Bedroom DJ (Beginner's Guides (Ominbus Press))

Customer Reviews:

Don't expect to learn much from this...........2005-09-20

If you are looking for something to read for the sake of reading, try to find this book used and give it a go, it is a short read and has a few laughs. Do not buy this as a guide on how to start dj-ing at a technical level. All you need to here is: practice, practice, practice, and that is all this book will tell you. Other than that it is a bunch of DJs talking about how they got started, their horror stories and their funny stories. The writing style is quite annoying and some of the DJs just rattle off nonesense with zero value added. A good example of this is a guy (can't recall name) saying how you should start a label and produce music if you want to make it as a DJ. In the next sentance he said he used to have a label and that it was a huge disaster and wouldn't do it again. Hello? Don't waste your time on this.

Highly recommended.......2004-01-09

I started out as a DJ in my bedroom a few years ago playing around with my first set of decks. I wish to God this book had been around then! That way I might have escaped a few of the pitfalls and had more money to boot! Bedroom DJ is a fun read as it tells a story about the writer trying to learn to DJ as a female in London as well as including interviews with DJs and their anecdotes about learning. It all makes it a bit more personal than the usual guides that can be a bit less accessible. The book is also divided into useful sections, making each skill more easy to handle in bitesized chunks. The story is funny, as are the DJ anecdotes. If you're a learner this book should inspire and encourage you as well as giving you plenty of advice from all the top names.

A must for all DJs.......2004-01-06

Bedroom DJ is a great read for all DJs - beginners or otherwise. Basically it's the humorous story of how a young technophobic woman over in London, England set out to learn how to DJ completely from scratch, after being dumped by her DJ boyfriend. She struggles with the usual stuff like buying the equipment, putting it together and then trying to learn mixing and scratching techniques. It's a fun and accessible guide and best of all she turns to the experts - DJs like Roger Sanchez, David Morales, Judge Jules, Cutmaster Swift and Dave Pearce - for advice and there are indepth Q&A sessions with these DJs, including anecdotes about when they were learning that you wouldn't normally read in all the trendy Djing magazines. An entertaining, accessible, non-patronising and informative read that shows you don't have to be a technical wizard or the coolest cat in town to have fun learning to DJ. As a wannabee DJ for some years I for one would thoroughly recommend it!

Book Description

This study investigates the major theories of the origins of life in the light of modern research with the aim of distinguishing between the necessary and the optional and between deterministic and random influences in the emergence of what we call ‘life.’ Life is treated as a cosmic phenomenon whose emergence and driving force should be viewed independently from its Earth-bound natural history. The author synthesizes all the fundamental life-related developments in a comprehensive scenario, and makes the argument that understanding life in its broadest context requires a material-independent perspective that identifies its essential fingerprints.

Customer Reviews:

An interesting book about a fundamental question.......2004-11-08

How did life originate? Well, it's a wide open question. As Popa tells us, an explanation that is missing a critical step won't do. There are plenty of clues. But Popa shows us that there are still many approaches to putting the clues together.

There are plenty of approaches that are being pursued today. Popa tells us about many of them. Still, let's remind ourselves of some of them. One is to look for fossil evidence and DNA evidence of our earliest ancestors. Say that these turn out to be hyperthermophiles. Use that information, as well as the stability properties of RNA and DNA, to deduce the environment life originated in. A second idea is to look at the way we synthesize RNA (or DNA) today. Use that information to speculate about how the first RNA and DNA evolved. A third idea is to look at the self-assembly properties of entities for clues. A fourth idea is to note the similarity of ATP and the nucleic acid adenine. Assume this is no coincidence! A fifth idea is to do all sorts of experiments with collections of monomers and see if they arrange themselves into replicating strings. A sixth idea is to concentrate on computer simulations of all this. Computer simulations of the origin of replication show that there are some dangers, such as the "selfish RNA catastrophe," the "short-circuit catastrophe," the "population collapse catastrophe," and simply the risk of too many replication errors. Draw conclusions from the fact that these hazards were successfully avoided. A seventh idea is to at least answer the question of what came first, replication, metabolism, or cellularization. And so on. It seems that there is a great deal we aren't at all sure of.

