5 comments about House Thinking: A Room-by-Room Look at How We Live (P.S.).

1. This book reminds me of those stands at farmer's markets where someone with a passion for knitting has decided to sell all their crafts. It isn't really a piece of art, nor is it anything with substance. You buy the craft simply to take it home, to enjoy it and move on.
   
   Such is this book. It is non-threatening, direct in its look at houses. I read this book as a Canadian so I quickly got the hint that the 'we' in the subtitle implies 'We as Americans'. And so it is. This book is written by an American for Americans about the American house. Gallagher traces the history of the rooms of house-life, circumventing the terrain of Anglo-Saxon fame - frequent mention of Britain and the Victorian home. Again, because the 'we' implies American, there is no real look at the homes and rooms of other nations. There are passing glances but the focus is entirely US of A.
   
   There is nothing critical to this book. Gallagher writes the kind of book that would never actually say something offensive - when she talks about McMansions and such, she never 'actually' offers us her opinions (if she has any) on their crudeness and impact on the environment (because she wouldn't want to offend potential upper-middle class buyers of her book). It is like reading a commentary without the human element. The book is like a digestive cookie in this sense. Palatable but nearly tasteless.
   
   There are no pictures so when she mentions Monticello in Virginia, the reader must either dig up an old art history class memory of architectural slides or either go to the website page at the back of the book and look up the URL. (The lack of pictures also makes the book feel unfinished and unpolished. A book that discusses the layouts, presentation, contours of rooms without pictures - it would be like writing an art history book without prints of famous art.)
   
   I read The Power of Place (a much better read) recently and I found the same kind of easy-to-digest reading. Gallagher writes about the house,the various rooms of the house and we know what she's talking about, but it's like the rest of the world doesn't exist and her 'home' is in a complacent universe. If life was like a sitcom, then maybe this book would be 100% non-fiction.



2. Don't get me wrong. Despite my low rating, this is a worthwhile book, because it gets one thinking. But the author never reaches a conclusion of her own, and there is no single theme to the entire book, which gives the book a rough draft sort of feeling. The author did an impressive amount of research, and brings to our attention many famous houses, and the architects and owners responsible for such interesting abodes, revealing just a tiny glimmer of the "house thinking" that went into each living environment. Even just a few carefully selected photos would have gone a long way toward illustrating the "house thinking" expressed by each example. Instead, we are left with an extensive list of books and websites -- the start of our own research, if we wish to take up the task.
   
   This book did not hand me fully-formed ideas on a silver platter, but instead gave me insight into a way of thinking about the history of the modern home. I never realized how much the past continues to influence the present layout of rooms, and shapes our expectations about how we are supposed to use each of those rooms. There is a weak thread running through the book. The author is pointing out that we are still being influenced by the past. If we can develop a sort of psychological awareness, we might break free of the historical conventions and expectations that clash with our modern needs on an unconscious level. Sprinkled throughout the book is another thin thread: that we are being influenced in very subtle ways by the sights, sounds, smells, and other sensory input from our rooms. We might not be consciously aware of these tiny influences until we stop looking at our rooms with the eye of an interior decorator. We need to look past the surface and feel the room from an emotional perspective. Isn't it attention to detail that makes a house into a comfortable, welcoming home? This book might get you thinking in the right direction.



3. I found the basic concept of this book to be fascinating. The author takes on the task of walking us through each room in the traditional American house and analyzing not the furniture and decor, but the life and psychology of each. The result should be a series of insights into how we can design our living spaces to support and even create behaviors that are beneficial to us. And in some cases, this is what we get. But all too often - indeed, for the majority of the book - Gallagher seems to veer off course and talk about the history and sociology associated with each room. While this is an interesting topic in and of itself, the lack of a consistent method from room to room can be both confusing and distracting. As an example, here are the approaches taken for two rooms: For the section on the living room, the author describes the psychology of refuge and prospect in a way that is potentially useful for anyone trying to figure out why their house does not seem to offer them the feeling of comfort and belonging they would like. For the section on the kitchen, we are treated to the historical background of women's literal place in the home, and the way the kitchen has evolved with and contributed to the feminist movement. Both sections are well written and interesting, but only the first supported my goal of learning how to create a comfortable home.
   
