I have just written my thesis paper on ASPs and know that there is little good literature on the topic. Therefore, I was willing to pay a bit more for one of the few books that is out on the market. In this case this is a big mistake. The promising title does not reveal the actual content of the book. The author only touches the ASP topic and does not really present more than the basics.

I can advise people to buy this book if they are looking for easy literature. For serious academic or business papers it is really not suited.

One of the most challenging jobs I have had to deal with is advising small businesses on just what the ASP model means to them. This book has the basis in advising companies about small businesses and what the role of an AP can mean to them. The concept of breaking out e-marketing, e-commerce and e-operations is innovative and really helps the small businessperson understand what an ASP model can do for them. I think the approach to creating a performance contract with an ASP is also very helpful. The author takes the direction of having Service Level Agreements being just the beginning. Performance incentives needs to be in place for a company to really get their money's worth out of an ASP relationship. This book was very useful in getting small businesses to understand the ASP model.

What's refreshing about this book is its' focus on the idea that ASPs are supposed to be business partners with their clients. I found the aspects on developing contracts over just Service Level Agreements valuable. It was worth the reading.

This is a book full of Windows general usage information that targets novice Windows user, very little XP specific, and most of information you better read them from other alternative such as Windows Help which comes for free. It's poorly organized with redundancy and very little insights either technical or historical in the actual contents...

I found the book to be very valuable for an Introduction to Windows XP Professional class I am teaching. Calling it just a compilation of help files is inaccurate; there are many hands-on exercises and insights the author has provided from speaking with actual XP early adopters. In addition the networking sections provide the level of detail necessary for teaching a course that touches on TCP/IP. In fact, the two chapters on TCP/IP are very useful in that they give not just Microsoft's stance on the technology but also the technical background of how standards evolved.

Very useful for training purposes, I give it five stars! Students love it too!

I don't agree with the previous review. The book is for novice and intermediate users. For people like me, that have little windows knowledge but wanted to set up a start up company, it was excellent. It explains everything in a straightforward language and it's nicely organized so you can use it as reference later.

I was disappointed in Microsoft Reader's inability to print. I like the concept of near instant availability for e-books, but prefer to read from the printed page instead of staring at a computer screen. Funny, too, how I found out I couldn't print my document until after I had purchased this e-book and installed the Microsoft Reader software (with the additional step of having to "activate" a pc for it). In fact, Microsoft Reader's Help section doesn't make mention of the fact that one can't print its documents. A search in the help topics only produces the result that the word "print" can't be found.

I'll avoid the Microsoft Reader e-book format in the future.

Really Really boring, don't think anyone should waste their time reading this garbage. Horrible!

I have read many versions of Uncle Vanya, but this edition is an up-beat, funny, and, ultimately wonderful version of the excellent story by one of Russias beloved writers. I was looking for the right edition to use in my school for the school play, and this edition the kids could connect to. It dosen't have a lot of that Shakespere mumbo-jumbo that you have to read 50 times. This is accesible and very good. rock on David Mamet.

I DON'T SEE HOW PEOPLE COULD GIVE THIS BOOK AT LEAST 3 STARS. I WAS VEEEEERY DISAPPOINTED. READING THE EXCERPTS GAVE ME FALSE HOPE. THIS WAS NOT A ROMANCE BOOK. IT IS ABOUT A WOMAN WITH MANY ISSUES. PLUS, SHE CRIED TOO MUCH. I'VE HEARD THAT MRS. ALERS WRITES GOOD BOOKS. WELL, THIS WAS THE FIRST BOOK OF HERS THAT I HAVE READ. THIS MUST NOT HAVE BEEN HER BEST. I'M GLAD THAT I RENTED IT FROM THE LIBRARY. THIS MAY SEEM LIKE I'M A VERY RUDE PERSON. I'M JUST OUT-SPOKEN. WELL, READ IT FOR YOURSELF. YOU MIGHT LIKE IT. MIGHT.

