Living & Working in South Africa: Survive and Thrive in the New South Africa (How to Series. Living & Working Abroad)

Book Description

While formal quality management systems are a basic requirement for carriers doing business with the automotive industry, it is a company's understanding of key items such as leadership, continuous improvement, and customer satisfaction that is needed to survive and excel in today's market. Shifting Gears brings a unique approach to quality in the trucking industry, clearly defining the issues that challenge a carrier's very survival of business and, through the principles embodied in ISO 9000, discusses practical measures for addressing these challenges. It identifies ISO 9000 as an effective management tool, offering information on how business leaders can reduce their costs, improve their overall business efficiency, and improve their competitive advantage in the marketplace. This quality management principles book moves beyond quality management principles to include methods for use in day-to-day operations, helping carriers easily “shift gears” to make these tools a part of the company culture.

Customer Reviews:

Easy to read and informative.......2004-08-19

Of all the industries in the United States and around the world, few are as challenging as the transportation industry and more specifically, the trucking industry. Comprising 5% of the GDP and with over 70% of the cities and towns around the globe solely dependent on trucks to deliver their goods, trucking is truly the backbone of the economy. However, high insurance rates and fuel prices as well as a constant shortage of drivers have made running a trucking company a very difficult endeavor.

Although in use by many different industries, ISO and other quality programs are rarely used by trucking companies. In `Shifting Gears', the authors present case studies and easy-to-follow information that carriers and shippers can use to improve the processes related to shipping and trucking. Based on the premise that quality is a framework for improvement, the authors identify eight specific ISO quality management principles within the book:

Customer Focus
Leadership
Involvement of People
Process Approach
System Approach to Management
Continual Improvement
Factual Approach to Decision Making
Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relationships

Because the book is written in non-technical terms, trucking companies of all sizes will be able to learn and apply the lessons and advice within the book. Reading `Shifting Gears' will not make companies' experts in ISO 9000 but it will clearly explain the importance of structured quality programs and get them on the right path.

As someone who has spent the last 13 years in transportation and who is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt, I can attest that the trucking industry must embrace the quality principles of ISO and Six Sigma. Issues such as backhauls, revenue generation, freight pay and audit, OS&D, pick ups and deliveries, operating ratios, maintenance, etc., can be managed better through the use of a structured quality program such as ISO 9000.

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How it all began

PEE-YOUR-PANTS FUNNY!

BUSTAGUT FUNNY---NO BULLSTUFF!

A Guide to Western Civilization or My Story
Joe Bob Briggs
Manufacturer: Delacorte Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Parodies | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
General | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Cosmic Wisdom of Joe Bob Briggs

JOE BOB GOES BACK TO THE DRIVE-IN

Iron Joe Bob

Profoundly Disturbing: Shocking Movies That Changed History!

ASIN: 0385296711
Release Date: 1988-06-01

Customer Reviews:

How it all began.......2005-07-15

A great read for any Fan of Monstervision and Joe Bob Briggs
The story of How he was born and raised, his many troubles with the law and how he found love in all the wrong places
it's a good fun read

PEE-YOUR-PANTS FUNNY!.......2000-08-06

This hysterically funny "autobiography" of drive-in movie critic Briggs is one of the best humor novels ever written. Taking a well-deserved swipe at over-hyped celebrity books, Briggs goes through life with a bemused grin on his face and not too many thoughts in his head. His recounting of how he invented the first topless bar in America is a scream, and his life as a Country/Western star is a hoot, too. Don't miss this one, even if you aren't familiar with Joe Bob's drive-in movie columns. Also, it actually predates many overinflated celeb autobios, like SEINLANGUAGE, PRIVATE PARTS, and ENTER WHINING.

BUSTAGUT FUNNY---NO BULLSTUFF!.......2000-03-28

This is Joe Bob's "life" story and general commentary on life in Grapevine, TX, and America as a whole. If you know who he is you know there's a lot of intelligence underneath the hayseed facade. Mr. Briggs is a great figure of pop culture and that ain't no bullstuff!

