I wondered why the book had so many typos in numerous examples of programs and configuration files listed on the book. It really led me to have a second thought about the quality of this book. Despite many editorial errors, the author did a good job on explaining the "how-it-works" of different parts in the Struts framework with using a step-by-step approach. The book provided a rich explanation on the logical flow of ActionServlet, Preprocessor, PlugIn, and form submisson, etc. Especially in the chapter of "Working with the Validator", it addressed the mechanics and usage of validator in a decent detail. On the other hands, the chapter about 'Tiles' was weak, no pictures no diagram no sample screenshot at all but only lists of source codes with little descriptions. It's hard for readers to follow and visualize the look & feel on various layout samples described in the book. The last five chapters were about Struts taglib APIs, HTML taglib, Tiles taglib, Logic taglib, Template taglib, and Bean taglib. Do not expect detail description or usage examples. These chapters seemed to me only a kind of re-printing of the APIs from the Struts online documentation, and took like almost 100 pages, 1/4 of the whole book.

Overall, the book is okay if you've known Struts a bit before and just want to refresh your memory. If you're a Struts starter, try others.

(Reviewed by Otto Yuen, 12-Aug-2008)

This book is a supplement for people who want to study kanji in addition to their Japanese text books. Kanji in Mangaland Volume I covers around 240 kanji, the Kyoiku kanji taught in the first two years of elementary school in Japan, and also the kanji for Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) level 3 & 4. Unlike other kanji studying materials such as Kanji flashcard, this book provides more than kunyomi, onyomi, and a list of jukugo (compound words). It illustrates the kanji stroke ordering sequence, uses a picture representing the kanji to help reader's memorization, and demonstrates the usage of different kanji via manga examples. The best part of the book is the history overview of where and how the kanji got imported to Japan and the influence on the Japanese language phonetic symbols: Katakana & Hiragana. However, few manga dialogs have some kanji that never been covered in the book, this may cause confusion to the readers. Overall, like Vitamin-C to your body, this book is a pretty good supplement for your Kanji studying.

(Reviewed by Otto Yuen, 01-Jan-2008)

This is the Part Two of Mangajin's Basic Japanese Through Comics. It provides another 24 lessons of some common japanese phrases (e.g. yappari, abunai, maitta, daijoubu, iya, mono, dekite, etc.) As the name of the book suggested, the author used different manga pictures to depict the common japanese phrases in different meanings with different contexts. The author also indicated the politeness level (i.e. Lv 1,2,3,4) for each usage to help the readers use the phrases properly in various siturations. If you're currently studying Japanese and in between beginner and intermediate levels, this book is a treasure for you to benefit your proficiency in Japanese.

(Reviewed by Otto Yuen, 03-July-2007)

This atlas is very light-weighted and handy in size. All location names are written in both romaji (English characters) and Japanese/Kanji characters. In addition to enclosing Metropolitan Tokyo Rail System and Tokyo Subway System, it provides detailed maps of Central Tokyo such as Ginza, Shinjuku, Asakusa, Ikenukuro, Harajuku, and Ueno, etc. All maps show the chome numbers and block numbers so that readers can easily identify the physical address location in Tokyo. The maps also show underground passage, park, subway, hospital, hotels, and so on. For all the subway stations on the maps, it indicates all the exits' numbers of the station, readers can locate which exist they should go to for getting closer to their destination.

Besides the Central Tokyo maps, it covers all 23 wards in Tokyo including: Adachi-ku, Arakawa-ku, Bunkyo-ku, Chiyoda-ku, Chuo-ku, Edogawa-ku, Itabashi-ku, Katsushika-ku, Kita-ku, Koto-ku, Meguro-ku, Minato-ku, Nakano-ku, Nerima-ku, Ota-ku, Setagaya-ku, Shibuya-ku, Shinagawa-ku, Shinjuku-ku, Suginami-ku, Sumida-ku, Taito-ku, and Toshima-ku. The atlas also inlcudes helpful supplemental indexes for looking up Hotels and Inns, Embassies, and Airlines locations. Overall, this is a MUST-HAVE for tourists walking & shopping around in Tokyo.

(Reviewed by Otto Yuen, 03-July-2007)

This book is not for people who know nothing about Japanese language. It's not for people who want to just pick up an introductory book to start learning Japanese language, neither. If you're currently studying Japanese and in between beginner and intermediate levels, this book is a treasure for you to benefit your proficiency in Japanese. As the name of the book suggested, the author used different manga pictures to depict some common japanese phrases (e.g. ano-, su-mi-ma-sen, shi-tsu-rei, baka, etc.) in different meanings with different contexts. The author also indicated the politeness level (i.e. Lv 1,2,3,4) for each usage to help the readers use the phrases properly in various siturations. Overall this book is definitely a great helper.

