The Owner-Builder Book: How You Can Save More than $100,000 in the Construction of Your Custom Home, Third Edition

Book Description

The best available guide to saving money on a home construction project, The Owner-Builder Book shows you how to contract your new home, remodel, or addition at phenomenal savings. Contains a step-by-step description of the process, including how to find and hire good subcontractors, how to get a construction loan, and how to estimate costs and choose features for your project. Includes 85 planning steps and 100 new construction bargain strategies to save you thousands. Includes contracts, agreements, budget and schedule forms and worksheets. Super-index provides 1,150 search terms for total utility. Winner of the National Association of Home and Workshop Writers Silver Hammer Award for Books.

"...16 easy to read chapters with lots of charts, lists and examples...More practical advice..." Nancy Cook-Senn, The Shawnee News-Star

"...this is the book which will tell you how to design and build your own home just the way you want it. It also tells you how to save thousands of dollars in the process...You can also save up to 50% of the cost of a house by becoming an owner-builder...goes through the stages of how to plan, planning, how to buy, developing a network for purchasing your materials, how to get bids, what to look for in bids on different areas, how to supervise your sub contractors, etc...seems to leave very few, if any, stones unturned." Curtis Rivers, Vero Beach Press Journal

"Assuming you have the same costs that a general contractor will have, you will save the profit (more than 10 percent average) and the overhead (two to three times the profit) paid to a general...The Owner-Builder Book discusses just how this can be done." Ask the Experts, Country's Best Log Homes

"If you don't want to sorry, follow the process outlined by Mark Smith in his book, The Owner-Builder Book." Builders Showcase, Northwest Herald

"...covers every aspect of the building process, including planning, scheduling, working with subcontractors, financing, building permits, etc....has, perhaps for the first time, demystified the home-building process for the layman. Consider this to be a textbook." Prince William Region Home Focus

"...highlights techniques for materials shopping (what he calls "commando shopping") and planning your home room-by-room to maximize savings." Home & Real Estate Weekly, Daily Times-Call

"This new book gives a step-by-step approach to building your own home and saving up to 50 percent on construction costs. Chapters show how to beat contractor pricing tactics, how to deal with paperwork (contracts, permits, and legal and insurance protection), how to manage home building project on a daily basis, and how to avoid common owner-builder mistakes." The Henry Herald

"Great practical little book filled with tips to save money when building a home. If you want to take on the project yourself, it's good to know the tricks of the trade first. You'll learn to manage bureaucratic paperwork, how to get subs on your side, and even become privy to "commando" shopping techniques. The Smiths explain how to benefit from new tax laws and how to prepare yourself to get loan approval." Simple Living Quarterly

"If you ever have thought of building your own home, The Owner-Builder Book is for you because it is a step-by-step guide for the amateur and covers all aspects of building a home." Robb Northrup, Kitchener-Waterloo Record

"When it comes to building your dream home, sweat equity a.k.a. doing it yourself, can help economize. But you don't need to swing a hammer to nail substantial savings. In The Owner-Builder Book Mark Smith leads home-owners through a step-by-step guide of planning, scheduling and financing a custom built house." Michelle Mahfouri, American Press

"The 16-chapter book takes [you] from putting a materials list together and putting out bids to subcontractors to shopping for bargains and close-outs on framing lumber, fixtures, concrete and appliances. It also discusses how to avoid first-time mistakes." Kansas City Star

Customer Reviews:

Good book! Could do without the "optimistic fluff...".......2007-08-21

I've just started in on this book, so my review may change after I've read the rest; but my initial opinion of this book is that while it contains a lot of useful information, it also contains information that is based on favorable chance events and optimism; these should be toned down or at least balanced with conservative planning. One instance shows how to "trade up" or "flip" houses to use the equity of the flipped house to get better properties at lower mortgage payments. This is an optimistic assumption, as is apparent in todays real estate market as of this review, there are a lot of home buyers who thought they could do this and are now stuck in expensive properties they don't want. Information presented like this reminds me of those "get rich" books. Many of the other reviewers have said the same thing: Too much junk information thrown in trying to make you feel good about the book and what you are doing. This space could have been eliminated, shrinking the book, or filled with more useful information.

