Book Description
Think ordinary conundrums are just too humdrum? Do you finish crossword puzzles in ink and in no time flat? Then get ready for a serious test of your skills, with the ultimate in mental challenges. We've got crosswords of course; more than 50 tough, "regular" ones. But you'll also enjoy dozens and dozens more of different varieties, including devilish "Crushwords" where you have to put more than one letter in each square, and mind-blowing math and logic teasers known as pixel puzzles, where if your answers are correct you'll create a picture of success! And if that isn't enough, you'll also find word puzzles that demand "lateral thinking," and may well be the truest test of your abilities.
Customer Reviews:
The best Hanjie you will find!.......2007-03-10
I love crossword puzzles and Hanjie. Both are excellent in this book. The Hanjie puzzles, however, are not for beginners! Many of them are harder than the toughest ones in any other Hanjie book, which I really welcomed. The crossword puzzles are "medium" to "hard" based on the many puzzles I have done in Dell Crossword Puzzle magazines. There is an assortment of other puzzles, but they are way too hard for me and I would rate them as "difficult" or "advanced." With the large number of puzzles in this book I can do, it is WELL worth the money spent!
I have been doing puzzle books for over 25 years. I actually bought this book about 5 years ago. I did the puzzles I could in about a year, tossed it, and just bought it again because nothing I have found in that time frame has compared to how great this book is! Luckily, I have forgotten what all of the answers are!
Book Description
Here are more than 400 fun and challenging full color puzzles for the puzzle junkie. Lateral thinking puzzles, word and number puzzles, logic brainteasers, letter grids, visual puzzles and more, all graded according to degree of difficulty: easy, medium and hard. All answers are included, as is information on joining the Mensa societies in the United States or Canada.
See it's sister book Mensa All-Color Puzzle Book 1 for more fun.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Assortment of Brain Benders.......2003-07-14
This book is laid out beautifully and contains over three hundred full-color brain benders. It follows in the Mensa tradition of difficult yet visually pleasing puzzlers. A great choice.
Average customer rating:
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Mensa Mind Challenge
Robert Allen
Manufacturer: Thunder Bay Press (CA)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Puzzles & Games
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Logic & Brain Teasers
| Puzzles & Games
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1571458832 |
Book Description
Mensa Mind Challenge includes more than 500 puzzles, from cunning numerical conundrums and testing word games to logic teasers, enigmatic lateral thinking tests, and abstract visual problems. They don't follow any special pattern, so you'll never know what challenge is lying in wait on the next page. Organized by level of difficulty from straightforward to downright devilish, you'll get some practice in puzzle thinking with the easy section, build skills in the medium section, and develop an edge for the really hard part. No special skills or abilities are needed -- just common sense, basic literacy, the ability to think things through, and determination.
Book Description
Take the Mensa challenge. These extraordinarily entertaining puzzles can confound even those with high IQs--and that's what makes them such delightfully tricky fun. A few can be solved relatively quickly, but the hardest may seem nearly impossible to crack. Give your skills a real workout on numerical conundrums, word games, lateral thinking problems, and riddles. Brainteasers, arranged in order of difficulty, train the mind and provide a good time all at once. The most complex bafflers include chess, logic, and spatial puzzles. Here's just one example of what's inside: A farmer has twenty sheep, ten pigs, and ten cows. If we call the pigs cows, how many cows will he have?
The answer: Ten cows. We can call the pigs cows, but that doesn't make them cows.
Book Description
More than 500 conundrums, mind-benders, and mathematical teasers will help puzzle fans push their IQ levels to the maximum. Visualize this collection as a ladder into the stratosphere of intelligence: 20 levels of ascending difficulty each contain a variety of numerical and alphabetical questions that tease and stimulate the brain. Start from the beginning, with Level One, and work methodically through to the end. Think logically, rationally, and laterally when unraveling these, and watch for emerging patterns that make solving the later problems easier. Resist the temptation to look at the answers (all at the end), and when you're stumped, try to look at the puzzle from a different perspective--that's how to sharpen the wits and train the mind.
