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Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans, 3rd Edition Publisher: Wiley Authors: Ed Roman, Rima Patel Sriganesh, Gerald Brose Rating: 5/5  Who is this book for? 1) Someone who is already familiar with the basics of distributed computing, like RMI or RPC (not strictly necessary but it helps a lot) 2) You can program in Java (J2SE). 3) You want to understand the overall distributed, multitier architecture supported by the J2EE platform. What the role of middleware is within this architecture. What an EJB is and how it fits into the overall picture. And most importantly, how to write the code for an EJB (starting from a simple hello world example). This book is very good for understanding the big picture behind the J2EE platform. You'll know how it all works and how you can write and deploy server-side software components, aka EJBs. It will give you a solid foundation for understanding the basics so that you will be ready to tackle the more advanced topics. The book is well written. The ideas are clear, and diagrams are used extensively.
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability Publisher: New Riders Press Authors: Steve Krug Rating: 5/5 Fabulous book! Krug's writing style makes for an easy read - clear and engaging language coupled with concise, well thought out content. This book covers all the basics, but does it in such a way that even the experts can learn something new. I am not an avid reader, and I read this in 2 (short) sittings. Take the time - it's well worth it!
Product: Book - Hardcover
Title: Revised Core Rulebook (Star Wars Roleplaying Game) Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Authors: Bill Slavicsek, Andy Collins, J.D. Wiker, Steve Sansweet Rating: 3/5  I got the revised rulebook just so I could write this review. So, how has it changed? Armor is a lot cooler. It used to be only a dork would wear it. Now it allows you to reduce damage. This can be especially useful for reducing critical hit damage, since even high level characters can succumb to those. The force characters are a little bit improved, as are force powers. Using skills instead of "powers" works really well under the d20 rules. (Roll for success, subtract some vitality for the effort). Since I don't believe that the d20 system is very simple to begin with, I don't think vehicle rules are simple, either. Vehicle combat is now like character combat. Almost identical. That's not all bad. If you get used to the system, that's going to be a whole lot more convenient than the abstract system they had going in the original rulebook. The tech specialist was a good addition to the character class list. I don't like the mastercraft skill that drains xp, though. (If you make a really good item, you lose experience.) First off, it is just dumb to drain experience for that. You'd think it would make you better at what you do. I recommend you nix that rule and just make mastercraft items cost more to make. That's my updated $0.02.----- I have played the WEG version of the game and liked it well enough. I have also played D&D and like it well enough. It really doesn't make any difference what system the game uses if the experience is good. That said, this book is not well done. Pretty pictures and "streamlining" are not enough. The WEG game system allowed seamless integration of scenes that jumped from starships to vehicles to your own two (or four) feet. In fact, in the games I played, we had space battles, or at least space threats, almost every game. I don't see how this could have been overlooked in this version of the game. This is an almost unforgivable oversight for a professional game designer. Baffling. Also, the force is somehow lacking in, well, force. For some reason the different races are also rather bland. I don't mind bland classes (you can always take a prestige class and bland classes tend to be customizable). The blandness in certain areas of the game is forgivable, I suppose, since WotC is trying so hard to make all classes/races equal. I found the WEG-load of dice easy to add up and quick to reconcile against a (single) target number. In this new game (at high level), you may need to roll 5 attack rolls (actually, maybe even 7) in a single round and apply each roll to a target number to determine success. THEN you roll damage. This is not a streamlined version of the game. It is slower going and, at least in some cases (like space or vehicle combat), impossible. The game is not all bad. The character classes allow some reasonable flexibility. (I actually like them bland.) Also, skills and feats work fine for SW, just like they do in D&D. Even force-based skills are fine. I won't say I like the force-based feats and the acquisition of them as a jedi-class character, but it is adequate...
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability Publisher: New Riders Press Authors: Steve Krug Rating: 5/5 This book really made me look at web sites in a completely different way. While surfing, we've all come across sites that we don't quite "get" right away; usually we don't spend more than a couple of seconds trying to figure them out before we move on to something else. As the book says - web users are like sharks: if they don't keep moving, they'll die. Of course you don't want people leaving your site because they can't be bothered to figure it out. "Don't Make Me Think" explains exactly why some sites don't work and how to fix them. One of my favorite things is that Krug asks you to look at actual web pages (pictured in the book in full color) and try to figure out what they are about and how to use them. You become a usability test subject! Turn the page and he gives you his ideas about why it works or doesn't work. Another aspect of the book you may find useful is the guidelines for holding your own usability tests. It's can be a much simpler process than you might think. These sections include a sample test script, the kind of tools and environment you'd need, and URLs to more helpful stuff (including a confidentiality/permissions agreement you can ask a test subject to sign). Oh, and the book was very readable, quite funny, and to the point - it only took a few hours to read. The size of the book would actually have been disappointing given the price if the book hadn't have been so useful and interesting.
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