The Right Way to Hire Financial Help - 2nd Ed.: A Complete Guide to Choosing and Managing Brokers, Financial Planners, Insurance Agents, Lawyers, Tax Preparers, Bankers, and Real Estate Agents

Average customer rating:

Needs better focus

Forces you to practice due diligence

From a Jaffe fan: This book is what we have come to expect

Lots of fluff

A lifesaver

The Right Way to Hire Financial Help - 2nd Ed.: A Complete Guide to Choosing and Managing Brokers, Financial Planners, Insurance Agents, Lawyers, Tax Preparers, Bankers, and Real Estate Agents
Charles A. Jaffe
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0262600439

Book Description

Hiring financial help is a task that many otherwise savvy people approach the wrong way, opting to go on recommendations from family and friends, chance encounters, or advertisements rather than on sound research. In engaging, accessible prose, nationally syndicated columnist Charles A. Jaffe takes the reader through the basics of how to locate appropriate candidates, understand their credentials, check references, conduct initial interviews, maintain control of the relationships and one's finances, and fire an adviser who is not working out.

The book contains guidance on hiring and checking the backgrounds of seven types of advisers--brokers, financial planners, insurance agents, lawyers, tax preparers, bankers, and real estate agents--as well as specific questions to ask to determine whether an adviser is a good, qualified match. In addition the book offers guidance on how to help the advisers function as a team. The author's aim is to help the reader assemble and manage a pool of advisers to serve every major financial need for the rest of his or her lifetime. This new edition has been updated throughout. It includes , hundreds of Web addresses and an online resources directory. Two new chapters discuss online advice services and how to choose an online broker.

Customer Reviews:

Needs better focus.......2003-06-24

A previous reviewer who accused the book of having too much fluff is, unfortunately, only slightly exaggerating. If the author had taken the time to tighten up the book and used only half as many words as he did, the resulting book would have been first rate useful. As it is, the book is a serious test of one's patience and concentration. The ideas are very reasonable, but the reader has to struggle to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Forces you to practice due diligence.......2001-04-27

Some people might think that Jaffe's book is obvious. But what's obvious to some may be revolutionary and important to others.

The book outlines questions that should be asked of any financial proessionals one is considering hiring, and suggests interviewing at least three of each type of adviser to learn differences and to become comfortable.

Jaffe's advice is so good that it is almost impossible not to gain many times the cost of the book in better financial planning and better peace of mind that one has proceeded with due diligence.

From a Jaffe fan: This book is what we have come to expect.......2000-08-27

I read Mr. Jaffe's column every week in the Boston Globe and bought this book after hearing him talk on this subject atthe Globe's personal finance conference (he autographed the book for me).

This book gave me exactly what I have come to expect from Mr. Jaffe: Clear, insightful, unafraid commentary that helped give me the courage to go through with choosing a financial planner. I learned which questions to ask, and I took the book with me and asked those questions. And while it's early to tell (Mr. Jaffe says all the time that anything less than one year is not really long enough to judge), I am happy with my financial planner and expect to stay that way for a long time.

As for the reviewer who thought this book was redundant, he must have skipped the introduction. That's where Mr. Jaffe explains why parts of the book are redundant and advises more knowledgeable investors to skip the parts that they don't need.

If you do that, this book will give you exactly what you need. It certainly did for me.

Lots of fluff.......1999-12-30

As with many books these days, the author seems to have been desparately trying for the maximum number of pages as his primary goal. Large margins, explaining the obvious, repetition, unnecessary quotes, all add up to a book that's only about 25% actual content. If this book was 75% shorter, I'd give it two, maybe three stars. But most of the useful info in this book could be found on the web. A shorter book might have been worthwhile to avoid having to search for it on the web, but having to wade through all the fluff negates this potential benefit.

A lifesaver.......1999-03-03

I had worked with financial planners befor but I was never comfortible. Then I read about this book in the local paper. I bought it. I used it. I just hired a planner, and this time I am comfortible. This book is the reason. I recomend it!

Average customer rating:

The Right Way to Hire Financial Help
Charles A. Jaffe
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQGJGO

The Right Way to Hire Financial Help - 2nd Ed.: A Complete Guide to Choosing and Managing Brokers, Financial Planners, Insurance Agents, Lawyers, Tax

Average customer rating:

The Right Way to Hire Financial Help - 2nd Ed.: A Complete Guide to Choosing and Managing Brokers, Financial Planners, Insurance Agents, Lawyers, Tax
Charles A. Jaffe
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OR8VYQ

Book Description

Offering accumulated observations of interviews with hundreds of job candidates, these books provide useful insights into which characteristics make a good IT professional. These handy guides each have a complete set of job interview questions and provide a practical method for accurately assessing the technical abilities of job candidates. The personality characteristics of successful IT professionals are listed and tips for identifying candidates with the right demeanor are included. Methods for evaluating academic and work histories are described as well.

