I personally admire Dr. Kiev's work and contribution to daily psychology. However I would suggest any trader - or any other person, for that matter - to read and apply the ideas in his " Daily Living Strategy". His goal-based approach is what I live on, and I certainly understand the positive comments made by his clients, but I think the reviews are concerning the book + the counselling they took personally from Dr. Kiev. By itself, the book is not complete. It is helpful, and it certainly adresses several important issues, but it doesn't go deep. Also, it is a product of Dr. Kiev's work with the professional traders working in huge trading firms or departments, and as such, addresses the problems and solutions that can be found in such settings. Even the trading methodology Dr. Kiev seems to advocate sounds very institutional: he is talking about how to get real info from analysts that call you up. Well, being a full time trader who strikes on his own, that didn't help me. Again I recommend buyiing his now-classic book, the Daily Living Strategy, and apply it to whatever it is you want to achieve in your life.

This book is perfect for any professional portfolio manager or trader. It atriculates a strategy and a mind set that will help improve decision making with added confidence. Dr. Kiev uses real world case studies of professional traders and portfolio managers overcoming psychological barriers and sucessfully implementing this strategy. I highly recommend this book.

One of the most essential, yet least discussed, topics when it comes to trading is market psychology. While fundamentals and technicals are both critical in developing an understanding of a company and its inherent value, trading psychology is the processor of this information and the true measure of success and profitability. People who wish to excel in trading must have a firm grasp on their emotions to prevent them from falling victim to the same mistakes that dominate most traders. In his latest book, Dr. Kiev presents a much richer discussion of what it means to be trading "in the zone", including how to get there and how to stay there. He also expands upon some of the topics presented in his previous book, providing more detailed information as to the psychological forces at work behind the mask of fundamental and/or technical information. For an emotional trader like myself, it's reassuring to know that I am not in the investing minority and that, with work, I can overcome these self-inflicted barriers to success to achieve my personal and professional goals.

This book is a great introduction for the technology manager who is developing a strategy for bringing his or her business onto the Web. It covers many technology topics, including financial transactions and security. It is most valuable, however, because it presents a wide range of electronic commerce examples, from the typical on-lin consumer product catalogues to complex supply chain integration.

The book is well worth the read for anyone interested in e-commerce. The author covers the basics as well as the deeper issues necessary for comprehending e-commerce. The author also delves into the aspects relating to taking traditional product marketing tactics and porting those to an on-line environment where relationship marketing principles apply.

Kosiur's book is a well-designed, clear introduction to e-commerce functionality and transaction processing. It is physically attractive, nicely illustrated, and is at its best dealing with the technical issues in the field.

As an executive recruiter I work in an industry where many still operate under archaic concepts and attitudes. Aldrich's book made me realize the importance of preparing for a digitally-focused marketplace.

"Mastering the Digital Marketplace" is a comprehensive and fresh look at the fundamental principles and concepts that any middle or senior level manager must incorporate to succeed in the new millennium.

I thought the book included many interesting case studies that bore relevance to any business or industry. Aldrich did a fine job of explaining the changing dynamics that will force us to rethink our decisions on strategy and planning. And I didn't feel bogged down in techno-language even though the book is filled with detail and analysis.

As Aldrich stated, the future marketplace is "definitely a revolution not an evolution," and I strongly encourage any executive to make this book a must read. It certainly has opened my eyes to the possibilities, and I believe will help my business grow rather than become a 21st century casuality of the digital reformation.

Doug Aldrich highlights the fact that the digital economy is much more than just eCommerce or eBusiness, it is a revolutionary force that will alter the ways in which companies compete and collaborate to a degree never seen before. Many leading experts today point to symptoms of the change wrought by the new economy, but few have taken the time to understand the root causes as Doug has done here. Thought-provoking discussions around melding traditional containers and digital content, the time-value proposition, and an array of additional factors and forces - from transaction costs to the role of brands in the new economy - take the reader through forming a frame of reference for thinking about the new economy all the way to understanding the steps executives must take to transform their organizations into fast, nimble, proactive companies which are fully prepared to excel in the new marketplace. In summary, an interesting, engaging and relatively easy to read handbook for business executives interested in leading the companies of the future.

As I encournter quite a large number of tech companies in my inudustry, it is critical that I have a full understanding of the new marketplace. The author does a great job of articulating the changing dynamics in the digital marketplace in an easy to read format. No matter what industry that you are in, this book will be a valuable tool for you.

