Reviews (4)

Great Machine Learning Overview Book
I have a little knowledge about some areas of Machine Learning; I have found this book to be a very useful reference for the areas that I am not familiar with.
Great Introduction
I was very happy with this book.The author used good judgement when deciding the level of detail to delve into for each concept.I was not brand new to machine learning but I still got alot out of the book.

Good one to start
I would like to congratulate the author on writing this book, which is crisp and covers whole range of topics. What I liked the most is a systematic disucssion on a wide variety of areas in machine learning with a certain degree of details.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Science    3. Computers    4. Computers - General Information    5. Machine Theory    6. Computers / Machine Theory    7. Machine learning   

Reviews (8)

Terrible Book !!!!!!!!
This book is terrible. Badly written from a grammer standpoint.
Title- misleading
For people venturing into architectural visualization, this book is not for you. Not enough content for 3d modelling(building) and other architecture related stuff. I quite agree with the other guy that the title should be changed to 'Basic 3ds Max'. However, even this title is not appropriate since the author had not covered many important features of 3ds max. The exercises are so simple and won't help you very much in building up your confidence on 3ds max even after you finished reading this book. The book is expensive and lacks quality. I won't buy a book from 'friends of ed' publications anymore.

Not a comprehensive guide for architectural visualization
The author lacks creativity in presenting effective tutorials for the reader. A simple house and a bunch of exercises on teapots, spheres and other built-in 3ds max objects. While I understand that the aim of these simple exercises is to showcase 3ds max features, he should have at least provided more challenging exercises (geared towards the architectural visualization industry) either at the end of each chapter or at the appendix section of the book. There were no tutorials on how to render an building structure using night-time settings, interior structure using both daytime and night-time settings, somehow the reader would have to figure-out the settings for himself/herself. There were no guidelines on a lot of topics that would be very helpful for people working in the architecture industry for instance there were no examples on how to superimpose a 3ds max building into a photograph (an important feature to showcase the proportion of a proposed building to adjacent existing structures) no examples on how to create lights using manufaturer's specs. and no examples on how to use third party plug-ins such as RPC from archvision to provide vegetation, trees, people, cars in your 3d building model. -Again these topics, you have to learn it on your own. The author has also a habit of applauding a particular 3ds max feature in architectural visualization but fails to provide exercises/tutorials on the other hand (eg. panorama exporter, hair & fur effect for 3d grass). If your local bookstore carries this product, find time browsing it before buying this book. Bottomline, this book is not a good reference for the architectural visualization industry and for people planning to study 3ds max 8. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Graphics - 3D Studio    3. Computer Graphics - Game Programming    4. Computer Graphics - General    5. Computers    6. Computers - Desktop Publishing    7. Computers - Other Applications    8. Computer modelling & simulation   

Reviews (1)

"Introduction to Mathcad 2000" misses the mark!
I believe a book entitled "Introduction to Mathcad 2000" ought to be an orderly exposition of the basics of the Mathcad 2000 program and progress on to more complex areas with meaningful examples. Exercises for the student ought to emphasize concepts and demonstrate the use of the program with answers supplied to reinforce correct usage. This book falls far short of the above goals. The book starts immediately with a sample calculation that does very little towards explaining the overall view of Mathcad 2000. The second chapter starts with a 2 page diatribe on global warming which has nothing to do with Mathcad 2000. In the following chapters, the author dos a fair job of covering some of Mathcad 2000's abilities but the examples used are often not well explained. The practise exercises do not have answers or in many cases, do not indicate what point the author is trying to make. Many pages are devoted to long,involved problems that are not suited to teaching Mathcad. In all, The book is only moderately useful as a reference but poorly suited as a Mathcad 2000 text. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. CAD-CAM - General    2. Computer Mathematics    3. Computer Science    4. Data processing    5. Discrete Mathematics    6. Engineering - General    7. Engineering Mathematics    8. General    9. MathCAD    10. Mathematics    11. Science/Mathematics    12. Technology & Industrial Arts    13. Computers / CAD-CAM / General   

Reviews (6)

Intructional Technology at it's best.
Had to buy it for a class; execellent resource for it's target audience.Make sure you're a memeber of that target audience (instructional technologists) before you buy :)

The First Book on My Reading List!
If I could only put one multimedia learning book on my bookshelf, this would be it. The "General Principles" section provides one of the best overviews I've read of Behavioral, Cognitive, and Constructivist approaches to learning (although I do think they misrepresent the Instructional Systems Design process and treat it as a purely Behavioralist approach).This section also presents an excellent overview of the learning process.The book moves on to discuss methodologies and learning sequences at an unparalleled level, including a brilliant discussion of simulations and educational games.The book closes with an overview of an approach to Design and Development that's worth reading, but far less valuable than the previous sections.Of all my design books, this one has the most dog-eared pages and underlined text; the chapter-level bibliographies alone are worth the book's price!Anyone looking to delve deep into multimedia design for learning should have this book on his or her shelf.