Popa starts with the issue of the issue of the development of cellularization, metabolism, and replication. He asserts that since all are needed for life, they must have evolved together, not serially. He states that the ATP coincidence probably is unimportant, with ATP's use as an energy carrier being a late development. And he takes on the mathematical modelers by stating that they generally omit first order effects by not tracing the energy flow and the degradation of the evolving entities.

The issues Popa dwells on most are the energy sources, bioinformation, chirality, and the origin of specificity (as opposed to "metabolism" or "homeostasis"). Of these, the part on chirality was the most interesting to me. Popa discusses the implication that life's chirality implies the existence of some large-scale chiral driver, such as rotating vortices or asymmetries in right and left circularly polarized light.

There's also quite a bit of useful material about the definition of life. Popa is right to make the point that "life" and "living entities" are not at all synonymous.

Anyway, it is an interesting book about a tough problem: I'm glad I can just read about it and don't have to solve it!

The Exploration of Mars: Searching for the Cosmic Origins of Life

Average customer rating:

A trip to Mars

The Exploration of Mars: Searching for the Cosmic Origins of Life
Piers Bizony
Manufacturer: Aurum Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Astronomy | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Cosmology | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Mars | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Solar System | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Cosmology | Physics | Science | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

A trip to Mars.......2000-04-04

Well, honestly I am not interested in astronomy before I bought the book. However I gained many things from the book after reading it! The book provides me a lot of Mars information, such as the rivers, weather system and features on Mars. It also gives us details of some basic astronomic theories, like Hubble Constant. However it is not just an informative book, it contains emotion and humor too. Therefore I highly recommend this book to you and hope that you are prepared to go to Mars now~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New Discoveries in the Origin of Christianity and Searching the Scriptures for The Messiah

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New Discoveries in the Origin of Christianity and Searching the Scriptures for The Messiah
E. Walter
Manufacturer: Kessinger Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0766137864

Book Description

1896. New Discoveries in the Origin of Christianity a treatise on the Origin of Christianity its Causes and Consequences. Searching the Scriptures: A critical examination of all the Messianic prophecies claimed in the Old Testament, with an introduction, being a critical examination of the Hebrew word Messiah. The author, being very skilled in Hebrew and Syriac literature, made a thorough search in the ancient lore regarding The Messiah and finally succeeded in obtaining the truth. This book is his endeavor in bringing to light the missing link in the history of the origin of Christianity.

The Rivers of Mars: Searching for the Cosmic Origins of Life

Average customer rating:

Detailed discription for the former Viking's survey on Mars

The Rivers of Mars: Searching for the Cosmic Origins of Life
Piers Bizony
Manufacturer: Aurum Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Astronomy | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Astrophysics & Space Science | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Comets, Meteors & Asteroids | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Cosmology | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Mars | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Cosmology | Physics | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Australia & South Pacific | Travel | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1854104950

Customer Reviews:

Detailed discription for the former Viking's survey on Mars.......1999-01-29

I have read this book with the very exciting feelings ,as reading a good scientific novel. The story bigins with the history of scientific novels as well as the history of the observation on Mars. The central portion of the book would de the argument of the experiments about the possibility of life on Mars. This argument is too deatiled to read the book with patience, but may be of considerable scientific importance. After leaving the story of Mars, this book also refers to the future endevour for searching life in the outer space beyond earth. This book may be best dedecating for amature astronomers or students interested in science.

Searching for Human Origins (Megascope Series)

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Searching for Human Origins (Megascope Series)
Jean-Loup Craipeau , and Pascal G. Picq
Manufacturer: Barrons Juveniles
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Biology | Science, Nature & How It Works | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0764150928

Searching for Origins (Anthropology and Human Movement, Volume 2)

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Searching for Origins (Anthropology and Human Movement, Volume 2)
Drid Williams
Manufacturer: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Words & Language | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0810837072

Book Description

Explores how the micro-histories of dances and sign languages fit into the macro-history of the human race. Williams brings together four scholars in the field as they consider the problems that arise when searching for the origins of sign languages and dances.

