This is a very good book to read and reference and covers a lot. Although I don't use Sendmail anymore, I still reference it when I support a server that runs it and it coveres everything a book shoudl cover about a topic. It doesn't get all generalized and go off into basic installs and configures of other software and things just to waste more trees, it does it's job and does it well. It's *the* Sendmail book.

This book is definitely better than the 2nd edition.....well worth the money!

Excellent update from the 2nd edition. Anyone who administers a Sendmail server needs this "reference" includes SMTP Auth, libMilter etc.

I would suggest to the negative reviewers here to stick with a zero configuration solution such as iMail, this isn't a hold your hand setup text, it's reference. Sendmail requires some dedication, the learning curve is steep, but the rewards are great.

What a pleasure to find a book on this subject that's easy to read. Andrew Chak puts forward each principle clearly, with illustrations, then at the end pulls it all together in a demonstration of how it works in the context of one example.

He divides users of ecommerce sites into browsers, evaluators, transactors and customers, and shows you how to satisfy each one. He links his ideas to persuasion techniques put forward by Robert Cialdini in "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion".

He explains that you can use six key elements of influence to change the behaviour of web site visitors:
- scarcity
- commitment and consistency
- reciprocity
- social proof
- authority
- liking.

While this book doesn't go into any great depth or subtlety, it is an excellent introduction to designing for commercial web sites. It requuires no background as an interface designer, usability expert, graphic designer, marketer or programmer, but would be helpful for all of these disciplines.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Experience the heart of the "hippie era"

Coming straight out of Rolling Stone magazine, Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas brings the fear and corruption of an age right into your own home. Pieced together by the author himself as a true account of his past experiences, this book stacks up to be the truest account of life with drugs in the hippie era.
The story begins with Dr. Duke and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo, flying down a Nevada freeway with a car full of mass quantities of alcohol and illegal narcotics, fighting of dangerous bats attacking their stolen convertible. As Dr. Duke, the character representing Hunter S. Thompson puts it,

"We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers....Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls"
-from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Equipped with their arsenal of drugs, the characters find themselves pitted against society itself in their attempt to cover a magazine story for the Mint 300 desert race. In a desperate struggle to survive in the city, Dr. Duke and his attorney use credit card fraudulence, fake ideas, and an endless supply of narcotics to cover the race, and later, quite ironically, to cover the story of a police convention against drugs. Throughout these endeavors, various life threatening experiences are encountered, mostly resulting from the mind bending dangers of the drugs themselves. As the story comes to a close, both the Dr. and his attorney flee the city, cursing the evils of society.
This novel should immediately attract any survivors of the so called "hippie era along with any ordinary individual looking for a crude, but comical and entertaining view into the mind of a drug user.
When asked to comment on the morals of the book and even on his own past lifestyle, Thomson replies: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."
Despite such criticism, the book manager to send an effective message about the dangers of drugs as well as the corruption of society in the 1960's and 70's. The story actually serves as a political satire portraying Thompson's views of society's flaws and the need for reform. It is stated plain and simple throughout the novel that the "reality of society" is just as twisted as the "reality a society on drugs". The character's contempt for authority, along with the ignorance of the police force at the drug convention, effectively demonstrates the lack of power the authorities truly hold over society.
Overall, the book provides a strong and in depth analysis to the 60's and 70's and even greater entertainment, as the main characters stumble about in a drug-caused stupor. I would highly recommend this book to the male youth, although it may be enjoyed by any age or gender searching for a book that will make them laugh. For the more serious audience, this book provides a first hand analysis of an age, from a man who lived in a society where drugs were commonplace in everyday life.

Actual purpose and persuasiveness in design is often completely neglected, this is a must read for anyone doing digital design. The book is worth it's weight in gold for Chapter 6's "The Design of Everyday Pages", It has excellent design notes... really top notch.

do yourself a favor and read this book. I've already ordered the Book Of Investing Wisdom to read and I'm sure Ill read Peter"s other books.

This is a collection of 54 2-5 page essays by giants of business over the past 200 years.

I have found it to be simply fascinating... providing rich insight into the thoughts, values and strategies of great business leaders.

After reading this book, I am convinced that any great business leader only becomes so through the application of a STRONG personal conviction about a specific view of customers, partners, hard work, employees, life, etc.