A Guide to Western Civilization or My Story

Average customer rating:

A Guide to Western Civilization or My Story
Joe Brigss
Manufacturer: Delacorte Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UW81QI

A Guide to Western Civilization or My Story (ISBN: 0385296711)

Average customer rating:

A Guide to Western Civilization or My Story (ISBN: 0385296711)
Joe Bob Briggs
Manufacturer: Delacorte Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NQIRF6

Book Description

This fresh biography by an accomplished young writer who spent more than a year and a half repeatedly watching and admiring more than 60 Buster Keaton films traces Keaton's career from his early days in vaudeville—where, as a rambunctious five-year-old, his father threw him around the stage—to his becoming one of the brightest stars of silent film's Golden Age.

Taking what he knew from vaudeville—ingenuity, athleticism, audacity, and wit—Keaton applied his hand to the new medium of film, proving himself a prodigious acrobat and brilliant writer, gagman, director, and actor in more than 100 films. Between 1920 and 1929, he rivaled Fatty Arbuckle, Harold Lloyd, and even Charlie Chaplin as the master of silent comedy by writing, directing, and starring in more than 30 films.

This book celebrates Keaton in his prime—as an antic genius, equal parts auteur, innovator, prankster, and daredevil—while also revealing the pressures in his personal and professional life that led to a collapse into drunkenness and despair before his triumphant second act as a television pioneer and Hollywood player in everything from beach movies to Beckett. McPherson describes the life of Keaton—in front of the camera and behind the scenes—with the kind of exuberance and narrative energy displayed by the shrewd, madcap films themselves.

Customer Reviews:

Go watch his movies instead..........2007-04-28

I just finished this book and I found little insight to Keaton as a person. I wouldn't really call this book a biography. It's more of a chronological synopsis of each of his films with anecdotes of his life splashed here and there. It's a great book if you really want to know about plot lines and what happened on set. If you want to know about the man, choose another book.

Why the Stone Face?.......2006-07-01

Like everyone else I wondered at the way McPherson seems to have curtailed his life of Buster Keaton so that when he joins MGM, the book rushes through the last thirty-five years in 20 pages or so. Surely this is exactly the kind of myth-making that McPherson says he's going to set out to dis-assemble? For years, ever since the glory days of James Agee, veryone has been saying that Keaton's sound work is nothing compared to his silent films. So what's new about McPherson's take?

I did enjoy his announcement that he would not fall into the cliche of discussing Keaton's famous deadpan glare, the "old stone face" aspect of his screen persona. But if you leave that out, you're leaving out an important element of what made him such a memorable, even poetic actor. As McPherson admits, the apparent decline in Keaton's sound career stems perhaps from the fact that speech itself destroys deadpan. "Words betray a stone face," he writes on page 216. Well put!

On the plus side, McPherson gives us some good synopses and outlines of the major 20s masterpieces, though will they encourage newbies to go order these films from Netflix or wherever? I don't know. I had the feeling that McPherson sort of ran out of time and wound up turning his manuscript in to the publisher without having really thought much about anything after STEAMBOAT BILL, Jr (1928). No, I take that back. McPherson deserves an extra star for his original ideas about Keaton and television, and how he was able to thrive in the bizarre world of 50s TV by adapting old vaudeville routines to the "box." If you ask me, Keaton does not shine out gloriously over every other aspect of Chaplin's LIMELIGHT, as McPherson would have you think, but it is interesting to think that, at the time of LIMELIGHT's filming, Chaplin was making himself into a relic, more and more out of touch with contemporary society, while Keaton was keeping up by appearing in America's living rooms on a regular basis, and of course this populist manuevering was to wind up in hhis spectacular last act as the great star of all those beach party m movies of AIP in the early 60s, one of the greatest film series of all time, with wonderful Annette Funicello.

A nice little surprise.......2006-02-24

This book was a "nice little surprise", in that I didn't really expect to enjoy it as much as I did. - I bought it on impulse, in that I always buy books on Buster Keaton, as well as on a number of other subjects that are of great "collectible" interest to me. For the most part, I've enjoyed almost every book on Keaton I've ever purchased, going back to Blesh's "Keaton", which I read when I was 17, way back in 1966. I was burned severly by one purchase, a slight little paperback biography (by an author whose name I can't remember) that was one of the most poorly written, error-strewn messes I've ever seen. I tossed it! But I love Blesh, Bengston, Lebel, Robinson, Moews, Meade, Rapf & Green, Oldham, Dardis, Horton (why does everyone hate this one? I enjoyed it immensly), Knopf, Weed & Lellis, Vance & Keaton, Benayoun, Kline, and of course, Buster's own "World Of Slapstick". To my mind, they all contribute something new to the picture.

