Thank you for a REAL FUN chemistry book, 01 Aug 2008
The author, Mr. Thompson, obviously loves the subject, and yes, darn it, chemistry should be "fun", a little dangerous and educational.
I share the author's lament over the passing of a "proper" chemistry set. The one I had as a kid contained all the "no-no's" (or should I say KNO, KNO3!)
In that day you could go to the chemist and buy all manner of chemicals "off the shelf".
At school we made rockets (after school hours, I had a terrific Chemistry Master.....
Now my Son wants to learn, we home ed.... this book gives me the chance to "teach" or better "inspire" him:- That I did already, demonstrating the oxidizing qualities of KMnO4, innitially he smuggly goes yeah and.... then quite soon it's wow, how the heck did that happen?
With the chemistry sets of today you take two or more chemicals, mix them together and go "um er what's supposed to happen", as the chemicals just sit there, or if you are lucky change color!
An experiment has to DO something tangible. Thank you for a great book!

On an offside as it seems that we are being treated more and more like halfwits, perhaps we could have a "for dummies" line of chemistry sets, and then have a range that are designed for the responsible, and wanna b edjucaited majority!!

Thank you for a REAL FUN chemistry book, 01 Aug 2008
The author, Mr. Thompson, obviously loves the subject, and yes, darn it, chemistry should be "fun", a little dangerous and educational.
I share the author's lament over the passing of a "proper" chemistry set. The one I had as a kid contained all the "no-no's" (or should I say KNO, KNO3!)
In that day you could go to the chemist and buy all manner of chemicals "off the shelf".
At school we made rockets (after school hours, I had a terrific Chemistry Master.....
Now my Son wants to learn, we home ed.... this book gives me the chance to "teach" or better "inspire" him:- That I did already, demonstrating the oxidizing qualities of KMnO4, innitially he smuggly goes yeah and.... then quite soon it's wow, how the heck did that happen?
With the chemistry sets of today you take two or more chemicals, mix them together and go "um er what's supposed to happen", as the chemicals just sit there, or if you are lucky change color!
An experiment has to DO something tangible. Thank you for a great book!

On an offside as it seems that we are being treated more and more like halfwits, perhaps we could have a "for dummies" line of chemistry sets, and then have a range that are designed for the responsible, and wanna b edjucaited majority!!

Packed With Knowledge!, 06 May 2004
Why would a villager draw polluted drinking water from a canal where a dead donkey floats instead of using a nearby tap to get clean drinking water? Why did it take hundreds of years for the British Navy to give sailors oranges and lemons when tests had proven that citrus fruit cured the scurvy that killed sailors and left vessels under-manned? Why do eminently sensible things not happen? If you’ve ever wondered, this book will give you the answers. It’s a thick, heavy, academic tome, but spiced with abundant anecdotes and observations that make it an easy, enjoyable read. This is the rare book that combines solid intellectual content with thought-provoking entertainment. We highly recommend this classic from 1962 to all audiences, but especially those whose business it is to understand and use the social mechanisms through which innovations must diffuse.

Latest and updated, 10 Jan 2004
First published way back in 1962, this fifth edition of the classic study of the social, technological and political influences on the mechanisms by which innovation are shared and penetrate markets includes a wealth of new insights. Alongside many of the original studies of the diffusion of such developments as pesticide use in Iowa, treatments for scurvy in the British Navy, the hypodermic needle, the concept of the kindergarten and the use of snowmobiles is a host of revealing cases based on more recent developments: From mobile phone adoption in Finland, global internet usage and electric cars through to the oral re-hydration therapy campaign in Egypt, the publishing success of ‘Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood’, and the adoption of Hate Crime laws in the US, multiple new examples are used to reflect on and reinforce many of the original concepts: The role of change agents and opinion leaders, adoption theory, virtual networks, critical mass and the transfer of knowledge are all reappraised to give a new lease of life to this authoritative text.

The definitive text on the subject, 03 Jan 2001
This updated edition of the best work on the diffusion of ideas and innovations is essential reading for a range of disciplines from sociology through technology transfer to MBA students. It is lucid, uses examples well and has as little jargon as is consistent with the complexity of the ideas being expressed. Five stars.

Very comprehensive , must for marketeers, 17 Feb 1999
The book is a comprehensive cover of the word of mouth communications medium. Well worth reading.

Thank you for a REAL FUN chemistry book, 01 Aug 2008
The author, Mr. Thompson, obviously loves the subject, and yes, darn it, chemistry should be "fun", a little dangerous and educational.
I share the author's lament over the passing of a "proper" chemistry set. The one I had as a kid contained all the "no-no's" (or should I say KNO, KNO3!)
In that day you could go to the chemist and buy all manner of chemicals "off the shelf".
At school we made rockets (after school hours, I had a terrific Chemistry Master.....
Now my Son wants to learn, we home ed.... this book gives me the chance to "teach" or better "inspire" him:- That I did already, demonstrating the oxidizing qualities of KMnO4, innitially he smuggly goes yeah and.... then quite soon it's wow, how the heck did that happen?
With the chemistry sets of today you take two or more chemicals, mix them together and go "um er what's supposed to happen", as the chemicals just sit there, or if you are lucky change color!
An experiment has to DO something tangible. Thank you for a great book!

On an offside as it seems that we are being treated more and more like halfwits, perhaps we could have a "for dummies" line of chemistry sets, and then have a range that are designed for the responsible, and wanna b edjucaited majority!!

Packed With Knowledge!, 06 May 2004
Why would a villager draw polluted drinking water from a canal where a dead donkey floats instead of using a nearby tap to get clean drinking water? Why did it take hundreds of years for the British Navy to give sailors oranges and lemons when tests had proven that citrus fruit cured the scurvy that killed sailors and left vessels under-manned? Why do eminently sensible things not happen? If you’ve ever wondered, this book will give you the answers. It’s a thick, heavy, academic tome, but spiced with abundant anecdotes and observations that make it an easy, enjoyable read. This is the rare book that combines solid intellectual content with thought-provoking entertainment. We highly recommend this classic from 1962 to all audiences, but especially those whose business it is to understand and use the social mechanisms through which innovations must diffuse.

Latest and updated, 10 Jan 2004
First published way back in 1962, this fifth edition of the classic study of the social, technological and political influences on the mechanisms by which innovation are shared and penetrate markets includes a wealth of new insights. Alongside many of the original studies of the diffusion of such developments as pesticide use in Iowa, treatments for scurvy in the British Navy, the hypodermic needle, the concept of the kindergarten and the use of snowmobiles is a host of revealing cases based on more recent developments: From mobile phone adoption in Finland, global internet usage and electric cars through to the oral re-hydration therapy campaign in Egypt, the publishing success of ‘Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood’, and the adoption of Hate Crime laws in the US, multiple new examples are used to reflect on and reinforce many of the original concepts: The role of change agents and opinion leaders, adoption theory, virtual networks, critical mass and the transfer of knowledge are all reappraised to give a new lease of life to this authoritative text.

