Packard Reviews

Having already read much literature on Vpars, I found Mr. Paniotowski's Virtual Partition Book to be no more than adequate on the primary subject matter. At 1000+ pages there is a enormous amount information dedicated to all things HP-UX - and most of this is non-vpars specific. Not that I don't appreciate the lagniappe, but the book reads like an "HP-UX Guide to Systems Administration" rather than a "Guru's Insight Into Virtual Partitions". If you are looking to gain insight into Vpars and the SuperDome, you'll get a whopping 14 pages dedicated to this subject matter as Paniotowski based nearly all of his work on the L and N class systems. On a positive note, after reading the few chapters that were actually dedicated to vpars, I did learn a few things that I had not come across in other literature. Paniotowski needs to produce a 2nd Edition of this book that focuses exclusively on Virtual Partitions and has far more subject manner dedicated to the SuperDome.

Most HP-UX professionals recognize Marty Poniatowski as the premier source for system administration guidance. Now, Marty helps us understand the new field of Virtual Partitioning. His book is a perfect guide to "vPars", showing not only how to configure them, but also showing why you need to learn about this product. Marty points out the many benefits organizations can gain by splitting one physical system into several smaller virtual systems. Among these are increased system utilization, server consolidation, and the ability to easily migrate between a development and production environment.
I work with an HP Channel Partner and can say that several of my customers have implemented vPars on equipment that was underutilized. For example, servers that were only running at 20 percent of capacity are now running several instances of HP-UX and utilizing 60 to 70 percent of their capacity.
Marty not only gives you the commands you need to configure vPars, but helps you understand the prerequisites for partitioning a system. He also guides you through many other system administration tasks which you must modify in order to best utilize your "virtual systems".
I can't say enough in this space to do justice to this book. Read it, YOU and your company will benefit.

This book was exactly what I was looking for - clearly written, technically detailed and accurate. Plenty of practical information and examples.

The book has a nice intro section which would be useful to readers who are new to the concepts of Virtual Partitioning of server resources.

Marty has written this with several other experts. He has lots of practical experience and it shows in his explanations.

Lots of useful screen shots and a bunch of additional technical resources provided.

I would recommend this book for people who are just beginning to learn HP-UX. Very well written and provides the basic concepts of HP-UX. I would not recommend it for Admins or power users of HP-UX. There are better sources out there for these types of users.

This is book is only good for introduction. Print is very sparce. 309 pages doesn't contain much information. Intelligent use of paper would have made this book 200 page if not much less. In one chapter, describing ls -r command, the system responce of almost five pages is given when only couple of lines of result would have served the purpose. Only chapter "HP Visual User Environment "(17 Pages), has some information particular to HP-UX. Other info can be found in any unix book.

As a system administrator for a large site, I bought 20 copies of this book to hand out to my users who want a simple intro with good reference value. My users are engineers who need to know just enough unix to get their job done.

I was born in South Bend and my neighbors and relatives worked at Studebaker. This book is an excellent portrait of a company sliding inexorably downhill. Some of the factors that killed Studebaker were internal (labor relations, high unit costs, lack of due diligence about the company's condition in the Packard merger) and some were external (George Romney's refusal to form a fourth major out of American Motors). Discussed in detail are the beautiful cars Studebaker built and their skill in managing the difficult transition from wagonmakers to automakers. (Lincoln rode in a Studebaker carriage to Ford's theater) Bonsall doesn't hesitate to point out the flaws and missteps Studebaker made, though. This book is an affectionate portrait of an American company that was part of the landscape for a century and has now vanished without a trace. Recommended.

"More Than They Promised" was an excellent read. It detailed the entire history of Studebaker from its beginnings as wagon makers to its entry into the manufacture of automobiles.

Particularly interesting was the postwar era, especially after the disasterous merger with Packard. It SHOULD have worked, but in reality it was a total failure. The Sherwood Egbert era was very well detailed with his last-ditch efforts to save the automobile operations of what had by then become a conglomerate. At the time of their death, cars were but a small part of the empire.

I am fascinated by the Studebaker story, although I was only 8 years old when the last Studebaker was produced. I have often wondered what would have happened had they survived. Would they have survived the increasingly oppressive government safety and emission requirements? Would they have survived the fuel crises of '73 and '79?

I have had the pleasure of visiting the Studebaker National Museum in South Bend, IN. Having seen these beautiful cars, particularly the "Loewy coupes" of 1953-55, I couldn't help but draw the conclusion that Studebaker was too far ahead of their customers.

Even if you are not a "car geek" as I am, you would likely enjoy reading "More Than They Promised".

awesome cronological of a great car company that should still be producing cars today

Return to the cave of time is fun because I like how I get to choose whatever I would do in real life instead of going along with the character in the book. I also like how the author writes with excitement and scariness at the same time. I would recommend it for starting readers.

Another great sequel to that mysterious cave of time. This is a great book. Any "choose your own adventure" lover should read it (if its available) It shouldn't be out of print!

