Connecting to Learn: Educational and Assistive Technology for People With Disabilities

Customer Reviews:

A MUST BUY -- Reads like a novel, but packed with great info.......2003-12-05

There are those who teach ABOUT technology, and then write a text and there are those who DO technology and write about their experiences and insights. Scherer is a doer. This MUST READ book is packed with information and practical strategies, but it adds real-life personal stories to weave together and make sense of the many scattered pieces we know as "special education" today. This book is a real treat. It reads like a novel but leaves you with much wisdom as well as useful ideas and insights.

Customer Reviews:

great ideas for volunteer recognition.......2002-05-08

A really useful book for managers of volunteer programs. Provides some ideas on why people volunteer and looks at different types of motivation so managers can avoid assumptions and stereotypes about volunteers. Moves beyond theory to provide over 300 creative recognition ideas. Idea categories include working volunteers, senior volunteers, volunteers in churches, and volunteers by motivation category (affiliation motivated, achievement motivated, and power motivated.) Urges program managers to create recognition that is user-oriented and truly satisfying.

Book Description

In both Japan and the United States, migration, refugee, and citizenship policies have become highly contentious political issues. Japan, traditionally a closed society with the lowest proportion of foreigners of any major industrial country, has struggled to utilize the recent influx of illegal migrants without incorporating them into Japanese society and citizenship. The United States, a country built by immigrants, today grapples with the impact of legal and illegal migrants on employment and social services.

Myron Weiner and Tadashi Hanami have assembled a distinguished group of American and Japanese demographers, economists, historians, lawyers, political scientists, and sociologists to examine Japan's and America's very different approaches to employer demands for labor, control over illegal migration, the incorporation of migrants, the legal rights and social benefits of foreign residents and illegal migrants, the claims of refugees and asylum seekers, and the issues of citizenship and nationality.

Temporary Workers or Future Citizens places the economic issues of migration in a cultural context, by revealing how the collective identities of Americans and Japanese shape the way each society regards immigrants and refugees.

Book Description

From the creator of The Atheist, The Coffin, Deep Sleeper and the artist of Green Arrow and Nightwing comes a complete - and long overdue - collection of this amazing talent's short story work from the last decade and a half! See why this hardworking and prolific writer/artist is considered by his peers as one of the top talents in the industry today and why he's Hollywood's new Golden Boy!

Average customer rating:

review of a classic guitar training book

Excelente Producto!

Mel Bay Julio S. Sagreras Guitar Lessons: Books 1-3 (Guitar Heritage)
Julio S. Sagreras
Manufacturer: Mel Bay Publications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Spiral-bound

Guitar | Instruments & Performers | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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Similar Items:

Mel Bay Julio S. Sagreras Guitar Lessons, Books 4-6 and Advanced Technique

Mel Bay Complete Sor Studies for Guitar

Mel Bay The Complete Carcassi Guitar Method

Andres Segovia - 20 Studies for the Guitar: Book/CD Pack

Solo Guitar Playing/Book 1 with CD (Classical Guitar)

ASIN: 0786627239

Product Description

The guitar lessons of Julio Sagreras are among the most universally used collections of guitar music and represent a milestone in didactic guitar literature. This book, which includes the first three volumes of the original six-volume series, is an ideal introduction to classical guitar playing as well as to Latin American guitar music. Text written in English and Spanish with French and German translations in an appendix at the back of the book.

Customer Reviews:

review of a classic guitar training book.......2006-07-20

Sagrearas guitar lessons are very systematic and they are a well-thorough approach to update and review your knowledge in guitar playing.
Thanks, Martin Ochsner

Excelente Producto!.......2006-02-27

Recomiendo este producto para quien comienza a aprender a tocar guitarra, pues tendra una buena base.

Book Description

Michael: At the last curtain call made the gesture of "being quiet" with my finger to my mouth. That was my signal to the house and to those around usan to myselfthat there would be no more words from Kramer.