The definitive text on the subject, 03 Jan 2001
This updated edition of the best work on the diffusion of ideas and innovations is essential reading for a range of disciplines from sociology through technology transfer to MBA students. It is lucid, uses examples well and has as little jargon as is consistent with the complexity of the ideas being expressed. Five stars.

Very comprehensive , must for marketeers, 17 Feb 1999
The book is a comprehensive cover of the word of mouth communications medium. Well worth reading.

A little too much tub-thumping, 21 Sep 2006
As an amateur website designer, who tries to stick to modern standard-based layout, I'm always keen to pick up tips from the pros. This book certainly helps with this, there are a lot of useful tricks and pointers to websites I might otherwise have missed.

Like other reviewers, I found that the earlier part of the book is overly concerned with the methods of 5 to 10 years ago. People buying the book will probably be sold on CSS-based layout (or at least standards as the method of choice) before they buy. So a much shorter case would suffice. There is an over-emphasis on older browsers as well: Netscape 4.x, IE/Win 4 and IE/Mac 5 get much too much space. Most people are targeting IE 6, Firefox Opera 8 and Safari today.

Overall, there is a lot to learn from this book. Be prepared to skip over the lecturing, though.

How frustrating........memories of the past, 02 Sep 2006
After the first 200 pages of negativity, I had to throw the book in the bin!

Zeldman continually patronises the developers of the past working in environments of which the browser providers had no standard (to which still continues to a greater or lesser degree today). The fact that multiple instances of a site were required to cater for the anomolies between browser types and versions is true however CSS would not have saved the day then nor now.

Zeldman is right......you do need standards and from what I was picking up on his thoughts, the standards you create yourself are probably appropriate to the work you are performing. This I agree with Zeldman however blaming the development strategies of the past are not the way forward. I do understand Zeldmans frustrations from the past however blaming each developer for using multiple font tags is not really approprite for the time he refers.

I was looking for technical inspriation to the world of CSS (of which I totally agree is the way forward). Certainly, the first two hundred pages do not offer this. I could not cope reading further......hence the book went in the bin.

Out of date and mainly rhetoric, 07 Jul 2006
It's ironic that a book that is so much about future proofing spends so much time talking about version 4.0 browsers, making much of the book fairly obselete.

Much of the other content is out of date. It reccomends the box model hack, when conditional comments could be used. Fahner image replacement is also detailed, when newer methods eliminate the need for a non-semantic span element.

It is also vague. For example many of the reasons cited to use XHTML are not really convincing. "New browsers love XHTML ... and accord it special treatment" is too vague. To say that using an XHTML 1.0 strict doctype because it switches all browsers to standards/almost standards mode and therefore your site is more likely to work in all browsers would be better.

In short it attempts to fight old beliefs with new beliefs, rather than knowledge

Fantastic book, 19 May 2006
This is a great book which will give you a thorough understanding of web standards. If you are a budding web designer, this book will explain important principles that will save you a great deal of time when you begin creating web sites. One of the most important things you will learn is creating sites that work with all browsers, platforms and devices. Overall, this book will give you a firm understanding of web standards and what it means to be a quality web designer.

Essential purchase, 23 Feb 2006
The title sounds a little dull and belies the importance of this book. Think about it like this; who specifies the web standards to which the browser makers are increasingly if not fully complying? The W3C. Jefferey Zeldman is the guy who wrote 'their book' about web standards.

Web standards isn't just about making sites accessible to the disabled, it's about making them work across browsers, and understanding how the whole whole website/browser thing works. Do you really understand how doctype switching works? Do you really know what XHTML is all about for example? Do you know how to separate presentation from content (cos that's the way it's going)?

The first part of the book is a general history thing and the second looks at techniques and examples. But, if you're looking for a CSS cookbook, or a complete tutorial in HTML, CSS then seek elsewhere.

If you're doing anything with websites today, you simply must read this book. It'll deepen your understanding 'and' save you time and money.

Thank you for a REAL FUN chemistry book, 01 Aug 2008
The author, Mr. Thompson, obviously loves the subject, and yes, darn it, chemistry should be "fun", a little dangerous and educational.
I share the author's lament over the passing of a "proper" chemistry set. The one I had as a kid contained all the "no-no's" (or should I say KNO, KNO3!)
In that day you could go to the chemist and buy all manner of chemicals "off the shelf".
At school we made rockets (after school hours, I had a terrific Chemistry Master.....
Now my Son wants to learn, we home ed.... this book gives me the chance to "teach" or better "inspire" him:- That I did already, demonstrating the oxidizing qualities of KMnO4, innitially he smuggly goes yeah and.... then quite soon it's wow, how the heck did that happen?
With the chemistry sets of today you take two or more chemicals, mix them together and go "um er what's supposed to happen", as the chemicals just sit there, or if you are lucky change color!
An experiment has to DO something tangible. Thank you for a great book!

On an offside as it seems that we are being treated more and more like halfwits, perhaps we could have a "for dummies" line of chemistry sets, and then have a range that are designed for the responsible, and wanna b edjucaited majority!!

Packed With Knowledge!, 06 May 2004
Why would a villager draw polluted drinking water from a canal where a dead donkey floats instead of using a nearby tap to get clean drinking water? Why did it take hundreds of years for the British Navy to give sailors oranges and lemons when tests had proven that citrus fruit cured the scurvy that killed sailors and left vessels under-manned? Why do eminently sensible things not happen? If you’ve ever wondered, this book will give you the answers. It’s a thick, heavy, academic tome, but spiced with abundant anecdotes and observations that make it an easy, enjoyable read. This is the rare book that combines solid intellectual content with thought-provoking entertainment. We highly recommend this classic from 1962 to all audiences, but especially those whose business it is to understand and use the social mechanisms through which innovations must diffuse.

Latest and updated, 10 Jan 2004
First published way back in 1962, this fifth edition of the classic study of the social, technological and political influences on the mechanisms by which innovation are shared and penetrate markets includes a wealth of new insights. Alongside many of the original studies of the diffusion of such developments as pesticide use in Iowa, treatments for scurvy in the British Navy, the hypodermic needle, the concept of the kindergarten and the use of snowmobiles is a host of revealing cases based on more recent developments: From mobile phone adoption in Finland, global internet usage and electric cars through to the oral re-hydration therapy campaign in Egypt, the publishing success of ‘Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood’, and the adoption of Hate Crime laws in the US, multiple new examples are used to reflect on and reinforce many of the original concepts: The role of change agents and opinion leaders, adoption theory, virtual networks, critical mass and the transfer of knowledge are all reappraised to give a new lease of life to this authoritative text.

The definitive text on the subject, 03 Jan 2001
This updated edition of the best work on the diffusion of ideas and innovations is essential reading for a range of disciplines from sociology through technology transfer to MBA students. It is lucid, uses examples well and has as little jargon as is consistent with the complexity of the ideas being expressed. Five stars.

