Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time

Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time
Average customer rating:

Simple, but good advice

Not impressed

too basic

Be a better connector

My networking bible

Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time
Keith Ferrazzi , and Tahl Raz
Manufacturer: Currency
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Motivation & Self-Improvement | Business Life | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Communications | Skills | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Guides | Job Hunting & Careers | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0385512058
Release Date: 2005-02-22

Book Description

Do you want to get ahead in life?

Climb the ladder to personal success?

The secret, master networker Keith Ferrazzi claims, is in reaching out to other people. As Ferrazzi discovered early in life, what distinguishes highly successful people from everyone else is the way they use the power of relationships—so that everyone wins.

In Never Eat Alone, Ferrazzi lays out the specific steps—and inner mindset—he uses to reach out to connect with the thousands of colleagues, friends, and associates on his Rolodex, people he has helped and who have helped him.

The son of a small-town steelworker and a cleaning lady, Ferrazzi first used his remarkable ability to connect with others to pave the way to a scholarship at Yale, a Harvard MBA, and several top executive posts. Not yet out of his thirties, he developed a network of relationships that stretched from Washington’s corridors of power to Hollywood’s A-list, leading to him being named one of Crain’s 40 Under 40 and selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the Davos World Economic Forum.

Ferrazzi's form of connecting to the world around him is based on generosity, helping friends connect with other friends. Ferrazzi distinguishes genuine relationship-building from the crude, desperate glad-handling usually associated with “networking.” He then distills his system of reaching out to people into practical, proven principles. Among them:

Don’t keep score: It’s never simply about getting what you want. It’s about getting what you want and making sure that the people who are important to you get what they want, too.

“Ping” constantly: The Ins and Outs of reaching out to those in your circle of contacts all the time—not just when you need something.

Never eat alone: The dynamics of status are the same whether you’re working at a corporation or attending a society event— “invisibility” is a fate worse than failure.

In the course of the book, Ferrazzi outlines the timeless strategies shared by the world’s most connected individuals, from Katherine Graham to Bill Clinton, Vernon Jordan to the Dalai Lama.

Chock full of specific advice on handling rejection, getting past gatekeepers, becoming a “conference commando,” and more, Never Eat Alone is destined to take its place alongside How to Win Friends and Influence People as an inspirational classic.

Download Description

Do you want to get ahead in life?

Climb the ladder to personal success?

The secret, master networker Keith Ferrazzi claims, is in reaching out to other people. As Ferrazzi discovered early in life, what distinguishes highly successful people from everyone else is the way they use the power of relationships–so that everyone wins.

In Never Eat Alone, Ferrazzi lays out the specific steps–and inner mindset–he uses to reach out to connect with the thousands of colleagues, friends, and associates on his Rolodex, people he has helped and who have helped him.

The son of a small–town steelworker and a cleaning lady, Ferrazzi first used his remarkable ability to connect with others to pave the way to a scholarship at Yale, a Harvard MBA, and several top executive posts. Not yet out of his thirties, he developed a network of relationships that stretched from Washington’s corridors of power to Hollywood’s A–list, leading to him being named one of Crain’s 40 Under 40 and selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the Davos World Economic Forum.

Ferrazzi’s form of connecting to the world around him is based on generosity, helping friends connect with other friends. Ferrazzi distinguishes genuine relationship–building from the crude, desperate glad–handling usually associated with “networking.” He then distills his system of reaching out to people into practical, proven principles. Among them:

Don’t keep score: It’s never simply about getting what you want. It’s about getting what you want and making sure that the people who are important to you get what they want, too.

“Ping” constantly: The Ins and Outs of reaching out to those in your circle of contacts all the time–not just when you need something.

Never eat alone: The dynamics of status are the same whether you’re working at a corporation or attending a society event&mdash “invisibility” is a fate worse than failure.

In the course of the book, Ferrazzi outlines the timeless strategies shared by the world’s most connected individuals, from Katherine Graham to Bill Clinton, Vernon Jordan to the Dalai Lama.

Chock full of specific advice on handling rejection, getting past gatekeepers, becoming a “conference commando,” and more, Never Eat Alone is destined to take its place alongside How to Win Friends and Influence People as an inspirational classic.

Customer Reviews:

Simple, but good advice.......2007-10-17

The advice presented in this book is quite simple and nothing is really new. Don't expect any advice based on the academic writing on social networks. Still I liked the style of writing and good practical examples. The key problem is naturally to implement the author's advice. He has for instance great advice on dinner parties, but the key difficulty is to get moving and doing it. In this regard, a book cannot really do much. Still, this book makes it as easy as possible.

Not impressed.......2007-10-15

This stuff put into practice would spread your network to thin and you wouldn't make real friends with anybody. I didn't gain anything from reading this book.

too basic.......2007-10-14

some good ideas but would expect a book like this to sell for $4.00 to $6.00. Here is the gist of the book: middle class childhood and was able to get into Yale where he met people, became friends and kept in touch with. Guess what, he was able to tap the network and help himself... wow who knew? So, if you are going to a City college you might no be meeting the "right" people. Seriously, for those with no clue about being social, this book may help them. Marketing can be learned... many of us (even experienced markeing people) at time can be a wall flower. Don't fret, just follow up and talk about things other than work.... kids, pets, sports, etc.

Be a better connector.......2007-10-14

Your don't have to be a super-connector like Ferrazzi to be a better connector in your own life. I took away some useful perspectives that I am starting to incorporate into my own routines. For instance, this book helped me recognize the potential value that lies hidden in my own Outlook address book.

I have begun to turn the regrets I felt for not keeping in touch into actions. "Never Eat Alone" is not only a great title for this book, but also a concept that helps to remind me of the simple opportunities available on a daily basis to better connect with the people around me.

My networking bible.......2007-10-09

This is the best book I've read thus far on networking. I try to meet and have lunch with someone new in my organization at least once a month and touch base with existing contacts after reading this book. It is a must have, even for the shy person. This book will help open doors for you. I read and passed this book along to other co-workers and they absolutely loved it. I highly recommend!

Dragon of the Red Dawn (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))

Average customer rating:

dragon of the red dawn
Magic tree house #37
migec tree house 37
dragon of red dawn
Magic Tree House #37 Merlin Misson Dragon of the red Dawn

Dragon of the Red Dawn (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))
Mary Pope Osborne
Manufacturer: Random House Books for Young Readers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Action & Adventure | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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Blizzard of the Blue Moon (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))
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Night of the New Magicians (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))
Summer of the Sea Serpent (Magic Tree House #31)
Winter of the Ice Wizard (Magic Tree House 32)

ASIN: 0375837272
Release Date: 2007-02-27

Book Description

Merlin the Magician will not eat or sleep or speak to anyone in Camelot. What can be done? The enchantress Morgan knows who to ask
for help: young Jack and Annie of Frog Creek, Pennsylvania! The brother-and-sister team quickly head off in the magic tree house on another magical and historical adventure.

Their mission: discover one of the four secrets of happiness.

Their journey: to a land of fierce samurai and great beauty, the capital city of Edo (now the city of Tokyo), in ancient Japan in the 1600s.

Their tools: a research book to guide them and a magic wand with three special rules.

In Dragon of the Red Dawn, Mary Pope Osborne transports readers back to the splendor, rich culture, and magic of traditional Japan.

Customer Reviews:

dragon of the red dawn.......2007-10-15

I LIKED THIS BOOK BECAUSE It's like I'm in another world.THIS BOOK WAS ABOUT an adventure of Jack and Aaney trying to find the missing dragon.

