This is actually a good book for beginners. There's lots of information, and it's a very step by step approach (as many Deitel books are).

The problem with it is that it is way way out of date. The examples are for v13 of the SDK, and it's now v21. Most of the examples and instructions simply do not work AFAICS.

Obviously you can work round this but this particular book is a how to step by step - someone will set it up and find it simply doesn't work.

So until it is updated it is basically useless.

Why - for about a quarter of the price of an iPad you can have something that's almost as good ! The only downside in this is that the Wifi reception is not that great - but in terms of things like quality and feel it's just as good as an iPad.

8" is a really good size. It's small enough to be pocketable, but 7" displays are just that bit too small IMO.

When I first considered buying one of these, I read the reviews. They read like someone is shilling for Dracotek and their phone - paid to write good stuff. In fact the reviews were SO positive that I was nearly put off buying.

Well, they aren't (look at my history, I write reviews of other things over a long period of time and some are negative). It really is this good. In fact, if you had one of these you'd never look at an expensive phone again. I can get, what FIVE of these for a single iPhone ?

My phone arrived after about 7 working days, wrapped in a large amount of bubble wrap. Inside was a small black box advertising "Note Android 4.0.4" on the cover (the phone is meant to compete with the Note, obviously) and a power adaptor stuck on the side (the charger is a Chinese 2-pin Plug) - two batteries (one is a spare), two sets of headphones (no idea why but not complaining !), a charging lead which appears to be a standard Micro USB system (yes, Apple, I'm looking at you here), an adaptor plate (makes it the same size as the note for solid Note case) and a manual. All are decent, the manual is pretty good as well (I once bought an FPGA board from China, great quality but almost everything was in Chinese so it took some effort !)

It is a sign of attention to detail that the phone comes with a MicroSD card already (albeit only a tiny one, 256Mb) and it has a screen protector already fitted as well.

Plugging in the SIM worked straight away - there was a message which could confuse rookies about there being 'no SIM' (because there's two SIM slots not one) and off we go after a few seconds of Android animations. Phone straight away, turning Data on and the phone went and got the data connection (T-Mobile in the UK).

At no point are there any Chinese Menus or anything like that. The only set ups I did was changing the Language and Keyboard to UK from the default US and telling it to connect to the Data Stream. (apart from putting my house WIFI password in). The instructions are all in English.

The phone itself is really nice, feels solid and well made, is quite lightweight for its size. It doesn't feel 'cheap' at all. Android works really nicely on it, no lags or anything so far. Not sure about how updates will go but it is 4.0.4 and a lot of phones are still 2.2/2.3.

I had a brief contact with Dracotek over mailing - they were very friendly and helpful. I've no idea how well they deal with problems, if I have any I'll let you know.

So, in conclusion, is it the same as a Note ? No, it isn't. It's not quite as well made. It's not quite as nippy. You will probably get an ICS upgrade with a Samsung Note.

But it's a quarter of the price of a Note, which means that I will live with the minor differences very happily.

I also bought a ShockSock from Amazon which it fits fine. It is fractionally smaller than a real Note, that's why there's a plastic bit to put on it to pad it out for solid cases.

Upsides: Just about everything really - price, service, quality, delivery (considering it's coming half way round the world)

Downsides:Well the plug isn't UK, but they do give you an adaptor, the memory card is titchy, but then it is thrown in for nothing .... really there aren't any, really struggling here.

I hate writing bad reviews. I usually don't, if I buy a rotten book or whatever it's my poor research at fault.

However, for this I'll make an exception.

I never thought Microsoft were that great at operating systems, but they produced some terrific hardware. Like a great big childrens trackball, and my favourite ever keyboard the white original Natural Keyboard, which is the granddaddy of this. It was wonderful, and I hated that I couldn't replace it when it finally gave up on me. The replacements were good, but never as good.

So unusually for me, after having had 2 or 3 other great MS keyboards, I bought this on special offer untested, because all the other MS Hardware products I've bought have been great. And it's gone back in the box after a couple of weeks to be replaced by the battered old cheap Logitech one that I had before.

Why ?

Firstly, the least worst component. The mouse. It's big, as some reviewers state, but it's actually okay. I can see for a lady with small hands it could be a bit of a struggle though. The buttons are a bit clunky, not very soft touch, but it's useable. This latter feature makes it unique in this product.

The next worst bit is the wireless reciever, which is supposed to go 10m. I've got a CPU box to my immediate right - about a foot away - and it doesn't work unless I plug it in the front, which is annoying because I want the front USB port for plugging in memory keys and so on. The best place is in the back, you always have a keyboard and mouse plugged in like a printer, but it doesn't work. The only reason is that the corner of the CPU box blocks the signal, but this is still only about 18" distance. Microsoft used to provide a little round box on a cable (looked like a little mouse) that you could move anywhere. The chances of it working under a desk (where a lot of PCs are) is close to nil.

The absolute worst is the keyboard itself. Yes, as some reviewers have commented, it's big, but these types of keyboards are. If you aren't a single finger typist, it's fine, you put one hand on each "half" but if you are a single finger typist this isn't for you. But the key action is appalling, and it's meant to be like this, because every single key is the same (some are worse). It's not light touch, you push the key and it sort of "scrapes" down - you can feel the keyboard mechanics fighting you when you do this. The space bar is particularly dreadful, it only works reliably if you hit it in the right place, and not always then, and you have to supply so much force to do so (compared to the keyboard I'm currently using which just needs a little flick anywhere and is half the price) that you half expect it to break the desk.