   This lack of of focus cripples what could have been both a very readable and very useful book. As it is, while "House Thinking" is still well worth reading, it will not be a book that earns a place of honor in your library. Or your living room. Or bedroom.



4. I work with architects & interior designers every day to design commerical space, so I'm familiar with the ideas the author was trying to communicate. The concept of how we live in our homes and how design has evolved in America and throughout the world is fascinating. The author has done a tremendous amount of research. At the end of the book I was left feeling like I'd read a draft of someone's doctoral dissertation, with a lot of editing still to be done. As others have mentioned, the lack of pictures and illustrations is a huge oversight. Even for those of us familiar with design concepts & nomenclature, it is nearly impossible to wade through the descriptions given--I felt like I was being tested to translate her observations into a vision that reconciled to her conclusions. Furthermore, I think the organization of the book, a room-by-room analysis of how design has evolved, although logical in approach--did not mesh well with what the author was trying to communicate. She would often go off on a tangent siting research, trends throughout history and psychological implications that may have applied to the "room" in question, but were often as relevant or irrelevant to any other room, yard or community she might have chosen to elaborate on.
   
   This might be a good book to introduce the evolution of design to someone with little prior knowledge (which is why I'm generous in providing 2 stars); especially at the current bargain prices on Amazon. Otherwise, I'd recommend passing this one by.



5. Enjoyed this book a lot though it is not a "decorating book" in the usual sense. I agree pictures would have been a delightful addition but I can see how it would have increased the costs and size of the book too much to be affordable. I found the insights into how our home spaces have evolved over time, and why we use them the way we do to be very entertaining. This book helps you think about how you use your space, and what feels good and right to you so your choices in decorating, remodeling or purchasing a home can be more deliberate. (You may actually understand why you fell in love with a house, or one room just feels so good, and another so bad!) It is easy to read and so entertaining, I hated to put it down.

No comments about Architects Draw: Freehand Fundamentals (Architecture Briefs).

4 comments about AutoCAD 2006 VBA: A Programmer's Reference.

1. By far the best AutoCAD VBA book around. I've purchased several books on this subject and this is the one that I turn to when I have a real problem. I'm a VBA hack and the examples in this book have been enough to help me solve every problem that I've had. I would recommend this book to anyone. My only problem with this book is that it hasn't been upgraded to the latest version of Acad.



2. Joe once again did an outsdanding job of breaking things down and organizing them to make this a fantastic reference. Many readers don't pay attention to "Reference" in the title, which is exactly what this is. It's not a cook book or tutorial book, it's a VBA reference for AutoCAD. If you plan on writing VBA code for AutoCAD, you need this book.



3. This book contains everything you need to know about AutoCAD VBA and then 10x more! I was looking for a simple guide to AutoCAD VBA syntax. This book isn't quite written for simple little utility type apps, but more for big-picture drawing automation. But given the uber-complicated nature of AutoCAD VBA, Sutphin did a GREAT job. I wish I had more time so I could follow him along for all 700 pages.
   
   I wouldn't quite recommend it for newbies personally, but if you have VBA experience, you'll be okay.



4. An excellent and comprehesinve reference book for both non-programmer and programmer alike.

2 comments about Introduction to MathCAD 13 (2nd Edition) (ESource Series).

1. This book couldn't be more useless than it is. It goes through only the most basic functions of Mathcad and if you have used this program for more than a month or 2 there is going to be little here to boost your skill set. It is written more like a text book, with homework problems and everything, than a reference book.
   
   This program is BARELY supported by Mathworks as it is and as such not a whole lot of people use it, though I love it for semiconductor work due to pretty print. There aren't alot of books out there on Mathcad so good luck struggling through the more complex tasks in Mathcad because this book won't help you much.