Customer Reviews:
Starts out challenging, becomes 22 times more so!.......2006-08-27
The book trains your brain to think logically. The same puzzles appear to show up in each chapter, but there is a new twist every time. And logic you've learned to apply to one type of puzzle can suddenly solve something completely different. You are encouraged not to look at the solutions when you are stuck, but rather to return to that puzzle later and look at it from a different point of view. Can you follow that rule? Sometimes I just have to peek at the answer!
These puzzles are fun, and some are truly amazing!
Love this book!.......2006-03-02
If you like puzzles, you will love this book! Just when you think you have a pattern solved, there is another possible solution! It exercises my brain! LOVE IT!
Average customer rating:
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Super Challenge (Mind Benders Series)
World Book Encyclopedia , and
Inc World Book
Manufacturer: World Book
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Math
| Science, Nature & How It Works
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Ages 9-12
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Puzzles & Games
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Math Games
| Puzzles & Games
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Mathematics
| Professional Science
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
| Applied
| Chaos & Systems
| Geometry & Topology
| Mathematical Analysis
| Mathematical Physics
| Number Systems
| Pure Mathematics
| Transformations
| Trigonometry
ASIN: 0716641089 |
Book Description
This latest must-have volume in our hugely successful Ultimate Crosswords Omnibus series (more than 300,000 sold) is sure to appeal to crosswords lovers everywhere. The exclusive best of collection includes 150 of the editors' favorite crosswords on every topic imaginable. Like previous volumes in the series, it includes puzzles designed by many of the world's best composers, providing the consumer with a variety of subjects, different levels of challenge, and both common and advanced word choices. Spiral binding and heavy-duty back cover make for extra convenient puzzling.
Book Description
Crosswords fans have been anxiously awaiting this latest compendium of superior puzzles in our Ultimate Crosswords Omnibus series. Edited by distinguished cruciverbalist Mel Rosen, the 192 challenging puzzles, with answer keys, represent the best Pen & Pencil Club Crosswords from that organization's recent publications. These omnibi have hard back covers for ease of puzzling on one's lap. The binding uses a special double-spiral for ease of folding the page back or laying open on a table. Good luck, because while the format is easy, the puzzles sure aren't!
Customer Reviews:
The Ultimate Crosswords Omnibus #4.......2001-11-09
As a medium to hard crossword puzzle lover, I have found #2 and #4 (the only ones I have) in this series to be GREAT! There is a variety of relatively easy to somewhat puzzling to I can't finish this yet. There is a variety of "straight" word answers and ones with "twist." I'm really enjoying these. AND, the hard cover backing and large spiral bound make is easy to flip the book inside out and do the puzzles at work at lunch, on a bus, while being the backseat passenger in a car, etc., etc.
Book Description
Praise for CMMI® Survival Guide
"Traveling down the CMMI road can be difficult and time-consuming. Garcia and Turner have given us a practical roadmap that addresses the key points to learn as well as the many potholes to avoid. Their Survival Guide is a most valuable resource for the journey. It will help immeasurably in achieving the process improvement that you seek."
—Dr. Howard Eisner, Distinguished Research Professor, George Washington University
"Helps you get to the 'red meat' of the CMMI quickly and with minimum pain."
—Donald J. Reifer, President, Reifer Consultants, Inc.
"The best words I can offer potential readers is that you must have this book, not on your shelf, but with you for repeated reading to glean new ideas or reinforce old ones you gained from the past readings. If you have ever been directly involved in a process improvement initiative or if you are starting one, this book can only help you to do a better job. And while [the authors] may not have written this book explicitly for experienced consultants, I found it a great reference even for those of us who helped start this industry, because it provides clear and useful answers to those tough questions we are asked all of the time."
—Tim Kasse, CEO and Principal Consultant, Kasse Initiatives LLC
"This book contains practical (working) tips for the 'getting started' phase of process improvement, which is the hardest one in the road to improving one's processes."
