South American Explorers Club' in Cusco (Lima has a club house too). The address given in this edition is old, SAE moved over a year ago. The new address is 188 Choquechaca #4, Cusco (Tel. 84-245484)

On the downside, the index is paltry and this guide lacks an accommodations or restaurants index. Thus, if you have a recommended restaurant you want to look up in a large city (Lima, Cusco etc.) you have to go through all the restaurant pages 'til you stumble across the name you seek or miss seeing it completely.

The publisher's use of paid advertisements for hotels, tour companies, calling cards and travel services (over 20 ads in this guide - many full page) are intrusive and causes one to question the integrity of the guide, when the same company with a full page ad is profiled and recommended by the author.

Also disturbing and disappointing is Ben Box's quick gloss-over of the rising crime in Cusco. Last year there was a rash of taxi robberies and rapes. The police in Cusco are a joke. Anyone with a car and who sticks has "TAXI" written on the front window is not questioned by the authorities. Thus, criminals cruise in private cars with a "TAXI" sticker and prey on unsuspecting tourists, especially women. Ben Box's coverage of crime and safety in Cusco is basically non-existent. Much better is the more recent 'Footprint - Peru' Guide.

These things noted, Instead of this guide I would encourage you to consider the 'Footprint - Peru' Guide 4th Edition (make sure it is the 4th Ed.). The "Peru" 4th edition has much more than this guide has and is more current. However, when Footprint brings out, the soon to come, Cusco 2nd edition, then I would strongly consider that guide.

It's a great book to relax, meditate and to really touch the inner self that you've been hiding. Induce and progress with this book. It's a keeper!

David Perkins is one of the authorities on literary history, but this book is not quite a masterpiece on the topic. One of the main distinctions(encyclopedic vs. narrative literary history) seems an obvious one, but it does not give a clear insight.The "encyclopedic literary history" is also narrative, so the classification seems too artificial. Still, the book is a very good introduction to the topic, before entering the complex works of the most influential authors in the topic, namely, Hayden White.

the death date of Early Edwards Sr. is wrong

This spiral bound manual serves as a nice companion to Petrology lab work. The color photographs of thin sections are the strong point of the manual. The organization, however, is the weak point. I find myself having to look up each mineral in the index in order to find it in the book --there does not seem to be any logical organization to the entries. Like I said, the photos are very helpful, but be prepared to spend time hunting for what you're looking for.

A book written by a bunch of North Carolina authors, each writing one chapter. As a NC native I had to see what this book was all about. The book lacked depth and jumped around. However, it was worth the read just to see how this large a group of authors work with one another. Also, if you live or have lived in the Triangle area, you'll recognize the scenery of this novel.

I bought the book to pass the exam for my MCSE+Internet certification. Even thought I passed the exam using only this book and nearly no hands on experience, I wouldn't recommend it. It simply doesn't cover all subjects, and lives you with a feeling like you are missing something all the time... Its good if you want an overview on IIS4, but you'll definetly will need something else

Julian Jares, MCSE+Internet, MCT

I read both the IIS40 Study Guide by Sybex and the MCSE Training Guide by New Riders. The Sybex book had more detail and examples and was the better of the two books. Unfortunately, neither book will get you through the IIS4 exam due to the complexity of the exam. It requires many hours of hands on experience with the MMC. I would also hold off on taking the exam until good practice tests are developed. I failed with a 690 after extensive study. You will need at least one of these books as a reference but not as your sole source of information for this test. Good luck.

I think everyone is being hard on Sybex's two great writers onthis book. This is an outstanding book that gives you detailedinformation about the topics you will need to cover in this exam. Not only that but it includes lots of movies and learn keys cd and simulators.

The questions sybexs uses are half decent. If you plan on buying book to pass the exam, it is not going to happen. However you can combine this manual with EASYCERT's. Yes Transcender is a good testing system, I have them all. BUT! Transcender is the absolute worst for IIS4. USE EASYCERT and you will pass.

This book was well written, few mistakes. The terms are well explained and understood. There are plenty of snap shots of the program you are reading about its not just crazy. There are lots of labs and information. You must be crazy to give this book a bad rating.