2. This book does a nice job of filling in where the built-in help of Mathcad falls short, being full of examples and explanations. At $41, it's a bit pricey, though. The evaluation disk is good for 120 days, long enough so the user will know whether or not the program is worth buying at the commercial level.
   
   As for the program, Mathcad does a fine job if units based, what-you-see-is-what-you-get documentation is needed. For instance, it beats the heck out of using Excel, as "pretty print" typeset math is easily inserted, along with superb plotting. Documents made with it are professional looking and all calculations are easily shown with textbook quality fonts.
   
   However, the program is lacking in symbolic commands. The most glaring of these is the lack of a symbolic differential equation solver. The symbolic capability of Mathcad comes from a subset of the Maple kernel. Why the folks at Mathcad decided not to include the dsolve() command from Maple is puzzling. Other good math programs, Derive, Maple, Mathematica, Mupad... have both numeric and symbolic differential equation solvers.

No comments about Sustainable Healthcare Architecture.

4 comments about Structure as Architecture: A Source Book for Architects and Structural Engineers.

1. If architecture is viewed as ideas of establishing different relationships between people and space, then structure is the first step to achieve these relationship in reality. How do we appropriately use different structure elements in reality, what kind of architectural effects will them create? These questions are answered in Andrew W.Charleson's book 'Structure as architecture'. The book is divided into chapters such as function/exterior/interior of buildings,structural detailing, light and structures and so on, which are discussed from both theoretical and practical approach. With enormous amount of first hand photo illustrations, the book also gives a comprehensive visual case studies to the reader. It is enjoyable to read and I recommend this stunning book to all architectural, building science students as well as architects and engineers in practice.



2. Although Architecture and Engineering are really only different sides of the same coin, they are often treated in completely different ways. Certainly they are normally approached from different directions. Charleson's book addresses this lack of continuity, and reduces structural diagrams down to a simple level (good for architecture students) as well as opening up the ideas of light and air and structure to thoseof a more engineering bent... And from all accounts he's a pretty inspirational lecturer as well, with the students fizzing away with excitement.
   
   End result: if you are a student of Architecture or Engineering, then rush out and buy this book. Invaluable source of knowledge - guaranteed to help you through those exams...



3. As per name, this book provides an excellent reference to building structures that expresses its architectural ideas. The book is well written and provides examples from around the world! ^_^



4. I am a student studying architecture, and have found this book to be a very useful reference.
   
   The first time I used it, I was looking for specific examples of "expressive" architecture. In the index, I found a long list of qualities such as "grounded", "light", "dynamic" etc. with references to pages illustrating specific projects whose structure has those qualities. The clear, full colour photos really help you get the feel of the buildings.
   
   I don't know of any other book that I could have looked to for that purpose. Of course, the content is useful for numerous other reasons as well.

2 comments about Urban Design: A typology of Procedures and Products. Illustrated with over 50 Case Studies.

1. This is not a comprehensive book on the field of Urban Design. Although this is obvious from the subtitle one is left with dissapointment. Aside from an interesting collection of cases studies you really don't get the complexity and timeless cross-section of this field that is having a renaissance now. None of the current trends are mentioned nor do they get any strong coverage (new urbanism/trasnurbanism/reurbanism/everyday urbanism/splintered urbanism/complexity urbanism) nor does the historical element comes through. Generaly good written book but too much of a sallad bowl without a proper structure and philosophy. Not a good tool for teaching. If you want top of the pops book in this field go to D.Grahame Shane's Recombinant Urbanism. For me it was astonishing how little space was given to new urbanism, the leading urban design theory and practice today.



2. A spectacular book. Lang explains all the design process of the urban environment within USA in this century. What had going wrong and why. See also how a close relationship between designers and its clients can improve design quality and what sort of human needs can be fulfilled by the built environment. A book not only for urban designers but for all people related with the designing process from interiors designers to landscape architects.

4 comments about Security+Fast Pass.

1. I used this book as a secondary book, to review my knowledge 2 days before the exam, I pass the test with the help from newhorizon, ALL-IN-ONE and this book.
   
   In my opinion, this book is written very well with easy to understand writing style as well, the explanations are very concise and clear.
   