—Agapi Svolou, Principal of Alexanna, LLC, and SEI CMMI Transition Partner
"The authors have done an outstanding job in providing guidance for process improvement from a practical perspective. Instead of focusing on a single technique or approach, they have provided a variety of methods for process improvement implementation and have framed their discussion with rich context from lessons learned. The concepts described in this book will be useful to both those starting CMMI implementations and to those who are well into their journey but are still looking for ways to lessen the pain and provide value-added improvements. Reading the book is like being in the audience during a live presentation by SuZ and Rich—they wrote the book as they would present the information to a live audience."
—Bill Craig, Director, Software Engineering Directorate, AMRDEC, RDECOM
"I have been involved in process improvement since the early 90's and many of the mistakes that I made could have been prevented if this book had been available then."
—Claude Y. Laporte, Professor, ETS Universite du Quebec
"Primarily, the book is practical. The guidance presented is geared toward someone who is not exactly sure why they need process improvement, but is presented with the fact that they must do it. Very often these are smaller organizations, with limited resources, and uncertain support from above. As I read the book, I thought almost immediately of a couple of organizations with which I am familiar who could use this kind of tutelage. There are real, and useful, techniques in this book that I believe can help these kinds of organizations prioritize and establish reasonable plans for improving the processes in the organization. I also like the sidebars and personal observations. Discussions of experience can really help organizations through the various pitfalls that are part of developing and deploying processes. It makes the book more of a 'real life' guide, and not a theoretical exercise. Finally, the book is an enjoyable read. The conversational style of the book (and the humor) make it much easier to read than many of the books I have read in the past."
—Alexander Stall, Principal Process Improvement Engineer, Systems and Software Consortium
The CMMI provides a framework for process improvement spanning the life cycle of a product or service, from conception through delivery and maintenance. Widely and beneficially adopted around the world, the size and apparent complexity of the framework have nonetheless been daunting to some organizations. That need not be so. With a proper guide to help navigate around unknown dangers, potential pitfalls, and false paths, you too, can realize substantial business value from a successful CMMI implementation. This book is such a guide, full of the real-life examples to ease your way, and written in a lighter style to ease your reading.
The
CMMI® Survival Guide is an effective resource for multiple readerships. If you are just now considering a process improvement program, with the CMMI among your options, the authors' discussion of relevant issues will enhance your business case right from the start. If you have already decided to implement the CMMI, the authors' practical knowledge will help you make the most of your efforts. Even if you are well into a CMMI implementation, but are lost, stuck, or going around in circles, the authors' valuable advice will help you regain your direction.
If you work in a smaller or resource-strapped organization, you will particularly benefit from the authors' description of alternative paths to process improvement—approaches that are more incremental or agile, and less intensive, than you might imagine for a CMMI implementation. The authors draw on their extensive experience working with diverse organizations, and on the CMMI tools, techniques, and templates developed for those organizations.
Whatever your background or need, the
CMMI® Survival Guide will help you survey the CMMI territory, consult possible road maps, learn from other CMMI explorers, weigh the benefits of hiring a living guide, and even consider whether the trip is right for you.
Customer Reviews:
Far more readable and effective than other process books..........2007-04-08
I've been exposed to a number of process improvement methodologies throughout my career, as well as read a number of books that try to explain them. To be honest, it's not a subject that's high on my "can't wait to read" list. But were more books styled like CMMI Survival Guide: Just Enough Process Improvement by Suzanne Garcia and Richard Turner, I would probably be more inclined to give them a chance. This book covers what you need to know without all of the mind-numbing jargon and detail...
