Field Guide for Property & Casualty Agents & Practitioners

Customer Reviews:

Family-friendly and spot on!.......2006-08-17

I've read this book multiple times (German Compulsive Disorder) and still love it every time. It's witty, insightful, and non-offensive - no Nazi/WWII references or coarse language. I can easily peg my family members in the "Goddess of Group Cohesion" and other characters that pop up. Plus, I learned more about wursts than I ever wanted to know. (Not possible, I realize!) I only wish the publisher would bring out a new edition - I've already bought several used copies, some to give as gifts and others as very popular door prizes for a recent family reunion. An excellent take on what is definitely a neglected topic!

Right in de Fuehrer's Face!.......2005-10-24

This is a funny book. I laughed aloud several times, and partly because I saw myself in these quirky habits Anderson attributes to German Americans.

I believe I do have some German heritage, but I'm not sure. I haven't done a genealogical study.

But I'm a Californian, where all German ancestry, if it ever existed, is amalgamated (pureed) with every other ethnicity.

Mr. Anderson (the author), on the other hand, is from New Ulm, Minnesota, a strange place I've never been to. His grandmother was from Germany, as he reports in the appendix.

One chapter is entitled, "Don't Throw That Away": Economy at any Length. Anderson writes: "German/Americans believe in the saving ethic...we save things so we can suffer."

There's a funny chapter on Catholics and Lutherans "meeting head on."

How about this one: "100 Years of Rectitude: Propriety as a Chief Virtue"?

Or the chapter on German language, "Sprechen sie? American damage to the mother tongue."

He writes: "German Americans don't think of German as a foreign language. They think of it as a guilt trip."

Anderson has sojourned in Germany, and his description of his attempts to use German, or to revert to English instead, are hilarious.

How about the section, "Hoarding and Counting as a Hobby." I saw myself here: I hoard books, although I haven't counted them yet (my wife has, and guess what...there's too many books!).

You will get a big kick out of this book, and you will appreciate Germans and German Americans more than if you had not read this funny book. Americans think of Germans, today, as Nazis and former Nazis. There's another side to Germans, and you find it here.

Diximus.

Average customer rating:

German Humor : On the Fritz
John Louis Anderson
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OEV3UI

Average customer rating:

Preussens Gloria
Fritz Schonpflug
Manufacturer: Edition Tusch
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Military Science | History | Subjects | Books

German | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

History | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books

Nonfiction | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books

All German Books | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 3850630854

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Fritz Wolf Karikaturen
Fritz Wolf
Manufacturer: Rasch
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Perfect Paperback

General | Drawing | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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German | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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All German Books | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 3922469086

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German Humor: on the Fritz
John Louis Anderson
Manufacturer: Harper & Row
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OLRHCE

One hundred caricatures from Simplicissimus, 1896-1914: An exhibition of the Goethe-Institut

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One hundred caricatures from Simplicissimus, 1896-1914: An exhibition of the Goethe-Institut
Fritz Arnold
Manufacturer: Goethe-Institut
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007BGSYE

One hundred caricatures from Simplicissimus, 1918-1933: An exhibition of the Goethe-Institute

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One hundred caricatures from Simplicissimus, 1918-1933: An exhibition of the Goethe-Institute
Fritz Arnold
Manufacturer: Goethe-Institut
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007BCYBK

Book Description

Initially contemporaries of Nirvana and Pearl Jam, Billy Corgan's Smashing Pumpkins outgrew and outlived the grunge scene with hugely acclaimed commercial triumphs like Siamese Dream, which legitimised heavy metal, and number one album Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness. Unlike many of their contemporaries, the Pumpkins were able to withstand internal problems and keep selling records, emerging as the longest-lasting and most successful alternative band of the early '90s. Though drugs and other problems led to the band's final demise, Corgan's recent return with Zwan is a reminder of how awesome the Pumpkins were in their prime. Seattle-based Hanson has followed the band for years and this is the first in-depth biography of their rise and fall.