A must read for the active online trader. After-hours trading volumes continue to surge and this book shows you where to get your information and how to use it. Well done and highly recommended. I have been a broker for 15 years and it is the best book I've read so far.

If you want a taste of how informative this book is, just read the book excerpt on the left. The writing style of the authors is fast-paced and extremely readable. There is a ton of information included in the book, including an entire chapter on the psychology of trading. If you even have a remote interest in after hours trading, you will not be disappointed.

Authors, keep up the good work!

I read this book over the 3 day weekend and I thought it was extremely helpful and a smooth read.This book gives the ins and outs of the after hours market and gets to the bottom line with every paragraph. The interviews with the two top traders and the strategies were most helpful to me, although I am an experienced trader.The sections on picking an online broker and one minute strategies are best for beginners.All in all, a superb book taht I have recommended to my all my friends on the exchange.It is the first and perhaps only book on after hours trading.

Herzum and Sims have taken a brave approach to components, emphasizing the view of components through the development lifecycle, where the same component exists from requirements through design to implementation, with only a different view on it. They do a good job of completing the lifecycle with project management aspects of component development as well.

The book seems high level, but they enter into a lot of technical detail as well, while not getting involved in a specific technology. The book is used by me as a textbook for graduate students, as it covers all aspects in detail but generically.

The advantage of the book is the way in which components are defined. Business Components are large grained, made up of many parts which they define in layers. This leads to a wider view of the concept, and leads to a re-organization of the development process.

The book is structured around an architecture for development, which establishes a production-line approach. This ensures the component concept is bought into throughout the organization.

This is the only book to focus on large grained components, with a pure business advantage, but explained technically. This is and is not a how to book. It is a roadmap for what to do and how to arrange it, but not the specific technology to use.

There is a lot of detail in this thick book, but it is easy to read. Very unique approach, and the only book describing aspects you will not learn elsewhere. Other books only describe the overall concept. This one tells you exactly how to fit it into your organization, down to how to structure teams! The book is very comprehansive, and really does follow the development lifecycle. You will gain knowledge of : components on a business level, a new lifecycle for development that is very tailored to components in business, techniques for developing systems, from individual components to integrating federations of components form third parties, all the other aspects thinner books leave out.

Components have become a hot topic for a couple of years now, but until recently there has been no really good book to recommend to people who want to learn more about the topic. ... This deficiency has now been handsomely overcome with the publication of Peter Herzum and Oliver Sims new book.

I recommend this book without any qualification: This is THE book to read to understand components and the impact of components on enterprise application development. Everyone involved in architecting enterprise applications or developing component-based applications will want to read this book.

A high-level table of contents will provide a good overview to the scope of this book:

1. Component-Based Development 2. The Business Component Approach 3. The Distributed Component 4. The Business Component 5. The Business Component System 6. The Federation of System-Level Components 7. Development Process 8. Technical Architecture 9. Application Architecture 10. The Project Management Architecture 11. Component-Based Modeling 12. Component-Based Design 13. Transitioning

When you consider that, for the past year, we have had technologies like MTS and Enterprise JavaBeans, which provide delivery systems for server-size business components, but no general description of what a business component is, or how one might go about developing an enterprise application, you realize how important Business Component Factory will be. This is the book that is going to introduce the upcoming generation of software developers to the concepts that we are going to rely on as we develop enterprise applications in the next decade.

Herzum and Sims define a business component as follows: "A business component is the software implementation of an autonomous business concept or business process. It consists of all of the software artifacts necessary to represent, implement, and deploy a given business concept as an autonomous, reusable element of a larger distributed information system."

Those familiar with the move toward business components will probably find this definition unexceptional. What they will be more surprised with, however, is how Herzum and Sims proceed to extend this definition into a precise description. They define a business component, for example, as incorporating a three or multi-tier distributed system within itself. Thus, a business component is made up of other components that fall into four groups: User Interface components, Workspace components that marshal information on the client, enterprise components that contain business logic and reside on the server, and resource components that manage legacy or database resources. They proceed to define each carefully, work out how one approaches developing such components and what roles they play in various architectural views.

I haven't the space to pursue the development of Herzum and Sims concepts here. Meantime, however, you owe it to yourself to acquire and read this book.

This book is the first I have read that really tackles all aspects of what is required for Enterprise Application Development through a CBD approach.