Magic tree house #37.......2007-10-15

Magic tree house #37,I LIKED THIS BOOK BECAUSE:THEY GO ON MESHINS.
THIS BOOK WAS ABOUT:TWO KID'S GOING ON MESHINS.
I GIVE THIS BOOK:5 STARS.

migec tree house 37.......2007-10-15

I like it the book because it's cool.they went to the tree house they went tothe past.I give it 5 star.

dragon of red dawn.......2007-10-15

The book was about a dragon at ancient China. I liked this book because it descibed China's garden.

Magic Tree House #37 Merlin Misson Dragon of the red Dawn.......2007-10-15

I liked this book because we got to see a very very cool picture of Toyko.This book was about two kids who discovered about Toyko.They were trying to save Merlin to get happiness.

Never Check E-Mail In the Morning: And Other Unexpected Strategies for Making Your Work Life Work

Average customer rating:

Morgenstern revolutionized our business
A different approach to organizing for efficiency
Gave it away the next day
Scrapple at Best
Disappointed. No useful advice.

Never Check E-Mail In the Morning: And Other Unexpected Strategies for Making Your Work Life Work
Julie Morgenstern
Manufacturer: Fireside
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Making Work Work: New Strategies for Surviving and Thriving at the Office

ASIN: 0743250885

Book Description

IS IT ME OR IS IT THEM?

Maintaining control in today's hectic workplace is a challenge -- everything is lean, competitive, and uncertain. What does it take to survive?

Making Work Work is Julie Morgenstern's most important book yet. Through the mastery of brand-new strategies, Morgenstern shows you how small changes in your thinking and behavior will help you achieve the seemingly impossible -- boost your value, increase your job security, and afford you the time to still have a life.

Morgenstern has helped clients of all levels take control of their work lives in every industry: from corporations and nonprofits to government agencies and small businesses; from executives and assistants to educators and salespeople. She's learned that no matter who you are, happiness at work involves feeling appreciated, in control, successful, and in balance. And achieving that is possible.

People rarely look at their jobs from a psychological and practical perspective at the same time, but Julie Morgenstern does. This book mirrors the individual consulting services she provides by showing you how to start with yourself and then tackle the more complex external issues of working relationships and the job. For every obstacle you encounter along the way, Morgenstern diagnoses the source of the problem (is it you or them?), and with insight and warmth, she provides simple grab-and-go strategies. These are small changes anyone can make to improve performance and efficiency at work.

At its core, Making Work Work is about your relationship to your job. With the reliable, methodical process taught in this book, you will:

• feel less trapped and more in charge • be able to make a bad situation better • search for a job that's a better fit for who you are.

This is a provocative and life-changing book that will help you boost your clarity, confidence, and performance in any economic climate. With Morgenstern's guidance you can find a way to make work work.

Customer Reviews:

Morgenstern revolutionized our business.......2007-07-17

Nearly a year ago, I bought Never Check E-mail in the Morning and implemented the practices prescribed throughout the book into our busy real estate office. We were drowning in in our crazy workloads, and struggling under the pressure of always being available to our clients. With e-mail and BBs you can never turn off, especially in real estate where it's completely client-based. Morgenstern's techniques really revolutionized the way we did business and helped us to better manage clients' needs and our own sanity. Her strategies are so practical and address all the problems of working in a 24/7 global market. I definitely recommend it!

A different approach to organizing for efficiency.......2007-06-28

I read this book with some trepidation since I've read lots of organizing and efficiency books over the years. However, I was pleasantly surprised by this one, since it offers nine "competencies" that all should master, and number one is "Embracing your work/life balance". With this as the foundation, she builds all other competencies on this one. So, when discussing competency three (Choose the Most Important Tasks) or competency five (Control the Nibblers), they aren't described as in typical efficiency/organization books. Typically, these types of tasks are encouraged to allow us to 'get more done', but in this book, taking control of these types of issues is encouraged to allow us to achieve the ultimate goal of work/life balance, instead of making us more efficient cogs in the corporate wheel.

A nice approach, and well done.

Gave it away the next day.......2007-05-08

This book begins with a questionaire to rate your level of organization at work. I filled it out, scored it, and promptly donated it to my library. I am obviously more organized within my work environment than at home. Only buy this book if you are a mess at work and unable to complete projects on time.

Scrapple at Best.......2007-03-09

This book gushes of leftovers. It is a very wordy read and doesn't get to any practical sort of information until the latter half, most of which is not only a repeat of earlier books, but also common sense stuff (this coming from someone who doesn't instinct-wise have a firm grasp on time management) that i have gleaned from many other sources, and in a more concise format. although her other books are great, i don't recommend this one.

Disappointed. No useful advice........2006-11-07

I bought this book for myself, expecting to find some useful advice to help me organize my day a little better and to stay focused on priorities. I have been in management for 12 years and I expected this book to offer some new insights into time management and other daily challenges. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed and struggled to find some useful advice within the first half and have since put it down.

The book seems to target a junior audience with a certain type of personality that is more focused on fitting in and accommodating others, rather than those focused on leadership and results.

The book itself feels really cheap. I is printed on that cheap news-print paper like those crossword puzzle books.

Take Back Your Life! Special Edition: Using Microsoft Outlook to Get Organized and Stay Organized (Bpg-Other)

Average customer rating:

Author completely misses Outlook's powerful heirarchical capabilities.
Great book to start getting organized
Take Back Your Life!
Stong Emphasis on Up Front Planning
Outlook on Steroids

Take Back Your Life! Special Edition: Using Microsoft Outlook to Get Organized and Stay Organized (Bpg-Other)
Sally McGhee
Manufacturer: Microsoft Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0735622159

Book Description

Unrelenting e-mail. Conflicting commitments. Endless interruptions. In Take Back Your Life! Special Edition, productivity expert Sally McGhee shows you how to take control and reclaim something that you thought you'd lost forever--your work-life balance. Now you can benefit from Sally's popular and highly-regarded corporate education programs, learning simple but powerful techniques for rebalancing your personal and professional commitments using the productivity features in Outlook. Learn the proven methods that will empower you to:

*Clear away distractions and loose ends and focus on what's really important to you and your business. *Take charge of your productivity using techniques and processes designed by McGhee Productivity Solutions and implemented in numerous Fortune 500 companies. *Customize and exploit the productivity features iOutlook to help you create balance at home and on the job. *Special Edition features: Get even more on-the-job resources with an easy tear-out card of Sally's workflow diagram, a quick guide to key Outlook tasks, and great articles on the CD to help you save even more time.

When you change your approach, you can change your results. So learn what thousands of Sally's clients worldwide have discovered about taking control of their everyday productivity--and start transforming your own life today!

Customer Reviews:

Author completely misses Outlook's powerful heirarchical capabilities........2006-11-08

The result of using Outlook the way this author recommends is that you'll essentially have two separate lists: one list of all your projects and another list of all your "next actions". Since you'll be able to sort your next-action list according to the context in which each action will be done, this arrangement is better than nothing. But the problem with this arrangement is that with it, Outlook maintains neither project-to-next-actions connections nor next-actions-to-project connections. The author would have you list "next actions" within each project's Notes field to link the project to its next actions, and the author offers no link of each next action back to its project.

The author has missed a simple, powerful solution to this problem. When using Tasks in Outlook, the Tasks folder offers a heirarchical directory structure in which it's very easy to add folders and subfolders, just as one might do in Windows Explorer. Each of these folders that you create can be named to represent a project, and the next actions for each of these projects can be stored within the project's folder. Then all you have to do to see a list of all your next actions (across all projects) is to run a quick "Advanced Find" on your Outlook Tasks folder. Once you get the criteria of your search the way you want them, your search criteria can easily be saved, allowing you to recreate your "next actions" list with current data whenever you want it. If you include the "In Folder" field to display in your search results, then this field provides your next-action-to-project connection; and when you're reviewing your Outlook Tasks folder, the directory list of folders is essentially your project list, and within each project you see only the next actions associated with that project, so it's easy to maintain a project focus when planning your projects. Also, when using Outlook this way, many additional Outlook features can be used as well.