Customer Reviews:

A GOOD DEPICTION OF THE BAND, A LITTLE DRAWN OUT AT TIMES.......2005-03-25

This is the first, and only (that I know of) biography on the band. The book itself is good and covers much of the formation, keys gigs, singles and other elements. Like past reviewers have said it does make you wanna play the singles as you read, and provides alot of details. However at times the author does become to descriptive on some events and occurances, and it would have been better to cover more, perhaps with a bit less descriptive elements. I was a bit dissapointed, because alot of the end of the book is simply drawn from specials and shows that any serious fan would have already seen or heard. The earlier sections are good though and give a lot of insight into the bands quick rise, and all that came with it. Overall the book was good, but not perfect. I would recommend it more so to those who no little about the Pumpkins, but also to avid fans.

Even for SP fans this was painful to read.......2004-12-19

My girlfriend bought me this book for my birthday and I couldn't wait to get started on it because I'm a huge Pumpkins and Corgan fan. After about the fifth page I was already disappointed. I could hardly stand reading the author's long, drawn out, overly dramatic way of informing the reader. Every sentence felt like work to read because the author goes out of her way to try and impress with her large vocabulary and endless, dragging, dry descriptions on every single event.

I couldn't agree more with all the bad reviews written before me. If you strip all the dry filler from this book you wouldn't have much left, and of that most SP fans probably know 75% of it already. Don't be fooled by the good reviews that attack the intelligence of the people criticizing this book. I understand the words the author uses, but it makes for difficult reading that doesn't flow well at all. Like I said, reading this was like work. I'm very disappointed. I've never liked/disliked a book so much that I would actually write up a review, but I don't want others out there to go through what I did and waste their (or their girlfriend's) money. You can get better information about the band by studying their lyrics and finding interviews with them online.

Dry and pretentious.......2004-11-23

Given the lack of Smashing Pumpkins biographies that exist in print, I approached this book with enthusiasm. However, this feeling evaporated within the first couple of chapters. Although I agree that it's important to understand the context in which the Pumpkins' music was created, I quickly found myself skipping over the author's self-indulgent and frankly boring examinations of topics that should have remained marginal at best. More disappointing was the fact that these tangents were at the expense of any in-depth study of the personal influences behind the music - surely a band biography cannot completely detach the musicians from their music? Not wishing to pry into an individual's private business is admirable, but the emotive aspects of the Smashing Pumpkins' story are part of their appeal. However, this has largely been ignored in this book, and instead it is comprised of dry chronological information that displays little passion or enthusiasm for the band. I don't feel that I know any more about how the music was written or what the inspiration for it was. The author doesn't offer an opinion or even a description of most of the songs. There is surely an interesting biography of Smashing Pumpkins waiting to be written; sadly, this is not it.

EXCELLENT!!!.......2004-10-22

I bought this book after reading the great reviews in "Classic Rock" and "Record Collector," and Iwas't disappointed. This is one of those books that is impossible to put down, with every page turning up new information and ideas, and not only about the Pumpkins. There's some great material on the 90s rock scene in general, especially the rise and fall of the grunge scene. But the book's strong on every aspect of the Pumpkins' history, while the writing is so descriptive that you can't resist digging out the CDs to play along with the chapters.

I LOVED THIS BOOK.......2004-10-16

I'd not heard this book was coming out until I found it on Amazon, so I ordered it immediately. I was not disappointed. It tells the story of the Smashing Pumpkins in fast and flashy style, and you really feel like you know the band members better at the end. I especially enjoyed all the information about the earliest years, and the Scratchy Records story, but the book is strong all the way to the end. There's also an excellent discography so we can catch up with any Pumpkins/Billy music we might have missed.

