Teach Yourself VISUALLY Windows 7 (Teach Yourself VISUALLY (Tech)) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I got this book thinking it would have some decent Windows 7 information that was at least an intro to intermediate guide. However, I must say I was kind of surprised at how basic the book truly is. When I say basic, I mean it. It covers things like how to enter text in text boxes, mouse basics, etc. There is very little here that is really dedicated to Windows 7 specific features as most of the book is taken up with just basic computer learning skills for those that have never used a computer OS before or Windows. If you already know how to use Windows XP or Vista and have more knowledge than just beginner skills, you will find the book to be down right mind numbing because it covers nothing of significant use.
The positives I will say about this book is it is one of, if not the best in terms of the color guides for showing information and getting its point across in an easy to understand fashion. This book truly is "visual" and has many photos and examples that are well done. If you are truly a newbie to computers or you are wanting to give this book to someone that is for learning basic computer skills, then this book would be just fine. It fits very well for those that have never used a computer OS before or even perhaps someone that is older and wanting to learn how to use a computer that is Windows 7 based.

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A practical guide for visual learners who are eager to get started with Windows 7

Windows 7 is Microsoft's highly anticipated operating system used by millions of people around the world. If you're a visual learner and are new to Windows 7, then this book is an ideal introduction to the new features of this operating system. Seasoned author Paul McFedries walks you through the basics and beyond of Windows 7 in a straightforward manner.
You'll discover how to install and repair programs, maintain your system, set up password-protected accounts, load images from a digital camera, play music and other media files, secure Internet and e-mail accounts, and much more. More than 150 tasks are accompanied by full-color screen shots as they guide you to becoming a confident user of Windows 7.
Experienced author Paul McFedries walks you through Microsoft's eagerly awaited new operating system: Windows 7
Clear and succinct explanations, step-by-step instructions, and full-color screen shots take you through the newest features of Windows 7
More than 150 Windows 7 tasks show you the basics and beyond, including installing and repairing programs, maintaining your system, loading images from a digital camera, and more

This book is essential if you are a visual learner who is enthusiastic about diving in and exploring all that Windows 7 has to offer!

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David Busch's Compact Field Guide for the Canon EOS 60D Review

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(More customer reviews)This new series of books continues to shape up as one of the most useful, and first actual new addition to the camera guide format that we've seen. What Busch has done is create a companion to his full size camera guides in the form of an ultra-compact spiral-bound book that's a condensation of the most essential information you need to operate your Canon EOS 60D camera. Unlike the manual furnished with the camera, or those laminated cheat sheets that fold out into six index card sized tabs with one-sentence summaries of most of the menu settings, Busch's Compact Field Guide series provides clear, easy to understand guidance in a most convenient format. Its contents include:
Chapter 1. Quick Setup Guide. Hand your camera and this book to any newbie, and they'll be off and shooting in minutes. It shows how to adjust the viewfinder to their vision, format a memory card, choose the right exposure mode (with a paragraph describing each mode and when to use it), how -- and why -- to select a metering mode, followed by lucid explanations of selecting autofocus, autofocus area modes, white balance, and ISO settings. There's a quick guide to navigating through and reviewing the images you've just shot, as well as a quick guide to flash. These are just the basics, and the typical shooter will probably refer to this chapter just once, when they begin using the camera.
Chapter 2. Canon EOS 60D Roadmap. This 28-page chapter is filled with large photographs of the camera from multiple views, with a paragraph describing what each and every control does, and why it's used. The manual furnished with the 60D gives you black and white drawings and cross references to multiple pages buried deep in the manual.
Chapter 3. Shooting and Playback Menu settings. Here's where Busch's Compact Field Guide excels. Unlike the command cards, small guidebooks, and manual packaged with the camera, Busch offers complete descriptions of each possible setting, including the rationale for using particular options. The book is spiral bound so it can lay flat while you read the instructions and adjust your camera simultaneously. Small illustrations show the menus in question, but you'll use them only to confirm that you're "in the right place" as you navigate the menus in your own camera. Although the information in this and the following chapter are condensed from those in Busch's full sized guide, they still are more comprehensive than those you'll find in other books.
Chapter 4. Setup, Custom Functions, and and My Menu settings. Same as Chapter 3, but for the other menus.
Chapter 5. Using the flash. Everything you need to know about selecting a flash metering mode, flash sync mode, flash exposure compensation, etc. is here.
Chapter 6. Making Movies. You get all the basics for using the 60D's movie-making capabilities, plus a quick checklist of techniques that can make your mini-videos that much better.
Chapter 7. Shooting tips. This chapter consists of a series of charts with recommended menu and shooting settings for many common types of scenes. This is a brilliant addition, and you won't find it in other guidebooks at all.
Although this portable guide duplicates some of the information found in David Busch's Canon EOS 60D Guide to Digital SLR Photography, they make a great pair for home and field. You probably could benefit from owning both.