Those of you who are of a certain age will remember the clackety old IBM keyboards that made more noise than an old typewriter. It's a bit like that, albeit quieter, except those old keyboards did actually operate correctly, albeit at the end of a days work you were deaf. This product is erratic. Buy a a cheapie china made clone, in fact using Morse Code to enter keystrokes would be better.

A cynic like me would think Microsoft knows this product is awful.

Why ?

Many of you who are a parent of a young girl will have experienced the delights that is the packaging of Barbie products. So much tape, wire and other bits that simply extracting the toy from the box can take so long that by the time you've opened it your seven year old is probably married with two children.

This is the same thing. It is almost totally impossible to open the box without destroying it because the surrounding cardboard is incredibly tight. It doesn't slide out, you can't push it out. Of course, this means that it is near impossible to return it in mint condition as most suppliers not unreasonably request. Even in the near freakish occurrence of getting out of the cardboard wrapper the corrugated cardboard box is so ridiculously complicated that repackaging it is also near impossible - and if it doesn't come out easily, you can't get it back in of course.

So don't buy it. It's utter rubbish and whoever designed it should be fired.

Note: the batteries provided (Duracell) are quite good. And MS's Intellipoint/Type software is also good. You could also hold the keyboard by the end and use it as a bat of a kind in sports. (Just don't try writing an essay on it).

An excellent book if you want to build a boat, or just want to read about it. It contains detailed instructions, plans for five boats, and a lot of other relevant detail - how to sail, how to make good paddles, how to easily fix outboard motors, all kinds of hints a tips.

A complete idiot could build a boat from this (and did) - one of the boats construction is written up in a very detailed fashion, sufficient for the most amateur woodworker.

Jim also has a collection of plans which are very reasonably priced for 'similar but different' boats. Despite it being across the water, I have ordered a couple and they are delivered very quickly.

About the only downside is that it is an American book, and as such some of the glues ,wood types and similar items recommended are not available in the UK or have different names. However, it is easy to find equivalents on the various boatbuilding sites.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. It's absurdly cheap for what you get. If you want to build a boat, you don't need anything else at all except the wood, materials and tools.

This is a quite fascinating book. It's a biography of a big cricketer (in every way) and worth buying for that, but it's more than that. It's also a history of the formation of the Australian Cricket Board.

Sounds dull, but it isn't. It's a tale of revenge,spite, manipulation and a fist fight between an Aussie skipper and a selector.

Well worth buying (so is Gideon Haigh's book on Iverson, Mystery Spinner)

This book isn't a bad intro to .Net/C# etc. There's lots to do and plenty of examples. The real problem is there's a bit of not so much a difficulty curve as a difficulty cliff.

It makes me wonder who it is actually aimed at. The beginning C# programmer will benefit hugely from the first half and be totally lost in the second half.

Dividing the book into 4 parts of about equal size ; the first part is simple coding and the C# syntax. The second part is classes, collections, structure and inheritance. So about half the book is C# standard coding. This is a bit slow for someone who can code but not bad. The next quarter is a bit of component creation and Windows Forms.

The last quarter, the last 170 odd pages is where a beginner would get stuck. It tends to throw ideas at you at a fairly rapid rate. It's not impossible for a beginner, but it is quite likely IMO that such a person would just get hopelessly lost. In this section there is too little explanation of what is what ; what is the relationship between a connection, dataset, datagrid, data adaptor - it never tells you. What is the cache then ? It never says, it's just demonstrated to you.

It gets worse ; at certain points you are hand modifying generated HTML code to access data. This is all well and good, but by this point you are just following instructions really, whether you can figure it out again, what actually is going in, well this book won't really tell you. You might be able to knock out some simple web apps and XML Services, but only by following the recipe.

It also doesn't have much in the way of excercises - well there aren't any, just revision notes at the end of each chapter. This is a failing of many books ; one thing I like about the Deitels books are the numerous well thought out things to try yourself - I've found these really useful in ramming home concepts that you don't get just following recipes.

I think it's not so much that its a bad book ; it just tries to do too much. As an intro to another book it's okay.

It's South Park, but not as we know it ; because it's a full blown musical. And the songs are fabulous, especially if you are into musicals.

The opening song 'Mountain Town' is IMO a brilliant pastiche of songs like "Oh what a beautiful morning", and Satan's song "up there" is a perfect take on your Disney 'yearning for acceptance' (see every Disney film ever) song. The musicals are also staged in the appropriate style.

The songs aren't really necessary though, the film is great on its own. Having said that, it is a film of two halves. The first half is incredibly good, virtually everything hits the mark, the second part is a bit more patchy - the Saddaam stuff doesn't really work I don't think.

Many fans were cross when Voyager ended abruptly - they got home and that was it. This book (which is the first part of two) is about what happens after they returned.

Reading the first part of the book, one can perhaps see why Rick Berman et al decided against an extended homecoming. It is - well - a bit mushy - phrases like 'tears of joy' appear on a regular basis. This or similar translated to the screen would make me fear for my lunch.

Once you get past that bit, it picks up rather, heading off into three distinct and partially unrelated plotlines - a Borg threat to earth, a holographic revolution, which are linked and B'Elanna Torres' redemption which seems to be about giving her something to do. These are pretty well done, though, and the book is recommended to fans of Voyager.

Most sports books follow a similar pattern. They are pretty dull recycling of famous games. If the author has done something wrong, there's pages of self justifying nonsense.

This book is however totally different. It is ; I think ; completely honest. Tuffers tells it like it is, and if in doing so he shows himself in a bad light, then so be it.

It's also entertaining ; amusing ; and sad in places. Well worth a read.