Book Description

The Devil is alive and well and living in America, Andrei Codrescu tells us, and with good reason. Nowhere else in the world--not even in Codrescu's native Transylvania--is he taken quite as seriously. When Codrescu gently derided the fundamentalist Christian belief in Rapture ("a pre-apocalyptic event during which all true believers would be suctioned off to heaven in a single woosh") in one of his commentaries on National Public, NPR received forty thousand letters in a protest spearheaded by Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition. Codrescu was warned to "stay away from eschatology."Thankfully for us, he hasn't. In The Devil Never Sleeps, one of America's shrewdest social critics sets out to uncover the Devil's most modern and insidiously banal incarnations. Once easily recognizable by his horns, tail, and propensity for plague, today's Devil has become embedded in every fiber of our culture. Discussing everything from rock 'n' roll to William Burroughs to New Orleans bars to the Demon of Prosperity, Codrescu mockingly unmasks Old Nick as the opportunistic technocrat he really is. Embracing cell phones, cable access, and cyberspace, the ubiquitous Devil of secular culture embodies the true evil facing us today--banality.In a world teeming with distractions, we are still more than capable of being bored to death. Tormented as much by insomnia and its ravages as the Devil (perhaps they are one and the same), we've become as twenty-four-hour society, swinging desperately between tedium and terror and sleeping fitfully, if at all. As Codrescu points out, the Devil never sleeps because we just won't let him.With his characteristic charm and playful exuberance, Andrei Codrescu has successfully teased the Devil out from the darkest recesses and comic excesses of the human experience. The Devil Never Sleeps is his most wonderfully perverse book yet.

Customer Reviews:

Terrifically Witty Essays.......2000-04-20

This recently published set of essays by Andrei Codrescu is a wonderfully irreverent take upon America as it enters the new millenium. Codrescu was born and spent much of his young life in Romania so he still approaches much of American culture as something of an outsider. This allows him to have a wonderfully skewed perspective on America. He only uses the theme of the devil as a jumping-off point for which to comment upon our society at the turn of the millenium. His best essays are those which focus upon the lunacy of our society. Very funny stuff.

The Devil Never Sleeps and Other Essays.(Review)(Brief Article): An article from: World Literature Today

Average customer rating:

The Devil Never Sleeps and Other Essays.(Review)(Brief Article): An article from: World Literature Today
W. M. Hagen
Manufacturer: University of Oklahoma
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from World Literature Today, published by University of Oklahoma on January 1, 2001. The length of the article is 478 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Devil Never Sleeps and Other Essays.(Review)(Brief Article)
Author: W. M. Hagen
Publication: World Literature Today (Refereed)
Date: January 1, 2001
Publisher: University of Oklahoma
Volume: 75 Issue: 1 Page: 128

Article Type: Book Review, Brief Article

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Average customer rating:

The Devil Never Sleeps And Other Essays
Andre Codrescu
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTH046

Book Description

Ten classic short tales, including two adapted for the legendary Outer Limits

Two never-seen scripts for The Twilight Zone

An intriguing story treatment for Alfred Hitchcock Presents

A powerful foreword by William F. Nolan

Essay-appreciations from George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, and Marc Scott Zicree

Touching personal tributes from the authors son and daughter, Allan and Jennifer Sohl

For fans of classic science fiction, fantasy, and suspense this is a book to savor!

Book Description

Troubleshooting can account for up to 90 percent of a network administrator's job, so effective troubleshooting skills will help administrators respond quickly in a crisis situation, and keep their networks running smoothly. It can be a quantum leap from network administrator to troubleshooting guru, but knowing how to implement the right technique at the right time can help administrators take their skills to the next level. The Real- World Network Troubleshooting Manual focuses on the methodology and process of network troubleshooting, and how to apply them in real-life situations. Designed to make any network administrator a troubleshooting expert, the book starts with an overview of some readily available, basic troubleshooting tools. From there, multiple real-world troubleshooting scenarios are covered, from basic problems to more advanced, including what to do if a workstation is unable to surf the Internet, wireless users cannot connect to the network, or a hacker attacks the Web site. Although the primary focus is on the Windows workstation and server environment, many of the troubleshooting scenarios are non-operating system specific and can be applied to any computing environment.

Customer Reviews:

Misleading title.......2006-11-28

I couldn't agree more with Jarmo.

I would rename this book: "Things that may happen to you while running Microsoft Windows and certain applications on a networked environment"

Subtitle: "(not a Networking book)"

Why I won't buy this book.......2006-11-08

I've got to this book at Amazon from a sponsored link in a newsletter for IT professionals.

Amazon's "Look inside" feature is great - convinced me not to consider this book. Even the first network diagram shows IP addresses with five bytes (192.168.2.2.2) and network masks like 55.255.255.0. One can say it's a type, but again, the next diagram shows the same errors.