Searching For Surnames: A Practical Guide To Their Meaning And Origins (Genealogy)

Average customer rating:

Bummed!

Searching For Surnames: A Practical Guide To Their Meaning And Origins (Genealogy)
John Titford
Manufacturer: Countryside Books (UK)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Genealogy | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Reference | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

Bummed!.......2004-06-27

This book was not what I expected at all. I was hoping it used the names of the more commonly used surnames. ie; "Moore, Smith" etc.,etc., If you're looking for a book that has more of the English, Celtic, European suranmes, this book is for you!

The iron ores of Great Britain and Ireland,: Their mode of occurrence, age, and origin, and the methods of searching for and working them, with a notice of some of the iron ores of Spain,

Average customer rating:

The iron ores of Great Britain and Ireland,: Their mode of occurrence, age, and origin, and the methods of searching for and working them, with a notice of some of the iron ores of Spain,
J. D Kendall
Manufacturer: C. Lockwood and Son
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Rocks & Minerals | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B00086LKIC

Searching for depression genes: Severe depression runs in families, and new genetic studies may reveal its chemical origins

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Searching for depression genes: Severe depression runs in families, and new genetic studies may reveal its chemical origins
Lois Wingerson
Manufacturer: s.n
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007368V0

The wanderings of the human mind in "searching the Scriptures," or, A history of the origin, progress, and condemnatio;n of the heresies which have opposed ... Church (Battersby's Catholic tracts)

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The wanderings of the human mind in "searching the Scriptures," or, A history of the origin, progress, and condemnatio;n of the heresies which have opposed ... Church (Battersby's Catholic tracts)
John McEnroe
Manufacturer: Published by W.J. Battersby
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0008AJH60

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Video Age International, published by TV Trade Media, Inc. on June 1, 1993. The length of the article is 718 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: The Future of Television - A Global Overview of Programming, Advertising, Technology and Growth. (book reviews)
Author: Fred Hift
Publication: Video Age International (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 1, 1993
Publisher: TV Trade Media, Inc.
Volume: v13 Issue: n6 Page: p10(1)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Average customer rating:

This book has some cool stuff

wide-ranging in scope, but heavy on C++ templates

A useful addition

A+ in content, C- in execution

No Better Book on Software Engineering C++ that I Know Of

Generative Programming: Methods, Tools, and Applications
Krzysztof Czarnecki , and Ulrich Eisenecker
Manufacturer: Addison-Wesley Professional
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Client-Server Systems | Data in the Enterprise | Networking | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
Software Development | Software Design, Testing & Engineering | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
General | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
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Look Inside Computer Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Computers & Internet | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Modern C++ Design: Generic Programming and Design Patterns Applied

Software Factories: Assembling Applications with Patterns, Models, Frameworks, and Tools

C++ Template Metaprogramming: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques from Boost and Beyond (C++ In-Depth Series)

Code Generation in Action

Model-Driven Software Development: Technology, Engineering, Management

ASIN: 0201309777

Book Description

The authors present a grand tour of Generative Programming that is bound to become a classic. They . . . focus on the generally unappreciated connection between Domain Specific Languages and Generative Programming as a motivation for future development. Their wide-ranging and practical methods for Domain Analysis and Domain Engineering describe the first steps that developers can take right now . . . and are valuable both when existing systems are used or in preparation for emerging new generative technologies." --Charles Simonyi, Chief Architect at Microsoft Research and the inventor of Intentional Programming "The book develops strong themes around unifying principles that tie the pieces together, most notably domain engineering and metaprogramming. It is crucial to understand that this book is not just some refreshing diversion, nor just an exposition of some noteworthy niche techniques: It is a harbinger of a broader enlightenment that opens the door to a new age." --From the Foreword by James Coplien, a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Lucent Technologies, Bell Laboratories

Generative Programming (GP) offers great promise to application developers. It makes the idea of moving from one-of-a-kind software systems to the semi-automated manufacture of wide varieties of software quite real. In short, GP is about recognizing the benefits of automation in software development. Generative Programming covers methods and tools that will help you design and implement the right components for a system family and automate component assembly. The methods presented here are applicable for all commercial development--from "programming in the small," at the level of classes and procedures--to "programming in the large," or developing families of large systems.

