A Boy I Once Knew: What a Teacher Learned from her Student

Book Description

One morning, a box was delivered to Elizabeth Stone's door. It held ten years of personal diaries and a letter that began "Dear Elizabeth, You must be wondering why I left you my diaries in my will. After all, we have not seen each other in over twenty years . . ."

What followed was a remarkable year in Elizabeth's life as she read Vincent's diaries and began to learn about the high school student she had taught twenty-five years before. A BOY I ONCE KNEW is the story of the man that Vincent had become-and the efforts of his teacher to make some sense of his life.

With his diaries, Vincent becomes a constant presence in her household. She follows his daily life in San Francisco and his travels abroad. She watches him deal with the deaths of friends in the gay community. She judges him. She gets angry with him. She develops affection and compassion for him. In some ways she brings him back to life. And in doing so, she becomes the student, and Vincent the teacher. He forces her to examine her life as well as his. He challenges her feelings and fears about death. He proves to her that relationships between two people can deepen even after one of them is gone.

A BOY I ONCE KNEW is a powerful book about loss, memory, and the ways in which we belong to each other. This is a revealing, moving, and wholly unexpected book.

Customer Reviews:

A Wonderful re-working of a tired genera.......2004-12-01

Stone was given a task that was impossible to do: being asked to reconstruct a life and a story in a way that would both please Vincent and be worth writing. Granted, Vincent's life was tragic, but is not a story worth repeating. It is not new tale: a troubled gay youth struggling to fit in, finding refuge in a gay metropolis, and ultimately dieing of AIDS.
What is much more interesting is Stone's story. What a remarkable situation to be in: Having to write the story of a former student who has since grown estranged; to see her very human reaction to Victor's sad story. Untimely it is much more compelling and thought provoking that the story given her.
Stone is an expert of narratives (as per her other book and work.) I think she could see the limits of Victor's tale; which would make for a very unremarkable and unoriginal work. Instead we see how she reacted, and we in turn can react likewise. Tragedy for Stone is not in the grand narrative, but in all the subsequent and supporting narratives.
In the tired genera of AIDS-memoir Stone has breathed new life into it. Vincent is surly pleased.

A Boy I Could Use as an Excuse to Write my Autobiography.......2003-10-12

What a tremendous letdown! I picked this up because I loved the thought of the ex-teacher revealing the life of a former student through his memoirs and her memories. Too bad that isn't really the book. Elizabeth Stone uses Vincent as an excuse to write her own autobiography- and believe me, her story makes you long to hear Vincent's all the more. Perhaps his diaries were very vague or his family reticent of having his life detailed - both understandable. But, given that, there isnlt really a worthwhile project here. I got so bored that I kept skipping pages looking to find Vincent's story and all I really kept finding was hers. Ugh! A vanity project all around.

About A Boy We'll Never Know..........2003-05-20

Upon completing this book (and before reading the reviews of others on this site), I came out with many of the same feelings that they had: this book was NOT so much about the "Boy" but about the author. I'm glad to see that I wasn't the only one disappointed and misled by the book and its summary. I wanted to know more about the supposed title character...not about the author. The author left his diaries and notes to a total stranger so she could tell the world about him...about his battle with life...and death. And yet all she was concerned about was her own life. What a disappointment. I'm sure she gained something from reading his diaries, but we certainly didn't. And when she did mention him, she used quotes from his diaries that were quick notes like, "Went shopping. Met with friend." Nothing in detail. A true author who wanted to share Vincent with the world would have cut beyond his quick notes and written something with more depth, using his notes as a guide. Ms. Stone didn't seem to even "get" Vincent...or the gay lifestyle. So, after reading the book, I quickly resold it online. It wasn't a keeper for me. Sorry, Vincent...I hope someone else preserves memories of you...

a boy i once knew...........2003-01-17

A large brown box appears on the doorstep of teacher, Elizabeth Stone's front door. Inside she would find the journals and inner workings of former student, former human being, former AIDS patient; Vincent.
This book was extremely slow going. I felt that it asked too may questions and sort of implied the story rather than to tell it. Yes I am aware that Miss. Stone only had the journals as a reference yet I still believe this work could have been executed in a way as to end up with a much more impressive piece of writing.
In reading "A Boy I Once Knew," I also came across a variety of typos and errors thus proving the type of effort that went into the book.
Stone also seemed to focus much more on her life than Vincent's, the one she meant to be preserved.
When I look at this book as a whole I can't help but wonder if Vincent was made into the person he wanted the world to know. But, at the same time, I don't know if we were properly "introduced".

