No comments about Electrical Safety Engineering.

2 comments about Pro Engineer-Wildfire Instructor.

1. The book explains the mechanics of how to perform basic operations with Wildfire very well, in the first half of the book. However, more complex or higher level operations are sometimes inaccurate, having incorrect or missing steps, or poorly explained in later chapters. This includes some of what the book refers to as advanced drawing and modeling tools. It is quite frustrating to follow the directions given in the text only to find the software does not perform the task as described. In addition, the text gives no clue how to recover from mistakes. Thus, the user is often forced to closeout of the model/drawing completely and start from scratch, or the last save, assuming the application has not locked-up the computer. There is no coverage of sheetmetal modeling techniques, either.
   It would appear the author either wrote the book based on an earlier release of Wildfire, or based it on Pro-E 2001. In any case, the GUI's in some cases do not look the same as shown in the text and the selectable choices are not always as described in the book.
   Finally, Kelley/McGraw-Hill provide downloadable models and drawings that are useful at the noted website. However, there is no errata, or update posted for the book and no contact for Kelley.
   Bottomline: Assuming better alternatives exist, it is a questionable purchase for novices wanting to learn Wildfire 2.0 or later.



2. This book is the biggest load of donkey excrement I have ever had the displeasure to lay my eyes on. I am a computer scientist, so I'm used to reading some pretty crappy documentation, but the only thing less informative and useful than this book was the help file that comes with the application.
   
   The only use I can think of for this book is hurling it at the author in a really violent way.

No comments about Architectural Study Drawings.

1 comments about AutoCAD 2008 Fundamentals.

1. This book is great for anyone wanting to learn AutoCAD. It is easy to follow and very informative.

1 comments about Bio-Architecture, First Edition.

1. I paid rather a lot for this slim volume, and am very dissatisfied with it. Firstly, the content. The language is pompous and peppered with annoying quotations intended to support the author in making a point. Occasionally, the link between text and quotation is so tenuous that the inclusion of a comment is baffling. There is lots of pompous waffle, self-evident observations, and meaningless statements, not to mention some very involved (and hugely patronising) schematics supposed to elucidate the design process. The poor quality of the translation may not help (see below), but Senosiain is the offender here.
   
   Furthermore, Senosiain makes a number of completely unsubstantiated comments, e.g. p. 73 "The Tower of Babel was built with clay approximately 27,000 years ago." There is no conclusive evidence to support this claim, and one wonders how many other comments show a similar disregard for scientific rigour. He also fails to engage with the (increasingly important) need for ecologically-friendly building to a satisfactory extent.
   
   Many of the images (e.g. Fig 1.52 on page 42) appear to have been scanned and then enlarged with all the loss of resolution one might expect from such a process. This detracts hugely from a book which, like other architectural works, relies heavily on images to make a point.
   
   The translation is atrocious. This may occasionally add to the impression of patronising pomposity (e.g. "savage beasts" used in preference to the more usual "wild animals" on page 76). In other places, no attempt has been made at translation at all. The Dogon people of Mali and Burkina Faso are referred to using the Spanish plural "Dogones" (p. 72), not usual in English. Similarly, the "nuraghe" (usual use in English of the Italian plural of singular "nuraga") structures of Sardinia are referred to using the Hispanicised plural "nuragas" (p. 78).
   
   Even worse, the same section on page 78 refers to the location of the "nuragas" as being in "Cerdeña". It was only a fleeting knowldege of Spanish coupled with an acquaintance with the "nuraghe" as structures which enabled me to work out that "Cerdeña" is the un-translated Spanish word for Sardinia. Why has this word escaped translation?
   
   As a final example of the poor quality of the translation, the work uses the word "Eskimo", long ago discarded in English language material in favour of the ethonym "Inuit" because of the racist connotations of "Eskimo". It means "raw flesh eater", and was applied to the Inuit in a derogatory fashion by neighbouring tribes. This again shows the lack of linguistic sensitivity which pervades the translation. This is totally and utterly unnecessary. The translator seems to have had little grasp of the subject, or even of the process of Spanish-English translation.
   
   In my estimation, the book seriously undermines the reputation of Elsevier for quality publications. It suggests a lack of rigour in the selection and assessment of the translator. Coupled with the image resolution problems referred to above, the whole thing smacks of total disregard for the reader.

No comments about AutoCad 2009 Instructor.

No comments about AutoCAD 2007 Tutorial, First Level: 2D Fundamentals.

No comments about Practical AutoCAD 2007 with Cd.

No comments about Understanding Architectural Drawings: A Guide for Non-Architects.

No comments about 3D Studio Architectural Rendering.