Optimisim and "can do" spirit is definitley necessary to build your own home, by all accounts it is a very trying process. When using this book as an element in your DIY homebuilding planning, I'd follow the author's suggestions, plan like crazy, plan for the worst and hope for the best. The information in the book is very good. I'd still recommend it.

motivational garbage.......2007-06-18

This book is garbage. Nothing more than motivational fluff and a complete misrepresentation of the homebuilding business and process. The Author convinces readers that they can't control or trust an individual contractor to build a house for them but can easily control dozens of individual subs and suppliers without being cheated. Yeah right. The book is chock full of statistics and statements that have no support or reference. It is not surprising that the book is self-published because no reputable publisher would publish a book with so many unsupported facts and figures. If you need motivation and someone to tell you you can do it and you are the king of the world and contractors are the skum of the earth, buy the book. If you want real guidance and grounded advice on how to build your own home, look elsewhere.

Wow...this puts it into perspective.......2007-06-01

I always wondered what the profit margin is for a builder and also how much waste they have. Now I know when you compare it to what can be achieved following the items in this book.

Big on promises, but mostly self-serving.......2007-05-15

This was the first book I read when I decided to retire and in some way become very involved in building our retirement home. I ended up reading about 4 others - all of which were more substantive and helpful. The most obvious problem from my point of view is the exaggerated claim on the amount you can save. You would have to substitute a great deal of your own time plus a few other person's in place of the building tradespeople to even approach the author's claims. The other problem is since the time since I read it (2003), the book has become a platform for the author to expand his marketing. Finally, the pictures of the home the author built on his own were very unimpressive to me. I thought it looked really dull.

There was one thing I took from the book - that you needed 1,000 hours to do the job. I did that and a bit more since I had the time. I had a fantastic experience on my house, although I had to pass through ideas of being my own GC or getting someone experienced to act as a mentor. Dispensed with the first as unrealistic and ran into significant problems with after starting down the second path. I ended up using a builder who simply let me participate extensively in the process since I had done so much preparation. I ended up designing, planning, and participating extensively with all the subs. It ended up being done on time, on budget, and with a quality level that exceeded my expectations.

The Owner-Builder Book: How You Can Save More Than $100,000 in the Construction of Your Custom Home, 4th Ed........2007-04-11

This book is an amazing resource. Of all the books I've purchased, this is the one that will help me the most!

Book Description

America's urbanites have engaged in many tumultuous struggles for civil and worker rights since the Second World War. Heather Ann Thompson focuses in detail on the struggles of Motor City residents during the 1960s and early 1970s and finds that conflict continued to plague the inner city and its workplaces even after Great Society liberals committed themselves to improving conditions.

Using the contested urban center of Detroit as a model, Thompson assesses the role of such upheaval in shaping the future of America's cities. She argues that the glaring persistence of injustice and inequality led directly to explosions of unrest in this period. Thompson finds that unrest as dramatic as that witnessed during Detroit's infamous riot of 1967 by no means doomed the inner city, nor in any way sealed its fate. The politics of liberalism continued to serve as a catalyst for both polarization and radical new possibilities and Detroit remained a contested, and thus politically vibrant, urban center.

Thompson's account of the post-World War II fate of Detroit casts new light on contemporary urban issues, including white flight, police brutality, civic and shop floor rebellion, labor decline, and the dramatic reshaping of the American political order. Throughout, the author tells the stories of real events and individuals, including James Johnson, Jr., who, after years of suffering racial discrimination in Detroit's auto industry, went on trial in 1971 for the shooting deaths of two foremen and another worker at a Chrysler plant.

Whose Detroit? brings the labor movement into the context of the literature of Sixties radicalism and integrates the history of the 1960s into the broader political history of the postwar period. Urban, labor, political, and African-American history are blended into Thompson's comprehensive portrayal of Detroit's reaction to pressures felt throughout the nation. With deft attention to the historical background and preoccupations of Detroit's residents, Thompson has written a biography of an entire city at a time of crisis.

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Whose Detroit? Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City. (Reviews/Comptes Rendus).(Book Review) (book review): An article from: Labour/Le Travail
John F. Lyons
Manufacturer: Canadian Committee on Labour History
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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ASIN: B0008DH9QM
Release Date: 2005-07-31

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Labour/Le Travail, published by Canadian Committee on Labour History on March 22, 2003. The length of the article is 1251 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: Whose Detroit? Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City. (Reviews/Comptes Rendus).(Book Review) (book review)
Author: John F. Lyons
Publication: Labour/Le Travail (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 2003
Publisher: Canadian Committee on Labour History
Page: 311(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Whose Detroit? Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City.(Book Review): An article from: The Journal of African American History

