Personal-finance

The book has chapters on Money, Stocks, Bonds, Mutual Funds, and Futures & Options. Each chapter is written very clearly and pictures are used frequently to simplify descriptions of complex economic and financial ideas.

I would recommend this book to all of our customers who are just getting started with investing in stocks or who would like to know more about more complicated investments such as mutual funds, futures and options.

Many books about investing in Asia are quickly made useless by the gyrations in the volatile Asian markets. Unlike most such investment books, the Asian Wall Street Journal/Asia Business News' Guide to Understanding Money & Investing in Asia focuses on explaining the basic fundamentals of investing. It should be classic introductory investment text for years to come.

Justin Hunter

General Manager

BOOM.COM, Asia's first Internet brokerage

This book deals with the contrasts, interactions, and conflicts between the career-oriented, externally focused parts of our lives, and the rest of our lives. The author uses as case studies several men and a woman who, after having achieved relatively high status in their work, found themselves unhappy and unfulfilled. In some cases, these people found they had pursued their work at the expense of other things important to them. In other cases, they were in job situations inconsistent with their heart's desire. Of course, career achievement does not in itself lead to happiness. The author's theme is that to achieve happiness, we each need to understand and embrace our own internal world of fears and beliefs, and ultimately to acknowledge ourselves as being in the hands of our ultimate Source (whether that be God or the Universe or something else is a personal preference). Armed with this understanding, we can make better choices in our lives, choices that are more likely to lead to happiness. The author presents several frameworks to help us understand our internal universe, for example he invites us to think of ourselves as being ruled by strong and weak versions of the Sovereign, Warrior, Magician, and Lover archetypes. He also presents an apt bus analogy: our conscious mind is the driver, interrupted by riders in the back representing various characters that inhabit our unconscious.

I was eager to read this book. Its elements make it the sort of book I'd expect to enjoy a lot. It deals with the quest for inner awareness, which has been a transforming, personal quest for me, and it addresses the mid-career "what next" question, something definitely on my mind. The ideas, the truths the author addresses are undeniably important ones. He even uses frameworks I know and like, and some new clever ones. And the author can certainly turn a phrase. I often stepped back to admire his facility with words, his clear and competent sentences. I found many of his sentences stand-alone gems; material for quotes or poster captions. However, for some reason, this book didn't click with me. Maybe it's because the truths seemed more pronouncements than insights; the characters hard to relate to; the judgements too pat. My reaction to such an eloquently written book surprises me. Perhaps the eloquence was not enough for me. Maybe I wanted more heart from the author, more links from the truths he reveals to his own personal reality.

The expression "no punches pulled" comes to mind here. Warner's personal life experience and what he has learned from working intensively with hundreds of other executives lives on every page. Another reviewer said something like you could read a page or two .... or immerse yourself in it .... and get value either way. That is also my experience. This is a profound look at mid life issues for "successful" people -- how we got what we got, the very real deeper issues we face and the way out. Very impressive.

As a work/family expert and author of several books on the topic, I've read many books on the pyschological issues facing entrepreneurs today. Frankly, many of them seem to regurgitate the obvious and what has already been said. "Balance work and family", or "when you die, you won't wish you'd spent more time at the office." I was impressed with the breadth and debth of this book, exploring concepts not previously written about, and for the CEO or psychologist who wishes to understand this issue in greater debth, the author does not disappoint. You can skim this book for a new take on the issue, or devote an entire Sunday to it and sink yourself into the book , probably feeling like the author spent hours interviewing you before he wrote it. By the end you'll be convinced that the author knows you, at a level deeper than even your spouse or closest friend. This book is not for someone who wants a quick fix and a few easy ideas that will make all of the deeper issues go away. Rather, this book is for those courageous ones who are ready to examine this issue on a whole new level. Bravo to the author for leading the expedition. I hope this book opens up new conversations on the topic all over America!

This book consists of reports, which describe the state of the ASP market about a year ago. While writing my diploma thesis about this topic, I had to realise, that this topic loses its actuality rather quickly as the only constant element in the ASP market is change. The book focuses on so-called First-Generation ASPs putting most business emphasise on quick market presence. In the meantime the market has matured leading to 2nd and 3rd Generation ASPs, which qualifies the reports contained in this book as partially outdated basic knowledge. Today, potential ASP customers and providers use far more complex strategies to utilize the ASP concept.

I purchased this book looking for an overall, logically flowing picture of the ASP concept. While the content is valid, I was disappointed to find that it was just a collection of publicly available white papers and industry articles. The book is smaller than I thought - only 300 pages, and it contains advertisements for various vendors (the only color sections of the book). There are many graphs and pie charts that are useless because the different segments are all different shades of gray, and I think that it is far too much to spend for what seems to be a collection of white papers an intern could assemble after surfing the web for an afternoon.

I don't agree with mr Brian Madden. I can image why there are some ads in the book, but they did help me to reach and to get in touch with these vendors. The articles are clearly whitepapers, casestudies and reports of research companies and the are not commercial in my opinion, they only inform you of the several options. The HOTT Guide gave me an objective idea of the possibilities of ASP for my company, although I already knew some of it.

One star may be a bit harsh, but books like this should be fairly easy to put together and this one just doesn't work. The Q&A format is all wrong because there is no way that the author can anticipate half of a reader's questions. And the format also makes it tougher to use as a reference because the book does not systematically go through the software. Some things get glossed over and anyone looking for detailed help will be disappointed. Even though I have Money 2001 software, I preferred to use the MS Money 2000 for Dummies book because it's far better organized. And the software revisions don't change much from year to year, so the book was still highly valid.

I bought this book because I was having trouble figuring out certain things that can be done with MSN Money 2001. I would have returned it but I bought it and didn't read for 4 months, when I finally read it I was truly disapointed. This book does not tell you anything but the pure basics, it is not a reference book, it is a how to balance your checkbook book. Please before you buy this item or any by this company, I would suggest getting something else.

This is a good, solid beginners guide, very readable and well organized. It's not as 'cute' as the Dummies series, but stronger on content. Worth a lot more than it cost!!