Contents:
Part 1 - Scouting the Territory: Why We Think Process Is Important; Why Process Improvement Helps; Why Process Improvement Isn't Trivial
Part 2 - Mapping the Route: CMMI As Your Guide; A Decision-based Life Cycle for Improvement
Part 3 - Surviving the Passage: A PI Case Study; Survival and PI
Part 4 - Experiencing the Journey: Developing and Sustaining Sponsorship; Setting and Measuring Against Realistic Goals; Managing an Appraisal Life Cycle; Developing Process Improvement Infrastructure; Defining Processes; Looking Ahead
Part 5 - Outfitting Your Expedition (PI Resources): Tools and Techniques
Bibliography; Index
The basic direction of the authors is to talk to the reader like they were actually there, and to simplify CMMI so that it can be grasped and understood. And when you place a traditionally process-heavy methodology like CMMI up against agile methodologies like Extreme Programming, you realize just what a task the authors have taken on. Surprisingly, they pull it off pretty well. Part 1 lays the foundation for why a business or organization needs to have some sort of process improvement plan in place. The larger the organization is, the more important it becomes. Then using CMMI as the framework, part 2 covers the main topics of just what makes up the process improvement effort. Part 3 is where the application of the process becomes concrete. They use an easily-understandable case study that takes concepts and applies them to actual situations. That's usually where the large "formal" books fail. You can stuff as much information into your head as you want, but until it gets applied, it's pretty useless. Part 4 goes into more details of how the process works on an ongoing basis, followed by the actual tools and techniques that come into play for CMMI (part 5). By the end, you've covered everything you need to know (and you haven't poked your eyeballs out in frustration).
While this might not be the "official" guide to a methodology, it's far more readable and applicable than books three times its size. And if you can read and understand the material, you have a far better chance of making it actually work...
Getting and recognizing benefit from process improvement.......2007-02-23
An easy to read book about using an abstract model: this is quite a feat. This is the book I'd write about improving processes, if I had the time, the talent, the motivation, etc. I've been doing this improvement work for many years, occasionally with the authors, and it is gratifying to see that they've captured so many good practices and useful ideas and shared them in an accessible, friendly way.
Many different fields use CMMI as a standard, to decide about improvement planning, to gauge their results, to convince customers they are reliable. This book shows the way around the pit-falls, points out the poison-ivy patches, and can help people find their way to the benefits of process improvement.
Of course CMMI for Development can be daunting: it describes professional engineering and engineering management practices in enough detail to be used in several ways by different communities. Finally, it isn't CMMI that drives people to disappointing improvement results. Mistakes in judging how easy it is to get people to change or even to describe their way of doing things often have led to "heavy" process implementations, as change agents add more and more detail hoping it will get people to use the processes. Or, mistaking how fast processes can be implemented can lead to mandated processes that work well for no one.
The authors have accurately described how to find your "main, broad road" to the benefits of improvements, and the many factors that you have to consider that will lead you there. Now I don't have to write this book. I'll give it to our customer's managers and their process engineers and be confident that they can get good direction from it: we now have a rich resource of techniques, stories, and directions that we can refer to in our projects.
Okay, some criticism: the techniques described in the last chapters are very effective, but have to be approached with discipline as well as a fun-finding mind-set, so they may not work for everyone. But that's one of the good things about the book- the authors say that few improvements work exactly the way you want, the very first time. Honest and useful advice.
a brief overview of CMMI.......2006-11-03
Garcia and Turner address a widely held concern about adopting CMMI. That it is overly heavy, with much to assimilate before a group of programmers can usefully apply it. Well ok, CMMI can be used for more than just software development. But as a practical matter, most of its users and proposed users are in that business. The book is perhaps also a reaction to the Agile process. The latter is in some ways the mirror image of CMMI, with short design and coding cycles.
The book gives a relatively quick walkthrough of CMMI. A broad picture about using CMMI to improve your development process. En route, it also discusses general topics like project management issues, which are not exclusive to CMMI. The entire text is really just a primer for CMMI. It shows that CMMI has many subtopics, and the procedures involved can be rather detailed. Adding up to a formidable total barrier for the newcomer. But the text does supply enough information to give an appreciation of what CMMI can do for you, and the concepts to be mastered.
Of all the chapters, I found Chapter 11 to be the most formidable. It seems to give the strongest indicator of the amount of material in CMMI. Just consider the O process areas within CMMI. "You'll need people who can implement the practices in Organisational Process Focus, Organisational Process Definition, Organisational Training, Organisational Innovation and Deployment and (eventually) Organisational Process Performance". Whew! And the chapter goes on to give more information about what these might entail. No wonder some might baulk at CMMI.