Julia: Elaine was someone who single women laughed at because she wrestled with her worst secrets and biggest fears. Let's face it, she embodied lots of problems. In fact she was a jerk. Anyone who chooses Elaine as a role model should be in therapy.

Jason: When people reflected on their own lives in comparison to George's, they felt pretty good. They could tune in and see it was far worse for this poor slob. In a sick way that was comforting.

Jerry: After nine years, how do you say good-bye to the experience, the people, the accomplishments? Emotionally, I just hoped not to get crushed, yet all the while I knew I would.

Customer Reviews:

Just what I, a big Seinfeld fan, was looking for.......2004-12-03

This book is mostly imagery--photography--with "commentary" by the cast. At the same time, for the more intellectual/reader-type Seinfeld fan, the sentences beside each photograph are extremely interesting and usually funny too. These commentaries are by the 4 main members of the cast. If there is anything bad said about this book, it must only be because the rater expected more text or something. The photographs are excellent--they tell enough themselves.
After reading this book, the re-runs won't be the same to me again. (in a great way!)

WOW!.......2004-06-18

This book is truly moving in the way it presents the lasts days of one of the most remembered sitcoms in television history. With its stunning photos (black and white) and riveting commentary this is a must for all Seinfeldians.

Seinfeld.......2003-07-26

Mr James N Simpson, you do not seem to be a very good Seinfeld fan. It is a well known fact that the finale was only one whole episode, which aired for a 60 minute time slot. The re-runs are the ones split up into two sections. Obviously you only had a chance to watch re-runs and none of the original airings.
I suggest you do not claim yourself a true Seinfeld Fan as you don't seem to get the facts straight.

Behind the Scenes.......2003-06-21

This book takes the reader behind the scenes of Seinfeld's final two episodes. There's heaps of one line or paragraph interviews from each of the four main stars throughout this book. Most of the book will have a black and white photograph on one page with one paragraph on the opposite page.

You don't learn a great deal that you haven't heard elsewhere, but there are lots of photographs of the set and of the cast that you won't have seen before. The only downside is that all the photographs are black and white and none are colour and that there isn't more information.

I would actually recommend Jerry Seinfeld the Entire Domain instead of this book as it has a lot more information.

Since the final episodes are never shown as a one hour episode any more this book does cover both of the final two episodes. I realise the final episode was a one day special in the USA but not everyone lived in America and saw the two episodes as one when they were aired and a lot of people do enjoy watching them over and over again as the two. The book itself mentions they are two now as well. Either way if you are talking about one episode or two episodes it is the same episode and that is what this book is about.

If you are a Seinfeld fan... this is a MUST!.......2002-02-02

This is a great book... wonderful pictures! From "Hello Newman!" to watching Kramer run into Jerry's apartment, but from KRAMER'S side... These are all execellent pictures and excellent moments. Each of the cast members ideas and thoughts about the serious. Plus, you get pictures of EVERYONE, even Babu, Soup Nazi, Mr. Pit, the Constanzas, the Susan's parents, and many more...

Book Description

When originally published in 1977 as Our Gang, this book sold more than 52,000 copies. This new edition, with an extensive amount of fresh material, will prove irresistible to all fans of the most popular TV series of all time. Illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

A Nostalgic Treasure.......2006-09-27

Revised in 1992, Leonard Maltin and Richard W. Bann's "The Little Rascals" is a must for anyone who has enjoyed the antics of Spanky and the gang. The authors' exhaustive research and warm-hearted nostalgia is evident as they chronicle the history of these enduring comedy shorts. Along with biographies of the ever-changing cast and crew, the book offers a detailed critical analysis from the golden Hal Roach period (1922-38) to the sad decline at MGM (1938-44). It's the ultimate Our Gang celebration, with a treasure trove of rare photographs and publicity material.

Brought back many old memories........2006-08-30

I have been looking for this book for ages.Answers so many questions about all the Little Rascals.Some didn`t live long and very few are still with us.Being from Long Island I watched them on CH.11 on the Officer Joe Bolton Show every day after school.Kids today have nothing like them on TV.The facts in this book are fantastic and the pictures are great.If you love the Little Rascals buy this book.