This book offers a few good ideas, but by failing to describe a simple and powerful way to have Outlook itself maintain the association of each project to its next actions, this book cannot be strongly recommended.

Great book to start getting organized.......2006-09-11

This book gives you great ideas about how to get organiazed and get things going. The only thing is that you will really need to use and get along MS Outlook pretty well, else you'll miss some of the tips and tricks in the book.
Pretty good start-up place for those who need some pointers at how to classify and prioritize tasks, events, items, and almost everything.

Take Back Your Life!.......2006-07-10

I'm not even to the end of the book and I already have my e-mail box emptied to zero, all my documents and files organized on my computer into an easy reference system so I know what information I already have. I am going to apply the same principles to my paper files this week. I had so much information stored and coming in that it is a huge relief to gain control over it all! All because I applied what I learned from this book.

Stong Emphasis on Up Front Planning.......2006-07-03

I am a veteran Franklin Covey planner user and consider myself very well organized and a strong time manager. Our company recently made the move to outlook, and I purchased this book hoping to get some tips on how to make the most of planning with outlook from someone who had a time management orientation. What I didn't expect was to learn anything more about time management. Boy was I wrong! Sally provides some real eye openers about spending more time up front planning tasks to get to "Strategic Next Actions" - tasks you can actually do without any dependencies. She also packs in excellent tips on setting up a reference system, handling email, and using the outlook task categories to their full potential.

I was able to achieve my basic objective with this book. My planning system was one where I used my Franklin Covey Plan Plus for Outlook software to create a daily task list each day with only items I could do that day, and used a collection of spreadsheets and word documents to track more complex "projects." Sally show how to integrate all of this into outlook with both planning and action tasks.

If you are looking for an indepth book on outlook however this isn't it. Instead its what it is advertised to be - a book on organizing first that tells who how to use outlook to implement the organizing system Sally has developed. The outlook information you need to implement the system is provided in a concise fashion and was very helpful to me.

Outlook on Steroids.......2006-04-02

I discovered this book while searching for something to help me manage the relentless flood of email coming at me every day (I had 900 unread emails at the time). I thought if I could become an outlook power user, I might be able to manage that number down. This book helped me learn the ins and outs of outlook, but more importantly, taught me a compelling approach to managing my crazy, demanding, overcommited, multi-tasking life. Mind you, I was a Franklin Planner flunky and a Day-Timer drop out, which made me a motivated learner. I literally devoured this book - read it cover to cover in just a few days (with a highlighter). Along the way I configured Outlook the work way the author recommends. I discussed it with friends. I actually implemented my own "IMS", which I think is what sets this book apart from David Allen's "Getting Things Done". You could read GTD, but the content may just "wash over you" and not make a practical difference in the way you work. This is specific, hands on, step by step instruction that if you're serious, will change the way you work in Outlook for the better. Highly recommended . . .

Genki 1: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese 1

Average customer rating:

Mediocre for adults
Genki 1
Well Thought-Out Beginners' Course for English Speakers
Read this is you are concerned with the JLPT Tests
I've purchased all the rest this one is the best.

Genki 1: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese 1
Eri Banno , Yutaka Ohno , Yoko Sakane , and Chikako Shinagawa
Manufacturer: Varsitybooks.Com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Foreign Languages | Reference | Subjects | Books

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All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

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ASIN: 4789009637

Book Description

Genki outlines in 23 structured lessons all the fundamentals of the Japanese language. Abundantly illustrated and containing a wide variety of exercises, Genki is sure to bring vigor to your classroom! Though primarily meant for use in college-level classes, it is also a good guide for independent learners and is a nice resource book for teachers of Japanese. Genki's authors teach at Kansai Gaidai University, which hosts the largest number of North American students spending their junior year in Japan.

Customer Reviews:

Mediocre for adults.......2007-09-26

This book may be good for young students who anticipate homestays (and I'm skeptical even about that, for reasons below), but if you're an adult you may find this book excruciating. I recently moved to Japan, and finally determined to take some private lessons to get a more systematic grasp on the language than I have had hitherto. My school uses this text. I can't compare it with other college-style textbooks, which may mostly suffer from the same problems, but among the issues I have with it are:

@ The framing scenario is of foreign students living in homestays and interacting with their homestay families and with each other; there is also a lot of school-related vocabluary. This is largely irrelevant for an adult's experience. It is useless for business, BTW (though in my own case, I was looking more for daily life vocabulary and situations than business).

@ Even within this scenario, the book doesn't teach you how to really have conversation -- all classmates address each other with polite "-masu" form verbs. In real life, this would be distant or even rude with your pals. (Moreover, on the accompanying tapes female gaijin characters like "Mary" and "Sue" address their classmates and homestay parents in that saccharine, squeaky little-girl voice that is normally used by shop staff and female announcers on infomercials, not people talking to friends or family.)

@ In Japan, it is very rare for people to mirror back to you what you say, or for it to be appropriate for you to mirror back to them. This is especially true if your main interactions are with people in shops, where they will use a lot of "keigo" (honorific speech) or other specialized formulas. Simple example: A waitress will bring stuff to your table and ask "Yoroshii desu ka?" (Is that OK?), you don't answer back "Hai, yoroshii desu." Even saying goodbye is highly context dependent; e.g. when someone says "Sorry I'm being so rude as to leave before you," even if you can catch the Japanese phrase you will look like an idiot if you reply symmetrically (been there, done that). This book doesn't give you a clue about dealing with such situations, nor help you to unravel what Japanese people are saying to you when they respond to your questions or remarks. All dialogues and exercises are based on the mirroring principle (as well as indiscriminate use of "wa", the topic particle). So it's pretty useless for practical purposes -- unless you plan to use Japanese in class only.

@ While it's a plus that reading & writing practice are integrated into the text, the reading selections in early chapters are devoid of imagination. After several chapters of reading stuff like "Are you OK? I am fine. It's cold here in Japan. I took some pictures, studied Japanese and took a bath. My father is nice, but very busy," and so on, you just want to scream.

@ Although the publication date is 1999, at which time a dot-com boom was beginning even in Japan, this book is snail-mail all the way: you spend time learning about stamps and postcards, but there isn't anything about email, the Internet or texting. (Forget also about DVDs -- people watch videos.)

@ Japanese verb conjugation has a wonderful regularity, in that almost every verb has a set of stems that are based variously on -A-, -I-, -U-, -E- and -O- (e.g., negative, polite, dictionary, causative and "let's" forms, respectively). This tracks the order of Japanese vowels in the kana writing systems, so it's easy to remember. However, "Genki"'s presentation of verbs obliterates this useful pattern (see, e.g. conjugation chart @ 344 of Vol. I).

Like most students of Japanese, I've stocked up on a shelfload of other books of varying usefulness. (Two of the best, Rita Lampkin's "Japanese: Verbs and Essentials of Grammar" and Jay Rubin's "Making Sense of Japanese", unfortunately are exclusively in Roman characters, or nearly so.) You will definitely need to to the same (or at least half a shelfload) if you use this book. But not getting bored by the boook will be a bigger challenge if you're older than 22. One possible tip might be to look for a book that has at least one gaijin co-author. This one is written entirely by Japanese authors; it could have benefitted from the perspective of a formerly-puzzled foreigner.