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Mike Meyers' CompTIA Security+ Certification Passport 3rd Edition (Exam SY0-301) (Mike Meyers' Certficiation Passport) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Update 9/12/2011: I passed the exam today; 833/900. Not stellar but OK. There were questions on the exam that were not found in any of the three books I used. Many questions were poorly worded or didn't contain enough information to properly answer the question. I found that to be true with both A+ and Net+. Aside from that, I still found this book to be excellent. You will pass memorizing this book. Unlike A+ or Net+, the Sec+ exam is pure memorization with little problem solving. As I said below, get the Security+ Study Guide along with this book. Skip the monstrous Sybex book. It has way too much information not pertinent to the exam. Good luck!
Update 9/8/2011: I agree with Kindlecrazed. I have finally gotten to the CD. I took the first exam closed book, knowing darn well I passed it. I got 51%! So I retook it open book, and the answers are all screwed up. The hints and answers have nothing to do with the question being asked. What a disaster! Kindlecrazed got this reply for a patch from the editiors: [Amazon removed my link so see the reply under Kindlecrazed]. It's ironic that a security book that discusses the software development cycle, including review, would ship with a completely defective test engine!
I haven't taken the exam yet, but I thought I would review each of the books I have used so far. This is my third Passport book. I have used the A+, and Network+ books and they definitely helped me pass. What I like about the Passport books is that they are short and to the point. T. J. Samuell (the author that deserves a larger name on the cover, not Mike Meyers) does not ramble about extreme technical details that don't pertain to the exam. However, I must say that of the three Passport books, this one is so mismatched to the order of the Security+ objectives that it is extremely hard to type up a note sheet following the objectives without wearing out the index. That may be the fault of the objectives as I have found them to repeat a lot of topics. As I said in another review, you would literally have to tear the book apart and rearrange it to follow the objectives. There are also some objectives that are completely overlooked. Most topics are discussed very clearly though, although I recommend also getting the Security+ Review Guide in addition to this book to compare explanations. That book follows the objectives exactly. There is one critical typo on page 114. While discussing hashing he states "if they're identical, the message was altered". This really threw me on my first read and I had to compare it to another book. It should be "unaltered". I like the review questions at the end of each chapter, although they are extremely easy. I hadn't looked at the CD until close to test time. See my update above.
Pros: Concise. Exam Tips and Travel Advisories, and Travel Assistance are very useful. I have found some interesting web sites and freeware in the Travel Assistance such as packet sniffers, wardriving tools, and other goodies.
Cons: Misses a few objectives and is terribly out of order with the objectives.
Overall, a good study guide, but not perfect.

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From the #1 Name in Professional Certification
Get on the fast track to becoming CompTIA Security+ certified with this affordable, portable study tool. Inside, network security expert T.J. Samuelle guides you on your career path, providing expert tips and sound advice along the way. With an intensive focus only on what you need to know to pass the latest release of the CompTIA Security+ exam, this certification passport is your ticket to success on exam day.