Excellent breadth and and depth of coverage
This is an excellent text in terms of coverage and pacing.If you are interested in human-computer interaction, this is a 'must have' text. What astonished me about this book is that it covered more issues in HCI than many dedicated user interface design books. The text admirably blends practical considerations with theoretical concerns and trends. It strongly focuses on motivational issues surrounding users of learning packages(an area largely ignored in the bulk of standard HCI texts). Don't pass over this book. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Artificial intelligence    2. Computer Bks - Other Applications    3. Computer-assisted instruction    4. Computers & Technology    5. Computers - Other Applications    6. Data processing    7. Education    8. Educational Media In Teaching    9. Educational Software    10. Educational Technology    11. Interactive video    12. Teaching Methods & Materials - General    13. Education / Computers & Technology    14. Educational resources & technology    15. Multimedia   

Reviews (18)

Needs a second volume which explains the first
This book is by now an accepted classic in the field.It is basically the only textbook that covers so much of computational linguistics, so I have had no choice but to use it for the past several years.Just the same, I'd rather not use it for teaching linguistics students.While the book has much to offer the professional, including a broad range of topics extensively researched, it is much more useful in this "handbook" capacity than as a textbook for the uninitiated.The chief reasons for this are: 1) It is pedagogically very poor; the majority of concepts are either explained in a confusing and obfuscatory manner or are not explained and are simply left in algorithmic form.This is not usually edifying to the linguistics student with no computer science background.2) There are too many mistakes in its algorithms and method overviews.So far as I can see, even the famed Earley parsing algorithm is wrong here, it will not yield the correct output.3) It is not written in a language that linguistics students can understand.With no background in mathematics, computer science, or pseudocode, such students need much more coddling than is provided by this book, and they are virtually unable to read it.Basically, as the title to this review states, what is called for now is a book to explain the contents of this book.Perhaps if my students keep encouraging me to write it. . .
I looked for
something which I can use - I am a linguist - and found it immensly readable and useful

The a good introduction to NLP, but could be improved
This book helped me accomplish what I set out to do; namely to obtain an overview of the field of natural language processing, with an emphasis on language understanding (as opposed to recognition). And I can recommend it on that level. The weakness of the book however is that it left me asking, "OK, now what?". The book started off strong with a number of dynamic-programming algorithms, finite automaton models, and N-grams that one could sink his/her teeth into from an algorithmic point-of-view. But when it came to actual techniques for natural-language understanding (chapters 14-17) the goods were not delivered. The algorithms disappeared, and the best I could find was in Chapter 15 an incomplete, and unconvincing treatment of Hiyan Alshawi's semantic parsing techniques which fueled the Core Language Engine last decade. Chapter 16 dealt with lexical semantics and was almost entirely devoid of algorithms. Read more

Subjects:  1. Artificial Intelligence - General    2. Automatic speech recognition    3. Computational Linguistics    4. Computer Books: General    5. Computer Vision    6. Language Arts & Disciplines    7. Language Arts / Linguistics / Literacy    8. Linguistics    9. Audio processing: speech recognition & synthesis    10. Computers / Computer Vision    11. Machine learning    12. Natural language & machine translation   

Reviews (6)

Good for Kids, maybe. For adult hobbyists it comes up short.
I should start off by saying that I'm not a kid, nor did I buy this and give it to a kid. I am 22 and I'm working on a completely hand-built robot. Since nobody else has written a review from this perspective - the adult hobbyist - I thought I would
awsome soooooo cool
this was an awsome robot i got it two weeks ago and im 13this robot has a cool way to be able to be progrmaed i already tried life simulation and many othersthis is the best robot with the most features its unbelievable i recommened it for beginners and those who love robotics it will be the envey of your block
great bot!!!!
This is a great bot.I recommend it for everyone.Easy to put together and lots of fun. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Engineering - Mechanical    2. Industrial Robotics    3. Programmable Controllers    4. Robotics    5. Science/Mathematics    6. Technology    7. Technology & Industrial Arts    8. Computers / Programming / General   

Reviews (3)