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Whose Detroit? Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City.(Book Review): An article from: The Journal of African American History
Lionel, Jr. Kimble
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Journal of African American History, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2005. The length of the article is 925 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: Whose Detroit? Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City.(Book Review)
Author: Lionel, Jr. Kimble
Publication: The Journal of African American History (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 90 Issue: 3 Page: 332(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Whose Detroit?: Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City.(Book Review): An article from: Criticism

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Whose Detroit?: Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City.(Book Review): An article from: Criticism
Jerry Herron
Manufacturer: Wayne State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from Criticism, published by Wayne State University Press on September 22, 2002. The length of the article is 1648 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: Whose Detroit?: Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City.(Book Review)
Author: Jerry Herron
Publication: Criticism (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 2002
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Volume: 44 Issue: 4 Page: 430(5)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Considerations in planning for the care of children whose mothers are HIV symptomatic or have AIDS (Occasional paper series / [Skillman Center for Children, College of Urban and Metropolitan Affairs])

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Considerations in planning for the care of children whose mothers are HIV symptomatic or have AIDS (Occasional paper series / [Skillman Center for Children, College of Urban and Metropolitan Affairs])
Annette A Woodroffe
Manufacturer: Skillman Center for Childen, College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Affairs, Wayne State University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0006RV5SI

Raising the levels of aspiration of children whose parents are receiving public subsidy: A pilot project

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Raising the levels of aspiration of children whose parents are receiving public subsidy: A pilot project
George Henderson
Manufacturer: Community Services Dept., Detroit Urban Leaque
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Summary of a pilot project: Raising the levels of aspirations of children whose parents are receiving public subsidy (February 2, 1962 - June 1, 1962)

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Summary of a pilot project: Raising the levels of aspirations of children whose parents are receiving public subsidy (February 2, 1962 - June 1, 1962)
George Henderson
Manufacturer: Community Services Department, Detroit Urban Leaque
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Product Description

With wit, humor, and profound one-liners, Michael Giangreco and Kevin Ruelle will transform your thinking as you take a "lighter" look at the often comical and occasionally harsh truth in the ever-changing field of special education. "Ants in His Pants" sheds a whimsical, thought-provoking glimpse inthe real-life situations frequently encountered by those within the special education system. This extraordinary, carefully crafted collection of 110 cartoons will inspire and entertain while providing a scrupulous look into the absurdities and realities of virtually all areas of special education. Great tool for educators and staff developers.

Customer Reviews:

Pictures Tell Our Story.......2000-03-29

This creative book of cartoons and satire runs the gamut from "real" to "wish it wasn't so real". The cartoons portray scenes of everything from classroom life, to inclusion teams, educational wit, therapists and of course children. While exploring this book I reacted to every page! From "Oh, I know that child", to "Yes, we do that", to "Oh no, there's that parent, (child), (teacher)", to "We do look pretty silly at times!" or "Wow we're doing a great job", and much, much, more! Worth having if you work in any area of education. Wonderful to share at meetings and in-service training.

Book Description

The Mobile DJ Handbook, Second Edition continues to be an excellent guide for novice and experienced DJs looking to build a successful career as the owner-operator of a mobile disc jockey service. Complete with practical tips, expert advice, and creative strategies, this book serves as the perfect guide on how to market and sell your services as well as develop and expand your business.

This book contains information on becoming a professional, securing bookings, buying equipment and music, and running party dances, contests, and games. Included within the text are sample contracts, an advertisement and brochure, and resource information. The Mobile DJ Handbook is an essential reference guide which offers readers all the knowledge and inspiration needed to run a profitable enterprise.

*New equipment, technology, and practical business advice are integrated
*Includes chapters ranging from performance and professionalism, sales and mareting, dancing and games, to booking opportunities
*Provides essentials forms, contracts, and brochures

Customer Reviews:

Dollars ... and the salesmen who love them........2006-10-16

This book, and its sister publication is fantastic, if you want to be Ray Kroc, and attempt to get rich franchising your cookie cutter product. The book describes very little about the actual methodology of performance, and focuses with laser precision on the mechanisms of salesmanship. The author rides high in the saddle, and rules over all the "bottom feeders" she surveys. This is the type of mentality I would think one who aspired to individual artistic expression, and freedom would want to avoid. Conform or be cast out. The content is concise, and informative in its own self righteous, conformist, and calculating way.