This one is better than the original "Cave of Time," which kicked off this fascinating series. Packard is the best of the series authors, and by this time he has it down to a science.

Maybe I don't have the background to appreciate the subtlety of the author's arguments; but it seems to me there is a great deal of assertion and not enough explanation. The author generally does not introduce or explain terms, including obscure acronyms (fortunately there is a good glossary). Often, by the time I have looked up the terms and acronyms and put the author's statement together for myself there is nothing left to understand - in other words it appears the author would be adding little value for a reader that actually has the knowledge he assumes. The index is generally poor and the text obviously has not had the editorial support it deserves. The author does cover a lot of ground and touches on many topics, and the book consistently addresses a technical professional reader. This book could have value as a resource or reference, as one member of a library; by itself it occupies an unusual middle ground, neither introduction nor deep discussion.

How long have you sit in your seat and can not find out a solution to your network design? It is a step-by-step guidebook to tell you where you are and where you should go. A wonderful book that can save your time and money on network design.

I was really excited about this book. Peas, peas and yet more peas -- it sounds like a great way to visually present the idea of exponential growth in mathematics. The execution of this idea, however, is only moderately successful.

This is only my opinion and may not be true for all readers, but I found the presentation inhibited rather than clarified the concept. Sometimes two pictures were on the same page and the graphics were very busy -- many characters, inserts and dialogue balloons detracted from the impact of seeing a growing pile of peas. Perhaps you remember the film "Powers of Ten" that showed a couple picnicking and then distanced the camera from them exponentially; that film was elegant and evocative. This was pretty messy. As I said, though, this is my opinion and kids may love it.

We are in the process of buying our second copy of this book for another grandchild, because we are impressed with the fun but intelligent way it presents for children the concepts associated with big numbers. It is a pleasure to see a book for children that presents fundamental scientific principles with fun and wonder. It's a winner.

Learning that "you" are a nerdy-looking kid with glasses isn't exactly an auspicious way to begin a story. For some of us, that's quite enough of a nightmare. But in BITING FOR BLOOD, that's just the beginning. As the protagonist of several possible adventures, you may encounter blood-drinking neighbors, drugged cookies, a vanishing journalist ... you might even wake up in a coffin! And then again, you might not. It all depends on your own choices in this book that starts with a strange-looking new neighbor, missing persons, and a deer found drained of blood.

BITING FOR BLOOD is nicely, if not too generously, illustrated with bats, pointy-toothed vampires, and, yes, "you": You at the soda shop with friends; you fleeing an attacking bat; you asleep in bed with a vampire whetting her fangs over you. The possible endings range from chilling to silly, with most falling somewhere between. Before you arrive at one, you may be chased by a real vampire, cornered by a growling dog, or scared silly by ... something ... pounding at the window. Quick, get the garlic!

Most of the endings have an inconclusive flavor, maybe to encourage readers to see if another set of choices will yield something more satisfying. The stories themselves are too short to build a very high level of suspense, but for the book's intended audience -- younger readers -- there's enough action and mystery to keep the pages turning until all possibilities have been explored.

An amazing book, the sort that attracts your eye in a libary or bookstore. And its as good on the inside as it is on the outside! Whether your a vampire fan, choose-your-own-adveture-stlye-book fan, or even just looking for something to read, read this and you will be mesmerised! I was! the night I read this I was clutching a cross I made from sticks (I'm allergic to garlic!).

This book covers very well all the processes from rough data to volume rendering. No pre-requisites, all the terminology is explained with a lots of schemes. It also covers OpenGL rendering, but as it was published in 1997, this part is not really up-to-date. Nevertheless it is a good introduction to volume rendering, even if it is quite useless for real-time volume rendering with OpenGL for example.

This book gives a good overview of the typical Volume Rendering by Ray Casting pipeline, and discusses the mathematics without going into too great a depth. The book gives many references on each subject so that the reader can then read more about the topics of interest. The only 'problem' is that the book never mentions a few popular algorithms, such as the Marching Cubes Algorithm.

This book was excellent, it was extremely enjoyable and I highly recommend it.

This may in fact be the best of the entire "Choose Your Own Adventure" series, which is saying something, since this was always an interesting series, especially in its early days. Packard is the master of the genre, and the tangled web herein is suspenseful and atmospheric. Lots of fun for kids.

For me, this was the book that got me addicted at the age of 9! Edward Packard is a genius and one of my American heroes for inventing such an amazing literary genre! Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey? is a great mystery, full of suspense and interesting character development. It also stands out from the early CYOA books because it only contains 14 endings, thus making for a longer story.

This book was also one of the few selected to be published as a Grey Castle Press hardcover!

Choose Your Own Adventure books, I mean the Bantam Books ones, are the best! I want them all! It's amazing - the earlier ones are from around 1980 or even before, and can still be enjoyed thoroughly, as if they were written yesterday!