Very comprehensive , must for marketeers, 17 Feb 1999
The book is a comprehensive cover of the word of mouth communications medium. Well worth reading.

A little too much tub-thumping, 21 Sep 2006
As an amateur website designer, who tries to stick to modern standard-based layout, I'm always keen to pick up tips from the pros. This book certainly helps with this, there are a lot of useful tricks and pointers to websites I might otherwise have missed.

Like other reviewers, I found that the earlier part of the book is overly concerned with the methods of 5 to 10 years ago. People buying the book will probably be sold on CSS-based layout (or at least standards as the method of choice) before they buy. So a much shorter case would suffice. There is an over-emphasis on older browsers as well: Netscape 4.x, IE/Win 4 and IE/Mac 5 get much too much space. Most people are targeting IE 6, Firefox Opera 8 and Safari today.

Overall, there is a lot to learn from this book. Be prepared to skip over the lecturing, though.

How frustrating........memories of the past, 02 Sep 2006
After the first 200 pages of negativity, I had to throw the book in the bin!

Zeldman continually patronises the developers of the past working in environments of which the browser providers had no standard (to which still continues to a greater or lesser degree today). The fact that multiple instances of a site were required to cater for the anomolies between browser types and versions is true however CSS would not have saved the day then nor now.

Zeldman is right......you do need standards and from what I was picking up on his thoughts, the standards you create yourself are probably appropriate to the work you are performing. This I agree with Zeldman however blaming the development strategies of the past are not the way forward. I do understand Zeldmans frustrations from the past however blaming each developer for using multiple font tags is not really approprite for the time he refers.

I was looking for technical inspriation to the world of CSS (of which I totally agree is the way forward). Certainly, the first two hundred pages do not offer this. I could not cope reading further......hence the book went in the bin.

Out of date and mainly rhetoric, 07 Jul 2006
It's ironic that a book that is so much about future proofing spends so much time talking about version 4.0 browsers, making much of the book fairly obselete.

Much of the other content is out of date. It reccomends the box model hack, when conditional comments could be used. Fahner image replacement is also detailed, when newer methods eliminate the need for a non-semantic span element.

It is also vague. For example many of the reasons cited to use XHTML are not really convincing. "New browsers love XHTML ... and accord it special treatment" is too vague. To say that using an XHTML 1.0 strict doctype because it switches all browsers to standards/almost standards mode and therefore your site is more likely to work in all browsers would be better.

In short it attempts to fight old beliefs with new beliefs, rather than knowledge

Fantastic book, 19 May 2006
This is a great book which will give you a thorough understanding of web standards. If you are a budding web designer, this book will explain important principles that will save you a great deal of time when you begin creating web sites. One of the most important things you will learn is creating sites that work with all browsers, platforms and devices. Overall, this book will give you a firm understanding of web standards and what it means to be a quality web designer.

Essential purchase, 23 Feb 2006
The title sounds a little dull and belies the importance of this book. Think about it like this; who specifies the web standards to which the browser makers are increasingly if not fully complying? The W3C. Jefferey Zeldman is the guy who wrote 'their book' about web standards.

Web standards isn't just about making sites accessible to the disabled, it's about making them work across browsers, and understanding how the whole whole website/browser thing works. Do you really understand how doctype switching works? Do you really know what XHTML is all about for example? Do you know how to separate presentation from content (cos that's the way it's going)?

The first part of the book is a general history thing and the second looks at techniques and examples. But, if you're looking for a CSS cookbook, or a complete tutorial in HTML, CSS then seek elsewhere.

If you're doing anything with websites today, you simply must read this book. It'll deepen your understanding 'and' save you time and money.

Usual great style from Polar writer, 07 Mar 2008
A tiny museum in Castletownbere gave me an tantilising introduction to Tom Crean, and an Amazon search then introduced me to Michael Smith and The Unsung Hero. I just loved it - a wonderful heoric tale by a very skilled author, and having fallen madly in love with Tom Crean I have now read just about everything there is on Antartic Exploration at the turn of the Century. This book is of the period half a century earlier and is written in the same wonderful style, where Michael Smith brings into your life a little known and probably even less admired hero. The book covers Crozier's many travels into both the Artic and Antartic, and takes us to the time when the latter was being explored for the first time, and most interesting, getting named. So those coves and coasts and mountains - Ross Shelf, Cape Crozier, Mount Terror and Mount Erebus etc, all come from Croziers era. Also, and so disappointingly, came all those bad habits that plagued the later explorations - like dependancy on man hauling, not using locally caught game, using canvas tents etc.
This is just a great book - just one small criticism - the picture reproduction is lousy and it desperately needs a couple of detailed maps at the beginning, so you can keep referring back, rather than try and find the rather undetailed ones hidden in the text.
Mr Smith - I've read both your Tom Crean books - please find another 'unsung hero' for us!

Thank you for a REAL FUN chemistry book, 01 Aug 2008
The author, Mr. Thompson, obviously loves the subject, and yes, darn it, chemistry should be "fun", a little dangerous and educational.
I share the author's lament over the passing of a "proper" chemistry set. The one I had as a kid contained all the "no-no's" (or should I say KNO, KNO3!)
In that day you could go to the chemist and buy all manner of chemicals "off the shelf".
At school we made rockets (after school hours, I had a terrific Chemistry Master.....
Now my Son wants to learn, we home ed.... this book gives me the chance to "teach" or better "inspire" him:- That I did already, demonstrating the oxidizing qualities of KMnO4, innitially he smuggly goes yeah and.... then quite soon it's wow, how the heck did that happen?
With the chemistry sets of today you take two or more chemicals, mix them together and go "um er what's supposed to happen", as the chemicals just sit there, or if you are lucky change color!
An experiment has to DO something tangible. Thank you for a great book!

On an offside as it seems that we are being treated more and more like halfwits, perhaps we could have a "for dummies" line of chemistry sets, and then have a range that are designed for the responsible, and wanna b edjucaited majority!!

Packed With Knowledge!, 06 May 2004
Why would a villager draw polluted drinking water from a canal where a dead donkey floats instead of using a nearby tap to get clean drinking water? Why did it take hundreds of years for the British Navy to give sailors oranges and lemons when tests had proven that citrus fruit cured the scurvy that killed sailors and left vessels under-manned? Why do eminently sensible things not happen? If you’ve ever wondered, this book will give you the answers. It’s a thick, heavy, academic tome, but spiced with abundant anecdotes and observations that make it an easy, enjoyable read. This is the rare book that combines solid intellectual content with thought-provoking entertainment. We highly recommend this classic from 1962 to all audiences, but especially those whose business it is to understand and use the social mechanisms through which innovations must diffuse.