A Good Read, But Not What I was Expecting.......2002-10-12

A Boy I Once Knew is a bit of a miss-titled novel. Although the book is an interesting read, I was expecting a book about the title character and his life journey from the time he was a student to the time he died. Instead, the book focuses primarily on the author who draws parallels between what is happening in the Journals to what is happening in her own life. While sometimes interesting. In that sense it was disappointing, leaving me to wonder about the diaries and what I didn't learn. A more apt title for this book might have been, The Diaries I Received From A Student And How They Made Me Reflect On My Own Life.

Book Description

Beautiful Braids (over 700,000 sold) owes its steady success to the simple fact that, as the most affordable and complete book on braiding on the market, it represents incomparable value. From elegant chignons and classic English braids to the sporty Duchess braid, these elaborate styles will continue to turn heads.

Customer Reviews:

braids.......2007-07-03

it was alright, nothing what i expected. i thought it would be more details, it's easy braids that i can already do. I wanted to learn cornrows and stuff. it's ok though

this book.......2006-08-13

In the picture and discriptions on Amazon I feel I was missled
I thought is was a nice big book with nice pictures, or at least thats how they made it seem. When I got it it was just a tiny little black and white book with drawings of braids.

good luck

I will continue to shop at Amozon

Beutiful Braids-Step by step guide..........2006-07-06

Having had short hair most of my life, I had little braiding experience to help with my daughter's long hair. This guide was to the point and illustrative. I found what I needed to know to start practicing new styles to give my daughter a unique and well put together look.

too basic for me.......2003-03-13

Very very basic beginner's "I've never braided my own ponytail before" kind of book. Not at all as described ("100 black-&-white photographs", "these elegant braids will be turning heads...") Puhleeze!

Better books available.......2000-10-02

This book wasn't what I expected. It is small (4x6 maybe) and doesn't contain anything I didn't already know. A better book is "Great Braids" by Thomas Hardy, also available on Amazon.

Braid on Hypnotism: The Beginnings of Modern Hypnosis

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Braid on Hypnotism: The Beginnings of Modern Hypnosis
James Braid
Manufacturer: Julian Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Advanced Golf Or, Hints And Instruction For Progressive Players

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Advanced Golf Or, Hints And Instruction For Progressive Players
James Braid
Manufacturer: Kessinger Publishing, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1428622578

Average customer rating:

Advanced Golf
James Braid
Manufacturer: George Jacobs & Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000T63ZFW

Advanced Golf: Or, Hints and Instruction for Progressive Players: With Eighty-Eight Photographs and Diagrams

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Advanced Golf: Or, Hints and Instruction for Progressive Players: With Eighty-Eight Photographs and Diagrams
James Braid
Manufacturer: George W. Jacobs & Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000Q6RB14

Average customer rating:

Braid on Hypnotism
James Braid
Manufacturer: Julian Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NR9H8Q

Braid on hypnotism: Neurypnology; or, The rationale of nervous sleep considered in relation to animal magnetism or mesmerism and illustrated by numerous ... in the relief and cure of disease,

Average customer rating:

Braid on hypnotism: Neurypnology; or, The rationale of nervous sleep considered in relation to animal magnetism or mesmerism and illustrated by numerous ... in the relief and cure of disease,
James Braid
Manufacturer: G. Redway
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B00087Q0IG

Hairtalk: Stylish Braids from African Roots

Average customer rating:

The Best Flat Twist

Hairtalk: Stylish Braids from African Roots
Duyan James
Manufacturer: Sterling
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Beauty & Fashion | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

Hair | Beauty & Fashion | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1402742355

Book Description

A braidery is more than just a shop where you get your hair done: it is a spiritual space, a meeting place, and a cross-cultural intersection, and the site where the past and present are woven together and traditions come alive. Duyan James, a Liberian native with a braidery in Washington, DC, presents a colorful, fascinating, and gorgeously photographed guide to the art. Complete with stories, folklore, and traditional hair care secrets, Hairtalk provides a full sense of the history of the many braiding styles that have become a staple in American culture. Pore through 51 styles for adults and nine for children—including some with synthetic and natural extensions—and learn all of the basic braiding techniques. But most importantly, James and her 12 African braiders from all over the continent provide a compelling account of the tribal meanings and ritualistic uses of each unique look, expanding the value and significance of braiding beyond mere fashion.