(Reviewed by Otto Yuen, 19-June-2007)

If you're looking for a good book to learn Japanese language, you probably have too many choices flooding your mind and have no idea which one is for you, because every one of them seems good. So, why this one?

This book is very well organized. It contains 11 units to cover the most practical topics surviving in Japan, such as meeting people, shopping, getting around, dinning out, visiting a japanese home, responding inquiries at office, and socializing, etc. Each unit is consist of a culture note, a specific grammar syntax and usage, and a couple of lessons. Each lesson starts with a short dialogue to illustrate the common conversation of the unit's topic. It also provides a detail explanation on the sentence usage and the new vocabulary introduced in the dialogue. Few exercises are followed to help readers to get familiarized and practice what they have just learned. An audio CD is also accompanied with this book to demonstrate the conversation addressed in each dialogues. At the end of the book, it comes with the Appendixes, which provides a summary of all the particles, sentence patterns, adjectives, etc. in a list with examples and reference to the book's units & lessons. In addition, it has a mini-dictionary with english to japanese and japanese to english. This book also makes use of a lot of pictures to illustrate dialogues and exercises. It really helps the reader to have a more relax and interesting learning journey. After finishing this book, you should be able to have the following skills: (i) basic usage of nouns, verbs, adjectives, (b) basic conversation for essential everyday siturations, and (c) reading and writing hiragana & katakana.

Well, although there's a romanji version of this "Japanese for Busy People I (Revised 3rd Edition)", I would still recommend the readers to get this "Kana" version to learn the real Japanese in a Japanese character forms. If you do not know about the Japanese sound system, hiragana and katakana. You can pick up the "Japanese for Busy People I: Kana Workbook", which is an excellent book for starters. After that, go for this "Japanese for Busy People I: Kana Version". Indeed, this is the best!

(Reviewed by Otto Yuen, 17-May-2007)

This 90 pages little book fills with lots of illustrations to depict the improper & proper table manners. Despite the title of the book is "For Teenagers", this book can be appreciated for anyone who wants to master the art of good table manners.

Mr. Hoving, the former chairman of the board of Tiffany & Company, will walk you through the proper table manners in a step-by-step approach. He will also address alot of common mistakes and "don't" in numbers of illustrations; for example, don't leave your spoon in your coffee cup! This book covers different meal courses like the soup course, the fish course, the meat course, the salad course, as well as the dessert course. Overall, I find this book is very interesting and helpful. I highly recommend for people looking for a quick and easy way to learn good table manners.

(Reviewed by Otto Yuen, 5-Nov-2004)

Do you want to write salable articles for magazines? Do you know what your editors want? How can you verify your article is salable? You will find all the answers, hints, and tips in this book. The author shows you the whole process of writing salable articles for magazines. From making sound ideas, choosing a great title, writing a query letter, to writing, rewriting, editing the article, and becoming a freelance writer.

This book is a pure "How-to", it addresses the common mistakes as a freelance writer, and demonstrates how to improve your chances of coming up with ideas that may lead to salable articles by applying a six-way test. It also provides some concise and helpful advices on magazine article writing. By using rich examples, you will know the differences and proper usage of: Active vs Passive voice, Verbs vs. Adjectives, Steer Clear of Cliches, and Avoid Syntax Sinkholes, etc. At the end of each chapter, you will find couples hands-on exercises that lead you to the right directions for practicing what you've just learnt in the chapter. Even you're already a good writer, I am sure you may also find great benefits from this book.

[...]

If you're looking for a "Teach yourself Table Tennis 101" type of book, this is not the one. In fact, this book is targetting to most intermediate and advanced table tennis players, although it covers some basic materials and standard strokes in a couple of chapters.

Most players focus on improving their looping and attacking skills. However, the author kept emphasizing the effectiviness of enhancing the match results by practicing serves and improving footwork. He did a good job on the chapter about the serves. He explained all the key important placements of the serves for various siturations and effects. For the footwork techniques, the lateral two-step, the up-and-back two-step, the backhand-corner two-step, and the lateral crossover are all covered in pictorial step-by-step details. Readers can easily follow and practice. The author also gave out some tips on tournament tactics, like ball placement, the short game, and varying the spin. Overall the book is good except the chapters on conditioning drills are a bit basic and weak.

(Reviewed by Otto Yuen, 14-Jan-2006)

For those people who love Japanese cuisine but don't know much about the Japanese language, this pocket size dictionary is a wonderful tool. It focuses on most terms and words used in Japanese cuisine including drinks, entrees, ingredients, food terms, even some cooking and food container names. The dictionary allows readers easy to look up information. It is arranged in three sections: Japanese-English, English-Japanese, and Appendices with some interesting topics in Japanese cuisine. Each entry in the Japanese-English section provides the Japanese term in Roman script, Japanese character, as well as Kanji, along with the English definition details and possibly some additional culture notes. Truly, this dictionary is a MUST!

(Reviewed by Otto Yuen, 19-Jan-2006)