One of the opportunities we all have is to help our children and co-workers discover or develop deep personal convictions that can be leveraged into a successful personal vision. This book could be a catalyst to develop this kind of vision.

Reading this book is a great investment of your time... for yourself, and for those you have a chance to influence.

This book is well worth the price. I hope I read this 15 years earlier when I was a teen. Although lots of the advices are common sense, they are still very valuable reminders. If you have a chance, read it.

After going through all the labs prepared by Microsoft on MCS 2002 and MCMS 2002, I dove into this book. Here are my findings:

DO NOT buy this book if you are looking for a "how to", or if you are a newbie to MCS and MCMS.
This book explains items found in MCS and painfully briefly on MCMS (one chapter), it glosses over the 'how to' and expects that you already know that.

DO buy this book if you already know a good portion of how to manage and configure CS and MCMS, then this book would do a good job of providing more details above and beyond what is provided in Microsofts documentation.

The book is exactly this - "which comes first, the chicken or the egg", because it expects you to know how to manage and configure, yet by the time I get to that level of expertise, there ain't no way I would buy this book because it wouldn't help me.

This is one of the most helpful books I have on my shelf. I am new to the e-commerce field and I have been recently working with Microsoft Commerce Server. I needed some specialized help on all the topics, rather than an overview I got with Special Edition using Commerce Server book. This book gave me all the weapons I needed to fill my Armour.

While developing whenever I get stuck on any topic I just refer to this book for that topic. For example I wanted to know how to develop a Coupon system for an e-commerce site. I referred to several books, all of them just gave an overview of the Campaigns module, which was useless for me as I already know what a Campaign module is. This book went into a lot of detail of how to implement a Coupon or how to create ads.
Other great thing I like about this book, is that it covers everything about Commerce Server, from Catalogs, to BizDesk, DataWarehousing, even Migration. Every topic in this book covers a great detail on what is important to know from a programmer's standpoint, rather than from a marketing/sales person's standpoint.

To summarize, if you want a power point presentation of Commerce Server, buy any other book. If you want to know the design and details of programming using Commerce Server, this is the book you should buy.

This book is a great "one-stop shop" for how to use Commerce Server 2002.

I don't usually like MS Press books, but this one really stood out. The book contains recipes for building e-commerce applications of various sizes and considerations, especially when coupled with the Commerce Server help file (a must have). I was able to use this book on the job.

It also explains what the Commerce Server is good for as well as some of its shortcomings (e.g., the book suggests building standalone Customer Service pages for bigger web sites as opposed to using the BizDesk). The book covers areas that many books neglect even to mention: gathering business and technical requirements, software and hardware caching, data migration from
the legacy systems, integration with BizDesk, Content Management Server, and other 3rd party systems and deployment.

If you are planning to just skim through the book, the "Note" sections contain useful advice and gotcha's.

I highly recommended this book!!

This book can be divided into 3 main parts. The first 4 chapters essentially put forward the case for e-procurement with an opening chapter containing some 33 references alone!

The intermediate section ranges from main players on the market, the software landscape & architecture, models, classification schemes and government/military tendering processes. If this chunk don't win you over then I don't know what will.

Finally, the last 4 chapters deal with issues that an intrepid implementer of an e-procurement initiative should consider. Guiding principles, structures & phases, elements to productive executive workshops and the all important change management issues. Dale places great importance on change management even going so far as to quote Mark Twain. This section is quite admonitory but the author is a management consultant by trade so I guess it's quite logical for him to advise us on issues that we should be considering before getting our hands dirty. Perhaps it will earn him some business ;-)

One thing I noticed about this author is that he is very competent at is finding synonyms. For example "maverick purchasing" can also be termed "off-contract buying" or even "rogue procurement". All of which help the reader to become more fluent in the lingua france of B2B electronic trade and keeps the narrative fresh and interesting. Early on he broadly classifies goods into white-collar ORM and blue-collar MRO introducing these colorful terms in large bold print - a common characteristic of this book.

