Christopher Breen With the addition of Character Studio 4 — an advanced animation toolset previously available only as a $1,500 plug-in — 3ds max 7 provides unparalleled character animation functionality. Here to ensure that you start taking advantage of it immediately is the first guide to focus on just that aspect of 3ds max 7. Simple step-by-step tutorials, glorious full-color examples, and an easy-to-understand approach to tricky concepts will have you creating and animating your own characters within hours! Author and award-winning animator Michele Bousquet answers all your questions about character modeling, rigging, and animating in 3ds max — in the process illuminating the techniques used by game developers, broadcast and film companies, industrial designers, and more. As you complete the book's projects and exercises — using the files contained on the companion CD — you'll learn the fundamentals of character modeling, character rigging, creating rigs with custom controls, skinning, character animation, and more.

Michael E. Cohen, Dennis Cohen, Lisa L. Spangenberg Bridging the gap between the palm-sized iPod touch and a full-sized computer, Apple's iPad offers enough screen area and horsepower to perform the day-to-day tasks most people want to do. Packed with practical knowledge, this book will walk readers through how to manage their most common projects, from the simple (setting up a calendar event) to the complex (planning a vacation) and everything in between. Readers will learn to use the iPad tools and applications by using them to create practical real-world projects and to master everyday tasks.

In this practical hands-on guide, you’ll learn how to
Organize a party: Set up the calendar event, create invitations, invite attendees, and mail out the invites.
Build a recipe scrapbook: Write up recipes in Pages (or find recipes via one of the useful recipe apps) and import pictures of the finished dish to go with the recipe in the book. Even learn iPad kitchen tips!
Plan a vacation: Buy tickets, find destination activities, and map out directions.
Watch videos: Stream videos with Air Video, convert high-quality movies from DVDs, and buy or rent videos from the iTunes Store.
Get smart: Learn another language with one of the many translation apps available, and build an illustrated deck of flash cards with common words and phrases.
Plus many more useful projects—both big and small— to help you do stuff with your iPad.

Cliff Colby

Scott Kelby There are basically two kinds of iPod books: (1) The "tell me all about it kind," which include in-depth discussions on compression algorithms, debates about analog vs. digital equalizers; and how to export your playlist in Unicode format. And (2) there's this book. It's not a "tell me all about it" it’s a "show me how to do it" book.

Award-winning author Scott Kelby shows you step-by-step how it's all done, using the same casual, plain English style that made him one of the world's bestselling technology authors. You'll learn how to do only the most important, most requested, and just plain cool things you're going to want to do with your iPod so you can start having fun with it today. Right now!

Each page covers just one topic, complete with full color photos making it easy to find just what you're looking for fast. Plus, it shows you how to get the most from the iTunes Music Store, how to integrate your iPod into your car, which iPod accessories are hot, and it even covers how to use Apple’s iPod photo. It's all here–in the only book of its kind, and you're gonna love it!

Scott Kelby

Scott Kelby Are you looking for a book that focuses on just the most important and most useful stuff about your iPod (including the iPod touch, the nano, shuffle, and the iTunes Store)? Well, this is it!

There are basically two kinds of iPod books: (1) The “tell-me-all-about-it” kind, which include in-depth discussions on compression algorithms and tutorials on how to export your playlist in Unicode format. (2) Then there’s this book—a “show-me-how-to-do-it” book. Scott shows you step by step how to do the things people really want to learn about their iPods, and he uses the same casual, conversational style that has made him the world’s #1 best-selling technology author. This book focuses on just the most important, most requested, most useful things so you can start having fun with your iPod today. Right now! Plus, there’s only one topic per page, so if you want to know how to do something, you turn to that page and it shows you how to do just that one thing. It's a simple approach, and people really love learning this way!

As an added bonus, you can check out the best iPod accessories by visiting Terry White's Tech Blog (http://terrywhite.com/techblog).

joe Kissell

Robin Williams, Kay Nelson A thoroughly revised edition of the classic Macintosh reference offers readers quick, easy access to the Macintosh environment. Original.