Rock of Ages: He's the Human Constellation's number-one-rated Allowed Burglar, one of a very select few permitted to rob the public and keep his plunder - provided he performs with style and avoids getting caught before the caper is broadcast galaxy-wide to his enormous audience. Drake is so famous as an Allowed Burglar that he has been invited to join the Diadem, the group of celebrities who are well-known enough to need only one name, and whose every movement is recorded and broadcast, and sighed over by billions of humans and aliens in both the Empire and the Human Constellation. Maijstral has made himself a legend by declining to join. But being Number One has its drawbacks. Suddenly you become the target of every other Allowed Burglar in the system. You can't go anywhere without being suspected of every theft that occurs, and your friends suddenly become all too cautious about their valuables. And then there are the Duels. Drake Maijstral can tolerate the constant suspicion and the suddenly cancelled invitations. But the challenges to fight to the death over imagined breaches of hospitality are too much for him. The last straw comes when Drake himself is the victim of a burglary that is clearly a challenge to his status. Someone has stolen Drake's father's coffin, the hibernation module that maintains the old Duke in his status as Legally Dead. Clearly, something must be done.

"This book explores a specific set of intelligence theories, unifying and quantifying to create a verifiable model of various inferencing habits"--Provided by publisher.

FOREWORD BY GUY KAWASAKI Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert Garr Reynolds, creator of the most popular Web site on presentation design and delivery on the Net — presentationzen.com — shares his experience in a provocative mix of illumination, inspiration, education, and guidance that will change the way you think about making presentations with PowerPoint or Keynote. Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making "slide presentations" in today’s world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.

"The author's humor and his ability to keep the reader's attention are masterful." —Andy Barkl, Technical Reviewer Salve For Your Office Headaches! Covers Office 2003, XP and 2000—And Perfectly Useful for Office 97, Too! Is it the best thing since sliced bread? A bug-riddled piece of junk? Here, best-selling author Dan Gookin skillfully navigates between these two extremes, laying bare the best and worst of Office in order to help you achieve a single, all-important goal: working faster, easier, and smarter. You'll harness the real power of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook while avoiding their pitfalls—and you'll discover the ways they actually can be made to work together as a truly integrated suite. Dan Gookin's Naked Office means the end of Office-inspired headaches. (Well, the vast majority of them, anyway. He's not a miracle-worker, after all.) Expert Instruction to Change Office Life as You Know It (for the Better) Making a paragraph look the way you want it to look Understanding how styles work and making them work for you Locking a document to prevent changes, and tracking changes made by others Using Excel as a database--and not just for numbers Unraveling formulas and remembering what goes where Organizing e-mail with Outlook Getting the most out of Outlook's scheduling abilities Unlocking the mechanics and philosophy of PowerPoint presentations Oh, and of course--much, much more