Generative Programming is your complete guide and reference to this emerging discipline. It provides in-depth treatment of critical technologies and topics including: Domain Engineering Feature Modeling Generic Programming Aspect-Oriented Programming Template Metaprogramming in C++ Generators Microsoft's Intentional Programming Using this book you will learn how these techniques fit together and, more importantly, how to apply them in practice. The text contains three comprehensive case studies in three different domains: programming domain (container data structures), business domain (banking), and scientific computing (matrix computations).

Customer Reviews:

This book has some cool stuff.......2007-09-12

This book has some cool stuff and I was quite impressed by the part on functional programming using C++ template. Do you know C++ template has the same computing power as a Tuning machine.

wide-ranging in scope, but heavy on C++ templates.......2007-03-02

This book does cover lots of techniques that fall under the rubric of generative programming, but be warned that there is a strong emphasis on C++ template metaprogramming. If you don't know C++, or are a bit fuzzy on template syntax, you'll be missing a lot. Consider this a C++ template metaprogramming book, with some bonus chapters to put it all in context.

The opening chapters are a bit dull, containing a plethora of acronyms and jargon about various design methodologies, none of which seem to have made any particular impact in the last few years. I tentatively diagnose a mixture of thesis-itis and maybe translation-itis. If it's the former, I wouldn't be surprised to find that this made up part of the introduction or literature review chapter. However, the concept of feature diagrams is quite interesting, as it allows a graphical representation of a design specifying features and other properties (such as whether they're optional), without requiring any implementation (e.g. inheritance or parametric polymorphism), which is not possible with UML. How revelatory this is may depend on how seriously you take UML as a modelling tool, versus a convenient set of boxes and lines for representing class design.

There are also chapters on Aspect Oriented Programming, which is a pretty good survey of the field, and which provides useful motivation beyond logging. Additionally, there's a chapter on generators, which provide a convenient Domain Specific Language for specifying behaviour and performance of software components (list containers is the example in the book).

There's also a rather vacuous chapter on intentional programming, the brainchild of Charles Simonyi. It's an interesting enough idea, sitting somewhere between MDA, the Smalltalk class browser, and a souped-up IDE, but there's been absolutely no progress on it since the book was published, because Microsoft didn't release it, and Simonyi wasn't allowed to take any of the code with him when he left to set up Intentional Software. This chapter is ok on the big idea, albeit a bit breathless given it's not been shown to produce any useful software, but the worked example has all the allure of an Eclipse plugin tutorial.

The above material is sporadically interesting, but often a little pedestrian. However, the real action of the book takes place in the chapters on template metaprogramming in C++, which demonstrates how to generate related families of classes at compile time, using template instantiation and careful use of inlining to avoid inefficient virtual calls and indirection. It's very impressive. There are several examples, including a class hierarchy for a banking domain, and an in depth treatment of a matrix library, which successfully unifies all the types (sparse, full, banded etc.) under one library, while maintaining performance competitive with Fortran.

These C++ chapters demonstrate the ideas of the book in practice most clearly, although it also underlines the need for new tools and language features, given the outrageous ugliness of the compiler/template-abuse that is metaprogramming. On the other other hand, it is kind of cool to see colons, angle brackets and other bits of C++ coalesce into a strange new dialect using the compiler as an interpreter. If you're going to get anything at all out of these chapters, you do need to be comfortable with C++ templates. It would probably also help to have read something like Barton and Nackman's book, 'Scientific and Engineering C++', their unorthodox template designs providing a good warm up for what's in this book.

If you don't program in C++, or don't care for template metaprogramming, you may not find huge value for money in the other chapters. And admittedly, the writing style hardly sets the pulse racing. But if you're looking to do some intellectual stretching before taking on Andrei Alexandrescu's Modern C++ Design (and that's probably a very good idea), step right up!