* I gave this 5 stars, it only deserves 4, but I have to boost the rating for users who gave it 1 * haha

Rhos Barnes, MCP

(Checkpoint MCSE Board Administrator)

Are you interested in spending thirty minutes per year in order to trounce the Dow Jones Industrial 30 stocks by a factor of eighteen over a 29-year period? Michael O'Higgins, in his recent book, "Beating The Dow With Bonds", lays out a seventeen step method for doing just that, beating the Dow using a nearly risk free method. All the necessary information to follow O'Higgins new strategy is available in Barron's Market Week, and it will not take more than 20 - 30 minutes per year to make the calculations. What really grabs the reader is the stellar performance of this investment approach. Table 9.1 on page 150 contains all the data needed for analyzing O'Higgins new tactics. The cumulative return with this new system is 47,886 percent versus the DJIA's return of 2,640 over the same twenty-nine year time period. O'Higgins is well known as the co-author of "Beating the Dow". In BTDWB, he compares this new strategy with his former Dogs of the Dow approach. The results are impressive, as the new strategy will generate, as mentioned above, a 47,886 percent return versus 12,377 percent for a Beating the Dow Five-Stock's. Another advantage for this new investment scheme is, this can all be accomplished with less risk. O'Higgins asks the question, "Are these results too good to be true"? He claims they are not. On closer examination, these results are too go to be true.

The strategy necessary to accomplish such outstanding returns requires one to look up some easy to find data in Barron's. First, identify the S&P Earnings Yield % and compare this value with the 10-Year U.S. Government T-bond Yield to Maturity after making a minor adjustment of adding 0.30% to the T-bond Yield. If the S&P Earnings exceed the adjusted bond yield, then it is time to select the five Dogs of the Dow (DOD) stocks. O'Higgins reviews the DOD process he originally laid out in his first book. If the adjusted bond yield is higher than the S&P 500 yield, then it is time to look up information on the 'Gold Indicator'. If the one-year change in the price of gold is higher than it was one year ago, then invest 100 percent of your portfolio in U.S. Treasure bills due to mature a year from now. If the one-year change is lower than the price of gold one year ago, then invest 100 percent of your portfolio in the highest yielding U.S. government zero coupon bonds available that are due to mature in twenty years or more. O'Higgins lays out all seventeen steps (there are actually about eleven or twelve critical steps) in great detail. The above description is only to explain the bare bones approach of his recent thesis. Note that the 0.3% correction is a "soft" number. Reading O'Higgins one might accept this as a rigid value.

One becomes suspicious of this strategy when O'Higgins moves investors out of the stock market beginning in 1981 and keeps them in either bonds or T-bills right through the greatest bull market of the century. How can this be so? It all comes down to uncommonly outstanding performance in two of the 29 years; his 30-year zero coupon bonds yielded 156.12% and 106.90% in 1982 and 1985, respectively. If one returns those stellar bond years to the DJIA return of 25.79% (1982) and 32.78% (1985), according to O'Higgins figures, then the DJI and BTD 5 Stocks both will out-perform O'Higgins new strategy. To build an overall investment philosophy where two years of outstanding performance is the key kicker is truly data mining.

Following O'Higgins BTDWB method, I ran the numbers for two consecutive weeks late in 1998. One week I was in 30-year Zero Coupon Bonds; the next week I was in stocks. Where you will have 100% of your portfolio positioned depends on the week you make your assessment. O'Higgins BTDWB strategy is simple and purports to generate excellent returns, both enticing to the novice investor. Nevertheless, it is a flawed system. With interest rates where they are today, it is highly improbable followers of this system will see future returns match the high historical returns. In addition to the fundamental flaws of this investment strategy, BTDWB needed a keener eye when it came to editing the book. Examples of this showed up on page 48, where the Price to Sales Ratio is given as: "To get the price to sales ratio, divide the sales per share figure by the stock's current market price". Price to Sales is the reciprocal of what is stated. Graphs are consistently lacking in fundamental information. On page 50, no units are provided for the y-axis and one of the graph lines is missing as there is a Small Cap value of $4,495.99 floating in space at the northeast corner of the graph. In Chapter 4, a brief case is made for investing in small cap stocks. O'Higgins tells us he will address, in the final chapter, when to be in small cap stocks. He never follows through with this information. The graph on page 106 does not contain any identifying information on the y-axis. Chapter 11 is nothing but filler. These are examples of numerous errors in the book.