Customer Reviews:

The Best Flat Twist.......2007-08-31

This shop could do the best flat twist around in the DC metro area. I am also featured in the book, and know Duyan personally.

Magic, witchcraft, animal magnetism, hypnotism and electro-biology: Being a digest of the latest views of the author on these subjects

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Magic, witchcraft, animal magnetism, hypnotism and electro-biology: Being a digest of the latest views of the author on these subjects
James Braid
Manufacturer: A. and C. Black
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Hypnosis | Self-Help | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B00086AXE4

Average customer rating:

Second to None

More Beautiful Braids
James Wagenvoord
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Beauty & Fashion | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

Hair | Beauty & Fashion | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0517557959
Release Date: 1985-11-13

Book Description

Easy-to-follow illustrated, step-by-step instructions for more elegant and innovative hairstyles that braiding beginners and experienced stylists alike can create. 100 line illustrations and 15 black-and-white photographs.

Customer Reviews:

Second to None.......2000-05-22

Hi All!

This is a special book which has made my wife look more beautiful in all sense. I would love to recommend this book to everyone. This book has been really helpful to people who knows even something about plaiting.

Glad to have this review section.

Happy braiding, Raghavan.S

Book Description

This collection brings together twenty-three essays by some of Russia's most astute commentators on film and culture, written during the 1980s and published here in English for the first time. Included are reviews of films such as Little Vera and Taxi Blues, which were critically hailed in the West. Their comments illuminate important aspects of Russian filmmaking during this decade and capture a sense of a society in flux during the waning years of communism, as well as conveying the larger context within which Glasnost cinema and culture developed.

Book Description

Originating in Japan early in the 1970s as a simple sing-along technology, karaoke has become a hybrid media form designed to integrate mass-mediated popular music, video images, computer graphics, and the live musical performance of its human users. Not only has karaoke become a multimillion-dollar entertainment industry, its varied uses have also evolved into diverse popular cultural and social practices among many people around the world. Based on a two-year ethnographic study, this book offers a penetrating analysis of how karaoke is used in the expression, maintenance, and (re)construction of social identity as part of the Chinese American experience. It also explores the theoretical implications of interaction between the media audience and karaoke as both an electronic communication technology and a cultural practice.

This book analyzes the social origins of karaoke and the dramaturgical characteristics of karaoke events, and explains how various musical genres are reframed as karaoke music. It also visits the numerous karaoke scenes in their natural context -- the sites of the actual consumption of media products, such as expensive private homes and fancy hotel ballrooms in the affluent suburbs of New Jersey, working-class restaurants and nightclubs in the multiethnic neighborhoods in Flushing, Queens, and Cantonese opera music clubs in New York's Chinatown. Finally, the book offers an intimate analysis of how karaoke has been adopted by several interpretive communities of first-generation Chinese immigrants not only as popular entertainment but also as a means to help (re)define their social identity and way of life.

Amy Tan: A Critical Companion (Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers)

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Good Reference

Amy Tan: A Critical Companion (Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers)
E. D. Huntley
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Women Writers | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Women Writers & Feminist Theory | Books & Reading | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Chinese | Classics | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

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Amy Tan: A Literary Companion (Mcfarland Literary Companions)

ASIN: 0313302073

Book Description

Amy Tan has established a reputation as a major novelist of not only the Asian American experience but the universal experience of family relationships. With the publication of her first novel, The Joy Luck Club in 1988, which touched the hearts of millions of readers, Tan joined the ranks of major contemporary novelists. Adapting her brand of Chinese traditional talk story as a vehicle for exploring the lives of the mothers and daughters at the center of her novels, Tan allows readers to experience the lives of her characters from multiple perspectives in parallel and intersecting narratives. In this first full-length study of her work, E.D. Huntley explores the fictional worlds Tan has created in her three novels, The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, and The Hundred Secret Senses. A biographical chapter discusses the relationship of Tan with her own mother and its influence and that of her family on the subject matter of her novels. A chapter on Tan's literary heritage places her squarely in the tradition of Asian American literature. Each novel is discussed in a separate chapter and includes sections on plot development, character development, narrative structure, literary devices, setting, and major themes. Each chapter also includes an alternative critical reading from which to approach the novel to help readers see the novel in a different light. A complete bibliography of Tan's writings, writings about her work, and a list of reviews of each novel completes the work. This study is the ideal guide for students and readers of Tan's novels.