A useful addition.......2006-11-15

One very important lesson in problem solving is that there is no one method that always works. No matter how good you are at one technique, there will be problems for which it is entirely unsuitable. When applied to programming this implies that anyone who wants to be good at problem analysis and program design should always be on the lookout for new methods.
Generative Programming provides an introduction to a collection of methods that are not commonly known. These methods are not the only possible way to produce high quality programs in a reasonable amount of time, but they are very useful for certain types of problems. Most exciting for me are the feature and aspect based decompositions of a problem.
Aspects and features are not always easily represented in more common analysis tools, as is explain in the book, but a proper understanding of the features and aspects in your program can greatly improve design.
Also useful is an extended discussion of techniques that can simplify code generation for programs that are compositions of features and aspects. This involves selecting the features needed and allowing the preprocessor and compiler to generate code on the fly. In lare software systems, this technique greatly reduces program complexity and improves readability.
While I recommend this book, it is with a few qualifications.
First, just as no other techniques are right for every problem, these are not either. Always check to see if the tools are right for the job before applying them. In this case, the tools in this book are rarely a good choice for small projects or for functions that will only be used one way. They are better suited to creating code that can be reused in a variety of different circumstances, or large libraries of code to support a broad user base.
Second, though the book has a ton of useful information, it is not always the most readable way to present the information. The writing is fairly dense, and spends more time surveying the historical development of some of the tools than I would prefer.
Finally, though the tools presented can be used in a wide variety of languages, the presentation is mainly done in C++. Comfort with the language will be essential for anyone wishing to understand the techniques presented.

A+ in content, C- in execution.......2006-02-08

As it is said in another review, this is a solid (and rather academic) book on the theory behind code generation. Unfortunately, I find it somewhat dated and too focused on C++ templates.

The first part of the book includes a nice introduction to domain engineering (a must for anyone interested in the development of product lines). Here, feature diagrams are introduced to represent variation points without implying a particular variation mechanism (such as inheritance or parametrization in OO languages).

The core of this book deals with different implementation technologies. You will find interesting discussions on generic programming, polymorphism, C++ templates, and aspect-oriented programming. In my opinion, the chapter on AOP is probably the best, since it provides a good survey of different approaches (subject-oriented programming, composition filters, and adaptive [structure-shy] programming) and shows some examples in AspectJ Cool (a precursor of the current version of AspectJ [the Java aspect-oriented extension]) and Dynamic Cool (for Smalltalk).

The chapters on generators elaborate on the transformational model of software development, where software development is seen as series of transformations performed on various representations of a system (i.e. creating and evolving specifications of systems and implementing them). Unfortunately, the authors focus too much on C++ template metaprogramming, which is not too practical (at least for me, mainly a Java/.Net developer). The application examples in the final part of the book also follow this approach despite its limitations regarding debugging and code readability. This limitations are not present in intentional programming, which is also covered in its own chapter. Ideally, IP would enable software source code to reflect the intention that programmers had in mind when developing it, thus simplifying maintenance and allowing programmers to keep a good high-level picture of their programs as a whole. Vapor-ware? Fantasy-ware? Maybe

If you are looking for practical ideas on code generation, this book is probably not for you. It is worth its price, however, if you just want to broaden your perspective on computer programming and are not afraid of hefty academic volumes.

No Better Book on Software Engineering C++ that I Know Of.......2005-08-20

The more experience you have designing and implementing complex software with C++, the harder it is to find well-written and thought-provoking books on the subject, especially with regard to architecture.

The various tomes on design using "Patterns" are useful in a charming, lightweight way, but for making architectural decisions that can impact your designs in a revolutionary manner, look no farther than this book, which I consider to be crucial reading for software architects using C++.

Highly recommended.

Generative Programming: Methods, Tools, and Applications

Average customer rating:

Generative Programming: Methods, Tools, and Applications
Krzysztof; Eisenecker, Ulrich; Czarnecki, Krzysztof Czarnecki
Manufacturer: Addison-Wesley Professional
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OOLTSE

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