Genki 1.......2007-08-21

I am teaching myself Japanese and I really like this text. This book has a good collection of vocabulary and is very easy to follow. I recommend this book to everyone. It is excellent! My Japanese friend is very impressed with what I was able to teach myself. I feel very confident in what I have learned. The student CD that accompanies is a little lacking, though. It only covers dialogue and vocab for the book (and workbook), when I really wish the CD included more from the textbook. I also recommend getting the workbook for more practice. You should know that you need the student CD to use the workbook. Genki 1 has to be the best text out there for learning Japanese!

Well Thought-Out Beginners' Course for English Speakers.......2007-05-23

Japanese is a very difficult language for English speakers to learn. If you've learned some French or Spanish (as I have), forget about it! Japanese is many times more difficult. That being said, Japanese is also more interesting, in that it has a completely different structure and forces you to think differently.

Genki does a good job of presenting Japanese is an orderly fashion. The authors are all native Japanese speakers, and there are a few places where they make mistakes in English, but those small errors do not take away from the text.

Genki could use a few more sample Japanese sentences, though. For example, when they present a new pattern, they often provide just a couple of examples when ten or twelve would be better. I suppose they assume (correctly) that this book will mostly be used in a classroom setting, and that the teacher will provide additional material.

In the end, Genki is a good textbook, but you will need more help if you are going to learn to speak Japanese. That is not the fault of the authors, it is just the way it is.

Read this is you are concerned with the JLPT Tests.......2007-04-30

I am writing this review as a person who is concerned with passing the JLPT tests and finding study materials. Of ocurse as everyone else wants, I also want to learn Japanese as well. After having passed all the exams and having an understanding of what each requires and being a State university (college) student I can say this book si great. Challenging but great.

THE Genki 1 IS NOT SUFFICIENT TO PASS JLPT TEST 4 or 3!!!

Let me repeat that again

THE Genki 1 IS NOT SUFFICIENT TO PASS JLPT TEST 4 or 3!!!

While it can be a help, it simply does not go over enough information to insure passing.

THE GENKI BOOK 1 and THE GENKI BOOK 2 DO NOT INSURE PASSING LEVEL 3 or 4!!!

let me repeat tht again

THE GENKI BOOK 1 and THE GENKI BOOK 2 DO NOT INSURE PASSING LEVEL 3 or 4!!!

The other reviewers who write that it does would have needed other knowledge NOT included in these books or with the cds. You simply need more information. about it. The best book for passing the JLPT levels 3 and 4 do not exist. you need a thorough understanding which school can provide or multiple resources for the home study fanatic.

I normally do not review. but would hate to see people just buying this and then getting to the examinations and not knowing a thing that was going on. Be careful what you read.

THe book is great but if one of your goals is passing JLPT 4 or 3 this is not sufficuent alone.

Thank you and good luck to you!

I've purchased all the rest this one is the best........2007-03-26

Ok, I've spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on Japanaese language learning materials. Books, software, CDs etc. Some of them good some of them bad. Genki is the only one that has really put it all together for me. It explains the concepts and explains them well. When you are done reading the grammar sections it just starts to make sense.

This is a great stepping stone for those that are wanting to learn Japanese as part of a fuller understanding of the language. If you are looking for a quick read for a weekend in Tokyo this book isn't for you.

Pick up the workbook and CD if you are going to be doing this solo. It'll help out like you wouldn't believe.

GPU Gems 2: Programming Techniques for High-Performance Graphics and General-Purpose Computation (Gpu Gems)

Average customer rating:

Outstanding reference
A comprehensive resource - but not for the novice
Excellent Second Book in the GPU Gems Series
Pretty pictures
A Focus on Hardware Optimization

GPU Gems 2: Programming Techniques for High-Performance Graphics and General-Purpose Computation (Gpu Gems)
Matt Pharr , and Randima Fernando
Manufacturer: Addison-Wesley Professional
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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GPU Gems: Programming Techniques, Tips, and Tricks for Real-Time Graphics
The Cg Tutorial: The Definitive Guide to Programmable Real-Time Graphics
GPU Gems 3
Shader X4 Advanced Rendering (Graphics Series)
Game Programming Gems 6 (Book & CD-ROM) (Game Development Series)

ASIN: 0321335597

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding reference.......2007-10-07

The first half (28 chapters) of this book address the needs of the graphics programming master, or master-to-be. This goes way past the basics of GPU programming and language, and dives directly into solutions of demanding problems. This includes techniques for adding complexity to a visual environment at modest cost, real-time modeling of grass in the wind, softened shadows, and dozens of other aids for efficient and believable rendering. Some techniques address non-photorealistic techniqes as well. Together, they add a big handful of new tools to the toolbox of even advanced GPU developers. (Beginners: I'm sorry, but this isn't for you. Some day, just not today.)

I have to admit, though, my interest lies largely in the last 20 chapters. In this section, authors from university and industry research teams describe "GPGPU" - general processing on GPUs. This puts the incredible computing power of the GPU to use on tasks from linear algebra and differential equations to finance, computer vision, fluid flow, and medical imaging, instead of rendering viewable pictures. GPGPU promises huge performance increases over standard CPUs, but imposes huge barriers to realizing that promise. GPUs achieve their high performance by tailoring their physical architecture to a specific class of computations. That class is large, granted, but still covers only a tiny portion of today's compute-intensive tasks - and if your computation doesn't match the GPU model, you're just out of luck. These chapters offer tips'n'tricks for overcoming the architectural barrier, for rethinking applications in terms that GPUs can handle effectively.

GPGPU has been around for only a few years, largely as isolated acts of individual cleverness. No organized body of knowledge and practice exists for explointing this computational resource, and none seems likely to exist for some years to come. Every body of knowledge goes through that stage, "button collecting" of scattered, unrelated facts, the necessary elements from which larger patterns will some day be drawn. This collection, even if hit-or-miss for any one reader's needs, does its part to collect today's techniques and to disseminate that knowledge. Maybe some day, GPGPU will be as common and systematic as C programming is today - until then, anthologies like this are what we have, and this is a good one.