Customer Reviews:

Good Reference.......2001-04-16

This book is highly useful for use as a reference to the style, complexities, and the method of Tan's writing. I found it especially useful after completeling three of Tan's novels and having to present to a classroom, the style, symbols, characteristics in which Tan uses.

Chinese Popular Culture and the State (Special Issue of Positions)

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Chinese Popular Culture and the State (Special Issue of Positions)

Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

The State Question in Chinese Popular Culture presents a series of groundbreaking essays that challenge the paradigm dividing Chinese culture into "official" and "unofficial" categories. This binary, which mirrors the "high/low" dichotomy familiar to all practitioners of cultural studies, finds its roots in Cold-War Western romanticization of a Chinese popular culture that stood in defiant opposition to the Communist state. This special issue disputes such simplistic representations and offers new critical trajectories crucial to the study of contemporary Chinese popular culture.

Contributors. Tani E. Barlow, Dai Jinhua, Judith Farquhar, David S. G. Goodman, James L. Hevia, Li Hsiaoti, Ralph Litzinger, Eric Kit-Wa Ma, Jonathan Scott Noble, Jing Wang

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food

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The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food
Jennifer 8 Lee
Manufacturer: Twelve
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

If you think McDonald's is the most ubiquitous restaurant experience in America, consider that there are more Chinese restaurants in America than McDonalds, Burger Kings, and Wendys combined. New York Times reporter and Chinese-American (or American-born Chinese). In her search, Jennifer 8 Lee traces the history of Chinese-American experience through the lens of the food. In a compelling blend of sociology and history, Jenny Lee exposes the indentured servitude Chinese restaurants expect from illegal immigrant chefs, investigates the relationship between Jews and Chinese food, and weaves a personal narrative about her own relationship with Chinese food. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles speaks to the immigrant experience as a whole, and the way it has shaped our country.

Salt and State: An Annotated Translation of the Songshi Salt Monopoly Treatise (Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies)

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Salt and State: An Annotated Translation of the Songshi Salt Monopoly Treatise (Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies)
Cecilia Chien
Manufacturer: Center for Chinese Studies, The Universi
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Economic History | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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General | World | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0892641630

Book Description

From its inception in the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.), the salt monopoly was a key component in the Chinese government's financial toolkit. Salt, with its highly localized and large-scale production, was an ideal target for bureaucratic management.

In the Song dynasty (960-1279), fiscal pressures on the government had intensified with increased centralization and bureaucratization. A bloated administration and an enormous standing army maintained against incursions by aggressive steppe neighbors placed tremendous strain on Song finances. Developing the salt monopoly seemed a logical and indeed urgent strategy, but each actor in this plan -- the emperor, local officials, monopoly administrators, producers, merchants, and consumers -- had his own interests to protect and advance. Thus attempts to maximize the effectiveness of the monopoly meant frequent policy swings and led to levels of corruption that would ultimately undo the Song.

Unlike other contemporary sources, the Songshi treatise organizes its subject into an intelligible and detailed narrative, elucidating special terminology, the bureaucracy and its processes, and debates relating to Chinese finance and politics, as well as the salt industry itself. Professor Chien's extensive annotation relies on parallel histories that corroborate and supplement the Songshi account, together providing a comprehensive study of this important institution in China's premodern political economy.

Cecilia Chien is Assistant Professor in the Division of Humanities at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Customer Reviews:

Ratings wisdom from the horse's mouth.......2000-05-04

This work was written in 1978 by the Old Man himself, Arpad Elo. Chess players remember Elo as the cantankerous professor of physics from Marquette University, and as the inventor of the rating systems used by the United States Chess Federation (USCF) and the International Chess Federation (FIDE). Who better to explain the mathematics behind the rating system which, according to a letter Elo wrote to Chess Life several years ago, "is, after all, MY system". The explanations are semi-technical, but understandable by anybody with a mathematical inclination, regardless of their education in that field. There is even a chapter in which ratings are calculated retroactively, for grandmasters of bygone days. The book was written B.K. (before Kasparov), so of course Bobby Fischer comes out on top, with a rating of about 2780. His closest competitors are Lasker, Capablanca, and Botvinnik, each of whom peaked at about 2720. The average rating of tournament players in the U.S., by the way, is about 1500, several classes below the stars. Interesting reading.