A bit disappointed because I expected more from this book.
I have been reading through the book. Actually it provides very clear explanations, but I had the impression the author talks too much and keep saying the same things over and over again. The book could be half its volume with the same content of knowledge. Besides the provided examples are a bit too simple and obvious.
Excellent practical book on neural networks using Java
Programming Neural Networks in Java will show the intermediate to advanced Java programmer how to create neural networks. This book attempts to teach neural network programming through two mechanisms. First the reader is shown how to create a reusable neural network package that could be used in any Java program. Second, this reusable neural network package is applied to several real world problems that are commonly faced by programmers. This book covers such topics as Kohonen neural networks, multi layer neural networks, training, back propagation, and many other topics. The content of the book is as follows: Unique book
I have received my copy of the book and I can't put it down. It has been great help with my AI research at the University. I have the other book from the same author "Programming Spiders, Bots and Aggregators in Java" and I have the same comments for both. Both are easy to read, have precise information and great code. Chapter 7 of this book "OCR with Kohonen Neural Network" makes the book more than worth it. Great stuff. I hope the author does not stop and keep writting books like these. I recommend this book for anyone interested in learning AI and also experienced programmers alike. The author makes though topics seem easy. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Artificial Intelligence - General    2. Computers - Languages / Programming    3. Neural Networks    4. Programming Languages - Java    5. Computers / Programming Languages / Java    6. Computers-Artificial Intelligence - General    7. Computers-Neural Networks   

Reviews (19)

Must have!!!
As mentioned above, this is THE book for AI. It uses plain language and explains different topics using real life examples. If you need/want to learn AI programming, this should be the first book of your collection.

really good intro book for neural nets and GAs
Although other reviewers have already pointed out everything positive about this book, I felt I also had to praise it because it's so good. It's a great introduction to neural networks and genetic algorithms. By the way the author should be congratulated for his "never include any code that you don't throughly explain" philosophy. Although it's over 400 pages because of this philosophy, you can skim/skip around 150 of them if you know some win32 programming and basic high school math/physics. The book is so concise and easy to understand that I went through it in a night and came up having a firm idea about the subject. There are also a lot of good ideas to try out throughout the book(i.e. tinkering with the source included etc.)
definitely easy
You know when a subject is finally becoming stable when simple books like this come out and explain in layman's terms. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Artificial Intelligence - General    2. Artificial intelligence    3. Computer Books: General    4. Computer Graphics - Game Programming    5. Computer games    6. Computers    7. Computers - Languages / Programming    8. Programming    9. Programming - Software Development    10. Video & Electronic - General    11. Computer Programming    12. Computers / Entertainment & Games / General   

Reviews (4)

Expert Systems: Principles and Programming, Fourth Edition
An excellent text for a first course in Expert systems.

Worth every penny
This book gives a reasonable, detailed and seriuous account on expert system. A detailed presentation of the CLIPS expert-system language, along with the interpreter, is provided. Great book! Gives an overview of CLIPS main features.
The authors give a good cursory background on knowledge representation within AI.Chapters 7 - 12, present CLIPS syntax and usage.The information in these chapters helped me to develop a simulation involvingfour intelligent agents, colloborating via a blackboard.The book providesno details with respect to CLIPS object-oriented capabilities (COOL), butthis is something that can be learned through CLIP's accompanyingdocumentation.I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to know moreabout expert systems or CLIPS. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. Expert Systems    5. Programming - Systems Analysis & Design    6. Computers / Expert Systems    7. Knowledge-based systems / expert systems   

Reviews (4)

Robot Navigation
Uncertainty is an important issue facing intelligent systems.
Superb
The authors took 6 years to write this book. And it shows. This is a mindblowing tour through the algorithms used at the cutting edge of Robotics.
an impressive research-level text
The book presents what is currently the frontier of probabilistic research in robotics. This is explained as a means of a robot coping with inadequate information from its perceptive inputs. The intent is to embed more robust control logic within the robot. Rather than having human programmers try to code for every contingency.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Probabilities    2. Robotics    3. Science/Mathematics    4. Technology    5. Technology & Industrial Arts    6. Artificial intelligence    7. Technology / Robotics   

Reviews (1)

Fab!!! Worth the money
Very insightful, very useful, easy to understand. Totally worth the money. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Art    2. Art & Art Instruction    3. Fashion    4. General    5. Computer modelling & simulation    6. Fashion design    7. Image processing: graphics (static images)    8. Photoshop   

Reviews (2)

Excellent Resource
This book is an excellent resource and covers all topics in a sufficient and easy to read manner and definitely covers all the "elements".Anyone that is interested in Photogrammetry will find this book quite useful.