By defining the levels of component granularity and a recursively discrete approach to breaking a business problem down into components and their constituents as finer grained components, the true requirements for CBD are evident and determined. Many books I have read make the same mistake of only discussing development of components at one level (usually what Herzum defines as the distributed component level) and fail to address the many of the aspects of CBD that are not covered by development alone (deployment, testing, management, integration, and a roadmap for the development process and managment of that process through to delivery of a component based system). The book also talks and applies the component levels to the commonly depicted 4 tier architecture and importantly introduces the concept of components needing to be not only strongly typed for internal systems but also strongly tagged (supporting XML based component messaging/invocation) for virtual and extended systems. The coverage of what is required from a Component Execution Environment (CEE) when components are more course grained than simple distributed components is well covered and continues to define the true requirements for a Business Component Execution Environment (BCVM).

The book is a must read for anyone serious about adopting CBD on and enterprise scale. The book goes well beyond the common text available for CBD (that all concentrate on the short sighted development requirements for distributed components in a fine grained component containment model). I agree with another reviewer that for those of us that have been developing systems in EJB, COM+/DCOM and CORBA much of the book covers lessons we have painfully had to learn in developing multiple component based systems that have to inter-operate, but it goes beyond that in looking at what is necessary for component based systems at the next architectural level (one that may well incorporate disparate distributed component models).

This book feels to me like the authors came from a teaching background, had a few original ideas about how to cover certain broad topics in their own personal way, and then went overboard saying the same things over and over again as if paid by the word.

I had to buy this book because it was required for a class at Regis University Online. I would have preferred to choose my own book. I started reading diligently and eventually came to the conclusion that the book was a waste of time. Even if the blithering was taken out and the useful information condensed, the book still wouldn't be saying very much.

Here's an example from chapter 5, "Conflicting Goals and Requirements." The reader expects to learn how to balance the two. Instead, we get this (this is the chapter summary):

"Whenever different participants in a system have different goals and requirements, there is a potential for conflict. This is particularly true in a new industry like Internet commerce, where there are few established standards. Our advice is to build a list of the participants in your system, and to be very clear about their goals, interests, and agendas. Understanding the participants, their goals, and their interests is very important in framing both the business problem and the technical challenges to be overcome."

...huh? No answers, just laborious advice telling you to be aware of the problem. I would expect this sort of thing from a nerdy friend that thinks he knows what he's talking about and just likes to hear himself talk. Or from a business meeting where people like to make lists but don't have a clue about what to do about the issues at hand.

If you really, truly don't have a clue about Internet commerce, and want to read 350 pages of monotony and still not have a clue, this book may be of interest to you. But if you're intelligent enough to be reading reviews first, you know enough to look elsewhere.

I would like to advise this book for the people who are actually business based, but also want to know a little bit of the technical issues of e-commerce.

This is the fundamental book for everyone who wants to develope e-commerce.Authors give all the information you need to start building e-commerce.They review all aspects of e-commerce from TCP/IP throught java applet and ActiveX components to designing e-commerce system.It is really worth to buy.Enjoy!!!.

The book is (or was) an excellent primer to understanding the fundamental concepts of e-commerce. But while there are some business concepts thrown in (i.e. the 5 C's), they do not expand on those basic understandings of the Internet and its businesses. Anyone who had been following the Internet years via other publications would already possess the necessary knowledge that this book provides. If you don't have a good understanding, then at [$$$], there are cheaper alternatives.

A great boost to this book would have been including a CD containing even one of Mr. Afuah's lectures. Mr. Afuah is a brilliant and knowledgeable man who challenges his students to think beyond just the basics. We were not able to get away with trite responses not backed up with data. Since this is hard to do through a book, an interactive CD could at least be somewhat useful.