Book Description
Practical, proven techniques for managing today's smaller, more mission-critical projects
Managers who can bring projects in on time, under budget, and within specs are among the most valuable and marketable in today's project-driven environment. Just Enough Project Management-- written by globally renowned project management authority Curtis R. Cook--is a quick-hitting, no-nonsense pocket guide on how to successfully handle projects of any size, in any environment.
This versatile book's one-of-a-kind, customizable templates free managers from the time-consuming process of having to reinvent basic techniques and methods from one project to the next. Valuable for projects of every size, but especially helpful for today's newer breed of tighter, more focused projects, Just Enough Project Management will help project managers achieve:
- Greater bottom-line performance
- Dramatically improved team morale
- Long-term competitive advantage
Download Description
Practical, proven techniques for managing todays smaller, more mission-critical projects
Managers who can bring projects in on time, under budget, and within specs are among the most valuable and marketable in today's project-driven environment. Just Enough Project Management-- written by globally renowned project management authority Curtis R. Cook--is a quick-hitting, no-nonsense pocket guide on how to successfully handle projects of any size, in any environment.
This versatile book's one-of-a-kind, customizable templates free managers from the time-consuming process of having to reinvent basic techniques and methods from one project to the next. Valuable for projects of every size, but especially helpful for today's newer breed of tighter, more focused projects, Just Enough Project Management will help project managers achieve:
- Greater bottom-line performance
- Dramatically improved team morale
- Long-term competitive advantag...'
Customer Reviews:
Not too much, not too little.......2007-10-05
This book is about right for a new project manager or a small project (hopefully these would both go together but so often it does not). It is also quite useful for an experienced project manager of a smaller project looking for that line that separates the least amount of control from sheer negligence. This book is a little heavier than that, but still pretty light.
It is not quite as useful as the Dummies series in terms of a full service solution but really, despite the titles, those are not for novices. This book has a reasonable enough approach and reasonable enough templates to implement it.
The drawback I found was that the author uses relatively trivial illustrative "projects" so that newbie can understand the principles without getting hung up on details. The problem is even as a trained project manager the examples of PM applied to such simple things as "weekend at the country cabin" projected precisely the image of absurd over-control that is the thing that frightens PM opponents in the first place. For a real newbie, it could even more scary because if that is what you have to do for something so obviously simple, how much overhead goes with a real project?
That is really a minor quibble, though. If you are introducing a novice to the idea of PM, or if you are introducing PM to a nervous organization, this book might be a good place to start as a base case. It is certainly about the closest thing I have found in the past months of looking for such a solution.
Book Description
If you develop software without understanding the requirements, you're wasting your time.
On the other hand, if a project spends too much time trying to understand the requirements, it will end up late and/or over-budget. And products that are created by such projects can be just as unsuccessful as those that fail to meet the basic requirements.
Instead, every company must make a reasonable trade-off between what's required and what time and resources are available.
Finding the right balance for your project may depend on many factors, including the corporate culture, the time-to-market pressure, and the criticality of the application. That is why requirements managementgathering requirements, identifying the "right" ones to satisfy, and documenting themis essential.
Just Enough Requirements Management shows you how to discover, prune, and document requirements when you are subjected to tight schedule constraints. You'll apply just enough process to minimize risks while still achieving desired outcomes. You'll determine how many requirements are just enough to satisfy your customers while still meeting your goals for schedule, budget, and resources.
If your project has insufficient resources to satisfy all the requirements of your customers, you must read Just Enough Requirements Management. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reviews "Al Davis takes for his subject the largely unexplored middle ground between the requirements purists and the requirements cowboys. Since it's this middle ground where real work gets done, his guidance is both useful and welcome."
Tom DeMarco, coauthor of Peopleware Principal, The Atlantic Systems Guild, systemsguild.com
Customer Reviews:
If you don't manage requirements then you don't control them..........2006-08-18
If you think that requirements are not all that necessary, this book might change your view: Before you build something, you should decide what you want to build. If you think you cannot start development until requirements are "complete," Davis will convince you that, since requirements change, requirements management is an ongoing activity. He breaks it down into three major areas:
- Requirements elicitation (i.e. determining the actual needs of the stakeholders): This includes identifying ALL the stakeholders and also knowing when and how to apply different elicitation techniques. Davis comments on the proper use of modeling notations are really noteworthy.