Highly Recommended.......2005-10-01

The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang is the most comprehensive book available about the popular short series. Leonard Maltin, longtime fan of both Hal Roach comedies and the Our Gang series itself, writes both intelligently and lovingly about the series with the help of Richard W. Bann.

This book opens with a short history of the Hal Roach film company and the Our Gang series.

Then, it leads to a collection of all of the shorts made for the series including the cast, release date, and highly effective synopses and analyses of each short. These are listed chronologically and noted according to ownership and distributor and silent and sound. Some of the silent have been lost, but they are not neglected. Instead, Maltin has used reviews from the time period to give the reader a sense of the short and an idea of its quality. Opinions are used, but they are obviously separate from the factual information and are supported by facts. They add to the effectiveness of the synopses and paint a more vivid picture of the shorts that are unavailable. What is also unique about this book is the listing of the MGM shorts that are often regarded as the worst quality episodes of the series. Skipping these films, although understandable, would have made this book far less complete.

Next, the spin-offs and pop culture effects of the series are addressed, including the Saturday Night Live spoofs of Buckwheat and the cartoon versions of the show.

Last, the book includes a brief history of all of the major stars of the series and a few sentences about the more minor players. Sadly, this section needs to be updated because of the deaths of the cast members after this second publication. However, the information that is included is accurate and valuable, as much of it cannot be easily found anywhere else, especially interviews.

One must also comment on the abundant photographs utilized in the book including rare publicity stills.

Overall, this is a high quality history of The Little Rascals.

Sweet Book [ Sweet both Ways!].......2005-05-02

Seriously, this book has all you would ever want to know about Our Gang, and some stuff you don't want to know! Complete write ups on all the movies and even some extra bits, a complete biographical section and SO MUCH MORE!! Completly indispensible! If you love Our Gang as much as I do, you definitly want this.The pictures are so CUTE, and there are a lot of them! I loved it!

The best biographical book on The Little Rascals!.......2004-08-29

This has to be the best book I've ever seen on the history of The Little Rascals.Everything you ever want to know about the Rascals,their careers,and their films.Every single film from the 1920s all the way up to the 40s is so remarkabley detailed.No major fan of The Little Rascals should be without this precious gem!

Our Gang: The Life and Times of the Little Rascals

Average customer rating:

Our Gang: The Life and Times of the Little Rascals
Leonard Maltin , and Richard W. Bann
Manufacturer: Crown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0517538083
Release Date: 1984-04-18

The Little Rascals: the Life and Times of Our Gang

Average customer rating:

The Little Rascals: the Life and Times of Our Gang
Leonard Maltin
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press (CA)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N75VSQ

Our Gang The Life and Times of THe Little Rascals A Nostalgic Look at the careers and 221 films of America's beloved....

Average customer rating:

Our Gang The Life and Times of THe Little Rascals A Nostalgic Look at the careers and 221 films of America's beloved....
Leonard (Richard. W. Bann) Maltin
Manufacturer: Crown Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J0TR9Q

Average customer rating:

OUR GANG: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE LITTLE RASCALS.
Leonard and Richard W. Bann. Martin
Manufacturer: Publisher Unknown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000WAUAJY

Average customer rating:

Our Gang The Life And Times Of The Little Rascals
Leonard Maltin
Manufacturer: Crown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000RC4BB0

Average customer rating:

OUR GANG: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE LITTLE RASCALS
Maltin Leonard and Bann Richard W.
Manufacturer: Crown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J505BU

Average customer rating:

OUR GANG: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE LITTLE RASCALS
Leonard Maltin
Manufacturer: Crown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000M0T3JC

Average customer rating:

Our Gang: The Life and Times of the Little Rascals
Leonard Maltin
Manufacturer: Random House Value Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KIDIHO