I don't believe this is a book for pros.

This book is bloody cool.......2005-08-09

First and foremost, the thing I like the most about this book is that it is current. It troubleshoots technologies in use today, speaks briefly about emerging ones, all while teaching basic troubleshooting skills as well as using enough real-world examples to be helpful to any business help-desk operative.

Not just about network troubleshooting.......2005-05-14

I just received this book from Amazon and was somewhat surprised by its contents.

For the first: this book spends quite a few of its pages to discuss scenarios not *directly* related to network troubleshooting.

For the second, many of the scenarios describe a problem that is specific to a particular vendor. I would have preferred content that was usable for networking issues regardless of vendor.

For the third, the problem scenarios or the solution descriptions may not bring anything new to your personal solution arsenal (unless you have very little experience in this field).

For the fourth, the book comes with a CD containing tools from SysInternals (such as Autoruns, Filemon, etc). Besides the fact that these tools can be freely downloaded from SysInternals web site, maybe more annoying is that the book provides no scenarios or advise on using these tools to troubleshoot problems. On the other hand, as an example, chapter 4 uses over 7 pages to list the Windows Recovery Console commands; the list seems to contain the same information that can be obtained using the HELP command inside the Recovery Console.

Some examples of the scenarios:

Chapter 3 (pages 45-91) deals with workstation troubleshooting. Example scenario:
- Problem Scenario "12" on page 88 (User is unable to install NAV Corporate Edition on a workstation): This scenario discusses the problem as occurring on a Windows 2000 with SP4. The solution: re-apply SP 4.

Chapter 4 (pages 93-158) deals with Windows Server troubleshooting; tools described in this chapter are the Windows Performance Monitor and Recovery Console.
Example scenarios:
- Problem Scenario "1" on page 134 (Data faction server does not boot): Discusses how a particular case of a server not booting was resolved. Solution: replace the power supply switch.

- Problem Scenario "3" on page 142 (Inaccessible boot device error stop 0000007B): Discusses how to troubleshoot a server displaying a blue screen with the "Inaccessible boot device ..." message at start. The described temporary solution: run ChkDsk. A more permanent solution: replace the hard drive.

Chapter 5 discusses SQL Server (pages 159-182) troubleshooting. Example scenario:
- Problem Scenario "2" on page 176 (Poor performance on SQL Server): Discusses what to do when SQL Server takes unusually long to return query results. In this case a large amount of data had been uploaded to the SQL Server just before the problems started. The solution: to run the command "Update Statistics "

Actually I am curious as to why the book was named "The Real-world Network Troubleshooting Manual: Tools, Techniques, and Scenarios"? Marketing reasons? A better name would have been something like "The Real-world Generic Troubleshooting Reference with Basic Tools, Techniques, and Scenarios".

Review of "The Real-world Network......".......2005-03-04

Becoming a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MSCE) may help you get a job, but getting this book will help you keep your job. It has numerous real-world troubleshooting examples and does a good job of explaining the process of problem solving. It explains troubleshooting techniques that are not covered in most classroom settings.

I wish this book was available a little sooner, because a lot of the tricks and techniques mentioned in the book I had to learn the hard way. To get the most out of the book, it's a good idea to read it before you have to jump into a difficult troubleshooting problem, so you've had a chance to practice and understand the techniques discussed in the book. But, it's still a helpful book if you need to solve a problem right now. Highly recommended!

Network Troubleshooting Tools (O'Reilly System Administration)

Average customer rating:

OK
Pretty good
Good coverage; worthwhile
Not worth the O'reilly name
Top Notch!!

Network Troubleshooting Tools (O'Reilly System Administration)
Joseph Sloan
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Network Administration | Networking | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

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General | Unix & Linux | O'Reilly | By Publisher | Books

Linux | Unix & Linux | O'Reilly | By Publisher | Books

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ASIN: 059600186X

Amazon.com

Hooray for Joseph Sloan, who has written Network Troubleshooting Tools. Sloan's book catalogs--and evaluates, with intelligent and carefully researched commentary--scores of free utilities that have been developed for monitoring, managing, and troubleshooting TCP/IP networks large and small. As such, it's a guide to the tools of the network administration trade. Without the concentrated wisdom that's found here, a network administrator might take years to stumble across all the fantastically useful utilities described in these pages, and waste all kinds of effort in the process. This book has found an excellent niche: a high-level technical book that earns its cover price by applying an author's experience and research to stuff that's freely available online, thus adding to readers' abilities to exploit the free stuff that's out there.