Latest and updated, 10 Jan 2004
First published way back in 1962, this fifth edition of the classic study of the social, technological and political influences on the mechanisms by which innovation are shared and penetrate markets includes a wealth of new insights. Alongside many of the original studies of the diffusion of such developments as pesticide use in Iowa, treatments for scurvy in the British Navy, the hypodermic needle, the concept of the kindergarten and the use of snowmobiles is a host of revealing cases based on more recent developments: From mobile phone adoption in Finland, global internet usage and electric cars through to the oral re-hydration therapy campaign in Egypt, the publishing success of ‘Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood’, and the adoption of Hate Crime laws in the US, multiple new examples are used to reflect on and reinforce many of the original concepts: The role of change agents and opinion leaders, adoption theory, virtual networks, critical mass and the transfer of knowledge are all reappraised to give a new lease of life to this authoritative text.

The definitive text on the subject, 03 Jan 2001
This updated edition of the best work on the diffusion of ideas and innovations is essential reading for a range of disciplines from sociology through technology transfer to MBA students. It is lucid, uses examples well and has as little jargon as is consistent with the complexity of the ideas being expressed. Five stars.

Very comprehensive , must for marketeers, 17 Feb 1999
The book is a comprehensive cover of the word of mouth communications medium. Well worth reading.

A little too much tub-thumping, 21 Sep 2006
As an amateur website designer, who tries to stick to modern standard-based layout, I'm always keen to pick up tips from the pros. This book certainly helps with this, there are a lot of useful tricks and pointers to websites I might otherwise have missed.

Like other reviewers, I found that the earlier part of the book is overly concerned with the methods of 5 to 10 years ago. People buying the book will probably be sold on CSS-based layout (or at least standards as the method of choice) before they buy. So a much shorter case would suffice. There is an over-emphasis on older browsers as well: Netscape 4.x, IE/Win 4 and IE/Mac 5 get much too much space. Most people are targeting IE 6, Firefox Opera 8 and Safari today.

Overall, there is a lot to learn from this book. Be prepared to skip over the lecturing, though.

How frustrating........memories of the past, 02 Sep 2006
After the first 200 pages of negativity, I had to throw the book in the bin!

Zeldman continually patronises the developers of the past working in environments of which the browser providers had no standard (to which still continues to a greater or lesser degree today). The fact that multiple instances of a site were required to cater for the anomolies between browser types and versions is true however CSS would not have saved the day then nor now.

Zeldman is right......you do need standards and from what I was picking up on his thoughts, the standards you create yourself are probably appropriate to the work you are performing. This I agree with Zeldman however blaming the development strategies of the past are not the way forward. I do understand Zeldmans frustrations from the past however blaming each developer for using multiple font tags is not really approprite for the time he refers.

I was looking for technical inspriation to the world of CSS (of which I totally agree is the way forward). Certainly, the first two hundred pages do not offer this. I could not cope reading further......hence the book went in the bin.

Out of date and mainly rhetoric, 07 Jul 2006
It's ironic that a book that is so much about future proofing spends so much time talking about version 4.0 browsers, making much of the book fairly obselete.

Much of the other content is out of date. It reccomends the box model hack, when conditional comments could be used. Fahner image replacement is also detailed, when newer methods eliminate the need for a non-semantic span element.

It is also vague. For example many of the reasons cited to use XHTML are not really convincing. "New browsers love XHTML ... and accord it special treatment" is too vague. To say that using an XHTML 1.0 strict doctype because it switches all browsers to standards/almost standards mode and therefore your site is more likely to work in all browsers would be better.

In short it attempts to fight old beliefs with new beliefs, rather than knowledge

Fantastic book, 19 May 2006
This is a great book which will give you a thorough understanding of web standards. If you are a budding web designer, this book will explain important principles that will save you a great deal of time when you begin creating web sites. One of the most important things you will learn is creating sites that work with all browsers, platforms and devices. Overall, this book will give you a firm understanding of web standards and what it means to be a quality web designer.

Essential purchase, 23 Feb 2006
The title sounds a little dull and belies the importance of this book. Think about it like this; who specifies the web standards to which the browser makers are increasingly if not fully complying? The W3C. Jefferey Zeldman is the guy who wrote 'their book' about web standards.

Web standards isn't just about making sites accessible to the disabled, it's about making them work across browsers, and understanding how the whole whole website/browser thing works. Do you really understand how doctype switching works? Do you really know what XHTML is all about for example? Do you know how to separate presentation from content (cos that's the way it's going)?

The first part of the book is a general history thing and the second looks at techniques and examples. But, if you're looking for a CSS cookbook, or a complete tutorial in HTML, CSS then seek elsewhere.

If you're doing anything with websites today, you simply must read this book. It'll deepen your understanding 'and' save you time and money.

Usual great style from Polar writer, 07 Mar 2008
A tiny museum in Castletownbere gave me an tantilising introduction to Tom Crean, and an Amazon search then introduced me to Michael Smith and The Unsung Hero. I just loved it - a wonderful heoric tale by a very skilled author, and having fallen madly in love with Tom Crean I have now read just about everything there is on Antartic Exploration at the turn of the Century. This book is of the period half a century earlier and is written in the same wonderful style, where Michael Smith brings into your life a little known and probably even less admired hero. The book covers Crozier's many travels into both the Artic and Antartic, and takes us to the time when the latter was being explored for the first time, and most interesting, getting named. So those coves and coasts and mountains - Ross Shelf, Cape Crozier, Mount Terror and Mount Erebus etc, all come from Croziers era. Also, and so disappointingly, came all those bad habits that plagued the later explorations - like dependancy on man hauling, not using locally caught game, using canvas tents etc.
This is just a great book - just one small criticism - the picture reproduction is lousy and it desperately needs a couple of detailed maps at the beginning, so you can keep referring back, rather than try and find the rather undetailed ones hidden in the text.
Mr Smith - I've read both your Tom Crean books - please find another 'unsung hero' for us!

Wonderful excitement filled projects, 06 Jan 2005
What a great change, to see a "science book" with the sort of projects and demonstrations that will interest children of all ages, and quite a lot of adults.

The "Vacuum bazooka" is an extremely powerful device - especially with a damned great wet/dry vacuum powering it. We used plastic 35mm film cannisters and got 100 feet (high) shots from ours.

The fluid amplifier project is also nicely messy, but a great demonstration of some basic (electronic) theory.

Highly recommended to those interested in practical science, with good theoretical backup and resources in the book.

Thank you for a REAL FUN chemistry book, 01 Aug 2008
The author, Mr. Thompson, obviously loves the subject, and yes, darn it, chemistry should be "fun", a little dangerous and educational.
I share the author's lament over the passing of a "proper" chemistry set. The one I had as a kid contained all the "no-no's" (or should I say KNO, KNO3!)
In that day you could go to the chemist and buy all manner of chemicals "off the shelf".
At school we made rockets (after school hours, I had a terrific Chemistry Master.....
Now my Son wants to learn, we home ed.... this book gives me the chance to "teach" or better "inspire" him:- That I did already, demonstrating the oxidizing qualities of KMnO4, innitially he smuggly goes yeah and.... then quite soon it's wow, how the heck did that happen?
With the chemistry sets of today you take two or more chemicals, mix them together and go "um er what's supposed to happen", as the chemicals just sit there, or if you are lucky change color!
An experiment has to DO something tangible. Thank you for a great book!