Customer Reviews:

Horrible.......2007-08-07

This narrow minded, interrogation oriented guide is simply horrible. The only person to recommend this to is the job seeker -- to prepare you for the more mean spirited interviews. My advice would be to walk away, but if you really want the job, then awareness of this sort of interview practice might help you get hired.

As another reviewer observed, if companies really do follow this sort of advice, then they deserve the people they hire. Now, some companies may want a team of willing white shirts with heads full of programming language details. If you're one of those, buy the book. However, note that ascertaining real competence, creativity and aptitude take a back seat here; it's form over substance.

When I think about the very best "techies" I've hired and worked with over the past 30 years, many would not successfully pass an interview process modelled after the advice in this book. Unbelievable. The credentials for the author to write this book, as far as I can tell, are these: IT executive and horse trainer. I rest my case.

abysmal.......2007-01-14

I often interview programmer candidates, so I bought this book to calibrate my interviewing style and skills. I am appalled at the advice in the book -- I guess I should hope other firms do interview this way, so they'll gather the programmers I definitely don't want and leave the good ones for me.

Besides the defects other reviews have already mentioned (in this day and age, if you only hire candidates who show up in suit&tie as this book recommends, you'll end up missing many of the best techies!), some parts are positively creepy -- e.g., under "Gleaning Demographics" it claims that, while some questions are illegal, you should still slily ask questions to hiddenly gather that kind of information, since aspects such as whether the candidate has small kids (illegal to ask about that) should "factor strongly into a hiring decisions" -- so, ask what the candidate does to relax, that will dupe them into revealing whether they have a family.

Disgusting, really, and I find myself hoping somebody ends up in lots of trouble for practicing such weaselly duplicity -- meanwhile, all I can recommend to anybody but outright weasels is to carefully avoid this horrible book.

Nice to have book - If you need quick questions on C++ and Oracle.......2006-11-08

This book certainly helps managers interviewing programmers who claim expertise with many languages. If you own a J2EE shop and looking for Oracle and C++ expertise and need tough questions to ask....the questions prescribed in this book is good. Also note, this book does'nt help you as a reference for any other practical use of those languages.

Another Good Interview Guide.......2006-09-01

This is another good book in the Job Interview series from Rampant. As with the other books, this book gives both the employer and the candidate guidance in areas such as work experience, personal appearance and education.

The questions that are provided in the book give a good base for the employer to ask the candidate. Of course, each company will need to modify or use only the questions that they will need.

I would recommended this book to any employer or candidate seeking a programming job in one of the languages covered.

too general to be useful.......2006-02-16

The advice on interviewing is very general and can be found to the same detail with google. The advice is all useful, but it's not worth the price and the style is a little goofy for what I expected to be a more professional book.

The technical interview questions are atrocious. As others have commented, the "easy" questions are useful (e.g. how do you indicate comments?) and some of the solutions to the "hard" questions are incorrect (e.g. they try to illustrate a common C pointer bug in correctly written code).

The book just lacks content.

Book Description

Make each night a meaningful stargazing experience with A Walk Through the Southern Sky. This ultimate guide to the heavens takes the guesswork out of identifying constellations and fosters appreciation of their beauty and significance. All you need are your eyes; this trusty volume takes care of the rest. This volume brings to stargazers in the Southern hemisphere the same insightful coverage and accessibility that Heifetz and Tirion's previous volume--A Walk Through the Heavens--did for those up North. Its unique, simplified maps not only make constellations easy to find but also help locate the stars within them. Without having to use a telescope or other astronomical equipment, readers can gauge the sizes and separations between constellations, and easily move from one to the other, by simply following the book's clear instructions. In addition, the ancient myths and legends surrounding the constellations, are retold, providing a rich historical prespective. Beautifully illustrated by Wil Tirion, this is an ideal introduction to launch the novice astronomer on a journey across the starlit skies.

Customer Reviews:

Take this one with you.......2005-09-29

I take a trip to the Southern Hemisphere on occasion and have been looking for a good compact guide to bring along with me. I find the simplified star charts really useful to get myself quickly oriented. I don't need a full blown super detailed star atlas with all kinds of unnecessary detail and clutter that I'm unable to use, and this one fits the bill in that respect.

It also covers basic mythology of the Southern Skies and makes an excellent companion to it's sister work on the Northern Skies.

If your more interested in deep sky objects of the Southern skies you'd be better off looking elsewhere as this book only lightly discusses DSO's.