-- wiredweird

A comprehensive resource - but not for the novice.......2006-03-15

Truly Matt Pharr and NVIDIA are at the top of their game, and his "GPU Gems" series is certainly the only one of its kind for graphics professionals that are familiar with GPU's and shading languages already, and want to exploit them for the maximum speed and effect achievable using today's technology. It is not a "how-to" book on shading or GPUs or even advanced graphics. There are equations and code interspersed throughout the book, with bits of wisdom that are very instructive for the initiated. However, if you are a home-grown graphics programmer who knows C, or C++, or Java, and even some assembly language, plus you are familiar with image processing and computer graphics techniques, that will probably not be enough to get you through this book. I would say that this is a five star book for high-level professional graphics programmers who work with GPU specifics and shaders daily, and I would say it is a two or three star book for everyone else.
The one section of the book that is pretty accessible to anyone with knowledge of computer architecture and computer graphics would be section 4 of the book, which is about general purpose computation on GPU's themselves. That section has a series of articles that comprise an excellent tutorial on GPU's, what they are, and what they can do. It is the best material in print I have seen on the subject.
If you want a good introduction into the concept of writing shaders plus practice with an actual shading language, try "OpenGL Shading Language, 2nd Edition" by Rost, assuming you already know OpenGL. For a great on-line resource for modeling and graphics that will get you going in the right direction of knowing what the authors of these articles know, type "Elias Hugo" into Google and check out the first address shown. There is a wealth of on-line articles, complete with math and pseudocode, available there. Then, maybe, you will be ready to sift some knowledge from this "GPU Gems" series.
I notice that the table of contents is not shown by Amazon, so I list the articles here:
PART 1:GEOMETRIC COMPLEXITY
Towards Photorealism in Virtual Botany
Terrain Rendering using GPU-Based Geometry Clipmaps
Inside Geometry Instancing
Segment Buffering
Optimizing Resource Management with Multi-Streaming
Hardware Occlusion Queries Made Useful
Adaptive Tessellation of Subdivision Surfaces with Displacement Mapping
Per-Pixel Displacement Mapping with Distance Functions
PART 2:SHADING, LIGHTING, AND SHADOWS
Deferred Shading in STALKER
Real-Time Computation of Dynamic Irradiance Environment Maps
Approximate Bidirectional Texture Functions
Tile-Based Texture Mapping
Implementing the Mental Images Phenomena Renderer on the GPU
Dynamic Ambient Occlusion and Indirect Lighting
Blueprint Rendering and "Sketchy Drawings"
Accurate Atmospheric Scattering
Efficient Soft-Edged Shadows Using Pixel Shader Branching
Using Vertex Texture Displacement for Realistic Water Rendering
Generic Refraction Simulation
PART 3:HIGH-QUALITY RENDERING
Fast Third-Order Texture Filtering
High Quality Antialiased Rasterization
Fast Prefiltered Lines
Hair Animation and Rendering in the Nalu Demo
Using Lookup Tables to Accelerate Color Transformations
GPU Image Processing in Apple's Motion
Implementing Improved Perlin Noise
Advanced High-Quality Filtering
Mipmap Level Measurement
PART 4:GENERAL PURPOSE COMPUTATION ON GPUS: A PRIMER
Streaming Architectures and Technology Trends
The GeForce 6 Series GPU Architecture
Mapping Computational Concepts to GPUs
GPU Computation Strategies and Tips
Implementing Efficient Parallel Data Structures on GPUs
Flow Control Idioms
GPU Program Optimization
Stream Reduction Operations for GPGPU Applications
PART 5:IMAGE-ORIENTED COMPUTING
Octree Textures on the GPU
High-Quality Global Illumination Rendering Using Rasterization
Global Illumination using Progressive Refinement Radiosity
Computer Vision on the GPU
Deferred Filtering: Rendering from Difficult Data Formats
Conservative Rasterization
PART 6:SIMULATION AND NUMERICAL ALGORITHMS
GPU Computing for Protein Structure Prediction
A GPU Framework for Solving Systems of Linear Equations
Options Pricing on the GPU
Improved GPU Sorting
Flow Simulation with Complex Boundaries
Medical Image Reconstruction with the FFT

Excellent Second Book in the GPU Gems Series.......2005-12-21

This book is the second installment of the GPU Gems book series by NVIDIA. Just like the first book, GPU Gems 2 is a collection of articles by various authors from game development companies, academia, and tool developers on advanced techniques for programming graphics processing units (or GPUs for short). It is aimed at intermediate to advanced graphics developers that are familiar with the most common graphics APIs. The reader should also be proficient in C++. As with the first GPU Gems book, GPU Gems 2 is not for beginners. For professional graphics and game developers, however, it is an excellent collection of interesting techniques, tips, and tricks.

The book is divided into six parts, each dealing with a different aspect of GPU programming. Compared to the first book, more emphasis is put on the quickly evolving area of general-purpose computation on GPUs (also called GPGPU). In particular, the last three of the six parts of the book are about GPGPU and its applications. The first three parts, however, are about real-time computer graphics.

The first part of the book contains 8 chapters on photo-realistic rendering that mostly deal with how to efficiently render a large number of objects in a scene, which is a necessity for rendering convincing natural effects, such as grass or trees. Two chapters in this part of the book discuss geometry instancing and segment buffering, and another chapter focuses on using occlusion queries to implement coherent hierarchical occlusion culling.
Other interesting topics in this part of the book include adaptive tessellation of surfaces on the GPU, displacement mapping - an extension to the popular parallax mapping used in some current games - that allows to render realistic bumps on a simple quad, and terrain rendering with geometry clipmaps.

Part two of the book consisting of 11 chapters deals with shading and lighting. This part contains highly interesting chapters on deferred shading in the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and computing irradiance environment maps on the GPU in real-time. Furthermore, this part of the book has chapters on rendering atmospheric scattering, implementing bidirectional texture functions on the GPU, dynamic ambient occlusion culling, water rendering, and using shadow mapping with percentage-closer filtering to achieve soft shadows.

The third part of the book consists of 9 chapters on high-quality rendering. Most chapters in this part deal with implementing high-quality filtering in fragment shaders. For example, there is an interesting chapter on filtered line rendering and another chapter on cubic texture filtering. Finally, a GPU-only implementation of improved Perlin Noise is also presented in this part of the book.

The chapters in the fourth part of the book represent an introduction to the fantastic field of GPGPU. The 8 chapters of this part first describe the general streaming architecture of GPUs, and then move on to show how to map conventional CPU data structures and algorithms to the GPU. For example, textures can be regarded as the GPU equivalent to CPU data arrays. There is also a chapter on how to implement flow-control idioms on the GPU and a chapter on optimizing GPU programs.

The 6 chapters of part five of the book are on image-oriented computing and describe a number of GPGPU algorithms for performing global illumination computations, for example by using radiosity, on the GPU. There is also a chapter on doing computer vision on the GPU
The final chapter in this part of the book explains how to perform conservative rasterization, which is important for some GPGPU algorithms to achieve accurate results.

The final part of the book has 6 chapters that present GPGPU techniques to perform a variety of simulation and numerical algorithms on the GPU. One chapter shows how to map linear algebra operations onto the GPU and develops a GPU framework to solve systems of linear equations. In other chapters the GPU is used for protein structure prediction, options pricing, flow simulation, and medical image reconstruction. These chapters show good examples of how the GPU can be used for non-graphics-related tasks.

The book contains many illustrations and diagrams that visualize the results of certain techniques or explain the presented algorithms in more detail. All images in the book are in color, which is definitely advantageous for a graphics book. In my opinion, the excellent quality and also the quantity of images and illustrations is one of the strongest points of this book compared to other graphics books.

The book also comes with a CD-ROM with supplemental material, videos, and demo applications to some chapters. Most of the applications include the full source code, which makes it easy to experiment with the techniques presented in the book. Note that most of the applications run on Windows only and many of them require a shader model 3.0 graphics card.

I highly recommend this book to any professional working as graphics or game developer. It is a valuable addition to my library of graphics books and I will come back to a number of articles in the near future. The focus on GPGPU in the second half of the book is a welcome addition and we can expect to see more and more non-graphics-related applications make use of the processing power in today's GPUs.

Pretty pictures.......2005-06-15

This book is targeted at people who have a good solid grasp of either OpenGL or D3D as well as a grounding in programming languages such as C/C++ or Java. While this much is obvious, the book is still painfully difficult to get anything useful out of.
The problem amounts to the fact that there is no cohesion between chapters - each one is written by a different author (and clearly they have not read each other's material) - there is no reference or introduction but worst of all, no common terms.
Example; What D3D calls a "pixel shader", OpenGL call "fragment shader", but there are also "vertex shader", "vertex program", "pixel program" and "fragment program"... some of these are the same thing while others are wildly different, but I found at least 4 references in this book to what I could only make sense of by substituting another term (the correct one). Each author has written their part from their own view point using their own terms.
The code snippets contained rarely have any comments or even descriptions of how they work.
Overall I generally felt like I was either reading someone's thesis or a marketing spiel about a particular aspect of some game.
There are many pretty pictures though.

A Focus on Hardware Optimization.......2005-06-01

"GPU Gems 2" edited by Matt Pharr (Addison-Wesley, 2005, ISBN 0-321-33559-7) is a collection of forty-eight white papers that detail cutting edge techniques based on today's latest graphical processing units (GPU). The full color hardcover text is 784 pages and includes a CD-ROM with working demos and source for some of the articles presented in the book. The text retails for $59.99.