On an offside as it seems that we are being treated more and more like halfwits, perhaps we could have a "for dummies" line of chemistry sets, and then have a range that are designed for the responsible, and wanna b edjucaited majority!!

Packed With Knowledge!, 06 May 2004
Why would a villager draw polluted drinking water from a canal where a dead donkey floats instead of using a nearby tap to get clean drinking water? Why did it take hundreds of years for the British Navy to give sailors oranges and lemons when tests had proven that citrus fruit cured the scurvy that killed sailors and left vessels under-manned? Why do eminently sensible things not happen? If you’ve ever wondered, this book will give you the answers. It’s a thick, heavy, academic tome, but spiced with abundant anecdotes and observations that make it an easy, enjoyable read. This is the rare book that combines solid intellectual content with thought-provoking entertainment. We highly recommend this classic from 1962 to all audiences, but especially those whose business it is to understand and use the social mechanisms through which innovations must diffuse.

Latest and updated, 10 Jan 2004
First published way back in 1962, this fifth edition of the classic study of the social, technological and political influences on the mechanisms by which innovation are shared and penetrate markets includes a wealth of new insights. Alongside many of the original studies of the diffusion of such developments as pesticide use in Iowa, treatments for scurvy in the British Navy, the hypodermic needle, the concept of the kindergarten and the use of snowmobiles is a host of revealing cases based on more recent developments: From mobile phone adoption in Finland, global internet usage and electric cars through to the oral re-hydration therapy campaign in Egypt, the publishing success of ‘Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood’, and the adoption of Hate Crime laws in the US, multiple new examples are used to reflect on and reinforce many of the original concepts: The role of change agents and opinion leaders, adoption theory, virtual networks, critical mass and the transfer of knowledge are all reappraised to give a new lease of life to this authoritative text.

The definitive text on the subject, 03 Jan 2001
This updated edition of the best work on the diffusion of ideas and innovations is essential reading for a range of disciplines from sociology through technology transfer to MBA students. It is lucid, uses examples well and has as little jargon as is consistent with the complexity of the ideas being expressed. Five stars.

Very comprehensive , must for marketeers, 17 Feb 1999
The book is a comprehensive cover of the word of mouth communications medium. Well worth reading.

A little too much tub-thumping, 21 Sep 2006
As an amateur website designer, who tries to stick to modern standard-based layout, I'm always keen to pick up tips from the pros. This book certainly helps with this, there are a lot of useful tricks and pointers to websites I might otherwise have missed.

Like other reviewers, I found that the earlier part of the book is overly concerned with the methods of 5 to 10 years ago. People buying the book will probably be sold on CSS-based layout (or at least standards as the method of choice) before they buy. So a much shorter case would suffice. There is an over-emphasis on older browsers as well: Netscape 4.x, IE/Win 4 and IE/Mac 5 get much too much space. Most people are targeting IE 6, Firefox Opera 8 and Safari today.

Overall, there is a lot to learn from this book. Be prepared to skip over the lecturing, though.

How frustrating........memories of the past, 02 Sep 2006
After the first 200 pages of negativity, I had to throw the book in the bin!

Zeldman continually patronises the developers of the past working in environments of which the browser providers had no standard (to which still continues to a greater or lesser degree today). The fact that multiple instances of a site were required to cater for the anomolies between browser types and versions is true however CSS would not have saved the day then nor now.

Zeldman is right......you do need standards and from what I was picking up on his thoughts, the standards you create yourself are probably appropriate to the work you are performing. This I agree with Zeldman however blaming the development strategies of the past are not the way forward. I do understand Zeldmans frustrations from the past however blaming each developer for using multiple font tags is not really approprite for the time he refers.

I was looking for technical inspriation to the world of CSS (of which I totally agree is the way forward). Certainly, the first two hundred pages do not offer this. I could not cope reading further......hence the book went in the bin.

Out of date and mainly rhetoric, 07 Jul 2006
It's ironic that a book that is so much about future proofing spends so much time talking about version 4.0 browsers, making much of the book fairly obselete.

Much of the other content is out of date. It reccomends the box model hack, when conditional comments could be used. Fahner image replacement is also detailed, when newer methods eliminate the need for a non-semantic span element.

It is also vague. For example many of the reasons cited to use XHTML are not really convincing. "New browsers love XHTML ... and accord it special treatment" is too vague. To say that using an XHTML 1.0 strict doctype because it switches all browsers to standards/almost standards mode and therefore your site is more likely to work in all browsers would be better.

In short it attempts to fight old beliefs with new beliefs, rather than knowledge

Fantastic book, 19 May 2006
This is a great book which will give you a thorough understanding of web standards. If you are a budding web designer, this book will explain important principles that will save you a great deal of time when you begin creating web sites. One of the most important things you will learn is creating sites that work with all browsers, platforms and devices. Overall, this book will give you a firm understanding of web standards and what it means to be a quality web designer.

Essential purchase, 23 Feb 2006
The title sounds a little dull and belies the importance of this book. Think about it like this; who specifies the web standards to which the browser makers are increasingly if not fully complying? The W3C. Jefferey Zeldman is the guy who wrote 'their book' about web standards.

Web standards isn't just about making sites accessible to the disabled, it's about making them work across browsers, and understanding how the whole whole website/browser thing works. Do you really understand how doctype switching works? Do you really know what XHTML is all about for example? Do you know how to separate presentation from content (cos that's the way it's going)?

The first part of the book is a general history thing and the second looks at techniques and examples. But, if you're looking for a CSS cookbook, or a complete tutorial in HTML, CSS then seek elsewhere.

If you're doing anything with websites today, you simply must read this book. It'll deepen your understanding 'and' save you time and money.

Usual great style from Polar writer, 07 Mar 2008
A tiny museum in Castletownbere gave me an tantilising introduction to Tom Crean, and an Amazon search then introduced me to Michael Smith and The Unsung Hero. I just loved it - a wonderful heoric tale by a very skilled author, and having fallen madly in love with Tom Crean I have now read just about everything there is on Antartic Exploration at the turn of the Century. This book is of the period half a century earlier and is written in the same wonderful style, where Michael Smith brings into your life a little known and probably even less admired hero. The book covers Crozier's many travels into both the Artic and Antartic, and takes us to the time when the latter was being explored for the first time, and most interesting, getting named. So those coves and coasts and mountains - Ross Shelf, Cape Crozier, Mount Terror and Mount Erebus etc, all come from Croziers era. Also, and so disappointingly, came all those bad habits that plagued the later explorations - like dependancy on man hauling, not using locally caught game, using canvas tents etc.
This is just a great book - just one small criticism - the picture reproduction is lousy and it desperately needs a couple of detailed maps at the beginning, so you can keep referring back, rather than try and find the rather undetailed ones hidden in the text.
Mr Smith - I've read both your Tom Crean books - please find another 'unsung hero' for us!

