I can not make it to a gym, and to use this book, you need gym equipment. I have dumb bells, and a few other things I can use at home. I had to return this book because it is unusable for someone like me who can not make it to the gym.

I'm 36 and was getting marginal results with my self-defined workout schedule. I am extremely happy with the results I'm getting from following the plan. The detailed workouts are a real plus. They help keep you focused in the gym and really push you to the next level. I'm on week 8 of Level 3 and have toned up considerably without really watching what I eat. I'm recommending this book to all my friends.

I am starting this program on January 1, 2001 so I can not attest to its results. I can say that this book is excellent in detail. Every single workout is broken down for you. There is also a place to write your sets and reps etc. It is divided into three parts (beginning, inter., adv.,) It is a 28 week program that I am sure will bring outstanding results. It is a lot of work, for instance...by the time you have made it to the advanced portion (the last 16 weeks) you will be working out 6 days a week. Some may think that is too much but hey... how bad do you want an awesome body? If you want one bad then I suggest you check out this book. Excellent prescription of excercises for those of us with "pear shapes" or larger lower bodies. I can't wait to get started.

Although this book is somewhat daunting for the beginner, it is an excellent resource once you get your Photoshop feet wet. The WOW CD is simply great, so many special effects in an instant. I have read it over and over and in some cases dissected each section by writing out each step of the process before actually trying it on my own projects. It helped me immensely to "ace" my Photoshop class this semester. I would only recommend it however, for the "tenacious" beginner. You really need to know the basics of the software...it isn't a beginner's guide.

For Print or web use this book has some nifty tricks to apply to your work, I found it easy to follow but I can see where newbies or (ahem!) people without a manual could get lost quick.

If you are looking to add something special to your portfolio but dont have any ideas this book might be the one for you!

If you are looking for a resource of special effects, type treatments, retouching and color correction tricks, the Photoshop WOW! series have always for a good choice. Each version of the book has been significantly updated to match current versions of Photoshop, implementing the latest Photoshop features. Compared to most of the other Photoshop special effects books on the market, I feel the Photoshop WOW books have better examples, better techniques and offer the best value. The Photoshop WOW! book show many of the basic tools in Photoshop, but its main value is the special effect department. Books that excell in general production techniques include Deke McClellend's Photoshop 4 Bible, and two books by Dan Margulis, Professional Photoshop and Makeready.

An invaluable guide to this very difficult problem. Ogden, perhaps the world's leading expert in this field, makes a compelling case for deliberate long term planning, tailored to an enterprise's specific needs. His laserlike focus and penetrating analysis seem like a hidden national treasure.

Corporate titans and politicians who would like to be statesmen ought to read this book and heed the lessons offered.

Shareholders naturally assume that boards have succession for the CEO and other top executives all figured out. WRONG! A well kept secret is that many CEOs try to stall in this area, as a way to make themselves more secure.

Even the companies that work in this area can be unprepared. A young CEO may suddenly jump to another company (as Ray Gilmartin did from Becton Dickinson to Merck), die unexpectedly of a heart attack (as Jerry Junkins did at Texas Instruments), or fail to perform to the board's expectations (as has happened to many companies). Couple that with the fact that irresistible forces may mean that the style that worked well in the past won't wash any more, and apparent succession preparation can equal being totally clueless.

The authors are headhunters with Spencer Stuart and share what they learned in interviews during 1996 and 1997 at Met Life, Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, Mobil, Continental Grain, SmithKline Beecham, Delta, Mellon Bank, Bestfoods, Foster Wheeler, Hercules, and GTE. They also interspace other examples. One of the difficulties with a book like this is that things don't always turn out as they seem. A lot of praise in the book goes into Coca-Cola's preparation for the unexpected death of Roberto Goizueta. Douglas Ivester is quickly invested, which is where the book ends. But we know that he also was almost as quickly divested as he turned out to be a poor replacement. This replacing CEOs is a tough business. As irresistible forces become stronger and more volatile, replacements will probably occur even more frequently.

The book concludes that 10 key practices are required: Have a strong, involved board; continually expose the top management team to the board; encourage the next generation of CEO prospects to get early experience with outside boards, the media, and the financial community; create an active executive or operating committee so more executives get exposure to an overview of the company, its strategy and issues; do succession planning on an on-going, real-time basis; take as much human drama out of the process as possible (it's especially hard on number twos); tie some of the CEO's compensation to succession planning and progress; have the directors be paid in stock and make additional investments in the company's shares; calibrate the internal candidates with external ones; and develop a culture that encourages succession (a la Built to Last).