Book Review: Elements of Phtogrammetry
This book is substantially revised from the previous edition in 1983, some 17 years ago. Consequently, new topics are added, particularly on GIS and digital photogrammetry. The appendixes on least squares adjustment, co-ordinate transformations, collinearity equations and digital resampling are particularly useful.Read more

Subjects:  1. Aerial photogrammetry    2. Digital techniques    3. Earth Sciences - Geography    4. Engineering - Civil    5. Holographic Art    6. Image processing    7. Information Systems (Geography)    8. Photo Techniques    9. Photogrammetry    10. Remote sensing    11. Science    12. Science/Mathematics    13. Surveying    14. Technology    15. Computer vision    16. Technology / Surveying   

Reviews (8)

Superficial and unclear
Trying to gather the greatest audience possible, this book is superficial, completly unclear and boring. Why? Topics are quickly introduced, concepts are rarely analized deeply, it's more discorsive than formal. With so many subjects of AI in the same book not enough space can be given to all of them, so most of the chapters are lists of important algorithms or concepts, barely explained. Do you want to verify it? See the table of contents andthe number of pages, and try to see how much space can be given toevery point... not enough.

Fantastic Introduction to AI
This book really stands out among the AI texts (I've read 4 others). First, the language is clear and simple enough for undergrads to grasp. Second, there are consistent examples that pervade the text to help the reader apply each method to an established problem. Third, the explanations of algorithms/structures are crafted and phrased to TEACH, not merely to summarize a bunch of material for reference purposes. Finally, the programming chapters allow the student to realize the material, and really think about the problems by implementing them and hashing out the details.
this book not cover much
I bought this book for my introduction course in AI. I feel that this book has lack of somethings which are very important, neural networks, and Ai and robotics to name a few. I found that the text is very hard to understand. Again he didn't use enough example to explain some of the topics. I am lost reading this book. The book is not well structured and turned me bored after 30 minutes reading it. The reason are, AI term definations are not included as other book do, few visual diagrams, objective is not well defined. Once again, he didn't include introduction/review of what we acpect to learn of each of every chapters. Reading it is like reading a "white bible". Only plain text and unprofessional layout. This book discorage me reading it. I think i should buy other book that have a wider coverage topics in AI and yet easy to understand, consistent with my AI course syllibus and yet easy for my eyes. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Artificial Intelligence - General    2. Artificial intelligence    3. Computer Books: General    4. Computers    5. Computers - General Information    6. Expert Systems    7. Knowledge representation (Info    8. Knowledge representation (Information theory)    9. LISP (Computer program languag    10. Problem solving    11. Prolog (Computer program langu    12. Computers / Expert Systems   

Subjects:  1. Ecology    2. Environmental Engineering & Technology    3. Environmental Science    4. Environmental Studies    5. Life Sciences - Ecology    6. Mathematical models    7. Science    8. Science/Mathematics    9. Applied ecology    10. Computer modelling & simulation    11. Ecological science, the Biosphere    12. Science / Biology   

Features

• Illustrated

Reviews (2)

Whoa
This is the perfect compilation set of fun, and challenging projects which can easily be manipulated for your own robotic tastes. The sources of this book are the masters in the field, and do an astounding job sharing their wealth of knowledge.

Where do they get these people?
Once again Syngres has put together a top notch team of Lego builders. The robots in here are incredible to say the least. I was amazed to see that CS Soh had a hand in this book as I've been a big fan of his LEGO work on the web for some time. I just finished building all of the robots in the prequel to this book for the Star Wars Dark side lego kit when I saw this become available. These are all top notch robots built by people who know their lego robots. They don't beat around the bush-they give you step by step instructions for buidling these robots. They go one step beyond the first book by giving you alternate building instructions for download. I'm going to use this in my high school robotics class. Top notch. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Automation    2. Computer Books: General    3. Design and construction    4. Games    5. Games/Puzzles    6. LEGO toys    7. Popular works    8. Robotics    9. Robots    10. Technology & Industrial Arts    11. Video & Electronic - General    12. Computers / Computer Engineering    13. Games/Video & Electronic - General    14. Models & model-making    15. Technology & Applied Sciences    16. Technology / Robotics    17. Technology/Automation   

Subjects:  1. Emotions    2. Emotions and cognition    3. Human information processing    4. Neuropsychology    5. Psychology    6. Science/Mathematics    7. Science / General   

Reviews (5)

Just what I needed
Great book, exactly what I needed. I'm pretty good with Sendmail, but there is nothing like just looking up an issue and following through a solution. I would recommend this to anyone who works with Sendmail!