Wonderful excitement filled projects, 06 Jan 2005
What a great change, to see a "science book" with the sort of projects and demonstrations that will interest children of all ages, and quite a lot of adults.

The "Vacuum bazooka" is an extremely powerful device - especially with a damned great wet/dry vacuum powering it. We used plastic 35mm film cannisters and got 100 feet (high) shots from ours.

The fluid amplifier project is also nicely messy, but a great demonstration of some basic (electronic) theory.

Highly recommended to those interested in practical science, with good theoretical backup and resources in the book.

Not really a story, just very short series of 2-page articles, 01 Mar 2008
The main item missing from this is a story. This is a series of articles, few of which are connected. There is nothing wrong with the items, although because of the shortness of the text on each item there isn't much detail. If you want some basic background on a range of measuremnet topics this is fine, if you want a detailed discussion of the history of measurement and the characters linking the history, look elsewhere.

Thank you for a REAL FUN chemistry book, 01 Aug 2008
The author, Mr. Thompson, obviously loves the subject, and yes, darn it, chemistry should be "fun", a little dangerous and educational.
I share the author's lament over the passing of a "proper" chemistry set. The one I had as a kid contained all the "no-no's" (or should I say KNO, KNO3!)
In that day you could go to the chemist and buy all manner of chemicals "off the shelf".
At school we made rockets (after school hours, I had a terrific Chemistry Master.....
Now my Son wants to learn, we home ed.... this book gives me the chance to "teach" or better "inspire" him:- That I did already, demonstrating the oxidizing qualities of KMnO4, innitially he smuggly goes yeah and.... then quite soon it's wow, how the heck did that happen?
With the chemistry sets of today you take two or more chemicals, mix them together and go "um er what's supposed to happen", as the chemicals just sit there, or if you are lucky change color!
An experiment has to DO something tangible. Thank you for a great book!

On an offside as it seems that we are being treated more and more like halfwits, perhaps we could have a "for dummies" line of chemistry sets, and then have a range that are designed for the responsible, and wanna b edjucaited majority!!

Packed With Knowledge!, 06 May 2004
Why would a villager draw polluted drinking water from a canal where a dead donkey floats instead of using a nearby tap to get clean drinking water? Why did it take hundreds of years for the British Navy to give sailors oranges and lemons when tests had proven that citrus fruit cured the scurvy that killed sailors and left vessels under-manned? Why do eminently sensible things not happen? If you’ve ever wondered, this book will give you the answers. It’s a thick, heavy, academic tome, but spiced with abundant anecdotes and observations that make it an easy, enjoyable read. This is the rare book that combines solid intellectual content with thought-provoking entertainment. We highly recommend this classic from 1962 to all audiences, but especially those whose business it is to understand and use the social mechanisms through which innovations must diffuse.

Latest and updated, 10 Jan 2004
First published way back in 1962, this fifth edition of the classic study of the social, technological and political influences on the mechanisms by which innovation are shared and penetrate markets includes a wealth of new insights. Alongside many of the original studies of the diffusion of such developments as pesticide use in Iowa, treatments for scurvy in the British Navy, the hypodermic needle, the concept of the kindergarten and the use of snowmobiles is a host of revealing cases based on more recent developments: From mobile phone adoption in Finland, global internet usage and electric cars through to the oral re-hydration therapy campaign in Egypt, the publishing success of ‘Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood’, and the adoption of Hate Crime laws in the US, multiple new examples are used to reflect on and reinforce many of the original concepts: The role of change agents and opinion leaders, adoption theory, virtual networks, critical mass and the transfer of knowledge are all reappraised to give a new lease of life to this authoritative text.

The definitive text on the subject, 03 Jan 2001
This updated edition of the best work on the diffusion of ideas and innovations is essential reading for a range of disciplines from sociology through technology transfer to MBA students. It is lucid, uses examples well and has as little jargon as is consistent with the complexity of the ideas being expressed. Five stars.

Very comprehensive , must for marketeers, 17 Feb 1999
The book is a comprehensive cover of the word of mouth communications medium. Well worth reading.

A little too much tub-thumping, 21 Sep 2006
As an amateur website designer, who tries to stick to modern standard-based layout, I'm always keen to pick up tips from the pros. This book certainly helps with this, there are a lot of useful tricks and pointers to websites I might otherwise have missed.

Like other reviewers, I found that the earlier part of the book is overly concerned with the methods of 5 to 10 years ago. People buying the book will probably be sold on CSS-based layout (or at least standards as the method of choice) before they buy. So a much shorter case would suffice. There is an over-emphasis on older browsers as well: Netscape 4.x, IE/Win 4 and IE/Mac 5 get much too much space. Most people are targeting IE 6, Firefox Opera 8 and Safari today.

Overall, there is a lot to learn from this book. Be prepared to skip over the lecturing, though.

How frustrating........memories of the past, 02 Sep 2006
After the first 200 pages of negativity, I had to throw the book in the bin!

Zeldman continually patronises the developers of the past working in environments of which the browser providers had no standard (to which still continues to a greater or lesser degree today). The fact that multiple instances of a site were required to cater for the anomolies between browser types and versions is true however CSS would not have saved the day then nor now.

Zeldman is right......you do need standards and from what I was picking up on his thoughts, the standards you create yourself are probably appropriate to the work you are performing. This I agree with Zeldman however blaming the development strategies of the past are not the way forward. I do understand Zeldmans frustrations from the past however blaming each developer for using multiple font tags is not really approprite for the time he refers.

I was looking for technical inspriation to the world of CSS (of which I totally agree is the way forward). Certainly, the first two hundred pages do not offer this. I could not cope reading further......hence the book went in the bin.

Out of date and mainly rhetoric, 07 Jul 2006
It's ironic that a book that is so much about future proofing spends so much time talking about version 4.0 browsers, making much of the book fairly obselete.

Much of the other content is out of date. It reccomends the box model hack, when conditional comments could be used. Fahner image replacement is also detailed, when newer methods eliminate the need for a non-semantic span element.

It is also vague. For example many of the reasons cited to use XHTML are not really convincing. "New browsers love XHTML ... and accord it special treatment" is too vague. To say that using an XHTML 1.0 strict doctype because it switches all browsers to standards/almost standards mode and therefore your site is more likely to work in all browsers would be better.