It took me to get to chapter 4 before I realized I read this book before. I read this book back in 1989 when I picked up my first African-American romance. I am an avid reader and I also collect books. I have my original copy of this book with a different cover. Back then I honestly believed that white writers were writing these books because the format that was followed was similar to Harlequin Romances. Everyone knows that a Harlequin had a guy, a girl, and an unlikely situation. The whole romance was based on a look, a one time kiss, or reactions and dialogue that was way over the top and supposed to pass for sensuous. This was the type of African-American romance that made me not want to read any romance that was supposed to have African American characters in it. I didn't pick up another African-American Romance until 1995. Overall, I absolutely love Ms. Alers later stories the Hideaway series and her Anthologies but as for this story and Gentle Yearnings they are not what I would call hot, sexual, or sensuous stories. They are luke warm like older Harlequins they leave you wondering why you wasted your time.

I really enjoyed this book. Nicholas Bradshaw was something else, he made my blood boil in more ways then one. But I think Dyana handled him very well. The book was really good, a must read!Much love to Ms Alers

The true story of Cristobal Colon (coined Christopher Columbus by Washington Irving and other American writers) is quite unsavory. It's a well documented (Colon's journal, Spanish Government Archives and Church records)story of rape, torture, slave trading, and finally genocide. I agree that the true story of Colon is not appropriate for children. But a sanitized version is even more inappropriate - akin to a children's book praising the Third Reich. This book is a clear example of misinformation. It tell part of the truth while ignoring the bulk of the truth. The result is misleading, but not technically false. For a more complete and accurate reading of Colon, see Kirkpatrick Sale's "The Conquest of Paradise, Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy," James Wilson's "The Earth Shall Weep, a history of native America," Ward Churchill's "A Little Matter of Genocide, Holocaust Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present," and Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States."

This is definitely the Columbus rhyming book I was looking for. With its big 23" x 20" size, kids will have fun just turning the pages. The water-color illustrations are expansive and entertaining.

The book is unfortunately tainted with one page of revisionist history, which, since it is directed at children, is particularly reprehensible. The page in question says "The first American, No not quite / But Columbus was brave and he was bright." Columbus was more than brave and bright -- he discovered the entire Western Hemisphere.

But the book is salvageable -- and you can turn this into a learning experience -- if you take an 8-1/2" x 14" piece of self adhesive paper, match the page background on your computer, then type the following rhyme over it and paste it into the book:

And in his many travels from there to here / He discovered the entire Western Hemisphere.

This section of text then reads as follows:

October 12 their dream came true / You never saw a happier crew.

"Indians! Indians!" Columbus cried / His heart was filled with joyful pride.

But India the land was not / It was the Bahamas and it was hot.

The Arawak natives were very nice / They gave the sailors food and spice.

Columbus sailed on to find some gold / To bring back home as he'd been told.

He made the trip again and again / Trading for gold to bring to Spain.

And in his many travels from there to here / He discovered the entire Western Hemisphere.

This gives children an accurate historical account while affording good practice with three-syllable words like "hemisphere".

A student brought the book to share with the class and it took over the whole day.It produced a remarkable understanding of the adventures of Christopher Columbus. My kindergarteners loved it and so did I.

[Note: If you are an old-time upper middle class Columbus resident with little interest in the how's and why's, this is the book for you. Go Buckeyes and all that.]

Columbus, Ohio.

Behind the mask, it is an amazing city. A thriving town with stunning sprawl and clever consumer oriented design, and a surprising diversity as tens of thousands of new Somali and Mexican immigrants pour into this post-modern Oz. The thriving gay culture; the rule of yuppie; the sickening Appalachian slums; the movie-set consumer cities of Polaris, Easton and New Albany; the subsumption of small satellite towns; the sharp racial lines; the real estate bonanza and on and on and on . . . all of it hidden from the reader by Hunker's misty sentimentality.

