5 stars (GREAT!) - This book is very nice. I am fluent in ASL (American Sign Language) as of now, but that goal was only reached by taking classes at a local community college. The ASL class used this book and with this book, it was so easy to learn ASL! I truly recommend this book for people who want to learn ASL and use it a lot, or for parents who wish to use it with their toddlers (this is very helpful, my mom did it with me when I was little and it helped me later on). 5 stars (The Easy complete way to learn ASL American Sign Language) - This book is clear and concise and guides you through the bare necessities and takes you to a very confident level of understanding American Sign Language. The authors gave much attention to detail and creativity and fun in helping you to learn this beautiful language. ... Dawnsign Press :: Sign Language :: Language Arts & Linguistics & Literacy :: Language Arts & Disciplines :: Language :: General :: Ella Mae Lentz :: Cheri Smith :: Ken Mikos :: :: Signing Naturally- Level 2 (Signing Naturally)
2 stars (with poor pix, this is too much) - I was astonished with poor quality of BW pictures this book contains. And I paid $50 for this? The photos are poorly lit so the details are not clear, and not sharp enough for this kind of printing. Texts are rather sketchy too. Intrestingly, resources contain a section for books on presentation models. I found most of them are out of print. I can just imagine this book's innitial run was so low that gave this hefty price tag to this book. Unless you have a lot of money to waste, or you're advanced, you'll be surprised like me. 5 stars (Designing With Models Designing With Models) - From the standpoint of representation, and despite the advent of computer graphics and animation, the architectural model has persisted in being a privileged way of expressing architectural intentions. The irresistible iconic relation between the model and the building, and the intimacy witnessed through this association, has unquestionably contributed to this survival. Because in the model no extra interpretive energy is needed to grasp the intended, and because there is definitely a pleasure in seeing something big represented by something similar to it but smaller, the critical denigration of model-making has been minimum. This is unlike the case of the plan and other classical modes of projecting buildings where the conventional nature of representation has opened the gates for questioning their legitimacy. From the angle of making and performing, model-making has also remained a very powerful means of exploring ideas that have 3-d space as their support. The relative absence of a cognitive distance between intentions and their crystallization in the sensible realm, due essentially to the paramount role the hand directly plays in the shaping of a given design idea, has reinforced an interest in model-making as a means for expressing the immediate and the spontaneous. A closer relation the other visual arts has followed, ... Wiley :: Industrial & Commercial Art & Design :: Architecture & Design & Drafting :: Architectural structure & design :: Methods & Materials :: Interior Design :: Handbo :: Designing with Models - A Studio Guide to Making and Using Architectural Design Models
1 stars (not a good reference manual..or book on computer security) - In a course, this book was used as teaching material in a class for computer security. The read, reminded me of speaking software to a hardware engineer. Since the hardware engineer is coming from another level, the experience was like talking DOWN to the reader. The author seemed to want to "impress" us with his "knowledge". Luckily, we were fortunate to have an instructor that could translate for the class. Had to use other manuals to replace what the author, may have tried to relay. 1 stars (La la la la) - Unless you are already an expert at security and are looking for a strictly abstract approach, save your money!! Ramachandran's ramblings go on forever, with little imparted to the reader. The best comparison I can come up with for the experience of reading this book is that it's the same as trying to learn a foreign language from a mime. If Ramachandran spent less time trying to impress us with a bibliography that goes on for pages [I don't really CARE if he has read every security book in the world, if he can't distill this information down and pass it on the text is worthless] and more time on organizing his book [for heaven's sake, is a decent index at the back too much to ask?] then it may be usable, as it is, the only thing to do with it is level a table. 5 stars (Layered approach to multi-level security) - This is one of the most pragmatic, thorough books on security architectures I've read. The approach the author takes represents best practices in a number of disciplines, including architecture, software engineering, and infrastructure management. This holistic view of security architecture is not provided in total in any of the hundreds of security books I've read. Among the reasons I like and recommend this book are: the approach starts with architectural principles and a survey of approaches based on well known models, as well as development life cycles in the real world. ... John Wiley - Sons Inc :: Security :: Networking - General :: Computers-Security :: Computers-Networking - General :: Computers :: Computer Bks - Communications & Networking :: Jay Ramacha :: Designing Security Architecture Solutions