In late June I requested an advanced copy of Internet Business Models and Strategies by Afuah and Tucci (McGraw-Hill) to review for my E-Commerce and Entrepreneurship course at Concordia University - St. Paul. I had read many books on the subject, but after reading this one, I decided to adopt it for my class. The book provides models and frameworks for understanding e-commerce and e-commerce strategies. It incorporates many concepts from basic marketing and management classes as well as one chapter on financing a start-up. This text is particularly appropriate for my class because it not only provides an overview of e-commerce, it also provides information for entrepreneurs on some of the important matters that need to be taken into consideration when starting a company on-line. The authors discuss the problems, opportunities and strategies that can be used for a clicks-and-mortar firm as well as for a strictly dot.com firm. The text provides the reader with basic information on the infrastructure of e-commerce and its associated technology. The text is written in understandable language which will make it easier for readers who have no knowledge of e-commerce technology to grasp the concepts. In addition to providing multiple models in the text to give readers the "big picture", the text also provides multiple cases on some of the major players in e-commerce including: Red Hat, eBay, Netscape, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Hotmail and more. Additionally, the authors provide thought-provoking discussion questions at the end of each chapter. There are many things about this book that I like, but I'll highlight two that I find most interesting and/or relevant. First, the book takes a broad perspective on e-commerce. It does not just focus on a marketing or financial perspective. While there are many good books that consumers/businesses can get their hands on at Barnes and Noble and Borders that are very good at telling individuals "how to", this text gives the reader the big picture for staying competitive in e-commerce in the long run. The second highlight for me (which I'm sure is impacted by the fact that I teach Marketing and Management classes) is the authors inclusion of the 5-Cs (coordination, commerce, community, content and communication) throughout the text. I was at an e-business expo in Minneapolis June 7 and 8 and listened to many speakers. One comment about e-commerce from Tom Kieffer, President and CEO of Agiliti, stood out to me, "it's about communications, not computing". I am not a tech-head, and I was thrilled to hear the president of an ASP emphasize the importance of communication in e-commerce. Technology gives us the foundation for e-commerce, but people must manage the information that is being presented. Afuah and Tucci affirmthis idea throughout their book.

In June I requested an Advanced copy of Internet Business Models and Strategies by Afuah and Tucci (McGraw-Hill) in order to review it for my E-Commerce and Entrepreneurship class. After having read many books on the subject matter, I was delighted to find this book and have decided to adopt it for my course. The book provides models and frameworks for understanding e-commerce and e-commerce strategies. It incorporates many concepts from basic marketing and management classes as well as one chapter on financing a start-up. This text is particularly appropriate for my class because it not only provides an overview of e-commerce, it also provides information for entrepreneurs on some of the important matters that need to be taken into consideration when starting a company on-line. The authors discuss the problems, opportunities and strategies that can be used for a clicks-and-mortar firm as well as for a strictly dot.com firm. The text provides the reader with basic information on the infrastructure of e-commerce and its associated technology. The text is written in understandable language which will make it easier for readers who have no knowledge of e-commerce technology to grasp the concepts. In addition to providing multiple models in the text to give readers the "big picture", the text also provides multiple cases on some of the major players in e-commerce including: Red Hat, eBay, Netscape, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Hotmail and more. Additionally, the authors provide thought-provoking discussion questions at the end of each chapter. There are many things about this book that I like, but I'll highlight two that I find most interesting and/or relevant. First, the book takes a broad perspective on e-commerce. It does not just focus on a marketing or financial perspective. While there are many good books that consumers/businesses can get their hands on at Barnes and Noble and Borders that are very good at telling individuals "how to", this text gives the reader the big picture for staying competitive in e-commerce in the long run. The second highlight for me (which I'm sure is impacted by the fact that I teach Marketing and Management classes) is the authors inclusion of the 5-Cs (coordination, commerce, community, content and communication) throughout the text. I was at an e-business expo in Minneapolis June 7 and 8 and listened to many speakers. One comment about e-commerce from Tom Kieffer, President and CEO of Agiliti, stood out to me, "it's about communications, not computing". I am not a tech-head, and I was thrilled to hear the president of an ASP emphasize the importance of communication in e-commerce. Technology gives us the foundation for e-commerce, but people must manage the information that is being presented. Afuah and Tucci affirm this idea throughout their book.

This book is for the TradeStation or MetaStock trader looking to build or enhance a system. Thomas Stridsman was a writer for the magazine Futures and is an experienced trader and trading system builder. With a healthy dose of statistics and mathematical theory, the chaos that appears to exist between your %'s and $'s can be found here with clarity.

The goal of Stridsman in his book is to educate the reader, giving them a solid, working understanding of the market for the purpose of building an effective system. The idea is to keep things as simple as possible, which can often be no easy endeavor for an aspiring system programmer. Heavy on the academic side, the disciplined reader of this book will gain the basis of knowledge for creating something unique. The analogy of a car and its respective parts is used, with the engine being the actual system and money management as the transmission. Through this thinking process all of the components that act individually in the market coalesce into a device that operates in mechanical order for executing profitable trades.