The organization Sloan has chosen is interesting and efficient. Chapters deal with categories of utilities, such as packet sniffers and device mapping. Chapters begin with descriptions of the general purpose of utilities in their category and describe features (and alternate means of providing them) in general terms. Then come sections on utilities, complete with commentaries on the strengths of each and command-line dumps of the utilities in use. As utilities often are best used together, the author does a good job of showing what steps to take when that needs to be done. There's no companion CD-ROM, but the URLs that link to the utilities appear--sorted alphabetically by the programs' names, in an appendix. --David Wall

Topics covered: The free utilities--mostly for Unix variants--that the author has found to be most useful in his work as an administrator and troubleshooter of TCP/IP networks. Utilities for route tracing, packet sniffing, device detection, performance measurement, and other work are covered here.

Book Description

Over the years, thousands of tools have been developed for debugging TCP/IP networks. They range from very specialized tools that do one particular task, to generalized suites that do just about everything except replace bad Ethernet cables. Even better, many of them are absolutely free. There's only one problem: who has time to track them all down, sort through them for the best ones for a particular purpose, or figure out how to use them? Network Troubleshooting Tools does the work for you--by describing the best of the freely available tools for debugging and troubleshooting. You can start with a lesser-known version of ping that diagnoses connectivity problems, or take on a much more comprehensive program like MRTG for graphing traffic through network interfaces. There's tkined for mapping and automatically monitoring networks, and Ethereal for capturing packets and debugging low-level problems. This book isn't just about the tools available for troubleshooting common network problems. It also outlines a systematic approach to network troubleshooting: how to document your network so you know how it behaves under normal conditions, and how to think about problems when they arise, so you can solve them more effectively. The topics covered in this book include:

Understanding your network
Connectivity testing
Evaluating the path between two network nodes
Tools for capturing packets
Tools for network discovery and mapping
Tools for working with SNMP
Performance monitoring
Testing application layer protocols
Software sources

If you're involved with network operations, this book will save you time, money, and needless experimentation.

Customer Reviews:

OK.......2003-04-19

Eh, book was okay, but didn't really flip my burger. If you want a nice primer on some of the software tools and commands that you can use for monitoring system performance, this book would probably be just fine. Could have used more graphics. Good for reading at bedtime or in your time off, but just a little too wordy looking if you're in the field actually trying to get something done.

Pretty good.......2002-09-30

Could have covered more but was worth what you paid for. Not too shabby.

Good coverage; worthwhile.......2002-03-27

I bot this book for a friend who is a Jr-Mid level network (Unix) admin., who needed advice on this topic. This book does cover all the necessary topics. It's understandable, not overwhelming, and, as the TOC shows, covers lots of useful, relevant topics. It's also very practical. Worth buying!

Not worth the O'reilly name.......2002-03-20

This might be a decent reference book if it contained more detailed information. I am a junior in college and was required to read this book from cover to cover and it was extremely boring. Anything the author discussed could easily be learned from help files or a quick glance at the website the product came from. THe author uses the phrase 'this is beyond the scope of this book' just when he begins to talk about something you may not have already known.

In conclusion, this would probably be an excellent book for somebody just starting out using troubleshooting tools, but if you have had more then 6 months experience in the field you already know most of the topics he covers.

Top Notch!!.......2002-01-25

If you only have the time to read or money to buy one book on TCP/IP troubleshooting, then make it this one! Chapter 5 alone is worth it's weight in gold!

Troubleshooting Internetworks: Tools, Techniques, and Protocols

Average customer rating:

Troubleshooting Internetworks: Tools, Techniques, and Protocols
Mark Miller
Manufacturer: M & T Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Operating Systems | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1558512365

Average customer rating:

JOSEPH D. SLOAN
NETWORK TROUBLESHOOTING TOOLS
Manufacturer: O'REILLY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000S9ISW0

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