   I will give 5 stars if this book has better practice exams, the questions presented by this book are not enough and mostly just require you to memorize the material in order to answer that correctly instead of fully understanding that.
   
   Another thing that bothered me was a question on how to remove broadcast storm, the answer from this book is by creating vlan, I think that the one that remove broadcast storm is STP (correct me if i am wrong) and moreover the author didn't mention anything about broadcast storm in his discussion about switch.
   
   The other things are just good, I would recommend everyone to use this book combined WITH OTHER BOOK as well.



2. This is an easy book to read to get a baseline 60% of what you need to pass Security+. I passed the 100 question Security+ test today. I recommend this cost effective book to start. My most valuable assets were measureup.com and filling in the holes of my knowledge with up date material and research. I dont think there is a two book set to help you pass this test. Spend your money on transcenders and measureup and fill in from there.



3. I beg to differ with the review posted on 11/13/2004 from a D. Duffy. I am the author of the Security+ Fast Pass book. I have reviewed the content and double checked my original sources, the sources listed by D. Duffy, and a few additional sources. The information about asymmetric cryptography and public key cryptography in the Security+ Fast Pass book is correct and in-line with all widely recognized and authoritative texts on the subject.
   
   If by "wrong" D. Duffy means that I did not fully explain the entire concept nor went into mathematical detail about the algorithms involved or the software code used for implementation - then I didn't. This book is about learning the facts and details related to the Security+ exam. While some background and supporting documentation is needed in general and is provided in this text, the book's design purposely focuses only on the material essential for the exam.
   
   I would like D. Duffy to respond to me directly the contact or support links at www.sybex.com. Please indicate exactly what you find incorrect and where you have found contradictory data. Please provide page numbers and ISBNs.
   
   Thank you.
   -James Michael Stewart



4. I passed the test with a 836. This is midway between the passing cutoff (764) and the maximum score (900).
   
   I used FastPass as a quick review before taking the test. If you are new to InfoSec, as I was, read a full study guide first.
   The one I used was "Security+ Study Guide, 2nd Edition" published by Sybex 2004, ISBN 0-7821-4350-4. This book is on CompTIA's Authorized Quality Curriculum list for this test and it deserves to be.
   
   If you are a seasoned InfoSec pro FastPass may be all you need to pass the test. One caution: FastPass gets asymmetric cryptology and public/private keys wrong (the Study Guide gets it right; also goto rsalabs.com and click Crypto FAQ).
   
   Read my Amazon review on the "Security+ Study Guide, 2nd Edition" mentioned above.
   
   D. Duffy, MBA, CNE, MCSE, ASE, CCNA, CCDA, A+

No comments about Mastering Revit Structure 2009 (Mastering).

5 comments about AutoCAD 2006 and AutoCAD LT 2006 Bible.

1. This book really help me turn the corner in switching from AutoCad2000
   to AutoCad 2006



2. I have used Autocad and Autocad LT in the past and needed a refresher for the newer version of Autocad LT. This book makes you have to sift out Autocad from Autocad LT. I would much have preferred a two part book. One part dedicated to each. I hope you will find a college or junior college facility that has a good textbook for the Autocad series. I know people do not like to read negative reviews. I just want you to know I believe you can find a better book somewhere. By the way I gave up on Autocad Lt as the revised software has become very unfriendly compared to past versions which in my opinion were more user-friendly. I now do my architectural designs manually again. I have purchased TurboCad and will try to learn it.



3. I've been using AutoCAD for years and everytime they come out with a new version, I buy this book to refer to to find out how to do the things the new version does. I buy this book to get to the odd and unusual commands that AutoCAD always seems to come up with and I use the dummies books for a quick reference.



4. Was delivered very quickly. Brand new with everything in tact. Completely satisfied with the purchase.



5. I find what I need. I am a senior project manager / architect who uses the latest CAD every day.
   If you're new to CAD, buy David Frey's "No experience required", you'll learn with pleasure, fast, and more than most of your co-workers'll ever know. Otherwise, buy Finkelstein.