So much for the summary. Here are the problems. Although this book purports to be a best practice book, it does not investigate enough companies to succeed. This is actually a limited survey of practices, with picking out some that seem to work better. To be accurate, such a survey would have had to consider in equivalent detail at least 400 companies. A handful won't cut it.

Second, they have to measure of success in succession. They obviously like some better than others. Without some success measure, you cannot pick out best practices.

Third, the book plugs a service that appears to be from Spencer Stuart in callibrating internal and external candidates. To me, that made the book read like a virtual ad rather than a book about management practices.

Fourth, the audience spoken to was mostly boards and CEOs. There are a lot of other stakeholders out there, like customers, employees, suppliers, distributors, and the communities the companies serve. Shouldn't their reaction be considered in deciding which successions work well and which do not?

I could go on, but you get the idea. The authors needed someone to help them design a methodology before they started. Without one, they have produced a book, and some of what it says seems to make sense. With an appropriate methodology, I am sure they could have produced a much better book.

If you want more information on the subject, your best source in my opinion is to read the case studies in Directors & Boards, a magazine devoted to corporate governance. The material I have read in that magazine is consistently superior to what is in this book.

Good luck in overcoming your disbelief stall that people who recruit CEOs should know how to determine best practices in the area of CEO succession.

Authors Dennis C. Carey and Dayton Ogden present a thorough, insightful guide to choosing a new Chief Executive Officer in this nicely written, concise book. Offering plenty of inside information and real-life corporate examples, the authors explore their ideas without resorting to fluff or to the dry, dull prose that often fills such books. Given their experience helping corporations choose CEOs and other executives, the authors know what they're talking about and understand the tricky issues involved in putting any advice into practice. Their book delivers what it promises, and given that it can be repetitive, it delivers on some of those promises two or three times (but we're quibbling, some of those lessons do bear repeating). We [...] recommend this book to anyone involved in executive succession and recruitment, especially board members (read it now, before you ditch your CEO, not after).

If you are a fan of Target, or passionate about the retail industry (as I am!), 'On Target' is a broad overview of the history of Target. The first five chapters explore what Target is--a high end discounter--and some of the tactics the company uses in its success. Chapters 6-8 explore the history of the company, and recognizes the Dayton family for being honest, hardworking, and ambitious. Chapters 9-11 explore some of Target's challenges and strategy.

This book is a good overview, but at less than 200 pages only skims the surface of what makes Target. The author takes a very positive view, which may be entirely appropriate given the success of the company and the upstanding Dayton family. However, there were certainly challenges, mis-steps, and successes that went in to building the brand and the stores that could have gone much further in understanding the company.

A must read for industry watchers, and an enjoyable read for customers or suppliers. Not the definitive analysis of what or who makes Target what it is.

This book, written by a cousin of designer Cynthia Rowley, covers the basics of the Target Corporation: it's history, it's rise into American discount retail prominence and most importantly, the unique and unorthodox methods and philosophies Target utilizes. Unlike other corporations, Target actually seems to care about quality, value, their employees, and their communities. They donate annually 5% of their before-tax profits and oversees a working environment of trust and respect. The drab writing does not take away from their exemplary philanthropic ventures but it definitely beats the hell out of it. The one glaring problem that Target shares with so many other powerful retailers is their continued use of overseas labor. This often entails low wages, long hours, and lack of respect for the workers. According to the book, Target is concerned but that is not enough to stop them from providing the demand for cheap wares in the States. On a little side note, Americans are so bloody concerned with sweatshop labor and inhuman working conditions but when factories are set up in the States and inevitable costs rise such as union wages and health care benefits, those same Americans say that they refuse to pay for a $50.00 pair of pants made in America as opposed to paying $15.00 for a pair made in Taiwan. As quality rises, so does cost...

Anyways, short (only 200+ pages), but current, book written in a rather dull way. Spotlights Target's generosity and caring but also casts light on the continued problems concerning under-paid overseas labor. Rent it from the library or buy it used.

Anyone who loves shopping in Target would enjoy this easy-to-read look at the top retailer. And anyone in business -- whether or not they've been to a Target store -- should read it for insight on extraordinary success.