The book is loaded with programming language and statistical analysis. Ventures into Microsoft Excel and Lotus 1-2-3 are also incorporated for fine-tuning the system process to capture as much reality as possible. In- depth discussion over which TradeStation and MetaStock performance summaries are likely to work or not are key. There's no need for a higher understanding of mathematical theory; the book is written with practicality in mind for traders of all levels of experience. The applications are also grounded enough to be used in any trading market.

If you're serious about putting together a trading system, or are looking for ideas to enhance your work, this book is for you. I've always had the understanding that no systems that really work are for sale, but this book is like having a key to the garage where you can put it all together.

This is a very good book. I agree with the other comments that it is not an easy read. The first part of the book is ok. The writing style was a bit on the wordy descriptive side. However, once one gets into the 'Data Mining' chapter, then there are gems of ideas, comments, and discussion throughout.

The work was done with Tradestation which I am not using currently. so in that sense I am a bit disappointed. However, the author does point the short comings of the software when warranted.

May I suggest Van Tharpe's 'Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom' as a high level introduction to the topic. This is to get a high level view and to see if you really want to go into the process of building a trading system.

If I compare this book to others, it is almost like a tutorial or step by step approach to constructing such a system. One would still need to study other authors to get other ideas and insights.

4 Stars.

First, what this book is not: it is NOT one of those "buy my book and make a million in three weeks" books. He is selling no particular system of trading any market. In fact, this book is targetted at people who have TRIED to trade using one or another simple system and have failed to see those astronomical profits materialize. So he teaches an approach to building simple, robust, thoughtful systems which can be used on many markets. This is like having a really good coach walk you through the elements of any complex task, explaining each element, why it is important, and how it fits in with the others. If you like the approach that Elder and Murphy use in developing trading systems and want to learn more about the nuts and bolts of putting such a system together, this is the book you want. Do not buy this book as your FIRST book--read Elder's book and Murphy's books first, think about them, then get this one. You won't be disappointed.

......or is it? After all, one design firm they profile in this book already went defunct. At least the book has the honesty to tell you that upfront.

Actually, I've been waiting for a book like this for some time. In my 6+ years of designing sites and 5+ years of doing Flash, I always try to stray away from the cookie-cutter, portal, hit-em-over-the-head approach so many websites try to do ala Yahoo. Considering the city where I currently call home, New Orleans, isn't the most sophisticated and well-educated city going, you can imagine how so many people here get so confused going to sites like that. Instead, I try to sell each individual website as an experience in which you really do feel like you're part of the atmosphere that the client is trying to produce with the brand.

TOT effectively explains this in full detail. Promoting simplicity in most cases over the whack-a-mole approach or the extreme simplicity (read: usability) of Nielsen. Kind of interesting then that Lenker bashes Nielsen BUT praises his partner in crime for actually figuring it out.

While definitely not your typical web design book (you won't learn Flash or Dreamweaver here.) The book is loaded with lots of inspirational sites and ideas to reinvigorate your mind better than any can of Red Bull could ever do. (Personally, I prefer 180 over Red Bull. 180's got a better orang-y taste....oh wait.....this isn't epicurious.com now is it?) I thoroughly enjoyed the book and i think it'll definitely get people talking.

Now let's just hope these ideas won't make us as bankrupt as Amtrak is........

There's no doubt that this will be viewed as one of the most controversial books written on the subject of Web design. Even so, having just read some of the early reviews trashing this book, I had to laugh. The design community has been crying out against the extreme rhetoric of the usability experts, but hasn't had a solid academic rallying point from which to argue until now. Lenker comes along with some solid intellectual arguments FOR creativity and content development and people seem to be crying bloody murder. It would seem that a few nerves have has been touched!

Truly, Lenker has written an inspired work that draws from research, experience, and original thinking. Some reviewers are claiming that the book is poorly designed, but so far, not one critic has substantiated their criticism by giving examples of design principles that the book violates! Also, not one person has given any example of a specific point Lenker makes that they think is off-base. The reason? Well, my guess is that they haven't actually read the book -- these early reviews were posted two days after the book shipped. I've had an advanced copy, and I'm just now finishing it!