When I started reading this new McPherson book, I had a bit of a feeling of "ho-hum". But, surprisingly, I was drawn into it. I found that the author had, indeed, added new insights into Keaton's personal life, a few new facts here & there. Most importantly, his comments regarding the films themselves are lively, insightful, and unique. This is a most welcome addition to my Keaton library, in a plain, unexceptional cover and design that falsely led me to believe that the book would be dull and pedestrian. I'm one Keaton fan who is glad to own this book.

The only reason I've not given the book a fifth star, is that the author rather awkwardly telescopes the last 20 or so years of Buster's life into a rather sketchy summary, somewhat out-of-keeping with the wonderful treatment given the earlier years. For this reason, I would not recommend this as a "starter", or a new Keaton fan's "only" book on the subject. But, to add color and nuance to what is learned in other volumes, this is a fine compliment and a satisfying Keaton read.

Complete Waste of Time.......2006-02-15

This alleged "biography" on Buster Keaton is a total rehash of what you've read before. It's a mystery why this book was published, since it smacks of a vanity project. Besides, there are plenty of superior Keaton books already on the market. Save your money.

A "Flat" Biography.......2006-02-14

"Tempest in a Flat Hat" (2004) offers nothing new on the life and art of Buster Keaton. The book merely represents "a fan's notes" while regurgitating material from other Keaton biographies. As Groucho Marx would say, "Some writing feat."

Average customer rating:

Buster Keaton: Tempest In A Flat Hat
Edward McPherson
Manufacturer: NEWMARKET PRESS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OJOANA

Book Description

This invigorating work traces the cultural history of convivial drinking before the concept of addiction overshadowed intoxication's reputation as a creative, philosophical, and spiritual force. Marty Roth's Drunk the Night Before illustrates altered consciousness from myth to contemporary life, laying bare the behaviors and beliefs, sacred and secular, invested in intoxication. From the days of antiquity to the twentieth century, Roth follows the often veiled language of intoxication through religion and aesthetics, poetry and art, popular festivals and film. In this sweeping work, he examines the cultural roots of love potions and the fountain of youth, drunkenness in Hollywood cinema, the religious concept of a spiritual high versus the condemnation of intoxication. Roth reinvigorates the currently rebuffed connection between intoxication and artistic creativity, taking up by turn the poet Anacreon and the canon of drink poetry - from classical Greek to the European lyric, Euripides' Bacchae and the figure of Socrates in Plato's Symposium, the heavy investment of Western philosophy in intoxication, and the concepts of the carnivalesque in Friedrich Nietzsche and Mikhail Bakhtin. At once deeply erudite and irresistibly congenial, this encyclopedic work makes critical sense of the long history of alcohol as potion and poison, as pharmakon and catalyst, revealing altered states as the hidden thread in the story of sensation and Western cultural consciousness.

Customer Reviews:

Reveals both aspects of alcohol's history........2007-01-07

College-level students of social and health issues will find DRUNK THE NIGHT BEFORE: AN ANATOMY OF INTOXICATION provides a strong cultural history of convivial drinking before the idea of drink as an addiction overcame alcohol's reputation as a creative and even a spiritual force. DRUNK THE NIGHT BEFORE focuses on the overall human history of drink from ancient times to the 20th century, following its treatment in the arts, religion, and through society. Alcohol holds a mixed history, being viewed as both miracle potion and as a poison: DRUNK THE NIGHT BEFORE reveals both aspects of alcohol's history.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Book Description

"SAP Business One" provides a compact overview of this newest member of the SAP family. Its primary focus reflects on the modelling of business processes based on two concrete examples from the industry. This book provides not only theoretical, but also practical, instruction for the efficient use of SAP Business One. The model companies provide real-world examples from running applications. This book serves as a comprehensive reference both during and after the implementation process.