Featuring:
200 practice questions
Practice exam on CD
Itineraries--List of official exam objectives covered
ETAs--Amount of time needed to complete each lesson
Travel Advisories--Expert advice on critical topics
Local Lingo--Concise definitions of key terms and concepts
Travel Assistance--Recommended resources for more information
Checkpoints--End-of-chapter questions, answers, and explanations
Career Flight Path--Career options mapped out to maximize the return from your IT journey

About the Series Editor:Mike Meyers, CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+, MCP, is the bestselling author of seven editions of CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide and several other computer books. He is the president and found of Total Seminars, LLC, a major provider of PC and network repair seminars for thousands of organizations throughout the world, and a member of CompTIA.

About the Author:T.J. Samuelle, CompTIA Security+, CompTIA Network+, is an IT consultant and author of a number of computer books on CompTIA certification.

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My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla Review

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(More customer reviews)This is NOT Nikola Tesla's MY INVENTIONS, published in the ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTER magazine, February-June and October, 1919 issues. It is a corrupted version of Tesla's autobiography titled THE STRANGE LIFE OF NIKOLA TESLA. The original document was published in booklet form a copy of which was found in a used bookstore in 1994, transcribed, and published on the Internet. The booklet was subsequently found to contain significant errors, omissions, revisions and also some additions that did not appear in the original 6-part serial text.
Buyer beware!

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Serbian inventor NIKOLA TESLA (1857-1943) was a revolutionary scientist who forever changed the scientific fields of electricity and magnetism. Tesla's greatest invention, A/C current, powers almost all of the technological wonders in the world today, from home heating to computers to high-tech robotics. His discoveries gave mankind the television. And his dream of wireless communication came to pass in both the radio and eventually the cell phone. Yet his story remains widely unknown. History buffs, science enthusiasts, backyard inventors, and anyone who has ever dared to dream big will find the life of Nikola Tesla, written in his own words, engaging, informative, and humorous in its eccentricity.

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MCTS Guide to Microsoft Windows 7 (Exam # 70-680) (Networking (Course Technology)) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Accuracy: 5 of 5. I have yet to come across a procedural error in either the body text or the hands-on exercises.
Usability: 4.5 of 5. The hands-on exercises assume very little on the part of the user and are written clearly. Some of the concepts explained in the text do make assumptions, over which I have occasionally stumbled. However, the most important thing is excellent hands-on exercises; this is why I still rate the usability as high.
Design: 5 of 5. The design flow of the concepts covered in the book work well. I rarely find myself wondering why a certain concept or topic wasn't introduced in an earlier chapter.
Presentation: 3 of 5. For anyone who regularly browses online forums, you will understand when I say that the presentation of information in the book is something like a wall of text. The paragraphs are too chunky and stuffed together. The pictorial elements used are helpful to the reader but the cramped and varying lay-out often obfuscate, at first glance, their purpose.
Overall: 4 of 5. Students will find it worth purchasing, as will anyone who is interested in its topics. Teachers, for the love of all that is good, PLEASE be careful when using this book to create PowerPoint lectures. It is too easy to simply pull straight from the text, and while this may reduce impact on your time, your students will not enjoy 75 slides of content over 2 hours that they could have read from the book in approx. 40 minutes.

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Introducing a complete guide to deploying and managing Windows 7 that is suitable for IT professionals and students alike! This instructional text provides the information users need to successfully migrate to Windows 7 and immediately derive benefits from it. Readers will learn about the new features in Windows 7, such as advanced security, and how those features compare to Windows Vista and Windows XP. Valuable for professionals, but written in a way that is understandable to the novice networking student, this informative guide examines Windows 7 in a thorough and logical manner making the information easy to understand and preparing readers for Microsoft's MCTS Exam #70-680. The hands-on activities and case projects help learners practice new skills, and review questions and key terms reinforce important information. The accompanying CD provides valuable certification preparation material, including test preparation software. With a section devoted to troubleshooting, this text also doubles as a manual that professionals can take on the job with them.