I, too, love Columbus. However, this is a subject in desperate need of serious study, and is in many ways the face of a new majority America wanting for explication. Its' transitions and losses are the hallmark of an economy remaking an entire region in its image, a stark contrast to post-industrial Cleveland or hilly Cincinnati.

Granted, this is a personal geography: a travelogue that misses more than it sees. The thin (in every sense) volume is devastating testament to the need for a critical approach to geography, least it be reduced to a series of lamentations, winking accolades, and the perpetuation of a such limited reading of the rich story embedded in the dynamic urban fabric. The geography of Columbus is waiting to be written.

Columbus, Ohio: A Personal Geography is Henry Hunker's account of post-World War II Columbus from his perspective as a professional geographer and longtime resident of this Ohio city. Personal and anecdotal, Columbus, Ohio spans the past fifty years when the city expanded to become the largest municipality in the state. Hunker includes itineraries for two tours (one in 1956, the other in 1999) and uses them to compare the city then and now. The informative and engaging text is enhanced with eighteen photographs, and four maps of the metropolitan area. Columbus, Ohio provides the reader with fascinating and thought-provoking view of the physical, economic, industrial, and cultural life of Columbus. This outstanding presentation could well serve as a template for historical surveys of other significant and influential American communities.

This was an assigned book for my college History course, and I can say that I pity all those poor students who have to read this book too. While the content is actually pretty decent, each section is far too long. I had to drink two cups of coffee for every essay, and even then if I didn't have notes I wouldn't have remembered a word. All I can say is highlight what's important, and learn to speed-read!

This popular two-volume collection of secondary sources explores America's social and political history from pre-Revolutionary times through the present. Oates takes a biographical approach, portraying our history as the struggle of real people who have sometimes triumphed and sometimes failed. Each chapter contains two or three articles that provide different perspectives on an historical period or question. Each selection was carefully chosen for its literary merit, importance to historical scholarship, and potential to excite students' interest. Many of the selections and authors represented have won Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and other honors.

I am a native Puerto Rican and was about to travel to the island to visit my family. I was interested in learning more about the history of this enchanted island in order to further appreciate my home and understand my background as a native. I found this book to be a great general introduction to the origins of the island and it's culture. However, I found it to be one of the few historical books that I have read that lacked excitement and specificity. The author would mention places and events that seemed of great importance but would neglect to give names and dates. Some of these were mentioned with such celerity and vagueness that it left me unsatisfied with the information rendered; especially those places and events I grew up with that were alluded to but never clearly mentioned. This book lacks a great deal of clarity. The sentence structure often feels like an undergraduate essay that hasn't been proof read. The historical time-line is often unclear as well. Many times I found myself lost as to when the events described were happening. But to Louise Cripps' credit, I have to say that I never felt like it was a careless attempt at capturing this island's past. It was done with respect and genuine sincerity. Again, the book is a great introduction to Puerto Rican history. But honestly, it isn't well written.

christopher colombus sails westwards. The Tainos. The spanish conquest. Pirates and European invaders. The development of the Island. A new sense of nationalisme. The united states takes over the spain. Modern Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico and their customs. Puerto Ricans at plays. Puerto Ricans at work. The beauty of the island.

The problem with Weil's book is that, if you pick it up in order to read about what is involved in trying to build a new, low-cost space launch vehicle, it doesn't tell you very much at all. Rather, it is a colorful "human interest" story about the people of Rotary Rocket Company, who tried to build such a vehicle, but failed in that particular attempt. For those who are seriously interested in the question of how to get from where we are today to a vehicle that can make space affordable and accessible, this book will disappoint. She treats the whole enterprise as a science fiction fantasy, completely lacking in any rational justification. Weil fails to make any of the obvious comparisons with the people and ventures responsible for building the aviation industry - literally from the ground up - in the early years of the last century. Some of them were successful, many failed, and many kept on trying until they did succeed. The aviation pioneers were considered eccentric at best, or crazy at worst. Maybe some of them were, but millions of airline passengers benefit from their craziness on a regular basis. If you like to read about interesting people, then maybe you'll enjoy this book. If you want insight into the many technical and business issues that need to be addressed in the process of building spaceships, don't expect much here.