In short it attempts to fight old beliefs with new beliefs, rather than knowledge

Fantastic book, 19 May 2006
This is a great book which will give you a thorough understanding of web standards. If you are a budding web designer, this book will explain important principles that will save you a great deal of time when you begin creating web sites. One of the most important things you will learn is creating sites that work with all browsers, platforms and devices. Overall, this book will give you a firm understanding of web standards and what it means to be a quality web designer.

Essential purchase, 23 Feb 2006
The title sounds a little dull and belies the importance of this book. Think about it like this; who specifies the web standards to which the browser makers are increasingly if not fully complying? The W3C. Jefferey Zeldman is the guy who wrote 'their book' about web standards.

Web standards isn't just about making sites accessible to the disabled, it's about making them work across browsers, and understanding how the whole whole website/browser thing works. Do you really understand how doctype switching works? Do you really know what XHTML is all about for example? Do you know how to separate presentation from content (cos that's the way it's going)?

The first part of the book is a general history thing and the second looks at techniques and examples. But, if you're looking for a CSS cookbook, or a complete tutorial in HTML, CSS then seek elsewhere.

If you're doing anything with websites today, you simply must read this book. It'll deepen your understanding 'and' save you time and money.

Usual great style from Polar writer, 07 Mar 2008
A tiny museum in Castletownbere gave me an tantilising introduction to Tom Crean, and an Amazon search then introduced me to Michael Smith and The Unsung Hero. I just loved it - a wonderful heoric tale by a very skilled author, and having fallen madly in love with Tom Crean I have now read just about everything there is on Antartic Exploration at the turn of the Century. This book is of the period half a century earlier and is written in the same wonderful style, where Michael Smith brings into your life a little known and probably even less admired hero. The book covers Crozier's many travels into both the Artic and Antartic, and takes us to the time when the latter was being explored for the first time, and most interesting, getting named. So those coves and coasts and mountains - Ross Shelf, Cape Crozier, Mount Terror and Mount Erebus etc, all come from Croziers era. Also, and so disappointingly, came all those bad habits that plagued the later explorations - like dependancy on man hauling, not using locally caught game, using canvas tents etc.
This is just a great book - just one small criticism - the picture reproduction is lousy and it desperately needs a couple of detailed maps at the beginning, so you can keep referring back, rather than try and find the rather undetailed ones hidden in the text.
Mr Smith - I've read both your Tom Crean books - please find another 'unsung hero' for us!

Wonderful excitement filled projects, 06 Jan 2005
What a great change, to see a "science book" with the sort of projects and demonstrations that will interest children of all ages, and quite a lot of adults.

The "Vacuum bazooka" is an extremely powerful device - especially with a damned great wet/dry vacuum powering it. We used plastic 35mm film cannisters and got 100 feet (high) shots from ours.

The fluid amplifier project is also nicely messy, but a great demonstration of some basic (electronic) theory.

Highly recommended to those interested in practical science, with good theoretical backup and resources in the book.

Not really a story, just very short series of 2-page articles, 01 Mar 2008
The main item missing from this is a story. This is a series of articles, few of which are connected. There is nothing wrong with the items, although because of the shortness of the text on each item there isn't much detail. If you want some basic background on a range of measuremnet topics this is fine, if you want a detailed discussion of the history of measurement and the characters linking the history, look elsewhere.

good for anyone interested in lasers, 05 Oct 2000
It is realy hard to find a book in this subject matter that is sufficient for eveybodies requirements, and this book is not either. But this is just because laser physics has realy got a large content. On the other hand, this book has achieved to pick as many fields as possible with a good presentation, and it is not usefull for only advanced undergraduates, but graduates as well. It presents the laser theory, types and applications of lasers ranging from diode lasers to free electron lasers, properties of laser beams and applications of lasers in optoelectronics. All of these aspects are likely to be presented in their own volumes. Its presentation is neither extraworded nor higly mathematical. If you are a beginner, this book probably is the right point.

Thank you for a REAL FUN chemistry book, 01 Aug 2008
The author, Mr. Thompson, obviously loves the subject, and yes, darn it, chemistry should be "fun", a little dangerous and educational.
I share the author's lament over the passing of a "proper" chemistry set. The one I had as a kid contained all the "no-no's" (or should I say KNO, KNO3!)
In that day you could go to the chemist and buy all manner of chemicals "off the shelf".
At school we made rockets (after school hours, I had a terrific Chemistry Master.....
Now my Son wants to learn, we home ed.... this book gives me the chance to "teach" or better "inspire" him:- That I did already, demonstrating the oxidizing qualities of KMnO4, innitially he smuggly goes yeah and.... then quite soon it's wow, how the heck did that happen?
With the chemistry sets of today you take two or more chemicals, mix them together and go "um er what's supposed to happen", as the chemicals just sit there, or if you are lucky change color!
An experiment has to DO something tangible. Thank you for a great book!

On an offside as it seems that we are being treated more and more like halfwits, perhaps we could have a "for dummies" line of chemistry sets, and then have a range that are designed for the responsible, and wanna b edjucaited majority!!

Packed With Knowledge!, 06 May 2004
Why would a villager draw polluted drinking water from a canal where a dead donkey floats instead of using a nearby tap to get clean drinking water? Why did it take hundreds of years for the British Navy to give sailors oranges and lemons when tests had proven that citrus fruit cured the scurvy that killed sailors and left vessels under-manned? Why do eminently sensible things not happen? If you’ve ever wondered, this book will give you the answers. It’s a thick, heavy, academic tome, but spiced with abundant anecdotes and observations that make it an easy, enjoyable read. This is the rare book that combines solid intellectual content with thought-provoking entertainment. We highly recommend this classic from 1962 to all audiences, but especially those whose business it is to understand and use the social mechanisms through which innovations must diffuse.

Latest and updated, 10 Jan 2004
First published way back in 1962, this fifth edition of the classic study of the social, technological and political influences on the mechanisms by which innovation are shared and penetrate markets includes a wealth of new insights. Alongside many of the original studies of the diffusion of such developments as pesticide use in Iowa, treatments for scurvy in the British Navy, the hypodermic needle, the concept of the kindergarten and the use of snowmobiles is a host of revealing cases based on more recent developments: From mobile phone adoption in Finland, global internet usage and electric cars through to the oral re-hydration therapy campaign in Egypt, the publishing success of ‘Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood’, and the adoption of Hate Crime laws in the US, multiple new examples are used to reflect on and reinforce many of the original concepts: The role of change agents and opinion leaders, adoption theory, virtual networks, critical mass and the transfer of knowledge are all reappraised to give a new lease of life to this authoritative text.

The definitive text on the subject, 03 Jan 2001
This updated edition of the best work on the diffusion of ideas and innovations is essential reading for a range of disciplines from sociology through technology transfer to MBA students. It is lucid, uses examples well and has as little jargon as is consistent with the complexity of the ideas being expressed. Five stars.

Very comprehensive , must for marketeers, 17 Feb 1999
The book is a comprehensive cover of the word of mouth communications medium. Well worth reading.