This book has something about sendmail for everyone
This book has something about sendmail for everyone.
A must have for anyone who administers sendmail
Working with sendmail can be very challenging at times; while the documentation for it is very complete, finding real-life use-cases can be tough and messing up a configuration is very easy. Fortunately the sendmail authors and community adopted the m4 language to help make building and managing sendmail configurations less painful (I remember having bad dreams about sendmail configuration language when I started learning it). Even with m4, understanding what goes where when and why in a sendmail configuration file can be a real challenge.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Internet General    2. Computers    3. Computers - Communications / Networking    4. Data Transmission Systems - Electronic Mail    5. Electronic mail systems    6. Internet - General    7. Sendmail    8. UNIX (Computer file)    9. Computers / Communications / Networking    10. Computers / Data Transmission Systems / Electronic Mail    11. Electronic mail (email)    12. Unix, Unix Linux & Unix TCL/TK    13. sendmail, networking, email, routing, MTA, mail transfer agent, chroot, mailing lists, virtual domains, UBE blocking, SMTP authentication, content filtering, MySQL, LDAP, configuration parameters   

Features

• Illustrated

Reviews (3)

Companion is Worthless by Itself
When they said "Companion," they didn't mean Companion for Sendmail version 8.13; they ment Companion for "Sendmail, 3rd edition."This book only covers the updates between 8.12 and 8.13.If you don't know what 8.12 does in the first place, you need to get "Sendmail, 3rd edition" in addition to this one. Other than that, it's a great book.

Short book for experts
This is a very short, but well written and organized book primarily intended for experts. It doesn't introduce sendmail, or provide complete overviews of the system. It covers topics specific to sendmail 8.13. I'm not quite sure why the didn't just come out with another version of the Sendmail book, but they didn't. What you get instead is this book which is a kind of addendum. Buy this book only in conjunction with the Sendmail book.

Fighting spam
This slim book documents the latest major release of sendmail. It assumes that you are already well familiar with running an earlier sendmail. The author does not waste your time going over generic properties of sendmail that have been true for years.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Operating Systems    2. Computers    3. Computers - Communications / Networking    4. Data Transmission Systems - Electronic Mail    5. Networking - General    6. Operating Systems - UNIX    7. Computers / Communications / Networking    8. Computers / Data Transmission Systems / Electronic Mail    9. Electronic mail (email)    10. sendmail 8.13 Companion, sendmail 8.13, Macros, Configuration file, Delivery Agents, Anti-Spam, Rule Sets, sendmail   

Reviews (24)

Challenge what you know about OOA/D
I have been studying the object oriented methodology for some time now. I felt that I had a good understanding of what OOP was all about. I have studied OOA/D and design patterns from numerous sources. All of my sense for OOA/D knowledge changed completely when I read this book. This book really showed me that I was stuck somewhere in the middle of the paradigm shift between action oriented programming (aka procedural programming) and object oriented programming. After reading this, I feel like my knowledge in OOA/D has truly advanced to the next level.
I've been searching for good books on design patterns...
I have plenty of books on patterns, but I want to get more information on the basics of OOP and why the patterns are effective instead of "this is pattern X, and this what it does." This is a very complicated subject, which I have no doubt that most programmers on the planet have very little understanding of. We mostly write crummy code that "works", and most of the time that's good enough.
Must Read for programmers,designers,architects
The book gives you succinct,simple,common sense(which is really uncommon) guidelines on OO design.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Computers    2. Computers - Languages / Programming    3. Object-Oriented Programming    4. Object-oriented programming (C    5. Object-oriented programming (Computer science)    6. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    7. Science/Mathematics    8. Computer aided design (CAD)    9. Computers / Programming / Object Oriented    10. Object-oriented programming (OOP)   

Editorial Review

David Goldberg's Read more

Reviews (18)

Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization, and Machine Learning by David E. Goldberg
Excellent book for Graduate students and instructors. Highly recommend!

Not the only paradigm for evolutionary computation
This book gives a good introduction to genetic algorithms for a general undergraduate audience. However, it is important to note that it does not cover Evolutionary Strategies, an approach to evolutionary computing that I have found quite usefulsince it is specifically designed for Euclidean space optimization problems where many if not most interesting optimization problems are formulated in (take for example the problem of determining the weights of a neural network that minimizes the network's overall classification error). Nor does it cover evolutionary programming (not to be confused with genetic programming). So after reading this book, I recommend (for the mathematically adventurous) Thomas Back's "Evolutionary Alg