Well it's been a long time since I have had the desire to write anything positive about a company I have had dealings with... generally the best I can say about them is that they were mediocre.

Wacom (manufacturers of fine graphics tablets including the one I use, the Intuos3 6 x 8-Inch Pen Tablet)has always gone above and beyond for me, including shipping me parts for discontinued products (years after they were discontinued), rapidly addressing any questions I have ever had -- going above and beyond by providing me extra links to external resources that would help me learn as well, and in general being extremely knowledgeable about their product lines and how they interact with pretty much every other product they come into contact with (e.g. Photoshop et al in my case).

I have never had a bad experience when I've called support, never waited forever on hold,have always been treated courteously, and have always hung up having been pleased with the encounter.

Most recently a customer support rep spoke to me about the problems I was experiencing with the tablet mouse that comes with the Intuos3. She actually listened to what I had to say, realized I knew what I was talking about without making me jump through any scripted hoops to diagnose the problem, and had a replacement unit couriered to my door within 2 days of the conversation. Great service.

I am going to try to make it a practice to applaud companies like this when I encounter them -- though frankly I suspect I won't be often doing so.

I have to let everyone know about this unbelievable deal I found at Amazon.com

It's the complete works of J.S. Bach -- a 155 CD collection for the insane price of $90.99!!! That's 58 cents per CD!

Now I've just purchased this from the US website, and including shipping and duties, it totaled only $116.54 USD.

Certainly, the performances are uneven, some great, some not so much; however, at $0.58 each, who cares? Many of the works included are difficult to come by at all, and at this price, you'll have everything Bach ever wrote and can cherry pick the pieces you are interested in delving more deeply into as candidates for supplementary purchases by your favorite chamber orchestra, vocal ensemble etc. Note however that out of 70 customer reviews, this set garnered 45 five star and 21 four star ratings... that's 94% of quite a large number of reviewers who thought this collection was exceptional.

I am certain this offer won't last, so check out Bach Edition: Complete Works (155 CD Boxed Set) at Amazon -- you probably won't see a deal like this again.

As a non-programmer (well, not for years at least), I thought this book would be perfect start for my foray into Python. While there are some good points, such as the appendices and projects at the end, I found this book extremely frustrating. Instead of presenting each new method or concept simply, and then adding complexity as you gain familiarity with the basics of its function, Magnus seems to throw the kitchen sink of everything you've covered thus far in the book into the opening example.

Additionally he has the annoying habit of naming variables he uses in the examples to things so close to the basic functionality he is describing, that you are left wondering if it is indeed a variable he's created or built-in functionality that he is calling. This leaves you having to substitute his variable with your own just to test it and find out. For example, he uses the variable 'key' in the same section he is talking about the keys() method.

Another annoyance is his employment of the interactive shell as a means of entering your code. Who really does this? Sure it's ok for really short examples, but most people code using a text editor. If he took this into account, it would negate the need for all the '>>>' characters printed in the book which are nothing but a distraction.

This practice of course lends itself to the breaking up of the code examples into snippets -- which, while on the surface seem easier to digest, just make things more complicated when you are flipping multiple pages and concatenating snippets in your head to come up with the meaning of the entire sequence. This would be fine if they presented the entire code block at the end, but they don't.

To combat this, I found myself downloading the source from the Apress website to paste the snippets together... but of course it's incomplete, missing entire chapters.

Don't get me wrong, there is some good stuff in here, but I think this book needs some serious attention paid to presentation if there is to be a third edition.

The other day I received a Facebook friend request from the brother of a former employer. Though I really had only met this guy once, and I figured my invitation was merely the result of an address book upload, I decided to accept his invitation as I seldom burn bridges -- regardless of how tenuous they may be.

Shortly thereafter, my inbox displayed a message from this person, apparently directed to all his Facebook "friends", explaining how his dear friend was dying of cancer, and requesting that everyone pray for him.

Well, within minutes, my inbox was flooded with all kinds of messages expressing condolences and asserting that most certainly prayers would be forthcoming. This went on for two days.