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Implementing Cisco IP Switched Networks (SWITCH) Foundation Learning Guide: Foundation learning for SWITCH 642-813 (Foundation Learning Guides) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I've got several certs including CCNA, BCNE, Security+ and have read/used dozens of books to get them. This is by far the worst book I've ever come across in terms of the number of errors. I'm talking typos, misspellings, bad grammar, wrong use of language, broken English, errors in labeling of diagrams, etc, etc. It appears as though it was written by a 12-year old Malaysian kid that barely speaks English (no offense to 12-year old Malaysian kids).
I'm on chapter 6 and have stopped marking the errors in my book. I've found literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these mistakes. Some errors are easy to identify and move on without affecting your understanding of what you're reading. But when there are errors in labeling of diagrams including IPs, port numbers, and VLAN numbers, how do I know if it is a typo or if my understanding is off and the diagram is correct?? It gets frustrating.
It is starting to make me doubt the credibility of the authors. One would think that one of the world's largest and most respected hi-tech companies could put out a decent book. COME ON CISCO PRESS...YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS!
Competition breeds excellence and a lack thereof breeds mediocrity. I think since there are so few other books on the subject, they can put out a POS and no one will squawk.
The actual content is good and informative...which I guess is the important thing and the reason I give it 3 stars. But Gee whiz, it is hard to get past multitude of errors.


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Networking (2nd Edition) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The only book in networking which combines theory and practice Excelent for self-instruction.No experience in networking is required to master this text.

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NetworkingSecond EditionJeffrey S. BeasleyThis text provides a comprehensive look at computer networking from the point of view of the network administrator. It guides readers from an entry-level knowledge in computer networks to advanced concepts in Ethernet networks; router configuration; TCP/IP networks; local-, campus-, and wide-area network configuration; network security; optical networks; voice over IP; and industrial networks. Extensive examples on the Windows Server 2003/2008 configuration and system configuration for the Linux operating system are also included. A complete chapter is devoted to protecting and securing a network from potential network attacks. Topics include denial of service attacks, firewalls, intrusion detection, password cracking, packet sniffing, and analyzing unsecured data packets. Other key network security issues, such as configuring router access lists, configuring a virtual private network (VPN) connection, and securing wireless networks, are also covered. Router configuration is examined, ranging from an introduction to router configuration to configuring multiple routing protocols for intranet and Internet data traffic. Routing protocols key to basic network operations are examined, including static, RIP, IGRP, OSPF, EIGRP, and BGP. The discussions on routing protocols are accompanied with in-depth steps for configuring the router to run the protocol, verify operation, and troubleshoot the router.Key Pedagogical FeaturesNET-CHALLENGE SOFTWARE provides a simulated, hands-on experience in configuring routers and switches. Exercises provided in the text and on the CD challenge readers to undertake certain router/switch network configuration tasks. The software has the look and feel of actually being connected to the router or switch console port.PROTOCOL ANALYZER SOFTWARE included with the text uses the Finisar Surveyor Demo. Examples of using the software to analyze data traffic are included throughout the text.ACCOMPANYING CD-ROM includes the Finisar Surveyor Demo software and captured data traffic used in the text, which enables readers to capture data traffic on their own networks.CONFIGURING, ANALYZING, or TROUBLESHOOTING sections are included with each chapter to guide the reader through advanced techniques in networking.OBJECTIVES and INTRODUCTION at the beginning of each chapter clearly outline specific goals for the reader.EXTENSIVE PROBLEM SETS, SUMMARIES, and QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS (including Critical Thinking questions) are found at the end of each chapter.KEY TERMS and their definitions are highlighted in the margins to foster inquisitiveness and ensure retention.

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