Worth six stars!, 25 Oct 2005
Don't be put off by the price of this volume. It is worth every penny!
This is not a shallow book with an eye-catching title nor is it a dreary text-book. It does exactly what it says on the back cover- 'it provides a road-map for implementing and expanding your E-Business successfully.'
It is full of ancillary matters to consider and pit-falls to beware of.
My business experience in introducing change, in many organisations over many years, qualifies me to state that there is a great deal of wisdom expressed on tangential matters to the road-map.
This is a book that I would have been proud to have written! My advice to any organisation considering E-Business would be to purchase this volume first and then see if it feels it necessary to buy any other book on the subject of starting in E-Business.
A very useful book, 22 Sep 1999
I used this book as a basis when doing a course in tribology at the university. In this course we looked at details, and the book was very useful in the topics we studied. The author is also well known within the tribology field.
Indispensable for Formulators, 26 Aug 2003
It's about time that somebody provided an up-to-date replacement for Mortier & Orszulik's "Chemistry and Technology of Lubricants" and this is definitely it. This book will be one of my cornerstone references many years to come.
Part I features 14 excellent chapters on additive componentry, written by some key industry figures such as Cyril Migdal on Antioxidants and Thomas Buenemann on organic friction modifiers.
Part II covers 5 areas of application. As well as the obligatory chapter on Crankcase (Ewa Bardasz & Gordon Lamb), this section also includes 'niche' areas such as magnetic recording disk drives (Karis & Nagaraj) and food-grade lubricants (Raab & Hamid).
Part III covers trends and includes an informative chapter on crankcase additives from an OEM perspective - Schwartz & Papasavva from GM.
Part IV covers methods and resources and includes many useful pointers to reference books and internet materials. The book also includes a CD with links to many online resources.
Overall, an excellent reference manual and a very worthy investment for Formulators & Technologists in the lubricant industry.
Brilliantly readable overview of a crucial subject, 23 Feb 2004
Dave McComb's book is about semantics, and it is a terrific advertisement for his understanding of meaning and communication. Drawing on a lifetime of experience, he explains the basic ideas in simple, unpretentious language, introducing semantics as the branch of philosophy that deals with meaning. Then he motors on through classification, vocabularies, taxonomies, ontologies; data and object-oriented modeling; state machines, schemas, metadata, natural language processing, business rules, document and knowledge management and much more. McComb ties everything together logically, and proves that it is possible to describe some of the core ideas of software in words that anyone can understand. The last few chapters present some of the latest buzzwords, such as XML, Web services, Service Oriented Architecture, Business Process Management, Enterprise Application Integration and the Semantic Web.
This book is very well written, and can be read in a single sitting - its 300 pages took me about five hours, making the occasional note and skipping nothing. When you have finished, there is still more value at the end: a reference section, where all the concepts mentioned in the book are summarised in logical order; an excellent glossary; a "resources" section 30 pages long stuffed with book references, URLs and the like; and a professionally compiled index. The book is well produced, too. Its binding is suitable for frequent use, there are no typos or other careless errors, and the many diagrams are attractive and easy to understand.
Anyone who is involved with producing or maintaining software stands to learn something new and useful from reading this book. Even if not, it would still be a fascinating read.