Great book for any experience level.......2005-11-13

I have been djing about 5 years and want to take my business to the next step. This book is full of all kinds of information that I can use now, not abstract ideas that would work in theory. I could not put it down I just wanted to keep learning. Some of the ideas I have already started to implement. Can't wait to read the DJ Sales and Marketing Book. A MUST READ

Required Reading for DJ's.......2005-11-06

This handbook leads you step by etep into the world of pro DJ's. Follow every word and you can't miss making your business into the power leader in your area. I worked the pages and now I have quit my job and do this fulltime very successfully. Thanks a billion, Stacey!

Lots of advice.......2003-12-24

I got this book when I didn't know anything about DJing. I read every page of the book, and it was fantastic! It was just filled with tips and advice for anyone who wanted to get into DJing. For example, it says some of the equipment you'd need to buy to be a mobile, different games you can play at weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs, how to get the crowd moving, and much more.

Evolving The MDJ Industry.......2003-12-16

"Stacy Zemon is a knowledgeable source on being a pro mobile DJ. She is also a veteran of the industry who has contributed much to its evolution."

The Mobile Dj Handbook: How to Start and Run a Profitable Mobile Disc Jockey Service

Average customer rating:

Excellent resource for beginners
A Good Start
Just the ticket
Dj Hill
OK, but needs more information!

The Mobile Dj Handbook: How to Start and Run a Profitable Mobile Disc Jockey Service
Stacy Zemon
Manufacturer: Butterworth-Heinemann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0240802667

Book Description

The Moblie DJ Handbook is full of expert advice, practical tips and creative strategies for achieving success as the owner-operator of a mobile disc jockey service. This book contains information on becoming a professional, securing bookings and even buying equipment and music.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent resource for beginners.......2006-12-08

I got into Djing at age 13, and the smartest thing I did was get this book! It taught me how to properly market my business to generate referrals, place ads, create contracts, and maintain a succesful business. Having been in business for 5 years since then I can attribute all my knowledge of DJing to this book. Highly recommended to all beginning DJs, or those looking for better ways to market themselves or generate more business , this book has the ideas to get you started. (maybe the never edition is updated-some of the hairstyles are a little past their time in the pictures)

A Good Start.......2005-02-14

This book provides a generic outline and a good start for the topic. There needs to be a followup with more info and detailed guidance on how to go from point A to point B. The book leaves you at the starting gate.

Just the ticket.......2001-08-21

As a former On-Air/Radio DJ, I had longed to join the ranks of the Mobile Entertainer. Try as a I might, I couldn't seem to find enough information on how to break-in. Sure there are plenty of resources for buying equipment, but that left so much unmentioned. THIS BOOK HAS IT COVERED! Ms. Zemon did a great job breaking down the do's and don't, the in's and out's and everything in between. I thank her for the book and you'll thank me for recommending it. It's a great resource!

Dj Hill.......2001-06-05

I have been djing,doing sound for 1 year.Idj for school Dances,schools PEPRALLEY,chruch youth events onley My church I go to.and sometimes I do Brithday Party.This Mobile DJ HandBook Help Me lern how to fade songs and scracth.this book help alot Me alot but I dont have my dj equpment yet but I use my Uncle dj equmpent.Im not ready to have a Dance club it probley be 19 YEARS. Im onley 15 years old. I play R&B,Rap,Dance Mixes,Ragey and some times rock. I Love to dj alot.............

OK, but needs more information!.......2000-04-28

I've read all the DJ books out there, and this one seems to miss many important technical points. It doesn't cover much on beat matching and scratching, and the song lists are dated. It is easy to read and does have some good information on real business setups, but you can get that almost anywhere!

Average customer rating:

The Mobile DJ Handbook, How to Start and Run a Profitable Mobile Disc Jockey Service
Stacy By (author) Zemon
Manufacturer: Focal Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OPTOX0

Book Description

Journeying through the comic art worlds of Africa, Asia, Australia, and Latin America, one cannot help being deeply impressed with the longevity, magnitude, and versatility of their cartooning traditions. This is the fourth title in Lent's definitive bibliography of comic art worldwide--the series includes over 30,000 citations. The current volume covers 67 countries on the various continents. The 6,506 items here comprise the richest lode of research materials on comic art in these regions. Three famous cartoonists from Asia (Abu Abraham), Africa and the Middle East (Effat), and the Caribbean (Ares) provide interesting perspectives on their regions in separate forewords. The work is divided by regions, countries, and topics, and, like the others in the series, includes citations in many languages and in published and unpublished formats. The other three volumes are Animation, Caricature, and Gag and Political Cartoons in the United States and Canada; Comic Art of Europe; and Comic Books and Comic Strips in the United States, all published by Greenwood in 1994. Early reviews of these volumes include statements such as, "incredible...monumental task [that gets] the art form's reference files in order" and "you've set the study of comics ahead by about ten years."