Average customer rating:

Great Product

Review for the Alaska and Military Members Apple User Group

Unless you're a hardcore programmer, don't buy this one.

Proofreading unleashed

Good medium level book

Macromedia Flash Professional 8 Unleashed
David Vogeleer
Manufacturer: Sams
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Flash | Web Design | Web Development | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
General | Graphic Design | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
General | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 Unleashed

Learning ActionScript 2.0 for Macromedia Flash 8

Macromedia Flash 8 On Demand

Macromedia Flash Professional 8: Training from the Source

Macromedia Flash 8: A Tutorial Guide (Visual Quickstart Guides)

ASIN: 0672327619

Book Description

Macromedia Flash is a key technology for designing and delivering low-bandwidth animations, presentations, and web sites. More recently it has become development environment, complete with scripting capabilities and server-side connectivity. Flash has the ability to easily integrate with, and add interactivity to, complex media types with powerful and intuitive tools. Developers can rapidly develop high performance, accessible content using pre-assembled building blocks and expand their authoring capabilities with custom extensions from independent developers.

Macromedia Flash MX Unleashed covers these high-end topics, providing you with a solid and complete reference for building Flash websites and applications. Fundamentals are covered quickly in the first part of the book, with the majority of the content devoted to coverage of ActionScript and how Flash works with varied middleware. You'll also learn how to integrate Flash with several other technologies, including XML and PHP.

Customer Reviews:

Great Product.......2007-03-08

I'm using this book for a graduate Interactive Multimedia course. Following along with each chapter's topic, you get good coverage and an easy to learn experience with Flash. Great for beginners like me!

Review for the Alaska and Military Members Apple User Group.......2006-07-09

It has been my pleasure to review many excellent books in the months that I've been reviewing for the Alaskan Apple Users Group. This month's review is no exception. David Vogeleer's Macromedia Flash Professional 8 is in every meaningful way PERFECT. Being a veteran user of Flash since Flash 4, I went into this review with a very specific demands. Before I opened book I sat down and made an obsessively long list of the topics I believed a proper Flash book should contain and braced myself should the author miss one. Refreshingly I was pleasantly surprised again and again as I read through the 28 impressive chapters chronicling the newest incarnation of creativity that is the Flash legacy.

The author begins his book with a chapter covering big differences -- both in appearance and layout as well as features and possibilities -- between the newest version of Flash and it's predecessors. The chapter is concise and extremely well written and benefits seasoned and fresh users alike. Seasoned users will appreciate the briefing on the changes that they will need or want to make to convert from the way they are used to doing their Flash development. Fresh Flash users will be excited by the impressive list of new attractive features which now complement the features that originally caused them to have a desire to learn Flash in the first place.

After wetting the readers appetite, the author presents a series of chapters -- similar to the ones found in countless competing books -- which explain the drawing and animation procedures of Flash. Although these chapters cover common techniques they are nonetheless well written. They contain in-depth explanations of many of not all of the options and features of certain menus windows and tabs, and also well selected screen shots that the reader can use as a base of comparison. The author also includes numerous walkthroughs that guide the user through using many of the features and techniques in the book. The author uses clear and easy to understand instructions and also includes hot-keys where applicable. Though the quality of the first seven chapters alone would probably have been sufficient to get a kind review, I was pleased that it didn't stop without mentioning ActionScript.

ActionScript is the embedded programming language in Flash. With a similar syntax to JavaScript, Java, or C, ActionScript it will have a familiar feel to most programmers of other languages. It is an enormously powerful tool that allows for dynamic behavior inside of flash programs and much more. Far from simply mentioning ActionScript, the author devotes the next ten chapters to a better presentation of ActionScript than many books which are devoted solely to ActionScript do. The author provides a beautiful introduction to ActionScript and to programming including an excellent overview of Object Oriented Programming (OOP) that rivaled the introduction provided by my OOP textbook that I used at the University of Alaska for a B.S. in Computer Sciences. The OOP introduction is clean and examples are directly applied to Flash. Again numerous walkthroughs and code examples are provided by the author. Seasoned users benefit from these sections in many ways. Early in the first chapter, the author provides comparisons between ActionScript 1.0 and the new ActionScript 2.0 which are very useful for a quick transition. You can visually see what you are used to and what you must use in future coding. Though either a seasoned Flash user or a seasoned programmer of another language may be tempted to skip some of these chapters I strongly recommend reading them all since they are packed so full of information that in skipping even a single page, even the most seasoned Flash user may fail to learn a new thing about the language.