Chapter 5: "The E-Procurement Software Landscape" requires more work IMHO. The sheer fact that I found myself tabulating the main players like Commerce One & Ariba, the solution/s they offered (whether enterprise or network based), it's name and their strategic partners would tend to indicate that the author should have done so. The main diagram provided is a pie-graph showing macroscopic market detail but it just too encompassing. Don't get me wrong - the information is provided (in text format) but it's all over the shop (no pun intended). A table would have gone down well.
Chapter 6: "The Architecture of Web-Based Procurement" is fantastic. It should have come earlier. Dale breaks down the environment broadly into "one-to-many" and "many-to-many" type approaches. Another class he introduces is the "buy-side", "sell-side" and "independent portal" type offerings. He further sub-classifies the buy-sponsored focus into 'desktop' (e.g. Concur Procurement) and 'central' type offerings. He provides us with a powerful classification scheme here but I felt he could of tied examples of each type closer to said classes. One other thing that I found surprising was the fact that he only mentions the 3 main pricing models in passing (subscription fee, transaction charge & percentage of exchange fee). I though he would of elaborated on this like he did with the mentioning of vertical e-markets like the Covisint alliance (forged by the "market creators" Ford, General Motors, Daimler-Chrysler and Renault-Nissan) and the corresponding horizontal e-market offering: OrderZone.com/ (which comes compliments of W. W. Grainger). Once again the information is provided all right but I felt that a suitable table could have easily consolidated the stuff at chapter end.
Chapter 8: "Government and E-Procurement" is riveting and current. If you're in favor of lowering the cost of government (raise hands) this exploration should give you warm, tingly feelings all over. Firstly, he introduces us to how government traditionally puts out tenders, then comes the e-procurement advantage bit and finally he rounds of with the one-and-only example of Singapore's "GeBiz" portal. This is a common technique that Dale employs of teaching us about the old bad way, then introducing us to the new good way and finally topping off with a great example. Also covered at the end is military procurement, which in current times is quite poignant. Need I say any more?
Finally, concerning predictions, Dale is not afraid to stick his neck out and make a few non-obvious ones. He sees no particular model becoming *the* dominant one but rather continued coexistence of "...the buyer-sponsored enterprise model and the third-party sponsored exchange model..." and foresees "...dramatic changes in terms of focus and consolidation..." to boot. He upholds Gartner Group's forecast that each vertical will only be able to support a max of 3 players and hence foresees "consolidation of the vertical e-marketplaces" which "...has already begun." Auctions in said verticals most evolve "...toward fuller functionality or extinction." The broad distinction between direct and indirect goods will remain but "...continuing to blur" Government can help "set standards" (like XML which he praises because it "...will greatly help intersystem connectivity.") and the whole e-government thing will "...soon see significant growth." In general though, survivors "...will need to offer supply chain management expertise as opposed to simple purchasing leverage."

To summarize therefore what you will procure is 196 pages spread over 14 chapters with an average of 5 citations per chapter. 10 diagrams, 8 short case studies and about 5 graphs. Common industry terms are introduced and defined in large bold print, TLAs are kept to a minimum and the cover has some pretty trees on it!

This book is very suitable for people who do not come from a business background - like me for example ;-) After reading this hardback I certainly increased my business vocabulary and was able to "talk the talk" with the best of them. I obtained extremely useful classification schemes that greatly helped me with business model deconstruction & system analysis and became familiar with the main players on the market at the same time.

Personally I would of loved to see more on auctions and their variations, perhaps including some game theory - but perhaps that's just wishful thinking!

Quote of the book though, definitely has to go to the chap deep inside an e-procurement project who shrewdly observed: "I like the supplier savings here, but I don't plan to be one of the transactional savings."

Blue collar MRO anyone? :-)

eProcurement is an excellent book for the basic fundamentals of of eprocurement (eprocurement 101). We are the authors of a more advanced version for purchasing professionals already using some form of epurchasing. Our book is titled ePurchasingPlus and has input from over 30 experts and practitioners from US, UK & Canada that use ePurchasingPlus products and concepts. We recommend both books for the purchasing professional to find about the future of our profession.

Mr. Neef did an excellent job with this book. It is not a down and dirty technical book that describes the inner workings of an e-procurement system. Then again, I think that is why I like it so much. After reading this book I feel I know the business behind e-procurement and that is THE most important issue when it comes to any system.

As a result of reading this book I have a better understanding of what e-procurement is all about. I also feel I have gained an appreciation for the different types of systems as well as where the entire e-procurement market is headed. He discussed the importance of things such as Decision Support and Business Intelligence. He supported most, if not all, of his points with solid research.