Learning the Southern Sky.......2001-04-10

After deciding to go into the Observational Astronomy hobby, I have been denying experts' advise for months. Although being almost a rookie, "start with a pair of binoculars", "plan your session ahead" and so on seemed trivial to me. This book helps the reader to solve which is probably the very first lesson to begin with: "learn the sky". In addition to that, it is dedicated to the Southern Hemisphere, trascendental for those who live "below" the equator. "A walk through the Southern Sky" easily and friendly explains how to reach minor constellations starting at the major ones. From Orion and Canis Major, precise highways are traced to reach Canis Minor, Cancer, Lepus and so on. From Crux and Centauri, to Vela and so on. I had started with a friend's computerized scope, and always thought that "starhopping" would be imposible for me under light-polluted skies. Probably one of the major goals of the authors is having proved me wrong. Again, if I could, anybody can!

Book Description

Uses the classical (phenomenological) approach to thermodynamics as opposed to the statistical. Applies theory to chemical, biological and geological problems. Provides complete coverage of essential mathematical tools and computational techniques. This edition contains new chapters on thermodynamics of the electrochemical cell, Eh/pH diagrams, a revised chapter on estimation of thermodynamic properties plus treatment of the latest work in electrolyte solutions. Additional problems reflect new applications.

Customer Reviews:

A introductory text for chemists, biologists and geologist.......2001-02-23

This textbook presented the classical approach to thermodynamic theory of equilibrium and excluded the statistical viewpoint.

I. M. Klotz and R. M. Rosenberg focussed their "Chemical thermodynamics" for the chemistry student, although some applications in geology and biology are also taught.

The chapter of mathematical preparation is straightforward and perfectly complemented by the analytical and graphical mathematical techniques shown in chapter twenty-three.

I hope that the reader agrees with me in that the Klotz and Rosenberg's discussion of enthalpy and enthalpy of reaction is excellent.

In the subsequent pages we find topics in ideal and real gases, Gibbs free energy, useful work, phase transitions, chemical potential, the second and third laws and non-electrolyte solutions.

Finally, it should be emphasized that the treatment of electrolyte solutions has been updated.

Book Description

The Beginner Books -- "Their cartoon format and irreverent wit make difficult ideas accessible and entertaining."

-- Newsday

aking us through the upheavals in biological thought which made The Origins of Species possible, Jonathan Miller introduces us to that odd revolutionary, Charles Darwin -- a remarkably timid man who spent most of his life in seclusion; a semi-invalid riddled with doubts, fearing the controversy his theories might unleash; yet also the man who finally undermined belief in God's creation. Along the way we meet a fascinating cast of characters: Darwin's scientific predecessors, his contemporaries (including Alfred Russell Wallace, whose anticipation of natural selection forced Darwin to publish), his opponents, and his successors whose work in modern genetics provided necessary modifications to Darwin's own work.

Splendidly illustrated, this clever, witty, highly informative book is the perfect introduction to Darwin's life and thought.

Customer Reviews:

BACKGROUND AND BASIS (THE EVOLUTION OF EVOLUTION).......2005-12-21

Basic facts on how religious creationism developed bit by bit into more falsifiable methods. Good for a high school senior to a college undergrad.
This book is not for kids nor for people with no knowledge of Darwin whatsoever. It is ONLY for those interested in scant tidbits of how his theories accreted (historcal context). The text can be confusing, alternating between pure sarcasm and bland fact so it might do not much but muddle an amateur.

Fun to read.......2002-08-29

This is a great lightweight book on Darwin's life and the development of the idea of evolution. Though it would be a shame to stop an exploration of natural selection here, it's a great starting point because it provides the context in which Darwin's thoughts came to be. It also discusses objections and criticisms of natural selection, how it has been misunderstood and abused, and how Darwin himself treated problematic aspects of the theory. I don't know that the illustrations and such are very revealing or useful, but they definitely make the book easy and fun to read, though the last few pages become more text-based. Overall, it's a well executed introduction to a very influential and oft misinterpreted person. But though this book is for beginners, please don't stay one... go and read "Origin of Species."

Accurate, clever, well done.......2000-07-12

This lively, clever, humorous little book IS accurate -- "scientifically correct," in the words of Dr. Tim M. Berra of Ohio State University (author of "Evolution and the Myth of Creationism," 1990, Stanford University Press). I agree with him that it would be a great gift for students to give to their parents to help them understand evolution. The illustrations, many of which are worth a thousand words, are at once engaging, informative, and great fun. Solid history and science in superlative format.

The best introduction to Darwinism you can buy.......1998-07-17

An illustrated narrative tells, all too briefly, the story of Darwin the man and his revolutionary discovery of how the living world came to be. Thanks to its amusing, but informative, cartoon style exegesis, this little gem is a uniquely powerful antidote to creationist propaganda in the classroom. The best introduction to Darwin and his ideas you're likely to see.

