As I noted in my Season 1 review, I had to watch this series in bits and pieces until (a) these DVD sets came out and (b) SCI-FI Channel picked up the series and delivered it to the masses.

Season 2 REALLY reveals a lot more of the important plot lines which, thankfully, have been faithfully carried through Season 7 (or 8 -- SCI-FI really messes with season numbers). You will absolutely benefit from watching this set from start to finish, as it will reveal the To'kra relationship from the beginning, including the introduction of Sam Carter's father (who takes on a To'kra as a carrier). The episode from the 60s is great too (EVERY sci-fi series has a time travel episode or two, right?!).

I have not yet had a chance to look over the DVD featurettes, but I can tell you that having 5.1 surround sound on this set is MUCH BETTER than with Season 1. I tried out Season 1 on my new Sony HTIB system (5.1/DTS/Dolby Digital -- nothing fancier than a standard HTIB), and I was really hating the fact that it didn't have surround sound. The Season 2 set has Dolby Digital compliance, I believe, and it sounds much richer.

I will note that the 5.1 effects are NOT "woosh - bam - whizz" sweet like in recent DVDs like T3 or Finding Nemo. You really cannot HEAR the effects of bullets or staff weapons moving behind you. I've checked all the discs and my HTIB, and it just seems to be that the DVDs are encoded 5.1 but without any tremendous directional effects.

Ain't it great that the content makes up for the lack of sound effects? On to Season 3!

I'm a self-taught web designer/developer/programmer -- I have too many titles, I guess. I've been developing websites and multimedia for 5 years, and this was the first time I took to get a certification (cheap employer wouldn't ante up for training). ...

I read this book in about 3-4 days combined time and learned quite a bit about things I already new a little about with regards to networking fundamentals (part III of the book). I do a lot of default technical support in my office as the computer nerd, but this section really helped explain some things that I'd never really taken time to learn about networking.

The HTML fundamentals section (part II) is the easiest section to get through, regardless of experience. It's also the least important of the 3 sections in the certification exam. Don't speed loads of time on this section.

The Internet fundamentals (part I) section was pretty decent, and it highlighted a lot of the networking information you'll learn in the third portion of the book. This section was most annoying because I learned that the people who run the CIW certifications have some really weird ways of referring to things (the chapter on domains and URLs was a little wonky because of THEIR terminology).

The author takes a lighthearted approach to the topics and inserts the occasional funny here and there that makes the reading go by quicker. I was disappointed that some of the helpful websites were no longer up and running (it's an old edition by Internet standards), and the CD-ROM testing application was so-so.

Specifically, in regards to the CD-ROM testing, some answers which were right were counted as wrong, there was no set time limit on the testing engine, and the testing engine basically mixed and matched (with some repetition) 298 questions from the three areas of the exam. Thankfully, the questions were close enough to those at my testing center that I felt confident I was on the right track while taking the exam.

For these reasons, I gave the book a 4 rating and would recommend it to anyone wanting the basics for sorting out the CIW Foundations certification lingo in order to pass successfully. I think I'd have gotten a slightly better score if I'd read a second book and/or spent more time on the networking fundamentals.

I hated the fact that this program was on Showtime for so many years. I never got to see it until it went into syndication. When it finally did, I'd catch bits and pieces of previous plot lines that referenced earlier episodes...none of which I'd ever seen. So, when the gift certificate came at Christmas for Amazon.com, I aimed to get this DVD collection as my first to use with my first DVD player -- a Toshiba SD3800 (progressive scan).

I agree a little with the last reviewer about the quality of some of the video on the DVDs in this collection. I can tell when the varying quality of the anamorphic conversion results in either (a) a clean, crisp image or (b) a rather grainy image. On my piddly TV, however, it's not too noticable unless you're aware of it beforehand. DOH! Now you're aware of it. Don't let it keep you from ordering this collection.

Although the featurettes are limited, I enjoyed them. Getting to hear from the actors who play the characters is interesting, although I was befuddled as to why Richard Dean Anderson wasn't featured in this first collection. Instead, Dr. Carter and General Hammond are the two people covered in the featurettes, along with some other topics. Weird, but maybe they're saving Colonel O'Neill for the second collection.

Bottom line -- if you're a fan of the show who DID NOT have Showtime and have no clue what these guys are talking about in later episodes (including the ones on Sci-Fi), buy this collection. Nitpick about the quality if you want. Enough complaints will get 'em to fix the problems and, hopefully, churn out more Stargate SG-1 season collections in the future.