Book Description

* Written by one of Microsoft's key testing trainers, this hands-on tutorial and reference explains why, when, what, and how to test
* Teaches new and experienced testers how to analyze and properly test Web applications
* Filled with practical advice that can be immediately applied to any Web-testing task, on any browser running on any platform
* Concentrates on proven solutions and presents the material in a way that will help develop a professional skill set in novice testers and will improve the productivity of all testers
* Companion Web site includes dozens of valuable templates and test patterns that will allow readers to rapidly conduct tests in multiple languages against all browser and operating-system combinations

Customer Reviews:

Straightforward, practical approach to web testing........2006-08-08

Lydia's book is probably the best written web testing book in the market. The prose is easy to follow, progressive, non-verbose, and sometimes even inspiring. She painfully explicates various testing principles with exacting examples. Published in 2003, some of the examples already show their age but the testing principles and problems are still current. Web technologies have evolved immensely in the last three years and this book would benefit from such updates in a second edition.

Good Reference.......2005-11-19

The Web Testing Companion is a manual written for both beginners and experienced web designers, and the author herself is a testing director at Microsoft. If you've had a few years' experience as a designer, developer or webmaster, then the material is not new to you; i.e., optimizing bandwidth, etc.

Obviously, this is not the kind of book you read straight through from beginning to end, but rather a handbook that you can refer to as problems arise. For the most part, the book succeeds as that, and Ms. Ash has divided the book into four general sections: non-technical issues, technical issues, general advice for testers, and finally an excellent set of appendices on various aspects of Web testing.

I'm sure we all can recall incidents of working with defective software that nobody apparently had tested for bugs, sloppy coding, or slow operating time. This was because there was probably a deadline for the software release time, and the developer concluded that hiring testers would be an extra expense.

Non-Technical Issues:

The first four chapters deal with non-technical issues, mostly related to the planning of the application.

Web site planning can involve a number for goals; for example, which is most important: minimal defects or time-to-market? Developing a medical web application to assist in diagnosing illnesses is different from developing an application that will be used to solicit funds. The medical app could be providing life-or-death information, whereas the solicitation site could need high visual appeal. In other words, the app must meet the customer's requirements and expectations, not yours. Most of us already know that, but in one of the book's appendices, the author has given us a checklist of several pages worth of questions to determine exactly what the customer's needs are. That's what I like about this book: It presents some very objective methods for answering subjective questions.

Server-Side and Client-Side Testing:

For server-side (as opposed to client-side) web apps, performance testing and security testing are the most important. Stability problems need to be identified prior to deployment. The tester, therefore, should create many user scenarios derived from the most common and most intensive user actions, and then analyze the performance statistics after the performance tests are completed.

The author recommends that all of your pages load in 15 seconds or less, but this rule really depends on your particular application and the expectations of the people using it. If your app requires large graphics and the users are architects, they will probably feel that waiting a few minutes is worth the effort.

Testing Scenarios:

The author recommends that you set up a test environment that is separate from your development and production environment. This can include a separate web server, database server, and application server if applicable. This is especially important in testing security features. (It should be noted, of course, that some application developers will not be able to afford the elaborate testing facilities of a large corporation.)

Ms. Ash advises, "One of the most common reasons that performance testing of an application is not successful is that the wrong scenarios were tested." Therefore, she recommends that: "Not every line of code or possible interaction needs to be benchmarked on every build. Identify the critical places, the most frequent code paths, and the most expensive ones, the ones that are most important to the user, and spend the precious test time here. If there is more test time left over, spend it on any code paths that have been added since the last release."

At this stage, the author explains numerous helpful methods for setting up baselines, benchmarks and other metrics to determine Web application performance and efficiency. These metrics also include the application's efficiency when interacting with various servers' processors, memory and disk drives.

The author provides a method for charting data flow, which is helpful in both performance and security testing.

Load and Stress Testing:

"Load testing is done to help identify what the load profile for the service is under a load. Knowing the server profile helps you identify when the server in a line production environment is about to break or crash."

Load testing should answer questions like: How many requests per second can the server take, how long does it take to service a request, and What is the uptime under real-world loads?

Finally, an entire chapter is devoted to automation methods. Automation is "an excellent way to ensure that the software of today is just as good as it was yesterday, but management incorrectly assumes that automation will solve all their problems."