Customer Reviews:

How helpful is this book really ?.......2006-01-09

As others I expected this book to contain relevant information concerning general use of the SAP Business One software in a practical hands-on way. Unfortunately, it contains little or no info with regards to initial setup of company, data files and back-up, initial general settings, master data preparation / migration and final tweaking of the system in order to get the basics working. It does contain some process analysis and a list of questions before installation, which were quite useful. Totally agree with Arne Thomessens point concerning John Matlock Gunny's review of this book.

Don't trust John Matlock "Gunny's" review.......2005-11-20

I bought Thomas Teufels book and found it semi useful. I went back to see if there were any other SAP Business One books published. Checking the reviews I noticed someone who had given the book five stars. I found this strange and checked which other books he had reviewed. Turns out he has reviewed almost 2000 books and from what I could see he has only handed out five stars with a few exceptions which have been fours.

He is making a mockery of the whole rating system and should not be allowed to mislead Amazon customers any longer.

SAP Business One: Conceptual Overview Only.......2005-06-29

Had purchased the book anticipating that it included comprehensive case study examples (based on another review indicating that it included "two concrete examples from the industry. This book provides not only theoretical, but also practical, instruction for the efficient use of SAP Business One.") Instead, found that while it has some good chapters (e.g. table listings & suggested implementation checklists) it primarily only compares screen shots with a master process flow-chart. So if you're typically like the "learn by doing" style of sample exercises provided in the Dummies or Step-By-Step style books, you may find this lacking since it only give conceptual overviews.

Completely Describes the Package.......2005-04-08

SAP is the big German software company that has taken it's basic database and used it to create a number of integrated business packages. Business One is their package that's oriented to small to medium sized businesses. They say businesses from 2 to 250 people. But I'm not so sure that I agree with the low end of this estimate. This is a pretty healthy package (with the corresponding price tag) for so small a company.

Buying a book like this on each of the software packages you are considering purchasing makes good sense. Here you can get a feeling of just how well suited the software is to the way you want to do business.

This book completely describes the Business One software package from the basic concept to modifying it via their SDK. It can be used as an evaluation guide (to see if Business One is for you) or an an implementation guide. It would be very useful to have read this beforehand. It's concise and to the point.

Book Description

As the Kurdish question becomes more prominent in Middle Eastern politics, it is attracting attention from the media, the academic community, and governmental and non-governmental organizations. Swamped with questions from the press and academic departments, students of Kurdish topics have needed a comprehensive bibliography on the Kurds. This book meets that need. An introductory essay provides users with general background information on the Kurds and Kurdistan. With over 800 entries, the annotated bibliography provides information on the most important works about the Kurds and Kurdistan published from World War II through 1996. Emphasizing recent titles, the book focuses on English-language scholarly works. Arranged in topical chapters, the book opens with a section on general works, then covers travel works, history and archaeology, politics, minorities and religion in Kurdistan, society, economy, language and education, literature and folklore, and culture and arts.

Book Description

For centuries the Habsburg Monarchy loomed large on the map of Europe and events since 1989 have certainly redirected attention to the lands it once incorporated. Robin Okey's The Habsburg Monarchy thoroughly explores the dynastic characters and the multi-national complexity of the region as well as the way the Monarchy dealt with issues within the European framework, like the ending of Absolutism and education. This books spans from Joseph II's accession as Holy Roman Emperor and joint ruler of the Habsburg lands with his Mother Maria Theresa in 1765 to its fall in 1918. Utilizing English, German, Serbo-Croat, Czech, and Magyar sources, as well as others, this book is the most comprehensive history of the Habsburg Empire ever written.

Customer Reviews:

A thorough portrait ... but for whom?.......2002-03-26

I was really disappointed by this book. As a history-reader, the Habsburg monarchy during the era covered by this title has always been one of my particular interests. As Robin Okey himself notes in his Foreword, general surveys of Austro-Hungarian history are rare -- particularly in English. I picked this volume up with great anticipation.

Unfortunately, I set it down again fairly quickly, and found it hard to resume reading. I wouldn't have thought he could do it, but Okey made me reluctant to read about one of my greatest and longest-standing historical interests.