Overall, "Beating the Dow with Bonds" is an interesting but flawed read. Both the novice and experienced investor would do well to go back to the fundamental analysis and hard work involved in investing. Forget the quick and simple methods espoused in the popular press.

Lowell Herr

The book was not very well written, and why he felt the need to devote 70 pages describing in copious detail all 30 of the Dow stocks is beyond me. However, his 30 year zero-coupon analysis does have something going for it, and the inflation rate is a good predictor for a change in asset allocation.

This is one of the few stock market books from the 1990s that will be read and appreciated many years from now. While silly stuff like "Dow 36,000" & Harry Dent quickly withers away, O'Higgins advice gains credibility every day in this apparently multi-year bear market. Several web sites (beartopia dot com & others) mention this book. Perhaps the book's title should have substituted "zero coupon bonds" for the word "bonds." Do look up the authors corrected list of investment steps here at Amazon, however, do not let the slightly sloppy editing deter you from learning this powerful investment advice. The more knowledgable one is of the market, the more one appreciates O'Higgins and his two works. This book's advice works in bull and bear markets.

This book covers ever aspect of IIS and Index Server but is so light on detail that you'd fail the exam by a large margin. I passed with a score of 897 but this was mainly because of the brain dumps and cram guides found elsewhere on the Net. Spend your hard earned cash on another book.

MCSE IIS 3.0 book by Strebe and Perkins is the best and the only book you need to study for 70-077. Actually, this exam is one of the easiest to pass. Even though the book has more than necessary information to pass the exam, it is advisable to just go through the whole book once. The long portions on Dfs, Crystal reports and Web creation tools are not need for the exam but it is good to know. The exam mostly deals with NTFS security, virtual sever and directories and ODBC connectivity issues. I passed the exam within 10 days of starting with this book. May be I am just too conservative to give a perfect 10 rating for this book.

This book will not help you to pass this exam. It has several chapters that are irrelevant and several more that do not go into enough detail The good points. It is an easy read and the demo exams from the CD are good. Use On-line documenation, build an IIS server and use one of the test preperation exams from Transcender or CICPrep

I would say The Beginning is very good for people having no concept of OOPS and want to start with Java programming specially Laura Lemay, I would say is one of the best autor and having given good practical examples. However as soon as Charles L. Perkins takes over we are loosing our tracks totally. It cannot be useful because even a simple thing has made so complicated that it will cause you to think as if it is very difficult and there are no examples which you can try and understand. I am not sure want author is trying to achieve. I would suggest to new learners please don't even think of reading Charles L. Perkins portion, it will misguide you and you may loose your further interest in Learning Java

Even as a beginning programmer, I was able to tell that Lemay was jumping all over the subject of object-oriented programming in Java after the first chapter. The book *is*, I suppose a decent ease into the subject, but the numerous typos and lack of consistency was thoroughly confusing.

I tend to agree with many other reviews of this book which cite the large portion of the book which is devoted to Java 1.02 when its title says otherwise. I could even understand having that info there for backwards compatibility-sake, but the text is very badly organized, jumping back and forth from one to the other.

I have respect for Lemay, as I've read some of her other books, but the editing on this on is attrocious!

Since then, I have picked up some of the O'Rielly Java in a Nutshell books and they have been *very* helpful for me, especially Java Examples in Nutshell, because I learn best by seeing working code and picking it apart (emphasis on *working*).

I'd suggest this book only for a basic intro to Java, and it's mediocre as a reference manual, also.

good book for a starter, very much like L.Lemays other books. Everything is covered but in short. gives the general overview of JDK1.1 and Java1.1