Sure, it's true that there's some room left on every page for imagery--it's called white space and this is a good thing. The reason is that Lenker was smart enough NOT to overwhelm people with page after page filled with solid text containing his thoughtful arguments. I did a quick estimate and it would appear that there are anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000 words in this typographically refined, full color, 1-inch thick, 9" x 9"
book. Yes it's a picture book suitable for your coffee table, but it will likely also serve as a college textbook. Imagine that--could making a college textbook interesting to read be a good idea? Must be why there are a number of people with PhDs that have written glowing editorial reviews for this book.

Make no mistake. This is not a Web design "show-me-how" book. There are no "step-by-step" examples. Why would there be? This is an online communications philosophy book (says so on the back cover) and presents theories and principles that are solid enough to go toe-to-toe with the one-sided arguments presented in Jakob Nielsen's "Designing Web Usability."

At the end of the day, if you're looking for something written at the third-grade level that you can breeze through in an evening of light reading--read something else. There are plenty of slapped-together-books for you to choose from. If on the other hand, you're looking for something to jump-start your work as a Web designer, read Train of Thoughts. This well conceived, well designed, and well argued book will challenge you, inspire you, and will teach you then concepts needed to design truly effective Web experiences (just like the title says).

Lenker approaches the subject of web design with insight and experience. This is an important book that needed to be written and now was the perfect time for it. The overall design of the book is great and Lenker clarify's his points with simple diagrams. I found the writting to be engaging and thoughtful. Lenker covers a lot of theory about how people learn and makes a good point about how web experiences are far more important then web sites. The web is still in its infancy and few have come close to utilizing its potential, but Lenker has a firm grasp as to what that potential is and where it can take us. This isn't a book about source code or how to make cool graphics, it's a theoretical approach to web design backed by the author's experiences and insights. Train of Thoughts is far from being a dry textbook. With usabilty experts like Nielsen and others dictating how the design of web sites should navigate, this book is a great counter point to there uninspiring approach to the web. I'm a graphic designer and I think other designers should read this book because it will help them better arm themselves against Nielsen and his followers. But it's also a great read for anyone involved with the web.

I have been searching a long time for a book (or article) that covered the Microsoft solutions suite for e-commerce but had no luck. Finally, a collegue of mine at work recommended this to me and I'm glad to say that my search has finally ended.

This book explains how all the different microsoft technologies piece together and the functions each of them serve. There were certain things I didn't quite like about the book however. I thought the chapter covering asp and html was unnecessary as you cannot pack those two into a single chapter each. That would have dropped some weight and $$ off this book too.

If you are looking to learn about e-commerce infrastructures and also what it takes to set up a site using the microsoft dna, then this is THE book to refer to. You do not have to read this chapter by chapter (I didn't) as each chapter is self-contained.

And here's something else you might find useful too. Much of this book is covered by those free online seminars and you'll also get handy security and performance tuning tips (but still get the book, it's a good one to read on the bus/train).

Good Luck !

I have been searching a long time for a book (or article) that covered the Microsoft solutions suite for e-commerce but had no luck. Finally, a collegue of mine at work recommended this to me and I'm glad to say that my search has finally ended.

This book explains how all the different microsoft technologies piece together and the functions each of them serve. There were certain things I didn't quite like about the book however. I thought the chapter covering asp and html was unnecessary as you cannot pack those two into a single chapter each. That would have dropped some weight and $$ off this book too.

If you are looking to learn about e-commerce infrastructures and also what it takes to set up a site using the microsoft dna, then this is THE book to refer to. You do not have to read this chapter by chapter (I didn't) as each chapter is self-contained.

And here's something else you might find useful too. If you are about to implement a site using the microsoft dna, then go the http://www.microsoft.com/seminar site too. Much of this book is covered by those free online seminars and you'll also get handy security and performance tuning tips (but still get the book, it's a good one to read on the bus/train).

Good Luck !

I've read over half the chapters and have found the book to be fantastic. It doesn't claim to be a technical book but a higher-level architecture guide. I'm hard pressed to think of a current (as of 10/99) MS web Technology it doesnt cover to explain what it is and does, benefits, and some brief examples to code in (they're also on CD). On the downside, it is MS propoganda and doesn't cover limitations nor (since it's MS focused) the Cisco LoadDirector it keeps talking about.

If you are starting, or involved (as I am), in a web app get it and read through it. There are some hints and suggestions that surprised myself, and other stuff that just confirmed what I already believed. Then look for the appropriate technology book you want to drill down into (site server, com, etc.).