Maximum Performance is an essential read for all business owners, managers, consultants and key decision makers. It is an outstanding and comprehensive insight into the broad range of managerial and leadership issues which confront business people today. It is practical and littered with excellent case study examples and illustrations. Its unique style is easy to read, thought provoking and demystifies concepts that are easily misunderstood outside an MBA course. Grasp and digest this book quickly because it’s the smart thing to do.

There is refreshing and satisfying clarity of discussion; with comment on many management theories, explanations of evidence and research and the consequences of their applications in organisations.The pages are brimming with examples, keeping the messages real, practical and always interesting. Maximum Performance is thought provoking, and the reader is constantly challenged to assess his or her own knowledge, experience, attributes, perceptions and behaviour. It is a wonderful resource for those beginning their endeavours, introducing them to the complexities of leading people, and a delightful summary of instantly recognisable experience to those who are well on the journey. It is hugely valuable to all, whether for new knowledge or a welcome refresher. And, there is just a touch of irreverence, adding an enjoyable balance to a serious subject.

(more…)

Welcome to a series of tutorials that will explore techniques for implementing these common data access patterns in ASP.NET 2.0.

These tutorials are geared to be concise and provide step-by-step instructions with plenty of screen shots to walk you through the process visually.

 Each tutorial is available in C#

(more…)

(more…)

Want to hook up your home theater system?

Want to fix it so your garage band rocks the neighborhood?

Want to solder the faulty wire on your old phonograph so you can play those 60s albums you’ve kept all this time?

Whether you’re a do-it-yourselfer , hobbyist, or student , this book will turn you on to real-world electronics. It quickly covers the essentials, and then focuses on the how-to instead of theory. It covers:

    * Fundamental concepts such as circuits, schematics, voltage, safety, and more
    * Tools of the trade, including multimeters, oscilloscopes, logic probes, and more
    * Common electronic components (e.g. resistors, capacitors, transistors)
    * Making circuits using breadboards and printed circuit boards
    * Microcontrollers (implementation and programming)

Author Gordon McComb has more than a million copies of his books in print, including his bestselling Robot Builder’s Bonanza and VCRs and Camcorders For Dummies. He really connects with readers! With lots of photos and step-by-step explanations, this book will have you connecting electronic components in no time! In fact, it includes fun ideas for great projects you can build in 30 minutes or less. You’ll be amazed! Then you can tackle cool robot projects that will amaze your friends! (The book gives you lots to choose from.)

(more…)

Learn to play the guitar using this quick and easy guide. Whether you dream of playing classical guitar, a B.B. King lick, or just the opening bars to "Stairway to Heaven," this book can get you there. This easy-to-use guide introduces the beginning guitarist to all styles of playing, from classical to jazz and pop. Using basic exercises and a selection of popular tunes, it shows how to do everything from reading tablature and chord diagrams to performing simple accompaniment. This book is designed for the child or adult beginner who wants a "user-friendly" introduction to the most popular musical instrument. It contains numerous sidebars and illustrations, making learning the guitar fun and easy. Z Features exercises in all styles from classical to rock and jazz Z Includes checklists of popular books, videos and instrument dealers, and tips on purchasing and maintaining your instrument. Frederick Noad is an expert guitar teacher and author of dozens of guitar methods, including The Virtual Guitarist, Solo Guitar Playing and Playing the Guitar, all from Schirmer Books. He is the inventor of Speed Score, the computer notation software and is universally known as a master teacher of the instument.

(more…)

Updated and revised, this new edition of the best-selling favorite enables readers to master the fundamentals of humor writing and better understand the demands of the comedic market. Comedy Writing Secrets now includes:

-Examples from comedy greats as well as cutting-edge contemporary comedians, including Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, and Tina Fey

-A complete spectrum of techniques, from writing one-liners and stand-up routines, to finding a market for one's work

-Step-by-step writing exercises accompanied with sample answers, so readers can practice and hone their skills

With this guide, aspiring comics can learn how to sharpen their comedic talent and turn it into a well-paying pursuit.

(more…)

Hi Guys,

As I mentioned previously, we are moving to the new server, at the moment. Everything is nearly finished up. However, I have just found a problem that sometimes, when you load a page on eBooksPortal.org, you will see a blank page, just try to refresh it once or twice, it is still be there. I am working continuously to solve this issue.

Sorry for the inconvenience

Best Regards

Mr.Blue

When you"re studying for the BSCI exam on the way to earning your CCNP certification, you"ve got to master the use of BGP attributes. These attributes allow you to manipulate the path or paths that BGP will use to reach a given destination when multiple paths to that destination exist.

In this free BGP tutorial, we"re going to take a look at the NEXT_HOP attribute. You may be thinking "hey, how complicated can this attribute be?" It"s not very complicated at all, but this being Cisco, there"s got to be at least one unusual detail about it, right?

The NEXT_HOP attribute is simple enough - this attribute indicates the next-hop IP address that should be taken to reach a destination. In the following example, R1 is a hub router and R2 and R3 are spokes. All three routers are in BGP AS 100, with R1 having a peer relationship with both R2 and R3. There is no BGP peering between R2 and R3.

(more…)

Here"s a list of queries that I found myself using very often and that save me a lot of development time. I hope you can benefit from them as well.

1. Create a quick backup

Before testing a new piece of code you suspect might mess up data in one or more tables it"s always a good practice to create a backup. To quickly create a backup copy of a table, use this query:

CREATE TABLE backup SELECT * FROM TABLE original;

The query creates a table backup which is a copy of the original table and includes both structure and content.

2. Create/change/restore a password

Many applications store MD5-crypted passwords in the database. If you want to quickly create a new MD5-ed password, or you have forgotten your password, use the following query to get a new one:

SELECT MD5("somepasshere");

This statement will give you "b5bab206cc8002bf7c10d47b24a2d0e6" which is the encrypted version of the string "somepasshere". There are other function that crypt stings in MySQL using different algorithms, most notably PASSWORD() which is using MySQL"s own crypting algorithm.

(more…)

If there"s one thing that can be a bit confusing to many Network+ certification exam candidates, it"s the concept of ports and sockets. Well, it was confusing to me when I got started with computer certifications! Let"s take a look at ports and sockets, and why we need them in the first place.

Past Network+ exam tutorials have focused on how two PCs start communicating, but what we"ve got to keep in mind is that host PCs may and probably will have several different kinds of communications going on at the same time. A single PC may be sending email, receiving a Telnet request, and accessing the Internet at the same time. These conversations have to kept separate.. but how?

(more…)