2 stars (I'm glad I'm the teacher and not the student!!!) - Wow. This book is bad. I have to use this book -- chosen by the department -- for a class I'm teaching. The fact that the book is a bad choice for this class is not the fault of the book -- I was given the text with instructions to teach chapters 1 - 4, 10, and 11, and then to use extra material for topics not covered in the book -- clearly, this text does not fit the class, and either the course should be redesigned, or a different text should be chosen. Anyway, a first glance was enough to see how miserably this book is organized. The first chapter covers: 1.1 Coordinate Systems and Graphs 1.2 Linear Inequalities 1.3 The Intersection Point of a Pair of Lines 1.4 The Slope of a Straight Line 1.5 The Method of Least Squares So, section 1.2 is dependent on 1.3 which is dependent on 1.4 -- isn't the order a bit backwards? And then in 1.5, you're on to a topic which is a huge leap in difficulty from learning how to plot a point on Cartesian coordinates from 1.1. Unbelievable. This type of interdependence carries on through all of the sections of the book that I've looked at (admittedly not all). It seems that one must already know the material from further ahead in the book in order to use the book to learn the material in the given chapter. I believe that by this Eighth Edition of the book, the authors should be removed from it -- it should be given to students using this text without already knowing it all, and let those students revise and edit the continuity of the material. Matrix notation is introduced, virtually without explanation of either how to use it or why. Examples are given that attempt to show how to perform some operations on a TI-83 (or similar) calculator, but these efforts fail miserably. Frankly, I'm having a hard time even figuring out what it is that this book is trying to teach -- and I already understand the material! If, however, the goal of the book is to confuse stud... Prentice Hall :: Mathematics & General :: Science&Mathematics :: Mathematics :: Finite Mathematics :: Applied :: Martha J Siegel :: David I Schneider :: Larry J Goldstein :: :: Finite Mathematics and Its Applications
5 stars (Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna Expansion Pack) - This game rocks!!I cant beleive how huge it is.I have played this game for well over 60 hours and still have not completed it. 3 stars (Mediocre medieval masher) - This game was recommended to me by a friend. It's similar to Diablo II in nature, but I would say that it's a much better game. That being said, it's a pretty boring and unengaging piece of software. The game looks good. The controls are good. But... no story, no problem solving, no puzzles, and battles can almost happen without your input, they're so computer assisted. It almost does it all for you, especially since the spellcasting is basically useless aside from healing and summoning. I do like some features of the game like potion sorting, customizing character attack perameters, etc. I do think the game is quite beautifully rendered for the type of game that it is (diabloesque), but that eventually got tired and I ended up not finishing it. Replay value is non-existent here. Mediocre fare. 3 stars (disappointed) - Unfortunately this game is rated as working on the XP. The expansion does work on the XP. And is very good. The reason I don't rate the game higher is that the origional Dungeon Seige starts working, but then around the mid point it crashes. It replaces the screen with squares of green. Once they appear, nothing can be done. I E-mailed Microsoft and the developers and they insisted that I just had to erase the game from the computer and then reload the game onto the computer. It then crashed the same way. I gave up after three crashes. But as I say, the expansion does work and is quite fun. The main game is also fun until it crashes. ... Microsoft :: Computer Role Playing Games (Game :: rpgs :: rpg :: crpg :: crpgs) :: :: Dungeon Siege- Legends of Aranna Expansion Pack
Barcode Software/ siege trial 