The book is divided into six parts: geometric complexity, shading, high-quality rendering, general purpose computation on the GPU, image oriented computing, and numerical algorithms. A part has anywhere from five to twelve chapters. Each chapter is written by a different author but the format and style is consistent. The chapters have an introduction, discussion of the problem or technique, conclusion, and references. The material is presented with color illustrations and occasionally some pseudo-code or code fragments. Generally, the material is extremely current and very approachable to read.

As a sequel to its well received predecessor, the text focuses on taking advantage of the computational power and features of today's high-powered GPU boards. The first part of the book, geometric complexity, emphasizes this with chapters dedicated to batch rendering, using multi-streaming, hardware occlusion, and displacement pixel-shaders. Each chapter illustrates how operations traditionally performed on the CPU can be moved into the GPU for efficiency and greater effect.

The subsequent two parts on shading and rendering continue along the same theme: improved performance by using hardware functionality found on the GPU. Each topic considers the performance ramifications and GPU capabilities when discussing the problem domain of a rendering technique and factors it into the final solution. For example, chapter 10 considers irradiance environment maps for fast lighting - but with a twist - using the GPU to do the calculations in real-time. In doing so, the book's real value becomes apparent.

The fourth part on general purpose GPU computation is an interesting addition to the text. The chapters illustrate methods of offloading traditional CPU tasks by exploiting the inherent parallel nature of modern GPU hardware. Since the book features Nvidia hardware, the architecture and performance capabilities largely focused on their products.

In the fifth part of the book, hardware assisted image creation and analysis is considered. By using context clues from the spatial, texture, or lighting data - additional refinements can be made to a scene prior to rasterization. The topics presented in this part are further refinements of the text's main theme (using the GPU fully) and are specific solutions to uncommon problems - or approaches to rasterization. None the less as GPUs continue to evolve, the topics presented in this section will undoubtedly become more common.

Finally, the sixth part of the book provides several non-traditional graphics examples to illustrate calculating data on the GPU: solving linear equations, options pricing, and numerical simulation - just to name a few. As using the raw floating point power of modern GPU is a growing trend - these sections were quite interesting and well done.

The included CD-ROM contains examples to 28 of the 48 articles in the book. In most cases, the example material includes source code as well as pre-compiled binaries to help illustrate the topic presented in the text. In order to run the majority of the samples, Cg must be installed on the host computer. In addition, the CD-ROM provides access to Nvidia's software development kit, Cg toolkit, performance tools, and several helpful reference links to on-line sites.

GPU Gems 2 provides a cutting edge view of the capabilities found in today's video cards. The selected articles illustrate that every part of the rendering process can be enhanced in some fashion by fully using the underlying hardware. As such, this book is essential to anyone working with modern GPUs.

The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time (In Two Lines or Less)

Average customer rating:

You've got to be kidding!
I have two copies - i can't be without it!
Lots of Profound Quotations
Literature ?
Carry right too far and it becomes wrong

The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time (In Two Lines or Less)
John M. Shanahan
Manufacturer: Collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Self-Help & Psychology | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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English (All) | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books

Quotations | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Reference | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit & Wisdom From History's Greatest Wordsmiths
Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts & Funny Sayings: A Stupendous Collection of Quotes, Quips, Epigrams, Witticisms, and Humorous Comments. For Personal Enjoyment and Ready Reference.
1001 Motivational Quotes for Success: Great Quotes from Great Minds
Great Quotes from Great Leaders
Viva la Repartee: Clever Comebacks and Witty Retorts from History's Great Wits and Wordsmiths

ASIN: 0060194111
Release Date: 1999-05-11

Book Description

You don't have to be a genius to sound like one. Here's a collection of the most profound and provocative wit and wisdom in the English language in two lines or less. Edited by entrepreneur John M. Shanahan, who created the wildly successful Hooked on Phonics program, this wonderful book presents the best that has been thought and said on every imaginable topic.

Classified by such themes as "Truth, Lies, and Deception," "Men, Women, and Relationships," and "Passions, Virtues, and Vices," these quotes contain timeless messages for all humankind. Oscar Wilde: "A man who marries his mistress leaves a vacancy in that position." Charles de Gaulle: "The cemetery is filled with indispensable men." Abraham Lincoln: "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." Sophocles: "Men of ill judgment oft ignore the good that lies within their hands, till they have lost it."

Perfect for anyone who has ever been left speechless, this book will make you as glib as Oscar Wilde, as profound as Winston Churchill, and as wise as Aesop. Inspirational, entertaining, and thought-provoking, this is one collection that no library or bookshelf should be without.

Customer Reviews:

You've got to be kidding!.......2007-06-08

If this editor really thinks these are the most brilliant thoughts of all time, he needs to get out more. A few gems, but mostly tired truisms from the 1900's and before. Nothing much new. I found this book disappointing and boring, which is unfortunate, since it includes a CD with all of the content included. But here is some good news; if you are looking for something similar that will really inspire and entertain you a far better choice is-
"A Dancing Star: Inspirations to Guide and Heala wonderful book that was given to me by a friend 10 years ago when I became ill with a chronic disease. I still read it all the time.

I have two copies - i can't be without it!.......2006-10-18

This is an amazing quote book. I manage a large office of creative staff and I
also attend many business functions where I am often called upon to make
speeches. I use the quotes in this book when communicating with my staff and
colleagues. I like to throw in a few quotes from Mr. Shanahan's book, it never
lets me down when I need to make a point subtly and eloquently.

I find a great way to start the business day on a positive note is to
open up The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time' (in Two Lines or Less) and
read a relevant quote to my team.

I have a copy at my office and another at home.

Lots of Profound Quotations.......2006-04-26

I REALLY like reading quotations & this book is FULL of them, BUT the author, John Shanahan, has attempted his 15 minutes of fame by including his own quotations, most of which I read & said, "HUH??" because they are not up to the same quality as the others. However, it IS his book! Great read, tho!

Literature ?.......2006-03-14

As books of this type go it is about what I expected, a real novelty. I may find a few items to quote, but most are not very profound nor of great interest.

Carry right too far and it becomes wrong.......2005-11-15

As I have just finished reading the book of Baltasar Gracian "the art of worldly wisdom" which is a must on every serious readers shelf , I picked up this book to relax my mind and enjoy it.....I must admit that it is very easy read and one can finish it in a couple of days since most quotes can be found written at the back of public toilet doors. A good book overall but far from brilliant.
Pascal Hagge

Survival Analysis Using SAS: A Practical Guide

Average customer rating:

Nice reference for survival analysis
Learn By Doing
Extraordinarily Clear and Useful
Best how-to book on survival analysis using SAS. Very useful

Survival Analysis Using SAS: A Practical Guide
Paul Allison
Manufacturer: SAS Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Mathematical & Statistical | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Computers & Internet | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Professional | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Logistic Regression Using the SAS System: Theory and Application
Categorical Data Analysis Using the SAS System
Survival Analysis
The Little SAS Book: A Primer, Third Edition
SAS for Mixed Models, Second Edition

ASIN: 155544279X

Book Description

Biomedical and social science researchers who want to analyze survival data with the SAS System will find just what they need with this easy-to-read and comprehensive guide. Written for the person with a modest statistical background and minimal knowledge of SAS software, this book teaches many aspects of data input and manipulation. Numerous examples of SAS code and output make this an eminently practical book ensuring that even the uninitiated becomes a sophisticated user of survival analysis. The main topics presented include censoring, survival curves, Kaplan-Meier estimation, accelerated failure time models, Cox regression models, and discrete-time analysis. Also included are topics not usually covered such as time-dependent covariates, competing risks, and repeated events.

