Category Archives: Book Review

Book Review for “The E-Myth Revisited”

Posted by on February 28, 2012 No comments

The E-Myth Revisited
The E-Myth Revisited

First off, this book is about “why most small business fail and what to do about it”.
If you’re searching for a guide on how to properly setup a startup then read “Become your own boss in 12 months” by Melinda F. Emerson.

After finishing this book, I feel that I have learned a lot of useful tips.
His business tips are mix-in with the story of Sarah, an owner of a pie shop called “All About Pie”.
The general idea is this.

The goal of owning a business is to create jobs and sell it.
Work ‘on’, not ‘in’, your business by developing a set of “Francaise Prototype” rules for each role and situation in your business.
The “Francaise Prototype” is a manual with the key ingredients (developed by innovation/trail & error) on increasing sales and reduce cost.

I really didn’t like the story because it’s too long and predictable, which makes it boring.
I felt like he was holding back details so that you’ll buy into his “Turn Key Analysis” program.

I recommend entrepreneurs to read this book (“The E Myth”) but it’s not essential since it doesn’t go into the juicy details of starting up a successful business like the book “Become your own boss in 12 months”. For one, she warns you from the start not start a business without secure savings, since a lot portion of startups die from financial reasons. Also her stories are a few paragraphs and not a whole book.

Book Review: Beginning SQL Queries

Posted by on January 1, 2012 No comments




Here’s my Amazon.com review for Beginning SQL Queries by Clare Churcher

This is an excellent book to turn you into a SQL professional but not an expert. This isn’t a book for complete beginners but for a person with some experience with databases. In other words, someone around the beginning to intermediate level because this book is all about SQL Queries and not how to setup, maintain and configure your database system.

Anyhow, this book focuses on SQL and not a specific Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). So check out another book if you’re primarily focused on Oracle, MySQL or any other RDBMS. However, she does go over a few differences between vendors when it comes to SQL queries.

I bought this book to review SQL and clarify a few concepts. Now after finishing this book, I feel that my goals has been reached. I really enjoyed this reading this book, because Clare is an effective writer who provides clear and concise examples with helpful explanations. For example, she provides annotations on screen captures of tables from Access and MS Server instead of only writing a description of a query. Even though the chapters were short and fast-paced, I was never stretching my head too long to understand what was going on.

The only negative thing about this book is the queries don’t have any semi-colons at the end.

I recommend this book for anyone taking a database course or anyone who wants a simple overview of SQL.

Tip:
All the table example data is listed after chapter 11. I suggested that you store that in your database before reading this book and so you can follow along easily.

Book Review: “The Elements of C# Style”

Posted by on December 26, 2011 No comments


Here is an amazon review that I did for book called “The Elements of C# Style”.

I’m trying to become more of a productive programmer and code readability is an element to it.

So I searched through collection of programming book at my university library and found this one.

“The elements of C# Style” is short, concise and provides examples when needed. There is a summarized list of tips in the back of the book to act as a cheat-sheet.

Note that most of the tips can be used is most Object Oriented Programming languages, like Java.

But be aware that this book doesn’t teach you C#, but rather it focuses on how C# code can be written in order to maximize its effectiveness.

In conclusion, I think this an excellent book for anyone trying to improve their code quality.

Book Review: Desirable Future: Consumer Electronics in Tomorrow’s World

Posted by on August 28, 2011 No comments

Here’s a review I did on amazon.com for Desirable Future: Consumer Electronics in Tomorrow’s World.
Review

This is a thought provoking book that explores advances in complementary science, technology, medicine and engineering and how consumer electronics will change our society, our planet and our selfs.

This book covers almost every topic you could think of in terms of electronics.
Some of the discussed topics are the death of the PC, advancements in wired and wireless networks, Moore’s law, new types of CPUs and computing, Singularity, environmental impact from e-waste and manufacturing consumer electronics, and etc.

The author explains each topic well enough for most people to understand.
Two themes that are echoed throughout the book are that future devices will be smaller, faster and mostly wireless while using less power. Also, socialites will become heavily dependent on technology to function.

I enjoyed reading “Desirable Future” but was left wondering who Jack Challoner was and how he knows so much, until I opened the back cover. It turns out that Jack Challoner has written more than 30 books and is a consultant science editor for books, magazines, science activity packs and Cd-ROMs.

I recommend this book for anyone fascinated with technology.

Video: Future Technology (2020)

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