I am an systems engineer and not a business person. I got a lot out of this book. I would recommend it to both members technical groups as well as business people. The technical person will gain an appreciation for the business aspects of e-procurement. While the manager/business person will be given good direction and insights into e-procurement. I would imagine this to be of benefit to anyone whose organization is contemplating e-procurement or just some one generally interested in the area. This is even a good read for the manager who is not currently involved with e-procurement. It may show you how much you DO need it.

KUDOS to Dale Neef.

Well written and informative. Would recomend as a first book on auctions.Covers some hmtl commands.

This book focuses almost entirely on eBay. The truly authoritative Internet auction book would cover at least the top three open auctions (eBay, Yahoo! and Amazon) and the top three store auctions (egghead, onsale and ubid). That said, although this is more of a "how to use eBay" book than anything, it does offer great advice on online auctions, including the ins and outs of "professional" auction selling, and Elliot clearly knows his stuff.

"Getting started in Internet Auctions" is a super-easy read that will give readers enough confidence to jump right into the electronic auction arena. Author Alan Elliott begins the book with an overview of the auction process, then moves into detailed step-by-step descriptions of both the bidding and selling process. Using the popular Ebay.com site for his example, Elliott tells what web addresses to enter into your browser, which software buttons to push and even sometimes when to push them.

The best value in this book comes from the wealth of "tricks of the trade:" How to find real bargains on the auction block that others have overlooked. How to time bids in order to maximize winning the sought-after item. How to find items to sell beyond those crammed in the back of your closet. How to avoid getting ripped-off by the top twenty ploys perpetrated by the occasional less-than honest folks in the digital market place As an extra bonus, Elliott introduces readers to a handful of successful web-auction entrepreneurs who are making their living off their Ebay efforts and explains several strategies for mirroring their success. Content like this makes this book a confidence-builder for even a novice Internet user. Anybody interested in making or spending a buck in Internet auctions should put a bid down on this book.

I found some helpful hints in How To Market You & Your Book and
used them to promote my own book, Slices of Sunlight. I wish author O'Connor had shared more from his wisdom. I found the book to be in need of more content. Perhaps the next edition
will contain extra pages and extensive resources.

As head of a PR firm that works with 500 authors a year- I know that the publisher usually does very little to promote most books. All authors (self published too) need this book. It has great information and great tips on publicity and promotion.

Rick Frishman President PLANNED TV ARTS (NYC)www.plannedtvarts.com Co author GUERRILLA MARKETING FOR WRITERS (Writers Digest Books)

Whether you sell out to a large (New York) publisher or publish yourself, the author must do the promotion. Publishers do not promote books; they only produce them and place them in bookstores. Those books remain in the stores for one selling season: four months-then they are returned to the publisher. Authors must encourage buyers to visit the stores. Buyers pull the books through the system.

(From page 95): The real meat of "How to Market You and Your Book" is to make writers more successful through a working knowledge of marketing . . . specifically so that the writer becomes a "Marketing Author." This book delivers.

FX is an author and a publisher; the ultimate insider, he has been on both sides of the desk. He knows what you are facing--and he reveals what to do about it. DanPoynter@ParaPublishing.com.

I recently traveled to the Normandy and Loire Valley regions in France. I am a passionate shopper and love to find unusual items, simple or extravagant. The book sounded perfect for my adventurous shopping stamina. I have to say that unusual is becoming more and more difficult to find. In the states we are saturated with foreign items that used to seem novel. I guess I have become jaded. I traveled to the suggested village where the basketry industry has thrived for 150 years. Although it was charming to drive through the country, the trip was not worth the while. Not that the baskets were not beautiful, they were very expensive and not worth spending 10 times more because it was made in this charming town. Baskets sold are the varieties available at Cost Plus or Pier One Imports. I must admit I did buy one. Again, I traveled to the town where copper is made. They have all the copper pots that we have in the US and really not that much cheaper if you shipped it overseas. I was disappointed with the suggestions offered in this book. It was not worth my vacation time to hunt these areas down and find what we have in the states. This experience makes me want to write my own book on the subject. It was a wild goose chase which I wouldn't have minded if we had found a golden egg.