Supports releases 6.09 and higher of SAS software.

Customer Reviews:

Nice reference for survival analysis.......2007-01-11

So far, this book has been a useful reference for survival analysis. It is clearly written and the xplanatins are understandable and helpful. It would be nice to have a newer edition that addresses changes in later versions of SAS.

Learn By Doing.......2005-06-14

If you have data that fit the general category "time to event," and are not suitably analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA, you are probably looking at doing a survival analysis (also known by several other names). If you are working largely on your own, and you learn best by doing, you cannot--as far as I know--do better than Allison's book. Of course it all but locks you into using SAS for analyses, but his explanations of proportional hazards and other models are the best I've found among a dozen textbooks and stats package manuals (some of which made sense only after reading Allison). What makes this book so good is that it will have you running your analyses in just hours. The examples are superb take-off points. I was not a SAS user before reading the book and therefore took a little extra time to figure out dataset manipulations and such in SAS, but that was minor effort compared to the rewards of having Allison's clearly written book as a guide. The price of this book represents only a fraction of its value.

Extraordinarily Clear and Useful.......2000-02-06

I've used a number of this author's books and they all share in common lucidity, utility, and rigor. This book makes it easy to grasp complex ideas, provides comprehensible examples, gives sample SAS code so that implementing the methods is as straightforward as possible. Plus, it is clear that the author is a subtle and first-rate methodologist, who innovates in this area as well as teaches it.

Best how-to book on survival analysis using SAS. Very useful.......1999-06-22

This book is well-written, well-organized, and very practical. I found it invaluable in conducting my research. My only recommendation for the author for his next edition is to include a chapter on dealing with correlated event times, like time-to-promotion and time-to-quiting in his policemen example (pg 249).

3D Game Engine Design: A Practical Approach to Real-Time Computer Graphics (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3D Technology)

Average customer rating:

Poor pseudo-code
VERY VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
This book is not about "Game Engine Design"
Good, but not what you might expect
Book Review

3D Game Engine Design: A Practical Approach to Real-Time Computer Graphics (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3D Technology)
David H. Eberly
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Game Programming | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Graphic Design | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

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All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

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Similar Items:

3D Game Engine Architecture: Engineering Real-Time Applications with Wild Magic (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3D Technology)
ShaderX5: Advanced Rendering Techniques (Shaderx)
Game Programming Gems 6 (Book & CD-ROM) (Game Development Series)
Introduction to 3D Game Programming with Direct X 9.0c: A Shader Approach (Wordware Game and Graphics Library)
Real-Time Collision Detection (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3-D Technology)

ASIN: 0122290631

Amazon.com

Aimed at the working Visual C++ game developer, 3D Game Engine Design provides a tour of mathematical techniques for 3-D graphics, and the source code that's used to implement them in state-of-the-art video game engines. If you work in the game industry (or would like to), this book will serve you well, because it delivers excellent best practices for algorithms and programming techniques that'll help your software keep up with the competition.

This text is a virtual encyclopedia of expertise that's based on the author's own work and research in the gaming industry. It provides the mathematical notation, algorithms, and C++ code (on the accompanying CD-ROM) that are needed to build fast and maintainable game engines. Early sections start with the basics, with the math that's used to work with common 3-D objects (like spheres and boxes). Highlights include a high-powered review of quaternion algebra--in many cases, the preferred way to transform 3-D data.

The chapters on graphics pipelines explain the math that's behind representing and rendering a 3-D world in 2-D with intervening effects like lighting and texture mapping. A variety of current algorithms are provided for representing 3-D scenes, efficient picking (which allows a programmer to determine the object in a 3-D world that has been selected), and collision detection (in which objects collide virtually). In the game software of today, curves--and not individual triangles or polygons--often are used to represent 3-D objects. Algorithms that are used to turn curves into rendered surfaces are provided, too.

Later sections look at the current thinking about animation techniques for characters (including key frames, inverse kinematics, and skinning (in which digital skin is fitted over digital bone to create more realistic-looking movement)). How to represent terrain inside virtual worlds also is explained. The book closes with excellent material on such cutting-edge special effects as lens flare and projected shadows, which can add an extra level of realism to a video game. An appendix examines guidelines for designing object-oriented game software in C++.

Filled with mathematical insight and expert code that puts each principle or algorithm to work, 3D Game Engine Design provides an expert view of what goes into building a state-of-the-art game engine. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

Mathematical methods and sample source code for 3-D game development
Geometrical transformations
Coordinate systems
Quaternions
Euler angles
Standard 3-D objects: spheres, oriented boxes, capsules, lozenges, cylinders, ellipsoids
Distance methods for a variety of shapes
Introduction to the graphics pipeline
Model and world coordinates
Projecting perspective
Camera models
Culling techniques
Surface and vertex attributes
Rasterizing
Efficiency issues for clipping and lighting
Hierarchical scene representation, using trees and scene graphs
Picking algorithms for a variety of 3-D shapes
Collision detection for static and dynamic graphical objects
Oriented bounding-box (OBB) trees
Basics of curves and special curves (including Bezier curves and various splines)
Curves (generating surfaces from curves by using different techniques)
Character animation, using keyframe animation and inverse kinematics
Skinning
Geometrical level of detail considerations
Techniques for generating game terrain
Spatial sorting and binary space partitioning (BSP)
Special effects: lens flare, bump mapping, volumetric fogging, projected light and shadows, particle systems, morphing techniques
C++ language features for effective object-oriented design
Reference to the numerical methods required for game mathematics

Book Description

A major revision of the international bestseller on game programming!

Graphics hardware has evolved enormously in the last decade. Hardware can now be directly controlled
through techniques such as shader programming, which requires an entirely new thought process of a
programmer. 3D Game Engine Design, Second Edition shows step-by-step how to make a shader-based graphics engine and how to tame the new technology. Much new material has been added, including more than twice the coverage of the essential techniques of scene graph management, as well as new methods for managing memory usage in the new generation of game consoles and portable game players. There are expanded discussions of collision detection, collision avoidance, and physics all challenging subjects for developers.

* Revision of the classic work on game engines the core of any game.
* Includes Wild Magic, a commercial quality game engine in source code that illustrates how to build a
real-time rendering system from the lowest-level details all the way to a working game.
* Fully revised and updated in 4 colors, including major new content on shader programming, physics,
and memory management for the next generation game consoles and portables.

Customer Reviews:

Poor pseudo-code.......2007-05-16

This book is fantastically comprehensive, though I bought it more for the CG algorithms than anything else.

My biggest gripe is with the pseudo-code. My C++ is not great, but I can get by - I found the code in general under-commented for a textbook. If you were writing software, it might be fine, but the purpose of the code is to explain the algorithms, and to work in concert with the text, which it does not. Furthermore, I found the text did not fill in the holes - I was left to try to figure out what Eberley was doing by going through the code. Possibly if I had read the whole thing through from cover to cover things would be clearer.

If you're just looking for an algorithm reference, you could do better.

VERY VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!.......2007-01-14

Are you a professional or student working in game development? If you are, then this book is for you. Author David H. Eberly has done an outstanding job of writing a second edition of a book which focuses on the design of the scene graph management system and its associated rendering layer.

Eberly, begins this book by discussing the details of a rendering system, including transformations, camera models, culling and clipping, rastering, and issues regarding software versus hardware rendering and about specific graphics application programmer interfaces in use these days. In addition, the author discusses rendering from the perspective of actually writing all of the subsystems for a software renderer. He also takes a look at the essentials of organizing your data as a scene graph. Then, he focuses on specifically designed nodes and subsystems of the scene graph management system. The author then looks at some general concepts you see in attempting to have physical realism in a three-dimensional application. Next, he discusses a lot of mathematical detail for much of the source code you will find in Wild Magic. Then, he takes a brief look at the basic principles of object-oriented design and programming. The author continues by discussing memory management. Finally, he takes a look at a handful of sample shaders and the applications that use them.