- Requirements triage (to balance the delivery date and the development budget against desired requirements): If you don't know what triage is, then you should probably read this book. Its importance (and the author's bias) is manifest when you realize that it has the longest chapter in this book.
- Requirements specification (i.e. documenting requirements): Davis advocates for the use of lists of discrete annotated requirements written in natural language just because natural language is the language of customers (and free text is not too manageable). Supporting models can also be sensibly used, but only for those parts of the system where the use of natural language would introduce too much risk, never to completely replace the written requirements.
"Just Enough Requirements Management" ends with a reminder of change as an unavoidable fact. It also includes an extensive annotated bibliography for those interested in learning more about requirements, just after reading this cleverly-written book...
Must reading to make requirements triage (prioritization) really work.......2006-04-23
Al Davis has done it again, with a highly practical and useable book on the ongoing process of effectively managing changing requirements.
Davis is an expert in requirements, bringing to light his vast expertise in many domains including systems engineering on real (very large) projects as well as commercial software. He is perhaps THE expert on requirements triage.
This book provides practical advise on how to do triage and provides examples and wisdom on documenting requirements that honors both the need to 'write it down' in some way with the reality of ever-changing requirements.
A very good book!.......2006-03-16
One of the best books I have read in this subject. Detailed and with many practical rules and examples.
Requirements Engineering - More isn't necessarily better.......2006-01-24
I was very impressed when reading Alan Davis' latest book on 'Just enough Requirements Management.'
In his past work he has worked on bringing more formalism into requirements engineering in order to make them correct. However, over time he realized that this doesn't solve the real problems, because the requirements are changing despite the fact they've been formalized in advance.
There are not many people who are confident enough to admit that they have learned over the past years which also means that they've changed their mind. Alan is competent enough doing so which makes him really authentic.
A real eye opener for most of the readers is probably his illustration of the reality of ongoing requirements activities despite using a waterfall approach.
In this fast moving world, it is essential to know how much requirements engineering is necessary in order to being able to moving on and it is even more important to know when to stop doing requirements engineering for being in-time on the market.
I really recommend reading this book in order to know what barely sufficient requirement engineering is all about.
I really wish that I had written this book........2005-08-06
The title says it all, this book really does explore all of the issues surrounding how to do just enough requirements management on your software development projects. I'd argue that it provides the insight that you require to put together an requirements program within your organization that is right for you, one that is sufficiently agile yet still reflects your situation. It explores strategies for eliciting requirements, prioritizing/triaging requirements, specifying requirements, and finally managing requirements change. Davis managed to pull off what few writers can do - by exploring the requirements management spectrum he has presented a range of strategies which should speak to both traditionalists and agilists. For traditionalists he presents some pretty convincing arguments that the "big requirements document up front" strategy might not be all that effective, and for agilists he presents convincing arguments that we need to invest some effort in requirements documentation. Most important is a running theme throughout the book: the goal isn't to write a perfect requirements document, it's to deliver working software which meets the needs of your stakeholders in a timely and cost effective manner. Sounds like really great advice to me.
Books:
- The Murder-Mystery Party Kit (Miniature Editions)
- The New York Times Daily Crossword Puzzles Volume 64: 50 Daily-Size Puzzles from the Pages of The New York Times
- The New York Times Large-Print Easy Crossword Omnibus Volume 1: 120 Easy-to-Read, Easy-to-Solve Puzzles from the Pages of The New York Times (New York Times Large Print Crossword Puzzle Omnibus)
- The Official Book of Wordoku: Sudoku Puzzles for Word Lovers
- The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary
- The Runaway Princess
- The Ruy Lopez Explained (Batsford Chess Books)
- The Silent Blade (Forgotten Realms: Paths of Darkness, Book 1)
- The Spade Series: An Introduction to Duplicate Bridge: An Introduction to Duplicate Bridge (ACBL Bridge)
- The Stockings Were Hung (Christmas Remembered, Bk. 16.)
Books Index
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