I found a Visual Guide for the Mac confusing the author assumes you already know what the tools are and where they are located. I was also flustrated by working thru more than one example only to find you had to leave Illustrator to perform a task in Adobe Streamline. Well guess what I don't have Adobe Streamline. I found Adobes Users Guide and tours far more informative. A Video would get this information across far better.

Regarding Adobe Illustrator: A Visual Guide for the Mac - A step-by-step approach to learning illustration software...

Inspiring projects, of which you probably would need to know the program before tackling them.

I'm only surprised and disappointed that these two excellent authors, Janet and Linnea have not done a revise as Adobe Illustrator 8 is way new and greatly improved since 1995. Hence only 4 stars, but 5 thumbs up if they ever released a revise!

If you're looking for projects to do, and you know your way around Illustrator, this is a great book to pick up for your library.

This book is one of my favorite graphic design books. I can't believe no one else has written a customer review! "Adobe Illustrator:A Visual Guide for the Mac" shows examples of things you need to do in Illustrator, and how to get them done. The authors make skillful use of the step-by-step approach. The examples and projects are visually appealing and the instructions are clear and easy to follow. I especially like the section on creating vector art with a hand drawn look, "Softening the postscript line," and the section on manipulating and coloring clip art,"Modifying clip art." Although this book was written in 1995 for version 5 or 6, the instructional techniques work just fine in Illustrator version 7. This book is simply jam-packed, from cover to cover, with useful advice, ideas, and detailed instructions for creating and working with vector art. I highly recommend it as a must-have for any desktop publisher, graphic designer or digital illustrator.

The Making of America's Bosnia Policy

Getting to Dayton is an extremely well-written analysis of how the United States became actively engaged in Bosnia in 1995. Daalder weaves the story of how policy makers in Washington actually made (and make) their decisions. He possesses intimate knowledge of the actors in the story and has enormous regard for the delicate sequencing of events. His research, which is based on personal interviews, extensive reviews of available literature, and personal experience in the White House, marks this book not only as one of the best books on U.S. Bosnia policy but on the structure of U.S. policy making. The book is of equal interest to both those inside and outside the Beltway.

Chandler's book is an outstanding analysis and critique of the political/administrative system set up in Bosnia-Herzegovina after the signing of the Dayton Accords in late 1995. There is a very useful breakdown of the (too numerous) power structures at work in the country, from the 'local entity' governments of the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Republika Srpska to the astoundingly confusing layers of international administrative bodies and organizations. The rather obvious result is that little gets accomplished with all of these parallel governing institutions in place. Chandler's central argument is that the deep involvement of the international powers in Bosnia through the Office of the High Representative, NATO, the OSCE and other bodies is actually making matters worse, rather than laying down the foundations for peaceful coexistence and Bosnian self-government. In this vein, for these international institutions the process of "democratization" has become an end to itself rather than the ideal objective of establishing a functioning democracy that would require no international tutelage. Chandler also correctly points out that the Dayton Accords, although declaratively committed to a multiethnic, unified Bosnian state, have in fact solidified the country's division into ethnically-based units. However, the book is less persuasive where it implies that a major withdrawal of international troops would not necessarily mean a resumption of hostilities. Indeed, Chandler focuses very little attention to the mutual fear, mistrust and hatred which escalated in the early 1990s and led to the war in the first place. Nonetheless, this is a very useful, and damning, overview of an international experiment in peace-making and state-building - a must-read for anyone interested in Bosnia's future.

Leslie H. Allen's edited compilation of "Bryan and Darrow at Dayton," subtitled "The Record and Documents of the 'Bible-Evolution' Trial," was characterized as a "contemporary history and a ready reference record for a future in which those issues will loom ever larger until in men's minds they have been squared with the truth." In his forward, dated July 27, 1925, Allen wrote that although he had strong convictions towards one side he hoped his readers would not be able to judge if he was a Fundamentalist or a Modernist. However, in characterizing the conflict in terms of a religious schism rather than as religion versus science, Allen gave his sympathies away. Allen included public statements and incidents surrounding the trial and Bryan's undelivered speech, as well as two-page biographies of William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, passages from Genesis, and three pages from Hunter's "Civic Biology" (the state required textbook at that time). While it is fairly obvious Allen sided with the Scopes defense, this does not detract from his attempt to provide a balanced treatment of the trial. Allen refrains from including editorial comments, letting the chronlogy of events dictate the order statements outisde the courtroom are included. Only when Allen writes in his own voice does he betray his allegiances. Of course, his title reflects that in 1925 the Scopes "Monkey" Trial was seen more as a clash of personalities than the resolution of major issues. I did my dissertation on the Scopes Trial and while Allen's book is not the complete stenographic record of the trial published elsewhere, it was certainly a laudable attempt in its day to lay out the trial for those interested in evaluating the rhetoric of the two main figures, if not the legal arguments made by others that determined the actual case.