Book Description

The much-anticipated second edition of the bestselling book that details network security through the hacker's eye
Since the first edition of Hack Attacks Revealed was published, many new attacks have been made on all operating systems, including UNIX, Windows XP, Mac OS, and Linux, and on firewalls, proxies, and gateways. Security expert John Chirillo is ready to tackle these attacks with you again. He has packed the Second Edition of his all-in-one reference with forty percent new material.
In this fascinating new edition, you'll discover:
* The hacker's perspective on security holes in UNIX, Linux, and Windows networks
* Over 170 new vulnerabilities and exploits
* Advanced discovery techniques
* A crash course in C for compiling hacker tools and vulnerability scanners
* The top seventy-five hack attacks for UNIX and Windows
* Malicious code coverage of Myparty, Goner, Sircam, BadTrans, Nimda, Code Red I/II, and many more
* TigerSuite Professional 3.5 (full suite single license)

Customer Reviews:

Expert Knowledge On Hacking Techniques.......2005-02-10

John Chirillo has made a career of hacking. As a hacking consultant to Fortune 1000 companies part of his job is to break in to corporate networks to expose their holes and help his clients secure their networks. In Hack Attacks Revealed, he shares his knowledge of how hackers gain the information necessary to break into your systems.

The book begins with a basic history and understanding of computer and networking technology. Mr. Chirillo covers the the protocols used and the purpose of the various ports used. The book also provides information on the scanning and network discovery tools used by hackers.

(...)

Author does not understand his subject.......2004-09-23

This book has done nothing to dispell my theory that the information
content of a book is often inversely proportional to the number of pages
in the book. I'm 200 pages into it and that's as far as I'm
going to get. I expected some basic filler/theory in the first few
pages, but plowed on in the hopes that the author understood
the theory he was presenting and would use it later to explain security
exploits. However, I lost all confidence in the book when
I reached page 167, where the author demonstrates that he doesn't
understand ping and/or DNS. I don't bring this up to nitpick. I bring it up
because I think that anybody with pretensions to
being a security expert had better know the basics of how the
Internet works. How is anybody to make sense of, say, DNS spoofing,
without knowing how DNS works?

In case it's not obvious, the author confuses and muddles together
the actions of resolving a DNS domain name to an IP
address, and then using that IP address to send an ICMP echo
request to the destination. This may seem like a minor thing,
but its not just a typo (he makes the same mistake in three
different places on page 167), and security is a confusing
enough business without muddled descriptions like these.

On a more minor note, I do not see the point in filling page
after page with pretty pictures of the GUIs that hackers use
at their end. The publishers probably know better than I do
what sells today, but I don't understand why they and/or the
authors apparently feel that the thicker a book is, the better.

Reluctant law abider.......2004-07-21

I was relieved to read that this isn't considered a very useful reference on How to Hack. Certainly Ch. seems at his most enthusiastic, frothiest, even foamiest, in talking about the wonderful world of hacking. Yeah, he repeatedly trots out the line about having to know how to attack to know how to defend, time after time, but ya' gotta' wonder where his heart lies (Okay, even Milton had this problem.)

And that certainly is irksome if you, like me, are one of the growing number of people who have reluctantly become 'security amateurs,' and find ourselves reading 900+ page books, due to invasion of our privacy by amateur criminals. Whatever its merits for security professionals, this is probably not the book for you. It assumes too much technical background and doesn't provide sufficient detail on implementing various solutions. True, this may be covered in more detail in his other book, but including that we're talking 1800 pages...

Editing would have helped, certainly. The 75 basic hack attacks are a useful overview on just how paranoid you should be, but the basic information about some of them is repeated up to 4 times, sometimes as boilerplate.

I have seen a few books more suitable for amateurs, but the truth is that they aren't detailed enough to be helpful. I think that the only real solution to the security problem in the IT industry is to wake up to the fact that caveat emptor, 'professional ethics,' and self-regulation isn't working any better there than in health and safety, restaurant sanitation, the stock market or...well, you work it out. As long as it is only sort of illegal to break into someone's house as long as you use a computer, most geeks will do it.

The ISPs aren't taking this seriously because they know people aren't much more likely to stop using e-mail than to stop using the phone, and most companiues were only kidding when they said they were interested in your problems.