A little too much tub-thumping, 21 Sep 2006
As an amateur website designer, who tries to stick to modern standard-based layout, I'm always keen to pick up tips from the pros. This book certainly helps with this, there are a lot of useful tricks and pointers to websites I might otherwise have missed.

Like other reviewers, I found that the earlier part of the book is overly concerned with the methods of 5 to 10 years ago. People buying the book will probably be sold on CSS-based layout (or at least standards as the method of choice) before they buy. So a much shorter case would suffice. There is an over-emphasis on older browsers as well: Netscape 4.x, IE/Win 4 and IE/Mac 5 get much too much space. Most people are targeting IE 6, Firefox Opera 8 and Safari today.

Overall, there is a lot to learn from this book. Be prepared to skip over the lecturing, though.

How frustrating........memories of the past, 02 Sep 2006
After the first 200 pages of negativity, I had to throw the book in the bin!

Zeldman continually patronises the developers of the past working in environments of which the browser providers had no standard (to which still continues to a greater or lesser degree today). The fact that multiple instances of a site were required to cater for the anomolies between browser types and versions is true however CSS would not have saved the day then nor now.

Zeldman is right......you do need standards and from what I was picking up on his thoughts, the standards you create yourself are probably appropriate to the work you are performing. This I agree with Zeldman however blaming the development strategies of the past are not the way forward. I do understand Zeldmans frustrations from the past however blaming each developer for using multiple font tags is not really approprite for the time he refers.

I was looking for technical inspriation to the world of CSS (of which I totally agree is the way forward). Certainly, the first two hundred pages do not offer this. I could not cope reading further......hence the book went in the bin.

Out of date and mainly rhetoric, 07 Jul 2006
It's ironic that a book that is so much about future proofing spends so much time talking about version 4.0 browsers, making much of the book fairly obselete.

Much of the other content is out of date. It reccomends the box model hack, when conditional comments could be used. Fahner image replacement is also detailed, when newer methods eliminate the need for a non-semantic span element.

It is also vague. For example many of the reasons cited to use XHTML are not really convincing. "New browsers love XHTML ... and accord it special treatment" is too vague. To say that using an XHTML 1.0 strict doctype because it switches all browsers to standards/almost standards mode and therefore your site is more likely to work in all browsers would be better.

In short it attempts to fight old beliefs with new beliefs, rather than knowledge

Fantastic book, 19 May 2006
This is a great book which will give you a thorough understanding of web standards. If you are a budding web designer, this book will explain important principles that will save you a great deal of time when you begin creating web sites. One of the most important things you will learn is creating sites that work with all browsers, platforms and devices. Overall, this book will give you a firm understanding of web standards and what it means to be a quality web designer.

Essential purchase, 23 Feb 2006
The title sounds a little dull and belies the importance of this book. Think about it like this; who specifies the web standards to which the browser makers are increasingly if not fully complying? The W3C. Jefferey Zeldman is the guy who wrote 'their book' about web standards.

Web standards isn't just about making sites accessible to the disabled, it's about making them work across browsers, and understanding how the whole whole website/browser thing works. Do you really understand how doctype switching works? Do you really know what XHTML is all about for example? Do you know how to separate presentation from content (cos that's the way it's going)?

The first part of the book is a general history thing and the second looks at techniques and examples. But, if you're looking for a CSS cookbook, or a complete tutorial in HTML, CSS then seek elsewhere.

If you're doing anything with websites today, you simply must read this book. It'll deepen your understanding 'and' save you time and money.

Usual great style from Polar writer, 07 Mar 2008
A tiny museum in Castletownbere gave me an tantilising introduction to Tom Crean, and an Amazon search then introduced me to Michael Smith and The Unsung Hero. I just loved it - a wonderful heoric tale by a very skilled author, and having fallen madly in love with Tom Crean I have now read just about everything there is on Antartic Exploration at the turn of the Century. This book is of the period half a century earlier and is written in the same wonderful style, where Michael Smith brings into your life a little known and probably even less admired hero. The book covers Crozier's many travels into both the Artic and Antartic, and takes us to the time when the latter was being explored for the first time, and most interesting, getting named. So those coves and coasts and mountains - Ross Shelf, Cape Crozier, Mount Terror and Mount Erebus etc, all come from Croziers era. Also, and so disappointingly, came all those bad habits that plagued the later explorations - like dependancy on man hauling, not using locally caught game, using canvas tents etc.
This is just a great book - just one small criticism - the picture reproduction is lousy and it desperately needs a couple of detailed maps at the beginning, so you can keep referring back, rather than try and find the rather undetailed ones hidden in the text.
Mr Smith - I've read both your Tom Crean books - please find another 'unsung hero' for us!

Wonderful excitement filled projects, 06 Jan 2005
What a great change, to see a "science book" with the sort of projects and demonstrations that will interest children of all ages, and quite a lot of adults.

The "Vacuum bazooka" is an extremely powerful device - especially with a damned great wet/dry vacuum powering it. We used plastic 35mm film cannisters and got 100 feet (high) shots from ours.

The fluid amplifier project is also nicely messy, but a great demonstration of some basic (electronic) theory.

Highly recommended to those interested in practical science, with good theoretical backup and resources in the book.

Not really a story, just very short series of 2-page articles, 01 Mar 2008
The main item missing from this is a story. This is a series of articles, few of which are connected. There is nothing wrong with the items, although because of the shortness of the text on each item there isn't much detail. If you want some basic background on a range of measuremnet topics this is fine, if you want a detailed discussion of the history of measurement and the characters linking the history, look elsewhere.

good for anyone interested in lasers, 05 Oct 2000
It is realy hard to find a book in this subject matter that is sufficient for eveybodies requirements, and this book is not either. But this is just because laser physics has realy got a large content. On the other hand, this book has achieved to pick as many fields as possible with a good presentation, and it is not usefull for only advanced undergraduates, but graduates as well. It presents the laser theory, types and applications of lasers ranging from diode lasers to free electron lasers, properties of laser beams and applications of lasers in optoelectronics. All of these aspects are likely to be presented in their own volumes. Its presentation is neither extraworded nor higly mathematical. If you are a beginner, this book probably is the right point.

Perfect for beginner's level researchers, 23 Oct 2005
This is just the book I have been looking for. It contains information that is necessary for somebody who had never been to a research laboratory. The very basic details that more experienced co-workers will not always remember to tell are given very nicely in this book. It also includes information like those on the (sometimes untold) rules and etiquette of research groups, meetings and data presentation. These information may prevent a lot of painful experience and time loss. Therefore I consider this book a very useful reference for those who are new in research (like me).

I wish there was a book like that when I started in research, 11 Feb 2000
Five crowns seems not enough for this book! Anybody working in the molecular biology lab and a definite must have if you run or start your own lab (remember, grad students are not all that well off...). Funny yet informative, concise yet comprehensive, lots of practical information. Two eppendorf tubes up!