Some technical errors popped out at me while reading this book. The rocket equation needs parentheses. Triggering an igniter several seconds prior to t-minus zero does not 'allow' mixing, it prevents a fuel build-up from leading to an explosion. Specific impulse is not 'the amount of time it takes to achieve a pound of thrust' but the amount of time a pound of fuel can sustain a pound of thrust. Unmanned vehicles are not two thousand times more likely to fail than manned vehicles, the unmanned Delta has a 97% success rate versus 98% for the Shuttle.

Did the author have an engineer review her book, or is technical fact-checking optional for writers who get into the New York Times Literary Supplement? This inattention to simple technical detail makes me wonder how accurate the rest of the book is, and whether the quotes are accurate as well.

One thing does emerge: building a tall helicopter when you're supposed to build a spaceship is not the greatest idea in the world.

"They All Laughed at Christopher Columbus," by Elizabeth Weil, is several books rolled into one. At its heart, it is a biography of one man, Gary Hudson, and his life-long passion to get people, ideally himself included, off the planet on his own terms. Hudson turns this private passion into a shared vision of religious proportions, a vision of man's destiny to forever conquer new ground. Weil introduces us to a whole host of fascinating characters who get swept up in Hudson's vision and make up his devoted team. Weil has the generosity to include herself as one of the characters as well, as she takes us along the roller coaster ride of hope and disillusionment that she herself rode as she conducted her research. Along the way, we are treated to a history of rocket science, an anthropological study of a space counter-culture, an insider's view of a remarkable historical moment with American capitalism running amok and crashing into a crumbling Russian space agency, a lesson in the physics and magic of spinning things, as well as beautiful and insightful descriptions of people and places, deserts and science-fiction readers. And, in the end, it's a fun and surprisingly suspenseful story that's hard to put down. The suspense is surprising only in that Weil, to some extent, reveals the largest scale outcome in the beginning. And yet, I found myself hanging on each victory and defeat, as the scale of the model rocket, and its accompanying vision, alternately shrink and re-over-inflate.

I read this book on the strength of my experience with "A Yellow Raft in Blue Water" by Michael Dorris. There is no comparison between the two books.
"Crown of Columbus" is fundamentally a mystery (the crown) but makes an attempt at character development and at political correctness and throws in something related to university professors and poetry. None of it works together.
It was obvious, about two-thirds of the way through the book what the solution to the mystery was going to be. The characters were not real enough to keep my interest in whether they developed or did not.
The final burden that I was unable to bear was the several pages devoted to the male lead's reciting his poetry.
Not to my taste.

Anti-climactic is the best single phrase to describe this book. I guess it depends on what you want in a novel. It starts out with the air of mystery surrounding the "Crown of Columbus" and what it actually is; sort of a historical mystery, although fictional. The book then becomes a story about the two main characters and their on-again/off-again romance of opposites. Most of the book is about this romance and the action and resolution of the mystery don't really get going until the very end. By the time you find out what the "Crown" is, it is sort of "so what?" In other words, not very satisfying. I wouldn't recommend this book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Once I got past the misleading synopsis on back of the novel and accepted the novel for what it really was, I became intensely involved. Roger Williams and Vivian Twostar are stereotypes, which is the point. They are cariactures; Dorris and Erdrich having a little fun with the stereotypes people have placed on them. The depth of character found in Erdrich's other novels is clearing missing; however, _The Crown of Columbus_ is a different kind of novel. It is a modern romance, detective, adventure, and historical novel at the same time. I recommend this book to someone looking for an entertaining read; anyone seeking high literature should read Erdrich's _Tracks_