This most excellent book is very much enhanced, describing the foundations for shader programming and how an engine can support it. Perhaps more importantly, the book is the most comprehensive reference available for the development of shader-based 3D graphics engines!

This book is not about "Game Engine Design".......2006-09-26

This book is not about "Game Engine Design" -- it's about algorithms that you may come across when writing a 3D game engine. There's very little treatment of "engine design" in this book.

Even though the title is misleading, it's still a great book if you're looking for a reference on 3D game engine algorithms.

Good, but not what you might expect.......2005-04-16

I read this a few years ago, and have referred back to it many times, but I only recently realized that I neglected to write a review of it.

This book is well-written and contains a lot of useful information. The author is one of the few people qualified to write a book of this nature, and he has done an admirable job. That said, the title is pretty misleading, since the book has very little to say about the design of a game engine. Instead, it focuses on implementation details and the math involved with them. Topics covered include geometrical methods, the graphics pipeline, tree-based scene graphics, intersections, collision detection, curves and surfaces, animation, terrain, spatial sorting (quad/octrees, portals, BSPs), special effects, object-oriented infrastructure, and numerical methods. The author doesn't gloss over anything, providing detailed mathematical derivations of how things work.

Unfortunately, the math is so heavy that unless you're already pretty familiar with the subject matter, you'll probably have a hard time with the book. Therefore, I think that the target audience is much smaller that the group that would be attracted by the title.

If you're involved in game engine development or just want to deepen your knowledge, I think you'll appreciate the fact that the author doesn't pull any punches. Otherwise, you'll probably be more interested in the author's new book 3D Game Engine Architecture, which was recently released.

Book Review.......2005-02-08

I have spent the past four years studying game development and have read many books on the subject. The technologies utilized in game development are extensive but most can be grouped into a small list, which is rendering, animation, modeling, collision detection, collision response, artificial intelligence, audio processing, input management and network communication. This book only contains technologies related to rendering, animation, and collision detection.

Eberly gives an in-depth look to game development and provides adequate solutions to every problem introduced. He does not cover every possible way each problem could be solved nor does he spend a lot of time introducing and defining each problem. Instead he assumes the reader has a general understanding of the problem and gives a quick review followed by one or two detailed solutions using the most common techniques. Eberly's writing style makes it easy to follow the accumulation of segments to the final solution. His math notation on the other hand was confusing at times. A few places he supplemented words with mathematical notation and allowed the math to do the explaining, which made it seem like he was unable to put it into words.

I have found this book to be very useful and have added it to my reference library of game development, but I would not recommend this book to someone just starting to study game development. For a reader to glean anything of use out of this book he would have to be experienced in object oriented programming, have a basic understanding of 3D rendering technologies and have a working knowledge of calculus and linear algebra.

Pouring Six Beers at a Time: And Other Stories from a Lifetime in Baseball

Average customer rating:

Commits the worst sins of a memoir
a must for any phillies fan
GREAT BOOK BUY A GREAT PERSON!
Wonderful Days in a BallPark
Not Just for Phillies Fans

Pouring Six Beers at a Time: And Other Stories from a Lifetime in Baseball
Bill Giles , and Doug Myers
Manufacturer: Triumph Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Baseball | Sports | Subjects | Books

General | Sports | Subjects | Books

The Stark Truth: The Most Overrated and Underrated Players in Baseball History
Is This a Great Game, or What?: From A-Rod's Heart to Zim's Head--My 25 Years in Baseball
MLB Vintage World Series Films - Philadelphia Phillies 1950, 1980, 1983 & 1993
Branch Rickey: Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman
The Paolantonio Report: The Most Overrated and Underrated Players, Teams, Coaches, and Moments in NFL History

ASIN: 1572439319

Book Description

Bill Giles is a baseball lifer who grew up in ballparks while his father oversaw the Cincinnati Reds and later the entire National League. Young Giles learned that the game was meant to be fun, and he's done more to make it that way over the past five decades than just about anyone else. From the forgotten minor league towns to the big-league clubs in Houston and Philadelphia, Bill Giles spent all of his waking hours dreaming up ways to make the game more enjoyable. Pouring Six Beers at a Time is his humorous and poignant recollection of how he did just that.

Customer Reviews:

Commits the worst sins of a memoir.......2007-08-22

As a lifelong baseball man, Bill Giles had the chance to write something profound, something with the depth and insight of 70+ years living and breathing the game. To open it and discover instead a book that barely glances off the surface of history is a disappointment.

Reading Giles' account of his life is a lot like listening to your grandfather - sure, there are interesting anecdotes occasionally, but they're atolls in an ocean of cliche and vagueness.

At its best, it's readable, like when Giles talks about his scoreboard antics with the Astros. At its worst, it's a sloppy, directionless mess, punctuated by boring, PR-release-style photos, random lists of things like his Top 10 Baseball Moments, all of which we could've guessed from how he'd already talked about them, and narrative-destroying paragraphs of statistics.

And insight? Well, if you were looking for interesting moments from his time with the Colt .45s/Houston Astros and his efforts to do wacky stuff as promotions guy with the Phillies, there's a bit of all that. But controversy? A capsule of how things felt sweating out the '80 World Series win and the '93 World Series loss? Forget about it. For the most part, Giles writes as though baseball is all good times, and avoids delving into the real difficulties - the down times between '80 and '93 and after, the disastrous moves the team made under GM Ed Wade - and even manages to write off the '94 strike in just a few sentences.

Throw in a random dissertation on baseball economics that completely derails what narrative there was, whole chapters devoted to passing looks at his favorite team owners and baseball commissioners, and the book just collapses under its own weight, lifeless, dull and nearly unreadable.

a must for any phillies fan.......2007-07-07

A wonderful book, filled with stories of Bill Giles' lifetime in baseball. Baseball fans in general will enjoy it, Phillies fans in particular will love it.

I had the opportunity to recently hear Bill Giles talk about his book, and here's an interesting tidbit (or errata): he writes in the book that George W. Bush could be the next commissioner of baseball. He said that he wrote those words over a year ago, and he's not of the same opinion now with the sharp decline of the President's approval rating.

In any case, if you like baseball stories, I think you'll like this book.

GREAT BOOK BUY A GREAT PERSON!.......2007-05-29

This book is like a history book for sports fans.Giles wrote this book in a great way.

Wonderful Days in a BallPark.......2007-04-24

Wonderful days relived from the past were beautifully and tenderly recreated by the words and pictures of Mr.Giles in his book. Bill was an fearless innovator and pioneer for much of the ballpark entertainment that fans take for granted in today's ballparks; and the fans in Houston and Philadelphia were the benficiaries. Bill's legacy will live for many years thanks to honesty, pathos and humor so beautifully portrayed in the prose this book. And most of all, he was a joy to work with and for.

Not Just for Phillies Fans.......2007-04-18

FANTASTIC book for ANY baseball fan! Having grown up in Cincinnati during the 75-76 era of "the Big Red Machine" and living now in Red Sox Nation, I have a deep appreciation for anyone who can bring enthusiasm to the sport and share a good 'yarn'. Mr. Giles' personal anecdotes allow the reader an insider perspective on what it means to 'grow up in baseball'.

May I also suggest this book with "Wait til Next Year: A Memoir" by Doris Kearns Goodwin? Together, they are a perfect summer pairing for anyone looking beyond baseball's scoreboard statistics.

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