I have used The Riches of France countless times on tours that I conduct through France and have found it to enhance my travels immensely! What I like is that from the beginning and throughout the whole book, it is clear that Maribeth's main objective is to report on the history and tradition behind France's most celebrated goods. It is not necessarily a book for die-hard shoppers in search of outstanding bargains at every destinations. ( Although I am certain many shopaholics have rejoiced in using it!!) The Riches of France is , however, a book for curious aspects of French culture, savoir faire, and craftsmanship.)

For me, many of the suggested visits in this book provided unique experiences that I would never have found on my own. Maribeth offers visitors a rare glimpse of fine French craftsmanship and tradition so different from anything here at home. Amd, unlike many other guidebooks, The Riches of France will never go out of date as most of the places featured here have been around for hundreds of years!!... Carol Bonow , Milford, N.H.

This turned out to be the best guide I cold ever take with me to France. Comprehensive and easy to use. The author seems to know what is most relevant to visitors and shoppers of France. I wish she would write guides to all major shopping capitals of the world. Highly recommended!

This book has a lot of unique advice and information on starting up a company and creating an entire business plan, for either an outside investor, just a family member, or internal use only. However, it was not really focused on Dot Com companies like I hoped, and the tone of the book was much too joking for my liking. I like the Dummies books in general, which also offer jokes, but the author went a little overboard here. Too much of the text is fluff, which wastes time while reading each section. Also, I would have preferred serious and real life business plan examples in the appendix. Like I said, some of the advice is really useful when you find it, and it is written in a very easy to read by anyone manner, which might be helpful for some. I just expected a lot more judging by the reviews here.

For those of us who are street smart when it comes to entrepreneurship.

Whether for the entrepreneur or the established business, this is THE book to use when revising a business plan. Weinberg hits the mark again and again, and does so in a way that makes the reader feel he is speaking with an old friend - bad jokes and all. I have been recommending this book to everyone I know.

There are three excellent reasons to buy this book. First, Tom Siebel is the # 1 player in the CRM revolution, which is overturning how business gets done. Second, this book will seriously help you get outside the box and think about e-business not tactically but with vision. Third, the case studies in this book are amazing and will help you to understand the range of possibilities available to your organization.

We should state up front that this is not an impartial book. Author Thomas Siebel, CEO and founder of Siebel Systems, extols the values of "eBusiness" (his coinage, apparently), which just happens to be his company's specialty. But at least Siebel Systems - unlike a lot of dot-com companies - has thrived and remained profitable. Siebel contends (arguably based on enlightened self-interest) that companies must either employ new eBusiness tactics or perish. Using profit reports and return-on-investment studies as back-up material, he makes a pretty compelling customer-first argument that we [...] recommend to anyone who's interested in the future of business.

A truly authoritative book that explains real ebusiness:

1. eBusiness is not adding a ".dot com" and a "shopping cart" to your business.
2. eBusiness is not about improving or streamlining business processes
3. eBusiness is all about customer and how to keep them happy.
4. eBusiness is about the infinite possibilities that the businesses have in front of them to serve the customers in a true way ( beyond the lip service ) and reap rich rewards in terms of customer loyalty.

I do not want to dwell into some of the fine examples in the book ( like the $2 billion saved by IBM) but his message is concise and clear.Readers should find the examples interesting.

However I have a valid comment about the book .

Tom Siebel is a very respected figure in the CRM ( Customer Relationship Management) and eBusiness world. He is a legend and Icon representing the later day IT leaders.Tom Siebel's reputation in the 90s is similar to those of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs in the 80s.

Atleast in the book Tom should have kept above his company and competitors as he expresses his views.

However unfortunately he uses Siebel's product lines to explain his point at the slightest opportunity he gets. All the examples in the book are using well known Siebel customers.

A 'subtle' sales pitch for his product line all along the book.

Siebel corporations major weakness of getting into the small customers is bcoz of the fear of the small firms that "Siebel is a nice product - but is too expensive and we can not afford it" ( Siebel's midget competition has several times knocked of the Goliath using this sales pitch)

Tom could have used the examples of successful small firms that has reaped the benefits of eBusiness and Siebel product line.He has reinforced his views that Siebel is primely for the large corporations.

Still Tom Siebel succeeds to get his message across to the readers with the same pitch as Siebel

" Getting the right message to the right customers at the right time". If you want to know what is true eBusiness, then this book is for you.

CHANDRASEKHAR
Author of "Internet Marketing And Search Engine Positioning - A "Do It Yourself" guide and also a Certified Siebel Consultant