Fatuous and grossly inaccurate.......1998-07-02

It is a great shame the authors ruined such a good idea by doing no historical research. It is quite clear that the authors are ignorant of the wealth of research produced by the Darwin industry and of course the Correspondence of Charles Darwin. I could spend a long time doing a hatchet job on the book but I prefer to spend my time going to Snowdonia and walk over the mountains Darwin did his geology and read his geological notes where he wrote them. In all a silly book on a great scientist.. We desperately need a good simple book on Darwin, which avoids all the hype and inaccuracy

Casino Gambling For The Clueless: A Beginner's Guide to Playing and Winning (The Clueless Guides)

Average customer rating:

Fantastic - start to finish
Don't Bother
Clueless no longer!!!

Casino Gambling For The Clueless: A Beginner's Guide to Playing and Winning (The Clueless Guides)
Darwin Ortiz
Manufacturer: Lyle Stuart
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Accessories:

Hoyle Casino

ASIN: 0818406097

Book Description

Now anyone can learn how to win more money and have more fun at the gambling tables and slot machines. This handy and authoritative guide to blackjack, craps, roulette, keno, baccarat, and slot machines can turn a beginner into someone who plays like a pro. With a discussion of each game's rules, pitfalls, winning strategies, terminology, and variations, plus inside information on how a casino is run and tips on how to make the most of your time there, this is an indispensable guide for every gambler, from the most casual to the highest roller.

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic - start to finish.......2004-12-24

This book is purely fantastic from start to finish. The author clearly speaks from experience and explains the very basics of casino gambling AND builds on the basics by giving practical advanced techniques. Best of all, this book is a fun read! (not at all what I expected). You'll want to keep reading and you'll want to head straight to Vegas when you're done.
After reading this book, I was more knowledgable than, literally, all my Vegas-regular friends.

Be sure to check out the sections on Black Jack and Craps!

Don't Bother.......2003-10-29

Learning how to actually play the games is all you need to know. Why waste money on this book when you can waste it in Vegas? There is no magick you will be given by this book to make you win every game you play. Don't waste you stupid time!

Clueless no longer!!!.......1999-07-09

Don't confuse this book with the multiplying "Complete Idiots" and "Dummies" guides currently flooding the market. Darwin Ortiz's take on the ins and outs of popular casio games is highly readable in the best "you are there" style. He completely demystifies table games for people like myself who may have seen scared away from plucking down our chips due to the mistaken belief that you have to be a math whiz to figure out Craps. With the skill of travel writer who daps about plenty of color, Ortiz repeatedly hammers home that most casinos offer exotic bets that are a complete waste of your wallet. Just skip the bells and whistles and play to form. While the book is lacking in illustrations, each chapter consistantly does the job of taking you from Vegas chump to wordly shark (or the belief thereof).

Average customer rating:

Darwin's Family Tree (Wild Thornberrys)
Kim Ostrow , and Thompson Bros.
Manufacturer: Simon Spotlight/Nickelodeon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Action & Adventure | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Humorous | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Popular Culture | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Book Description

When Eliza and Darwin meet a lemur on the island of Madagascar, Darwin is sure he's found his long-lost cousin. Darwin and his new friend plan to stick together forever. But when Eliza discovers that lemurs are endangered, she realizes they'll have to leave without the lemur -- or maybe without Darwin!

Average customer rating:
Organ Studies for the Beginner
Darwin Wolford
Manufacturer: Harold Flammer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Sheet music
ASIN: B000JHS2HM

Average customer rating:
DARWIN FOR BEGINNERS
JONATHAN MILLER
Manufacturer: ICON BOOKS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000SIJZWI

Average customer rating:
Darwin for Beginners
Jonathan Miller
Manufacturer: Pantheon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OXNFQO

Book Description

During the last two decades the theory of ion-atom collisons, and particularly of charge-exchange reactions has advanced rapidly to the point where existing texts are no longer suitable as an introduction to the subject. This book aims to remedy the situation by providing an account of modern theoretical methods used to study the interaction of positive ions with atoms (or ions), concentrating particularly on charge exchange reactions. These reactions cannot be studied in isolation, and it is necessary to consider, to some extent, the whole range of ion-atom collisions leading to elastic scattering, excitation, and ionization. The material is presented at a level suitable for beginning research students and is self-contained, but assumes a knowledge of undergraduate quantum mechanics and atomic physics. It should also be useful for experimentalists who wish to assess the status of theoretical treatments of those collision processes in which they are interested.

Charge Exchange and the Theory of Ion-Atom Collisions

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Charge Exchange and the Theory of Ion-Atom Collisions
B. H. Bransden
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press(UK)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OLMJ6I

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