All three of these books—Creative Composition, Creative Close-Ups and Creative Night—are good. If looking at great photographs and seeing their EXIF data is enough for you, all of them will serve you well. What the first two books seemed to have lacked was someone doing a final proofread and suggesting to Davis, "Hey, why doesn't this have a sample? Why are there no photos of the Equipment, you could be saving thousands of words here? Why isn't there a reference in the book to this information found at the end of the book." You know, things like that. And it's a pity, because otherwise these are all stellar books.

Taking photos is no less an art form than painting, sculpting, writing, glassblowing, or any endeavor that requires time and practice to develop the skills necessary to create unique beauty. When we go off on vacations and take photos of the iconic beauties of this earth, the vast majority are pictures. Few are photos. While some peopl can do art naturally, the vast majority of us cannot, at least not without some guidance. These three books—Within the Frame by David duChemin, Visual Poetry by Chris Orwig and The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby—aim to offer that guidance.

If you have InDesign CS4 and either want to do more with the application, or want to get started, Real World Adobe InDesign CS4 is a great place to start. Using realistic examples and clear explanations, just about all of InDesign's powers are revealed to the user. It's a fair bet that many owners of InDesign received that application as part of purchasing one of Adobe's Suites and are not all that sure about what to do with it. You can't just open InDesign and start typing. Since InDesign (ID)is a page layout application, it doesn't know "where" you want to type. Thus, if you are completely unfamiliar with ID, you can't even start using it. So, from the willing beginner to the intermediate and the experienced users, this book is a welcome asset.

Styles are certainly not exclusive to InDesign, they can be found in just about every word processing and page layout program there is. But I'd be hard pressed to find any as deep and complex as with InDesign. Michael apparently feels the same, and, as such, has devoted this entire book to styles. I am a big fan and admirer of the Michael. His ability to break processes down to their instrumental layers and to explain clearly what's taking place is found in all too few instructors.

Why hack? Because Apple products are configured to be the most useful and convenient for the average user, and who's average? With over 100 software and hardware hacks described, and many more smaller tips and tricks, there is plenty in this book from which one can pick and choose. The selection is wide- ranging and eclectic, so most anyone should be able to find hacks they will want to try

After more than two years, Adobe has finally released a new version of Photoshop Elements for the Mac. With Version 6, Mac users get a lot more editing firepower. And fortunately, O'Reilly's has promply followed suit releasing "Photoshop Elements 6: The Missing Manual for the Mac" - a resource you don't want to be without if you want to get the best out of Elements 6

FaceBook now has more than 15 million members, and it's not just an online chat room on steroids. In addition to cyber-schmoozing, you can also post blogs (called "Notes"), buy and sell stuff through FaceBook's Marketplace, look for a job or advertise one also in Marketplace, network with colleagues by subscribing to "feeds" and "notations", take polls, advertise using FaceBook's new (introduced in 2007) Pages environment, and more. This book can help you get the most of of FaceBook, while guiding you through the complexities of FaceBook's privacy rights options so you can get it with the least amount of risk

If you think you might like to pitch in with the Wikipedia project, you might still be feeling that a bit of a loss as to how to proceed, John Broughton's Wikipedia: The Missing Manual, a new addition to Pogue Press/O'Reilly's formidable Missing Manuals series, provides readers with straightforward, fun-to-read, and clear to follow instructions and tips about how to join the mosaic of authors, citizen journalists, and scholars from around the planet who have helped make Wikipedia the success that it is

There are dozens of reasons someone learning Flash CS3 should consider owning Dynamic Learning: Flash CS3. My top reason, however, may differ from yours; I prefer the "learning by example" process. It's much easier for me to retain procedures if I have to work through them, not just read about them. The books in the Dynamic Learning series present the reader with projects, the tools and files necessary to build the project and the instructions to complete the project. After working through a few of these projects, you should be comfortable enough with Flash to break out on your own.

Still the Mac OS book to have if you're only having one, now now bigger and better than ever for the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard era

The perfect OS X reference volume to keep on your desk beside your computer or carry in your laptop backpack

If you're getting an iPhone for Christmas, already have one, or have an iPhone user on your Christmas list, this book will make a practically useful and appreciated gift or stocking-stuffer