The earlier you perform load testing the better. Most people hate to wait for a web page to load, so simple design changes can often make a significant impact on the performance and scalability of your web application. A good overview of how to perform load testing can be found on Microsoft's Developer Network (MSDN) website.

Security Testing:

As with performance testing, the first steps of security testing need to be taken by the product designers to ensure that their code is safe by employing best practices when writing code.

A general rule to remember is that as your company gains more and more data that is desirable, it is also gathering attackers and gathering more that needs defending. On the other hand, the thought that a less important company or service will not be as interesting to an attacker can lull you into a false sense of security. You can still be attacked, for the same reason that small businesses and houses have been robbed; i.e., because they can be easy targets.

The author outlines various methods of testing your apps for a number of "popular" attack methods:

Denial of Service, in which a server can receive thousands of ICMP "ping" requests from hundreds of workstations;

Buffer Overflow, which is becoming a very common method for installing Trojan horses and back door software;

Cross-site scripting, in which an attacker gets his malicious code to run on someone else's Web site; and

SQL Injection, by which the attacker sends malicious code to an SQL database.

General Testing Advice:

The remainder of the book is concerned with various organizations, web sites and other resources open to testers.

Ms. Ash makes the point that many people enter the field of testing involuntarily, and that the testers should not develop an adversarial relationship with management and developers. (Obviously, hard-working developers don't want to be told how inefficient or unsafe their code is, and vice presidents don't want to be told that they have to postpone a release date because of "holes" in their latest product.) Because testers can wield considerable power, the author stresses diplomacy when notifying the developer team about their mistakes in coding. Additionally, the professional tester should communicate regularly with users by giving presentations and attending meetings with management. They should also become certified in relevant technologies.

Although the author could have provided a more readable index or table of contents, she has provided 200 pages of appendices, covering RFCs, error codes, ASCII character sets, and many helpful tables. The appendix material is also available at the author's companion site at www.wiley.com/compbooks/ash.

Excellent Web QA resource.......2004-12-29

This is the best book I have ever seen on the testing web applications. It covers everything from unicode to Javascript, from security to the validity of the HTML. It teaches through an understanding of the technology, then covers ways to stress the technology to look for bugs. The sections on character encodings and performance testing are particularly well done. This is a must have book for QA professionals tasked with testing a web application.

Take the title literally.......2004-06-22

This book is overshadowed by "Testing Applications on the Web: Test Planning for Mobile and Internet-Based Systems" ISBN 0471201006, which is one of the most highly regarded in the testing community. However, that does not mean this book is without merit. On the contrary, the rich content of the appendices, which comprise a significant portion of this work, make it an ideal companion to the aforementioned book.

Another point in this book's favor is that it is basic enough and structured to make it an ideal text for a course on web testing. The author did an excellent job of describing good practices in web testing and covering the basics. She also provides a good deal of sage advice on careen matters, which a more technical book will overlook.

I found the chapters on server-side testing accurate and clear enough for new test professionals to completely follow. The chapters on performance and security testing were reasonably complete, and the chapters on client side were as well and clearly written. I also like the author's objectivity - she works for Microsoft, but did not emphasize that company's technologies or processes over standard industry practices.

As a supplement to a more technical book, such as the one I cited above, or as a text in a basic web testing course this book shines. It is not the definitive reference, but is worth reading if for no other reason than to have the appendices nearby as a ready reference during test cycles.

An excellent web testing reference.......2004-01-24

I came across this book in the bookstore and was so impressed I dropped the $$$ on it there. I have referred to it at least weekly for test cases. It has more than paid for the purchase price through what it has done to make my job easier. Few books touch on security or performance in a practical manner, but this one digs right in and actually has information you can apply immediately to your app. I can see where the other reviewer might have been frustrated in that it didn't tell him how to write web applications. It is purely about testing them and doesn't get hung up walking you through any specific technologies. It concentrates on the information you need to test your app.
Don't take my word for it. Stickyminds gave it 4 stars. ...

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