The problem isn't that the book is poorly researched, badly written or tendentious in argument. On the contrary, it's so incredibly well researched that I had to wonder for whom it was written. For page after page, Okey goes really, really in depth on agricultural production statistics, analyses of economic growth, ethnological comparisons of literary and linguistic developments, political tensions between various nations and regions in the empire, the relative states of national aristocracies ... and much, much more. I now understand, better than ever before, what that old saw about 'the forest for the trees' means. Several times, I found myself so deeply mired in statistics that I forgot what decade Okey was talking about, let alone what point he was trying to make. The second half of the book was somewhat better than the first in this regard, but it was still tough reading at times.

In all, I am afraid this book may be way too much information for an amateur/generalist like me. At the same time, comprehensive as it is, it may not be enough for the specialists researching a specific, narrowly focused, topic. All of which makes me wonder, as I said, for whom it was written.

In that Foreword, Okey writes, 'It is hoped that there will be a place, therefore, for a survey of the Monarchy from the later eighteenth century that takes account of advances in Habsburg studies since the publication of C.A. Macartney's magisterial "The Habsburg Empire" in 1968.' After hacking through this dense book, I have to say that there is *still* a place for such a book -- at least where the amateur historian and general reader are concerned

Billions of facts for your delectation ..........2001-02-13

If there is anything a person could have ever wanted to know about the Austro-Hungarian Empire that is not at least touched upon in this tome - I can't imagine what it could be. If you like to do timelines as you read a history book, leave at least five lines per year (better eight!). The level of detail is truly incredible. Robin Okey's approach is to offer fact after fact, event after event, and date after date. ---- Curiously enough, implications almost imperceptibly seep from this jungle of detail - and they are as contemporary as tomorrow morning's news show. The Habsburg Empire was a multi-national empire that failed, and in a world of multi-national states still trying to cope with nationality or tribal problems, this book has a lot to teach (or more correctly, the development and fall of the Empire carried its lessons, for all to learn from). ---- The last seven pages, "Assessment" brilliantly sum up Okey's insights; you might even want to read it BEFORE starting the book... ---- Unfortunately, one of my biggest complaints about otherwise excellent history books mars this one too: pathetic maps. This book has a grand total of two small black-and-white maps of indifferent quality; it needs dozens! Although engravings and photos would have been nice (and are totally absent), the map failure is more than a minor inconvenience. ---- On the other hand, though the notes are a bit sketchy, the index is excellent, and the bibliography is truly awesome. Indeed, the depth and breadth of this book are revealed most clearly in its astoundingly substantial bibliography! ---- Though Okey's writing style is sometimes obscure, more frequently it is overwhelming in its detail. A sample, taken at random: (pg. 199): "The recurrent liberal image of clerical darkness versus contemporary light encouraged the new regime to ambitious plans for education. The May 1868 school law made eight years of primary education compulsory. Regulation of 1872 approved the old 1848 demand for academic freedom in the universities. New universities were founded in Zagreb in 1874 and Czernowitz, capital of the Bukovina, in 1875." ---- Lastly, be advised that Okey's work is not just a political history. It is a history of ideologies (liberalism, autocracy, socialism, and nationalism, just to name a few). It is also an economic history. And it is assuredly a social history. This book, in short, is complete - so bring an appetite for facts to your dinner or prepare to leave the table with massive indigestion!

A Dog's Breakfast.......2001-02-09

Perhaps I have become spoiled by eminent historians such as Simon Schama, Martin Gilbert, William Manchester, Stephen Ambrose or Ian Kershaw, but I confess to not being able to digest this turgid piece of work. The author is so bogged down in a morass of detail that he looses any sense of the sweep of history. Names of people and places pop up like ducks in a shooting gallery, and promptly disappear without our having understoood why they were referred to in the first place. The subject is admittedly difficult, but the author is clearly not up to the task of sorting it out for us.

Customer Reviews:

Discovering the Naturalist Intelligence: Science in the Sch.......2001-04-03

This is an excellent resource for the elementary school teacher. The activities are teacher friendly, easy to gather materials for, and kids love them. The content of this book provides a terrific avenue for incorporating outdoor education activities into the school curriculum...likity split!

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