Once there are some laws with real teeth and real fines and real jail time, those who aspire to the appearance of respectability will go back to their regularly scheduled activities including tale bearing, beating the old lady, bothering the women (men) at work just enough to stay on the right side of the law, bitching about how the old lady (old man) doesn't want to screw, kicking the dog, pulling the wings off flies, and complaining how much better everything was in the good old days.

Good Basics Forget About the Tools and Exploits.......2003-12-01

I bought the 4th edition of Hack Attacks Revealed. This whole genre seems to be drenched in hyperbole and once again the marketing machine seems to have invaded these pages. The book does have copious basic information. The Tiger Tools are a very sick joke with barely any functionality or worth. Someone really should sue. The exploit code, which is unusually copious for a work of this ilk, does not of course in the main part work and I found only a very few of the very most mundane code would compile under MinGW, Cygwin or Linux, even after downloading the libraries specifically recommended by the online support team at tigertools.com who, to be fair, were prompt in their reply. No manner or library-jiggling and simple repairs sufficed: you've really got to understand programming sockets in C or perl to fix the average exploit. The hype of the titles and cover blurbs for this kind of book increases every season but the delivery remains as lame as it always has been. For anyone serious about taking a practical look at hacking time spent at securityfocus.org, neworder.box.sk or similar is in my opinion much more rewarding.

Doesn't deliver what it promises..........2003-07-12

Reviewed: Hack Attacks Revealed, 2nd Edition, 2002

I must say I am thoroughly disappointed with this book. The book's description, as well as other readers' comments led me to believe that this book would have been more than just a compilation of information that could be freely obtained at the dozens of security related web sites. Sadly, this was not the case.

The bulk of the book merely describes (mostly outdated) common
attacks/vulnerabilities, without getting into much detail why they exist and the underlying explanations on how they are exploited. As such the book reads like "For Vulnerability X, Install patch Y" without getting into more detail. Heck, even Microsoft's Security Bulletins give more info that this!

Many of the "75 Top Hack Attacks" that the book promises can be freely found online (check CERT's site).

The general impression I get from reading this book is that the author tried his best to fill up space in order to deliver an impressively thick book. Was it a requirement that he include SCREENSHOTS of various hacking tools/trojans, including step-by-step INSTALL SCREENSHOTS for the included TigerSuite software? (If you don't know how to install software then you need to develop more skills before learning about hacking!). Did he HAVE to include the useless 10 year old 'how to build a modem filter' BBS textfile (which by the way doesn't filter noise on modern modems)? Did the publisher mandate that he include 9 PAGES of Decimal-to-Hex conversion tables when you could use, say, Windows Calculator to do any needed conversions?

Another thing I disliked was that Windows XP as well as Wireless networks (802.11/WEP were glossed over) were not really covered in the sort of detail that I desired.

And, although I appreciate that a basic understanding of the x86 instruction set is required for better understanding low level security issues, I really don't see the point to Chapter 13's discussion on programming "How to Draw Circles in DOS mode" using the VESA bios interface. This is, in my opinion, not relevant considering the book's topic, so why include it? (A better choice would be explaining how the stack is used in high level languages (C, C++) and how buffer overrun hacks work). If you want to learn C, Assembly, or graphics programming buy a book dedicated to these topics. I think it's safe to say that the average reader will NOT become a programmer after reading the "Crash course in C" - it's an unreaslistic expectation.

And to top it all off, the final insult to readers is the interruption of the author's hacking experience "Intuitive Intermission" with the phrase "... to be continued in: Hack Attacks Denied, 2nd Edition". I guess both the author and publisher want you to buy both books!

My chief complaint with the book is that it doesn't seem to know who the reader is. In some areas the author gets down-and-dirty technical (x86 assembly/C programming) while in others he doesn't really explain details or just mentions things in passing (case in point: nowhere does he explain workings of a typical buffer overrun exploit, etc). Also, the author really does not give advice on how to secure or harden systems, aside from "install the update patch". For a book whose focus is security/hacking that's a pretty fatal flaw.

Like I said earlier, this book really seems to me like the author just threw any material that he could find that was remotely related to hacking and presto, one hacking book ready to ship!

If you are new to either the computer or security-related fields then perhaps this book may be of some value to you. If you are not an absolute beginner and know how to search the web, then I'd say that you probably don't need this book. Even if you do buy this book, it, like any security related book, will become technically obsolete as new software/exploits/patches are found.

Quote: (under "Who should read this book?")

"The hacking enthusiast and admirer of such films as Sneakers, The Matrix, Hackers, and Swordfish"

If you still need another reason not to purchase this book, the above quote says it all!

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