By the time I had finished the 17th chapter of the book, it was guaranteed a great review, but it didn't stop there. Flash is wonderful but it's even more powerful when paired with other technologies. Far surpassing my expectations, the author devotes the next ten chapters to an in depth coverage of integration of Flash with many of my favorite technologies including PHP, MySQL and XML. The author gives excellent examples of both how to use Flash with other technologies as well as why a developer would want to. The author wisely chose to divide the chapters by technology rather than by type of integration which gives the reader the ability to skip chapters covering technologies such as ASP which a developer may not have experience with or fond feelings for.

In closure, this book in EXCELLENT. It is a companion for the devoted learner of Flash and the seasoned user alike. This book is worth it's weight in gold and should be found on any Flash developer's book shelf.

Unless you're a hardcore programmer, don't buy this one........2006-04-25

I'm new to programming and, while I had some difficulty understanding the concepts within this title, I would not recommend this to anyone that's less than an intermediate level programmer. As opposed to titles that take you through the entire process of creating a website start to finish, this mostly introduces new concepts that help to build on your knowledge of ActionScript 2.0.

If you're wishing to feel a sense of accomplishment after reading this title cover-to-cover, you will be sorely disappointed. The sample exercises show how key concepts can enhance your web site/applications/scripts, but there is no end result that allows you to sit back and feel that you've accomplished anything substantial.

Any newbie to Flash wishing to increase their knowledge of ActionScript 2.0 should first learn how to create their own fully functional website using some ActionScript before tackling this book.

Proofreading unleashed.......2006-02-27

I am new to programming and I'm finding that this book does a good job overall in leading me through new concepts. There are, however, an absolutely unacceptable number of typos and grammatical errors in this book. I doubt that it was proofread even once by the author or editor.

Here's a good example:
(from p.351)
"But not every listener event in components is as easy as this one, but in general, you can use the event name, in the above case "click", and add "Handler" to it to create a call-back."

You don't have to know anything about programming to see that there are so many things wrong with that sentence that the mind simply has nothing to grasp hold of. Learning to program is difficult enough without having to muddle through such garbage.

I hope SAMS shows more respect for its readers and customers in the future.

Good medium level book.......2005-12-05

My overall opinion of this book is that it is good. It covers a lot of ground and for those of you with some experience in Flash you will find this book will help you do more with the new version of Flash.
The layout of this book was in my opinion done very well; there are three main sections and the ActionScript reference is not one of them nor does it take up half the book. The first section is the "Getting Started" piece which goes over the basics which you may already be familiar. This section does go into some detail about what is new in Flash 8 and how to take advantage of these new features. One item I liked was learning about drawn lines and how I can tweak the end points or the corners in my drawn boxes/rectangles. Also there was the tween editor for manipulating how I wanted an object to tween. Great stuff since I am more of the coder than the designer.
The second part of the book is more familiar to me, it is on ActionScript. This material covers many of the classes and how to work with particular data types like Arrays and Strings. Also there is some Object Orientated Programming (OOP) information, just enough to whet an appetite but not that much to frustrate you to no end. There are plenty of books out there which focus on ActionScripting too much higher levels this book does a good job of getting you to a higher level without the heartache.
The last part of the book really hits on the current use of Flash as a dynamic medium, talking through middleware to a server or database. This is an extremely useful skill as a developer, the more you can do with Flash to communicate outside of the Flash player the better off you are. You will find material on ASP, PHP and even a chapter on Remoting. You will not find examples here that are too extreme but it will cover the basics so you can take what you glean from the text and do more on your own. One chapter I was pleased to see was one on functions, events and debugging. These three items are important to know how to use well for creating top notch Flash media. I was even surprised to see material on integrating JSFL into your development process, very welcome material.
I came to this book looking for information on the new version of Flash and to see what else I can do with it as a developer. Most everything I was looking for was here and the items I wanted to find and did not probably were too advanced for the book anyway. (No material on using Scale 9 and the material on uploading files was quite skimpy.) What I did get out of the book was enough to keep me busy for a while. If you have time over the holiday break this would be a good book to blow through so you can begin the New Year with some new skills and knowledge.

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