I've been using Flash since Flash 3 or 4 (I can't remember)...and what I've learned has been all self-taught. My work has included Flash-to-SMIL presentations, Flash-to-Director CD-ROM applications, etc.

So...why buy this book? I feel that I'm an intermediate -- I know how to do a lot of things in Flash, but I'm not an "expert" or "certified" level Flash user. I think this book is great for beginners and intermediate users of Flash, as it's very detailed in its explanations of Flash tools/techniques. It also presents the subject matter in a relatively comprehensive, well-organized format.

Caveats to all of this include...

- some chapters barely touch on the samples in the CD-ROM
- some chapters are a bit extraneous

That last one is important -- there's a whole chapter on cartoon animation. While some of the principles in the chapter are essential for animators in general, I think a whole chapter devoted to cartoon animation is a bit much -- a topic for another book. Other "extraneous" chapters are OK, as they're more informative -- the project management chapter is a great example.

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars because of these few things, but I can still highly recommend it.

Real simple review here -- I read this about the time that 9/11 happened. The book was good, but I enjoyed The Hot Zone much better. Don't know why, but it didn't have as much of a "Hollywood" pre-fab feel as this book did. Regardless, you'll enjoy the book and get a few goosebumps to boot. Buy it.

I bought this book because my workplace is slowly moving away from ColdFusion. I have been doing self-taught ColdFusion programming for 2+ years now, and I enjoy the programming language (for its relative ease of use), but I must keep up with my workplace. Plus, I wanted the flexibility and additional power of ASP. This book was highly recommended for ASP beginners, especially those without too much prior programming experience to begin with.

The writing is excellent -- very even-handed and informative. I learned a lot about the language (or languages) that power Active Server Pages. The VBScript was pretty straightforward, and I caught on rather quickly. These guys really know how to write for the intended audience.

Unfortunately, I had to give the book 3-stars because my IIS 4.0 web server simply would not work with the last 7-days worth of database application programming. I did everything possible to update MDAC and other components on the NT machine, but to no avail. When I showed some of the sample database applications to other folks who are more familiar with Active Server Pages, many questioned the samples as incorrect or too complicated to accomplish simple tasks. They could get some samples to run on their departmental servers, but I could not, and I had no other option but to stop at the 15th chapter.

Bottom line -- I only got 14 days worth of the 21 days included in the book. I'm going to have to buy another one now (or just wait for ASP.NET to take hold) to get another set of database application samples to learn from on my web server. I'm hoping that they'll work, or I'll have two unfinished ASP books. ;-)

I'll admit -- I only bought this CD for the Gandalf movement which I played years ago in a high school honors band. The rest of the movements are really great, but they didn't keep my attention like the Gandalf track. Overall, the CD is a good buy if you're night pre-biased like I was. The orchestration is excellent. Makes me pine for my old euphonium and a wind ensemeble again. :-)

This is a great CD, even if you're not an alternative rock fan. I know I'm not. Still, the songs are great, and I really enjoyed listening to some of the tracks that didn't get overplayed on the radio. Favorites include "Only Happy When it Rains", "Queer", and, especially, "Milk" "Milk", to me, is such a departure from the harsh sound in the other tracks -- almost sultry, in an alternative rock sort of way.

I first identified Garbage when I saw the video for "James Bond: Tomorrow Never Dies" (is that the right one?) -- featuring the lead singer for the band. I've been interested in buying a CD ever since. I've been pleasantly surprised.

I've read Sphere (good; better than movie), Lost World (terrible book and movie), and Jurassic Park (good; much better than movie). Timeline fell sort of in between the best and worst of Crichton. It was a fun book to read, but not what I would call a "good book" -- an "OK" book, if you will. It felt more to me like a movie screenplay in test format.

Fun parts included the desert encounter with "transcription error" man, the inadvertent acceptance by Chris of the jousting challenge, and the ending, which I, of course, won't reveal. The whole "scientific" explanation of the technology in this book was also pretty interesting, if a little far-fetched.

The plot DOES have a lot of holes, which detracts from the overall read. Why so quickly dismiss the hospital staff and local sheriff? Where does Stern come up with the "blowout" idea? It just "came" to him, which was sort of lame. The whole underlying purpose for the technology is never fully explained, with the investors and everything -- is it a park or a luxury trip or what? Also, we never see the quantum computer or get a vivid description of the technology -- it's just assumed to be neato.

This book is already a game, and I'm sure it's already a movie in production somewhere. It will be a fun movie -- unless it's as bad as Lost World. Then it will be a mediocre rental.

For the time being, however, it's a good read if you need something to pass the time on an international flight or a rainy day.