I picked up this book because it came as a free download with the palmreader software for my now defunct PDA. It's the latest in a line of new STAR TREK fiction (apparently available exclusively through download) that concerns the SCE, the Starfleet Corps of Engineers.

This book is useful essentially to illuminate everything that is wrong with STAR TREK fiction and is what happens when fanboys get to write drama. They forget that they are writing drama in leiu of simply throwing a lot of one-dimensional characters out there and jamming in a bunch of trivia.

Plotlines from half a dozen STAR TREK episodes are awkwardly jammed into the story as exposition. Most are unecessary. (I supppose someone has to remind readers how Scotty got to the 24th century) All have the light touch of a sledgehammer to the skull.

The characterizations in Interphase are laughably cardboard. They have no human depth to them. They exist only as stiff archetypes lacking any sort of subtlety. The writers' main idea of character development seems to be tacking on little ethnic eccentricities to the players in the story, like Captain Gold, who radiates his Jewishness by throwing out phrases like "schmeer" and "the whole meggilah." This is disturbing not from a racialist aspect, but simply because it's so painfully obvious.

What's actually a shame is that the main plotline is actually kind of interesting. The crew is sent out on a mission to salvage the U.S.S. Defiant at the invitation of the Tholians. Those of you may remember the TOS episode "The Tholian Web" where the U.S.S. Enterprise was sent to find out what happened to the Defiant (one of the "original 13" Constitution class vessels. The other 11 being; the Constitution, the Constellation, the Lexington, the Hood, the Intrepid, the Ark Royal, the Discovery, the Kitty Hawk, the Valiant, the El Dorado and the Saratoga. HAH - TAKE THAT FANBOY!) It's a good base for a story. It touches back to familiar territory. It has the mystery potential surrounding the fate of the Defiant. Intrigue with the Tholians. Unfortunately, it just never really comes together.

There is one character in the story that sparks interest. The 3rd in command of the SCE vessel (I'm assuming some sort of warp tender) is not of a personality suited to command. A gregarious sort, who uses humour as a social lubricant, he is popular, but not a "command guy." I know this personality well. But in the end, though a refreshing change from the "heroic" personality, he too is merely a "type," who in the end, will, as if by magic, fulfill the fanboy dream of shedding the nebbishy exterior and becoming "command guy."

Anyone who feels like reading STAR TREK fiction would be much better served by picking up John Ford's The Final Reflection. Still the best STAR TREK novel ever published.

This Star Trek literary spinoff follows the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, which appears to be led by none other than Scotty (back from his vacation with a shuttle from the Enterprise after being rescued from a 80 year transporter buffer loop) of Original Series fame.

The story follows a crew of an SCE ship, trying to recover the USS Defiant out of the rift it fell into back in Kirk's day, with the Tholians added to make things interesting. The story tries to tie up the loose ends left by the original series episode.

As far as stories go, it's not terrible. For a Star Trek novel, it's fairly decent. The characters are sort of believable, and the writing is tollerable. It has a clever plot, and one that fits in quite well with the establish Star Trek Universe.

That said, I see no reason why the two parts of this story couldn't have been condenced into one book. Niether part is very long. not even long enough, to qualify as a novella, much less a novel. Someone pulled a fast one of their customers here.

If you're the type of person who read Star Trek, you might like this one, but otherwise? Don't bother.

I've always wondered why the Tholians were so cheesed off at the crew of the Defiant in the classic Trek episode "The Tholian Web", and now I know. This e-book and its second part are an excellent adventure.

This S.C.E. e-book series is a good read. I would say "page-turner", but it's more of a "page-clicker". I'll be keeping track of this series, and buying more as they come out.